Omega Force 01- Storm Force (11 page)

“Your
bruises healed nicely, I see.” His big right hand rested across the front of
her neck, reminding her of how it had felt to have those hands choking her. She
understood the implied threat behind the gesture.

“Michael,
please. Let’s go slow—”

“You
don’t think I’ve earned this?” He slid his hand inside the front of her dress,
cupped her bare breast, and laughed as he jerked the bandage away and thumbed
her nipple. “You belong to me now. This is what I was promised. This is what
your family agreed to.”

His
kiss was bruising this time, and Mori tasted blood as her lip was crushed
against her teeth. God, she couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t.

“Wait,
please.” She finally pushed him away, both of them breathing hard for different
reasons.  “Can’t we get used to each
other? Just let me stay here a few days and adjust. I will come around, I
promise.”

She
expected an explosion of temper, but Michael looked at the floor and pursed his
lips. He turned and walked to the fireplace, then knelt down, pulled a long
match from a box sitting on the hearth, and lit the gas flame. The firelight
rose high as he turned the knob as far to the right as it would go. Only then
did he look at her. “So you need time for it to sink it that you belong to me?”

Mori
dragged her gaze away from the fire, so out of place in a Houston living room
in August. “Time for me to get used to being…with you.
So we can be partners.” She belonged to no one but herself.

He
nodded slowly. “And tell me this, Emory. When you look into our future as
partners
,” he emphasized, “do you see us
raising our children together and teaching them about their heritage? Do you
see us attending social functions arm in arm? Entertaining guests? Ending our
nights in each other’s arms, our bodies joined? Because that’s what I need in a
partner
.”

Mori
stifled a shudder and tried to paste in place that pleasant smile she’d been
practicing. “I just need a little time to—”

“
Or
” — Michael turned to look at the fire — “do
you look into the future and see long nights of sex with a man you find
distasteful, raising children you wish had been sired by someone else, gritting
your teeth as you sit through endless events with people you don’t give a rat’s
ass about?”

That
was exactly what Mori saw in her future. That, and the
slow death of her soul and her spirit. The only saving part of it would be the
children, because she knew she’d love them, even if they were his.

She
sighed. Why pretend when he knew better? “You’ve won, Michael. I’m here. I’ve
agreed to marry you. What more do you want from me?”

He
leaned against the sofa table, arms crossed, and
studied her with a dispassion that alarmed her more than his fumbling attempts
at seduction. “I want the partner I described, and you might be surprised to
hear that I already have a woman in my life who fills
that role very well except for the children. Perhaps you’ll meet her one day.
She picked out the clothes you’re wearing.”

What?
Mori sat on the sofa, weary from
fear and from pointless games. “Then why this charade
tonight, with the clothes and the ‘meet my fiancée’ business? Why not
become a sperm donor and let’s just end all this fighting? That way, I fulfill
my obligation as our only full-blooded female of childbearing age, and you get to
keep your ideal partner.”

Michael
paced around the table and went to stand in front of the fire again, his back
to her, jabbing into the flames with a fireplace poker as if stabbing it with a
knife. “You don’t understand, Emory. I spent twenty-five fucking years waiting
for you, putting up with your whining, pandering parents, only to have you grow
up to be a spoiled, selfish brat.”

He
turned to face her, and Mori stood, alarmed. She’d seen him angry in his office
when he’d hit her, but nothing like this. Rage twisted his handsome features
into a cold, grotesque mask. “Michael, I think I should go.”

“Sit
down and shut up.” His voice was low, taut, one timbre short of a growl. “I own
you. I bought you when you were born. I’ve been paying for you since you were
in diapers. I’ve given you enough leash to let you
grow up, but now you’re mine. Not my partner. My property.
I own you, and I don’t intend for you to forget it.”

The
tension crackled in the air, charged and static. Mori was strong, but Michael
was stronger, and they both knew it. He pulled a glove of some kind from the
table, and Mori watched in confusion as he slipped it on his right hand and
retrieved the fireplace poker he’d left in the flames.

“You
know what we do with our property on the ranch, don’t you, Emory? Your
grandfather taught you that.”

Mori
gasped and turned as soon as Michael lifted the poker.

Not
a poker. A branding iron with the letter
B
on the end.

She
ran for the door as fast as she could, her heels sliding on the polished floor.
She’d made it halfway through the foyer when her bare back exploded in
white-hot, searing pain.

The
room tilted, righted itself, and tilted again as she dropped to her hands and
knees. Her body on fire and her nostrils filled with the smell of her own
scorched flesh, Mori heard her screams turn to piteous howls before the world
turned black, silent, and painless.

The handcuff keys taunted Kell
from atop the dresser, four feet out of reach. Might as well be four miles. God
knew he’d tried to span the distance, stretching like Plastic Man until the
shoulder above his imprisoned left arm ached as if it had been wrenched from
its socket and roughly popped back in place.

He’d gotten the bright idea of
using his utility knife to saw off the leg of the nightstand — before he realized
it still rested in the pocket of the jeans he’d pulled off for his shower.
They, of course, were already stuffed in his duffel.

The damned nightstand was nailed
to the wall, as fixed and immovable as a stone monolith.

What a fucking idiot. He couldn’t decide who he wanted to dismember first, Mori or
himself. No, he knew — probably himself. She’d been on the razor’s edge of making
a run for it all afternoon, so he had no right to act surprised at anything but
his own stupidity. Even that shouldn’t have surprised him at this point.

His
cell phone barked with Gator’s ringtone, and he snatched it off the nightstand,
grimacing at the name on the screen. No, he didn’t think he’d be talking to
Colonel Thomas just yet. The variations on “fucktard”
he’d called himself couldn’t possibly compare to whatever colorful epithets the
colonel would devise as soon as he figured out Kell
had gone off task. Seriously off task.

“Kellison, you are a disgrace.” He grasped the leg of the
nightstand and pulled on it until his biceps bulged and the muscles in his
shoulders burned in protest. All he got for his effort was a renewed throbbing
in his back and not so much as a hint of splintering wood. He could practically
bite through the headboard of the bed, so what was up with the
industrial-strength nightstand?

Mr.
Neat and Tidy, good soldier that he was, had returned his guns to the duffel
and squeezed the bag into the narrow gap between his bed and the wall that
separated the main room from the bathroom. It would be accessible without them
tripping over it, he’d reasoned, and he hadn’t wanted Mori, his fragile flower
who’d since proven herself to be a handcuffing vixen,
to be freaked out by the firearms.

Yeah,
he was both a fucktard
and
a chauvinist.

He pondered his current dilemma.
Lying on his back, he stretched his right arm across the queen-size mattress
one last time, wishing for either a cheap double bed or Godzilla arms. No way he’d ever reach it.

Not
with his hand, anyway, but maybe his foot. Maneuvering around the bed, he
wrestled his way onto his stomach, the freakishly bright floral bedspread
bunched underneath him in painful lumps. His already-throbbing back taunted
him. He was going to pay for this.

Using his elbows, he slid his
body toward the wall until his feet touched the wallpapered sheetrock, then
shifted his right leg downward until he finally hooked a foot through one of
the duffel’s straps. If he could drag it onto the bed without breaking his
ankle, he’d shoot off those goddamn cuffs. Of course, the way his luck was
going, he’d probably trigger the rifle with his toe and dispatch his own ass to
China.

Pain,
hot and sharp, shot through his back as he strained to angle his right leg onto
the bed with the heavy pack attached to his ankle. And it was working
fine — until the duffel turned at an odd angle and got wedged between the bed and
the wall, trapping him in a position halfway between a pretzel and a crab. Of
all the stupid, fucking—

A
keycard slid into the door lock with an electronic whir. Kell
groaned and planted his face in the bedspread. Whose bright idea had it been to
make sure both he and Nik had keys to the safe
places? Oh yeah, that would be him.

He
would never live this down. Not in this lifetime or the next. Maybe he’d luck
out and Nik would’ve left Robin in the car.

The
gentle whoosh of the door opening, the snap of the safety being released on Nik’s gun, the soft footfalls on the carpet inside the
door — all were audible to Kell’s trained ears, even
over the air-conditioning’s white-noise roar.

“What
the fuck?” Nik’s footsteps halted and the dead bolt
clicked home. Kell remained facedown and still. If he
didn’t move, maybe they’d think he was dead and leave.

Something
tickled his right ear, and he instinctively jerked his head to the side and
opened one eye to see Robin’s face about three inches from his. She held up a
feather and grinned.

“Let
me guess. You were playing Bed Twister and lost?”

“Get
my fucking foot out of the duffel bag strap.”

Only
after she’d extricated his foot and laughed for the week and a half it took him
to wrestle himself into an upright position did Kell
look up. Nik remained just inside the door, arms
crossed, eyebrows bunched, without a trace of humor on his face.

“What
the hell have you done?”

Robin
danced and twirled to the bed opposite him and sat down with a flounce. “And
how’d you get handcuffed to the nightstand?” She was having way too much fun.

“What?”
Nik’s voice rose half an
octave as he walked farther into the room, took a look at the cuffs, and shook
his head. “Shit, Kellison. Where’re the keys?”

“Dresser.” Kell gave Robin his
most intimidating stare, but judging by her squawking laughter, it didn’t work.
“Where’d you get that feather, bird-woman? Out of your ass?”

Instead
of shutting her up in righteous indignation, the comment only made Robin laugh
harder. There was simply no way of ending this with any self-respect, so he
might as well accept it. “Sorry.”

Damn,
but he was tired of apologizing.

Nik grabbed the keys and tossed them on the bed where Kell could reach them and, blessedly, free himself. Now, if
only he’d perfected that disappearing act. He had to settle for what he hoped
was an expression that conveyed sincerity, contrition, and good humor. The
gritted teeth probably ruined the effect.

Robin
snorted a few more times before getting herself under control, but Nik was nowhere in the zip code of amused. “Guess I don’t
have to ask who nailed you with your own cuffs.”

Kell rubbed his back and hobbled to the dressing table for
more ibuprofen. He’d taken three times the normal dose already today. Awesome.

No
point in responding to Nik’s comment; they all knew
who’d cuffed him, and he’d only humiliate himself further if he made excuses.
“Robin, think you can track where she went? She’s been gone about an hour.”

“Maybe. You got any ideas on where to start? It’s a big old
world out there.” Robin shifted on the edge of the bed to make room for Nik, who looked like he had a lot to say and was holding
his tongue with effort. Had Robin not been here, Kell
had no doubt Nik would have chewed up his ass and
handed it back to him like so much ground beef.

Kell deserved it, but he desperately needed their backup.
“I know it looks like I’ve gone nuts, and maybe I
have. Mori Chastaine isn’t guilty. I’m certain of it.
But she does know something, and she’s our best hope of solving this case.”

Nik’s doubts were obvious. “And that’s the only reason you
helped her escape?”

Might
as well not lie; his friend knew him inside and out. “Of
course not. I want to help her. But that doesn’t mean she can’t help us,
too. She’s just scared.”

When
Kell’s phone barked again, Robin picked it up and
laughed at the screen. “Poor old colonel. I don’t
think he really wants to talk to us right now. It would be bad for his health.”
She set the phone back on the nightstand. “So, where do you think Mori might
have gone?”

Kell had been thinking about that. “She knows she can’t go
back to her apartment or the Co-Op. The DHS guys will be all over both places.”
He tried to put himself in her position, with fear of the law on one side and
fear of Michael Benedict on the other. The way she’d talked about handling the
situation with Michael, it sounded as if she had a plan. And knowing that Kell was closing in on the truth, she’d be convinced she
needed to move fast. She’d said “a couple of days,” but that had been before he
let her know how much he’d figured out.

“She’ll confront Michael Benedict — maybe at his
office or house.”

Nik took a deep breath, and the tension eased out of his
expression and posture now that he had something to focus on other than Kell’s stupidity. “What about her parents? Don’t they have
a ranch west of Houston?”

Kell shook his head. “My gut says Mori wouldn’t go to them
for help. She seems to be having some kind of falling out with her family. They
didn’t call or pick her up when she was detained by Homeland Security that
first day.”

Robin
turned sideways, leaning against the headboard. “I think she’d go to Benedict’s
home rather than his office, so I’d nix Galveston. It’s almost eight now, and
Tex-La would be closed. Does she have a car?”

Kell paused, his anger at Mori slowly shifting to worry.
He’d been so pissed off he hadn’t considered the danger she could encounter in
trying to walk through the eastern burbs at night.
And if Michael Benedict had hit her before, he’d do it again. Bullies like that
weren’t onetime abusers.

“No, she left on foot, although she could’ve
gotten a taxi. Her car’s at the Co-Op.”
Was
at the Co-Op. Kell figured it had been impounded by now. “Sounds like the first place to check out would be
Benedict’s house in River Oaks. Robin, you know where that is?”

She
nodded. “Although, the smell of money in that neighborhood
might camouflage even the human signatures. Speaking of which, you got
anything of hers I could scent that doesn’t smell like hotel bodywash? The room reeks of it. Maybe I could check out
your car?”

He
had something better. “That’s her T-shirt on the dresser.”

“Did
she leave naked?” Nik arched a brow, still without a
shred of humor. Kell was going to have some
fence-mending to do with his best buddy.

“No,
she didn’t leave naked.” And now it was time for yet another appearance of Kell the Great Apologizer. “I screwed up, and I appreciate
you guys going off radar for me. But Mori’s being set up by somebody, and our
friendly neighborhood millionaire, Michael Benedict, is in it neck-deep and
rising fast.”

“Apparently,
she isn’t that interested in your help.” Nik’s voice
bristled with sarcasm. “In case you missed it, the handcuffs were a dead
giveaway.”

Kell tugged on his running shoes and tied the laces. “Look,
you can bitch me up one side and down the other when we get this straightened
out. I deserve it. But for now, Robin needs to track Mori, and you and I need
to pay a visit to the esteemed governor of Texas and find out why he’s going
along with this frame job. Is he still in Houston?”

“Yep.” Nik puffed out a frustrated
breath and tugged his hair back into a short ponytail. “I pulled Archer out of
New Orleans and flew him into Houston as soon as the governor showed up alive.
He’s been tailing Felderman.”

Kell frowned. “Tailing him? I thought he was in the
hospital. He didn’t look too good on the news conference this afternoon. Did
they transfer him to a hospital in Austin?”

Robin
had been uncharacteristically silent since walking to the dresser to retrieve
Mori’s shirt, and she looked somber as she rejoined them. She reclaimed her
seat next to Nik, the fabric grasped tightly in her
hands. Her gaze was fixed on the carpet, her brow furrowed, but she still wasn’t
talking.

Nik shrugged at Kell’s
questioning look. They’d often agreed that women — even bird-women — were
incomprehensible. “Anyway, Felderman checked himself
out of Methodist against doctor’s orders late this afternoon. Archer followed
him to one of those generic suites hotels off the Beltway, up near the airport.”

Kell pondered that information. “Was anyone with him?”

“He
was alone, used a fake name, and paid cash for the room.”

“Weird.”
Kell retrieved his wallet from the duffel and stuck
it in his pocket. If he’d done that after stopping at the ATM, this afternoon
might have gone differently. Or maybe not. “Why would
the governor leave the hospital against doctor’s orders and hide out in a hotel
room outside the city center?”

“I
have a bigger question for you to think about.” Robin handed Mori’s T-shirt to Nik. “A big one.”

Nik touched the fabric tentatively at first, then grasped
it with both hands and closed his eyes. Finally, he shook his head. “I get
nothing from it, not a single image. What’s the bigger question?”

Robin’s
gaze met Kell’s, and she’d never looked more
troubled. All traces of laughter had disappeared. “Did you have any idea your
girl Mori was a shifter?”