Dominant Predator (15 page)

“I see where this is going,” I said with a sneer.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed at my interruption. “I’m sure you do, but listen the fuck up anyway. Yeah, you get it. We’re at the top of the survival chain. With no natural prey to take us out, except for each other. Dominant predator versus dominant predator. The point is, you and I share DNA but we also share more. That drive to live, to succeed. You’re willing to go through anyone to achieve your goal, regardless of their status as another human being. And it’s nearly impossible for you to fail. You’re like that because
I
made you that way. Because your mother and I picked the best of our DNA and tweaked a couple other sets to make improvements. We created you. The ultimate soldier for our cause. Or so we thought. Apparently Singapore was doing the same thing. I don’t know what the status of Armise Darcan is with the Revolution, but I can tell you definitively that he is dangerous. You keep him around and you will end up one on one with him. Dominant versus dominant…”

I held up my hand and faced my palm towards him. “Just fucking stop there. Please. Armise is the very least of your concerns, believe me. And how Armise and I end up positioned together should be even farther down your list of worries.” I scrubbed my hand over the scruff on my face. “Fucking hell.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re fucking him?” he said with disgust.

“I can’t see one way that is any of your concern,” I growled. “You’re sitting here telling me I’m genetmod, admitting to manipulating my DNA before birth—which is expressly outlawed—then you blather on about a relative I don’t even know and who is of no importance to what is happening today and now, no matter how fucking fascinating his life was. You talk of me killing people with ease, without remorse, as if you know who I am, and you’re worried about who I’m fucking?”

“It’s a weakness that shouldn’t be tolerated,” he spat out.

“Then so is she!” I roared, pointing to the cell next door that held my mother.

“Don’t give me that shit. He’s from Singapore. Mainland, not one of the territories. Neveed told me who he is. You know Revolutionaries don’t exist in that part of the world. How can you be sure he’s not using you?”

I schooled my features and pulled myself back under control. “How can I be sure
you’re
not?”

Lucien huffed, dragged his fingers over his lips, and sat back. “Are you going to see your mother?”

I kicked the chair back as I stood, leaning my hands against the table so I was towering over him. “The President ordered me to bring you back. That mission is completed.” And with that I stormed out of his cell, slamming the door shut behind me.

I walked back to the control room with only one thought in my head—to see Armise and get our conversation over with. There needed to be nothing hidden between us anymore. He was one of only two allies I could fully trust and yet he was the person my fellow Revolutionaries kept trying to drive me away from.

Either I was in too fucking deep with him to see the truth, or everyone else was too blinded by his birthplace to consider anything more. Both options were unacceptable. But this wasn’t a distinction I could err on.

I wasn’t going to allow anyone else to make that determination for me.

“Where do we stand with the Nationalists?” I overheard Neveed ask as I walked into the control room.

Jegs stood straighter, drew her shoulder back defiantly. “They’re no longer a problem.”

“I beg to differ,” I interjected.

Neveed gave a clipped nod, acknowledging that he shared my opinion. “We’ll keep an eye on their movements.”

“Armise told you Ahriman has shields that deflect real bullets.”

Neveed dipped his head down and tapped his foot nervously. “It’s a complication.”

I glanced at Armise. He was standing behind Neveed, his arms crossed. He gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.

“So what now?” I asked, steering the conversation away from the Nationalists.

Neveed picked up a piece of paper, which he started to hand over to me but stopped midway. I looked at the paper, then him, cataloguing just how fatigued he looked—his face was drawn, sunken, as if he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days or slept in that span of time. The circles beneath his eyes were dark even against his golden-brown skin. The worst were his eyes. Though they were normally strikingly focused and clear, he appeared to be having trouble finding anywhere for his gaze to land for longer than a couple of seconds.

“I have the coordinates of three of the Committee members. I need you and Armise to move on them now.”

That had happened much faster than I’d expected. Maybe Jegs’ brother was finally looking to create ties with the Revolution. If so, this was one serious peace offering.

There were twelve Committee members for Armise and I to seek out and eliminate. Then there was Ahriman.

I could feel my anger taking hold. That fierce determination that I was capable of stuffing down until it was needed. I thought about Ahriman killing hundreds of thousands of citizens in that stadium, of my fellow soldiers dying on States soil and in the DCR right now. Of Sarai.

I scowled and pulled the paper from his hands. The conversation with Armise would have to wait. It was time for us to go to work. I clapped Neveed on the shoulder, forcing him to look up at me and see that I wouldn’t fail him in this. “We’re ready.”

Chapter Eleven

“Your second-in-command is losing it,” Armise announced when we were in our quarters alone.

“I caught on to that,” I snidely replied, pushing past him into the room.

“Ahriman killed the President’s wife,” Armise added.

I had my back to him, but I knew he would catch the way my body stiffened at the mention of Sarai.

“Yeah,” I answered softly, realisation sliding through me that with him I didn’t have to filter the regret from my voice.

Armise came up behind, wrapped an arm around my chest and drew my back into him.

“How close are
you
to losing it?”

I bristled, that anger stirring in my gut, grounding me. Or maybe it was his arm around me, and the surety with which he held me. “I don’t give a shit if he expected her to come back or not. I should have been able to get her out of there alive. I hesitated and she died.”

Armise gripped me tighter. “He mourned for her long ago.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier,” I confessed and pulled out of his grasp.

I began to shift through the closet, pulling clothes from the hangers and tossing them onto the bed. We would have to pack light, utilitarian, with small enough packs that we could be on the move constantly. We needed space for weapons more than clothes or any comforts of home. Those could all be procured for the right price. Weapons that we were comfortable operating—that were more like intimate lovers than one-night stands—were a necessity.

It didn’t matter how unprepared we were at this exact moment—Armise and I had a job to do. One for which we weren’t nearly as prepared as we would normally be. We would have to gather intel as we moved. To rely on sources and informants. Criminals and opportunists.

I discarded all of the clothes I’d thrown onto the bed, tossing all but what was needed into the bottom of the closet. We could make do with one other set of clothing—that was it. Everything else we would need to procure as we moved.

The first two targets were in the continental United Union. In the same city, in fact. It was a stroke of luck that I didn’t expect to last. It had taken only the amount of time for our walk between the control room and our quarters to decide that Armise and I would work separately but simultaneously, both of us completing our respective assassinations through means that would be considered natural or accidental. It was our best chance of keeping our agenda of wiping them all out secret. The Committee would already be on high alert. Waiting for attacks. But we would work decisively. Pick the known three off quickly and quietly. With some goddamn luck keep the remaining Committee members from going underground faster.

I stripped down to change into clothes that wouldn’t be readily identified with any allegiance. Armise was at the table, laying his weapons out—the only knife I’d ever seen him carry, a pistol issued by the munitions officer and his sonicrifle.

“Are you picking up another rifle?” I asked him, pulling on a pair of trousers.

He tracked my movements, openly surveying my body as I dressed. “Eventually. I haven’t found one that fits right yet.”

I nodded in understanding. You didn’t choose the rifle as much as the rifle chose you. I had carried the same sonicrifle since becoming a Peacemaker. It had undergone modifications as technology improved and repairs as it became as battle-worn as I was. Even now, with real guns being the preferred method of attack, I wouldn’t give my rifle up. That didn’t mean I’d be carrying it with me on this mission, though. If Armise was going to bring his sonicrifle then I needed to be equipped with a real one.

That Ahriman was able to deflect real bullets as well as their sonic counterparts was going to make his death an interesting game. There were the usual methods of assassination outside of a gun—poisoning, knife to the spinal cord or heart, snapping the neck—all of which required being in close proximity to the target. Much closer than if Armise or I could get a clear shot from a distance. I didn’t expect Ahriman to make it an easy task either way. As unsatisfying as it sounded, maybe our best option was to find out where he was and drop the largest reverb we could find directly over his head. I didn’t think I’d even mind being taken out from the blowback of that one if it guaranteed his death.

Armise and I were both prepared to die in order to eliminate Ahriman.

I expected to be gone months, if not the better part of a year, on this mission. Assassinating all twelve of the Committee members and Ahriman could take longer than that. Until then it would be Armise and me. Alone. Working together.

I stopped, frozen on the spot as that reality hit me.

I counted back the days. It had only been five days since I’d lain in bed with Armise the night before the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and lamented the idea that Armise and I would never be able to combine forces even though we would have made the perfect team. My life had changed more in the last five days than it had in almost twenty years—since I had first became a Peacemaker. I’d assassinated the leader of the Opposition, completed my long-standing mission and reignited the Borders War. I’d met my parents, watched the President’s supposedly dead wife’s head be blown open and explored the edges of my shifting relationship with Armise.

Armise.

Shit.

Out of every shock in the last five days, the discovery that Armise had gone traitor to Singapore and was my ally had been the most shocking. The most paradigm-shifting.

I rolled my shoulders, took in deep breaths, planted my feet and willed my body to relax. I repeated my mantra once then over again.

“I need…” I started, then realised I was answering a question Armise had put to me days ago. “Shit,” I cut myself off, shaking my head.

Armise set down his knife, sliding it into the holster, and placed it on the table. I stood at the end of the bed, seemingly frozen in place, as he stalked towards me.

“Just tell me what you need, Merq,” he said evenly. Armise didn’t appear fazed that it had taken me days to respond to him.

“Fuck. I need to touch you.” I scratched my nails over my stubble, then over my hair, mussing it back. I’d thought before I’d spoken, but it didn’t matter how I’d said it, I didn’t want him to ask me why I wanted it. I was aware enough to know why it was this that I craved more than anything else.

There was too much I couldn’t influence or manipulate. Too many secrets, too many people jockeying for power and for their own interests over the cause. I was bound by orders and a drive for retribution that threatened to consume me.

I needed to feel in control of one thing in my life. Just one piece, no matter how small. And nothing made me feel more powerful than controlling Armise Darcan’s body. Having him at my mercy.

“I need…” I stepped up to him, putting us chest to chest. I kissed up his neck and along his jaw, then bit at his bottom lip. Armise gave a low moan. “…to make you come.”

Armise reached for my cock and I gripped his wrist, stopping him before he could touch me.

I rubbed my stubble against his freshly shaven cheek, dragging my lips against his skin, to his ear. “No. Only you.”

Armise dropped his head to the side, giving me better access to his neck. “However you want it, Merq.” He moved out of my grasp and flipped open the button on his uniform pants, slipping his hand under the material.

I swatted his hand away and dropped to my knees, pulling him roughly out of his pants and into my mouth without hesitation. He grew hard in my mouth, arching his hips towards me as he dropped back against the dresser, sagging into the furniture for support. Immediately he threaded his fingers into the strands of my hair, urging me forward until I was deep-throating his hardening cock. I slid my tongue up the vein as I sucked, fighting against the pull of his hands. I planted a hand on his hip, pushing him back and giving me room to swirl my tongue around the head and take him deep again.

Armise tried to force my movements and I tensed my muscles, fighting back against the insistence of his left hand in my hair and his right hand digging into my biceps. I worked slowly, stroking his shaft with deliberate teasing then rough abandon, until he was impossibly hard, the skin stretching, balls drawing up tight in warning, even though I’d barely started.

I knew how to drive him to the edge fast and hard. But I also knew how to draw his pleasure out. How to make a blow job an excruciatingly ecstatic experience for him. And for me.

I took him in until the tip of his cock was pressing at the back of my throat and my lips were stretched around his base. Armise gave a wanton moan—a sound I rarely heard from him—and my desire kicked up, my need to see him unhinged thrumming through my body. I was just as hard as he was—maybe more. But I wouldn’t come.