Flash Burned

 

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About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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For David. I pray you found peace, my brother.

 

prologue

I felt the chill at my ankles, swirling around my calves and thighs, moving upward to my stomach, where it seeped inside and slithered through me, to my heart. A frigid force that gripped me, constricting tightly so that I couldn't breathe properly.

With my hands bound above my head, I partially dangled from the exposed rafter of an entryway into the shell of a room that had no drywalling. I knew I shouldn't panic. I'd be rescued soon. They'd come for me. Dane, Amano. They'd never let anything happen to me. Ever.

Dane because he loved me fiercely. Amano because it was his job. Because he was loyal to Dane. And maybe, too, because he felt protective of me regardless of the paycheck attached to being my bodyguard.

On bare tiptoes, I struggled against the restrictive bindings around my wrists and secured to the beam. I'd kicked off my heels in an attempt to escape the man who'd kidnapped me and brought me to this half-constructed house in a secluded box canyon of Sedona, Arizona—where the gorgeous striated red-rock formations could unwittingly prove deadly with their lack of cell service. So that even for those brief few moments when I'd had my phone in hand there hadn't been a single fucking bar to put a call through.

I continued to remind myself I'd be free soon. That Vale Hilliard wouldn't do anything more than hold me hostage, bloody my face a bit, and rip my blouse open. That he wouldn't get the chance to do to me the things he'd threatened.

I didn't wait patiently. Couldn't. The mere thought of his hands on my body made me scream and want to kick at him.

But this time, he wasn't on his knees behind me, holding my calves steady, keeping my assault at bay.

He wasn't even there.

Yet I wasn't alone.

As I wrested against his silk tie, slowly working my wrists free, I heard the quick-paced rattle that sounded deceptively like a sprinkler quenching a plush summer lawn. There was a second rattle, not quite moving in time with the other so that it was distinct enough to tell me the first had a friend. Then there was a third. A fourth.

My heart leapt into my throat. Fear seized me. I'd faced a diamondback before. At the moment, it was not something I had the constitution to deal with again.

I shot a look over my shoulder and watched in horror as they lay in wait, coiled and hissing. But they were just the beginning of my worries. Scurrying across the plywood floor, scrambling in my direction, were dozens of scorpions. All of varying sizes. Some fire red. Some opaque. Some black.

“Oh, God,” I barely squeaked out. My pulse raged and tears burned my eyes. Insidious words tormented my mind.

… if you ruin my negotiations with Dane, I'll not only leave you here alone, tied up, but I'll fill this house with everything that terrifies you
.

That would be rattlesnakes and scorpions. I'd encountered both in Phoenix, when I was a kid, then again at 10,000 Lux, where they'd been planted for me. I'd been stung before. There was only one other more excruciatingly agonizing sensation than a baby scorpion pumping venom into my system because it didn't know when to stop—losing Dane, as I once had.

Fuck!

I would attempt to climb the two-by-four in front of me, but scorpions could climb, too.

My breathing was now so erratic, it nearly eclipsed the tails going off more enthusiastically. As though the snakes sensed the panic in their prey and enjoyed my suffering before closing in for the kill.

I was trapped. I had no defense. No shoes on my feet to stomp on the scorpions, no way to flee the rattlers, now uncoiling and slithering toward me.

Fat drops rolled down my flushed cheeks. I choked on a sob. I couldn't even scream anymore; my throat had closed up.

Dane and Amano would be devastated they'd failed me.

Dane.

More tears flowed. I'd promised him I'd do whatever he asked in order to stay safe. I knew this would rip him apart.

But I had absolutely no escape against this particular attack. I couldn't get my hands through the slightly loosened sash that secured me and get the hell out of there. Terror consumed me.

As the danger rushed forward and the revulsion clawed at me, I pushed out one last bloodcurdling scream.

“Dane!”

 

chapter 1

I woke with a start and sat bolt upright, the chill still holding me hostage, despite the warmth emitted from the blaze in the hearth. I shoved perspiration-dampened, plump dark-brown curls from my face as my heavy breaths echoed in the quiet bedroom.

Heart thundering, pulse raging.

My gaze flashed to the empty side of the California king Dane and I shared. To the tall windows in his creekside house. To the clock on the nightstand next to me.

A little after three in the morning.

I barely had time to process the nightmare I'd just had—the vicious game Vale Hilliard continued to play in my mind—when Dane barreled through the double doors to our room.

“Ari.” His emerald eyes were wild and filled with alarm.

“I'm okay,” I quickly assured him, though I couldn't slow my breathing.

When he saw I was unharmed, he purposely schooled his hard features into softer angles. I'd witnessed his attempt to calm himself in front of me, to not be so enraged looking over what had happened in that canyon, and to not put me on-edge over the action he'd taken when he'd seen the blood on my face, my wrists bound to the rafters.

There'd been no snakes or scorpions. But I had been in Vale's clutches. That had shredded Dane.

“Ari,” he repeated in a low tone. “What happened?”

“Nightmare. I woke myself. I'm all right.”

I watched him try to loosen his stone jaw, with no luck. I must have screamed aloud, not just in my sleep. And it haunted him, the way the memory of that day in the half-constructed house did. The way it had torn us apart until we couldn't stand another second of the pain and I'd come to him here, making him swear we'd never be at anyone's mercy again. That we'd never be away from each other.

The latter was a necessity. We were fated, each desperately needing what the other offered. The former wasn't exactly a vow easy to make when the affluent Dane Bax was about to open the most exclusive hotel on the continent—and his former investors still wanted a piece of the pie.

I inhaled deeply, let out a long stream of air. Tried to steady myself, in hopes of wiping that guilt-ridden and tormented expression from his devilishly handsome face. “You just … You weren't here.”

I'd felt his absence at the onset of the nightmare. Perhaps that was why, this time, I'd been left alone in the house, instead of Vale being there—threatening and sinister, but eventually defeated by Dane.

Not tonight. I'd been on my own, my most menacing fears unleashed. Including a missing Dane, who was supposed to rescue me.

He crossed the room in long strides and sat on the bed. The mattress dipped with his sturdy weight and it caused me to lean toward him. I clasped one of his rock-hard biceps to stable myself. And because he was too damn tempting.

His shirt had been tossed aside long ago, when he'd made love to me before we'd curled together and I'd drifted off to sleep, naked in his arms. I'd discovered from the very first night I'd spent in his bed that nothing compared to having his heat and commanding presence surrounding me. All those muscles. He would envelop me from behind, creating a cocoon of bliss and safety.

So much so that when he slipped away in the middle of the night I sensed it subconsciously.

“You didn't mention you had work,” I said as he gently stroked my hair.

“Something occurred to me, and I had to speak with Nikolai. Different time zone in Moscow. It couldn't wait and I didn't want to wake him later on.”

I nodded. Dane and his
legitimate
investors were doing everything in their power to bring down the more corrupt members of a poli-econ secret society they belonged to, and I knew that was significant enough to weigh heavily on everyone's mind, day and night. Regardless of time zones.

“I understand.” I shifted closer to him and he pulled me into his strong embrace.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

“No, it's okay. I have to get past all of this, find some way to stop freaking out every time you're not right here with me.”

Granted, it wasn't as though I could seek professional help for this particular ailment. I couldn't exactly explain to a shrink that my boyfriend was part of a descendant Bavarian Illuminati faction that had turned dark and dangerous with insatiable greed. And he and some of the others fought desperately to extricate themselves from the oath they'd taken long before things had gone awry. Because, now, the actions of the corrupt members crept toward deadly—as I knew personally. Making time of the essence.

“Ari,” he said against my temple. “I love you. There's nothing I want to protect more than you.”

My fingers grazed his tight jaw. “I know. But there's something else that's important to remain focused on, Dane. 10,000 Lux. It's your vision, your dream. Everything you've been fighting for—something that means the world to me, too.”

With an agitated sigh, he untangled himself and stood. He turned toward the windows and stared out into the inky night, jamming his hands into the pockets of his loose, pewter-colored pants. Frustration and anger rolled off him in waves.

I climbed out of bed and, from behind, wrapped my arms around him. One hand splayed over the corrugated grooves of his abdomen, the other flattened against his hard pectoral ledge. He was too magnificently built not to touch. Six-foot-three, broad shouldered, tanned and toned, with lush, strategically mussed black hair and beautiful, mesmerizing green eyes.

I leaned into him, my bare breasts pressing to his heavily muscled back. I kissed his warm skin as his hands covered mine. The chill abated.

“I know you're doing everything you can to save the Lux,” I said. “You, Ethan, Qadir, and Nikolai. Even Amano.”