Rebel Heat (10 page)

“Onions tear up my stomach and I’m not a fan of anchovies.”

He placed the order then slipped his comlink back into his pocket. The situation wasn’t nearly as hopeless as Morgan presumed. He’d made arrangements for his escape even before he came to Earth. Only a fool would blindly trust a complete stranger. And Nazerel was no fool. The hardest part was that most of his men didn’t realize he hadn’t deserted them. A few had shipped out with him often enough to know he never left anything to chance. The others would just have to believe the worst until his actions proved them wrong.

“What is Phil buying for you?” She’d moved from the bed to one of the chairs arranged around a small round table.

It didn’t matter where she sat. One look at those long, toned legs and his mind carried them back to the bed. She tried to make herself less attractive, but her efforts were futile. The woman was pleasure personified. So why had no one claimed her? Perhaps she had been claimed at one point, but her mate died. That would explain her resistance to being touched and touching in return.

She’d rebel against a direct question on such a personal subject, so he answered her question instead. “Phil is buying me an insurance policy of sorts. How long have you been chasing aliens?”

“Wasn’t that in my dossier? You said you’d learned all about Morgan Hoyt. You just didn’t realize I was female.”

“I know you started as a profiler for the FBI, but there weren’t a lot of details about your taskforce.”

Her brows arched and a smile teased the corners of her utterly kissable mouth. “That’s because it doesn’t officially exist. I’m surprised you found mention of it at all. I have people in my IT department who routinely scrubs that sort of information.”

“What drew you to criminal investigation? It’s an odd occupation for a female.”

“Maybe on Ontariese. Earth is more open-minded.”

He joined her at the table. His primary reason for the conversation was to keep his mind off how badly he wanted her, but he was also curious. Though lacking many details, the information he’d dug up on Morgan Hoyt had made him picture a middle-aged man with military bearing and a no-nonsense attitude. It was hard to believe this delicate female had earned such power and authority. “Ignore my sexist attitude. Why did you become an investigator?”

“Why do you care? You’ve made it obvious that females only had one purpose in the world below.”

“That’s not true.” He grinned. “They had two. We had pleasure givers as well as mates.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Then stop dodging the question. I told you everything you wanted to know about me. Now it’s your turn to share.”

She rested her hands on the table and fiddled with her fingernails. “My mother is a workaholic and my father was a drunk. It gave me a rather warped perspective of life. Mom was never around because she always had some late-night meeting or out-of-town conference she couldn’t afford to miss. It didn’t take long to realize she was simply avoiding her husband.” There was no emotion in her tone. She sounded hollow, alone.

“Why did she remain bonded to such a man?”

One of her shoulders lifted in an unconvincing shrug. “She was a good Catholic girl, so she didn’t have a choice.”

“I don’t understand the reference. Is Catholic a race or a religion?”

“It’s a religion with lots of unbendable rules. Devout Catholics, especially of my mother’s generation, find divorce unthinkable. Besides, Dad wasn’t abusive. He was just useless.”

“Did you have siblings?”

She shook her head. “The Catholic religion also frowns on birth control, but Mom quickly realized she had two dependents, not one, and she was solely responsible for both. Her ambition grew out of a sense of responsibility, but it was an escape as well. She was embarrassed and exasperated by her husband, so she made a life for herself apart from him. They might have lived under the same roof, but they weren’t a real couple.”

“I want to know about you, not your parents.” Their gazes locked and he was shocked to realize how much he meant the statement. He really did what to know more about her, to understand the forces that drove her, had made her so strong.

Both her shoulders lifted this time and still her indifference was unconvincing. “My story isn’t unusual or particularly interesting.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Her tongue touched her bottom lip and she lowered her gaze. “I was what’s known as a latchkey kid. I’d let myself in to our house after school and ignore my father who was usually passed out on the couch when he wasn’t at one of his favorite bars. Then I’d spend the next four or five hours in my bedroom alone entertaining myself. I was fed and clothed. I always had what I needed and most of the things I wanted. My childhood wasn’t that bad.”

“Weren’t you lonely? Isolation like that had to be hard on a child.” His childhood had been filled with challenges and cruel discipline. Still, he’d been surrounded by people who cared for and supported him.

“It was horribly lonely, but it also made me self-sufficient and unafraid.”

Thinking of her as a neglected child only made him angry at her parents. He wanted to find them and shake some sense into them, yet that wasn’t the purpose for this conversation. “How did your isolation ignite an interest in investigation?”

“It was a gradual progression. I was eleven when I was picked up by the police for the first time. Shoplifting. Luckily, the shop owner only wanted to scare me, so he didn’t press charges. My mother was horrified and immediately sent me to therapy. The councilor helped me understand that the actions of my parents didn’t need to define my life.”

“That’s a lesson many people never learn.”

She nodded. “I understood what she meant, but it took many years for me to implement the concept.”

“Then your misbehavior continued?”

“Of course. I was desperate for attention and determined to get it anyway I could.”

It was easy to see where her story led. It was a fundamental law of nature. Without energy, or in this case direction, any situation deteriorated into chaos. “Your mother continued to ignore you and delegate your care to others?”

“When my ‘antics’—her favorite word for my misbehavior—became more outrageous, Mom sent me to a boarding school.”

“I’ve read about such places. From Lowood in
Jane Eyre
to Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, few of them are pleasant.”

She smiled, her gaze returning to his face. “Don’t believe everything you read or see on TV. Boarding school was the best thing that ever happened to me. With the help of a really good guidance counselor, I was able to explore my aptitudes and interests. I originally thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but I found criminals more interesting than the laws that protect them.”

“Human laws protect the criminals? Shouldn’t laws protect the victims and punish the criminals?”

“Oh, they should, but too often people manipulate the system or the system is just so convoluted that it’s ineffective. Anyway, I realized my personality required something more hands-on than being a lawyer so I investigated other options.”

A firm knock at the door interrupted their conversation. Morgan looked toward the door, a cunning gleam in her eyes. “You will not move and you will remain silent.” He reinforced the directive with a powerful compulsion and paused to see if it took hold. Her eyes widened and subtle twitches indicated her attempts to move. “I will release you in a moment.”

He answered the door, paid for the pizza and a two-liter bottle of cola. He kept the door angled, blocking the young man’s view of Morgan. After the delivery person departed, Nazerel locked the door and returned to the table. Only then did he release her from the compulsion.

She sprang back to life with a gasp, knocking her chair over as she jumped to her feet. “What the hell… How did you do that?”

“Let’s eat while it’s hot.” He placed the box in the middle of the table and divided the stack of paper napkins. The delivery person hadn’t provided disposable plates, so they would have to eat over the box. “If you want ice for your drink, I’ll have to compel you again.”

“Only the sweepers can use compulsions. How were you able to paralyze me?”

A true sweeper, like Varrik, would have compelled away her desire to escape. Nazerel had never achieved that level of control. Still, she didn’t need to know his limitations.

There was a stack of glasses by the ice bucket. He grabbed two and brought them to the table. “I had aptitudes for both disciplines. I was just better at hunting.”

“But you said you hadn’t used those skills in years.”

He looked into her eyes and smiled. “I lied.”

Morgan stared at him, shocked beyond words. Everyone had hinted that Nazerel was no ordinary Shadow Assassin. She was just starting to understand what they meant. He’d been difficult enough while the collar suppressed his abilities, now her hope of escaping him was threatening to desert her entirely.

No.
She would not give up or give in to his magnetic personality. As long as she was alive, she would keep fighting.

“Are you going to join me or shall I begin?” He raised the lid on the pizza box and let the aroma fill the air.

Her stomach growled and her mouth watered. They had their days and nights switched around, but it had been at least nine hours since she’d eaten anything. To escape she would need mental sharpness and physical strength, and both of those required energy. Satisfied with the rationalization, she righted her chair and sat back down.

“Dig in. He didn’t bring plates, so we’ll be dining bachelor style.”

She picked up a slice of pizza and took a bite. The crust was a little tough, but there was plenty of cheese and inviting flavors. “No one just figures out how to control their power.” She paused for a quick drink of cola. “Who taught you how to form compulsions?”

“My compulsions are strong, but they don’t last very long. That’s why I became a hunter.”

“Good to know, but that’s not what I asked. Who trained you?”

“Can’t you guess?” He devoured one piece and reached for another before he clarified. “Varrik taught me how to use my sweeper abilities and I taught him how to use his hunter abilities. We did so in secret to begin with, but once the elders realized what we were doing, they decided cross training wasn’t such a bad idea.”

“How many Shadow Assassins are able to use compulsions?” Controlling minds was so dangerous, even if it was for a short period of time.

“I’m the only Shadow Assassin left on Earth, so why does it matter?”

He was right. She needed to focus on Nazerel. He was her objective, her target, her enemy. So why did she keep forgetting. Her wrists were restrained and he’d taken off her pants and still she found herself fascinated by him rather than repulsed.

“How long have you been with the alien taskforce?” Nazerel asked in between bites.

So they were back to quid pro quo. He’d answered her questions, so it was time for her to answer his. “I’m one of the original members, so fifteen years. I’ve been director for the past six.”

“You don’t seem old enough to have so many responsibilities.”

She paused with her slice of pizza halfway to her mouth. “Thank you, I think.”

“How did you come so far so quickly?” His tone was conversational, his expression calm.

This was way too close to comfortable. It felt like a date, a slightly kinky date, but a date. Could Stockholm syndrome kick in this fast? Or was he influencing her, making her feel… She’d love to blame it all on him, but she’d felt this connection, this irrational attraction even before his powers were restored.

“You really don’t like to talk about yourself, do you? It’s most people’s favorite subject.”

She fought back a smile. At least he hadn’t said, it was most females’ favorite subject. She didn’t see any harm in answering his question, but she kept it succinct and factual. “I’ve always been self-motivated and driven. I graduated from college at sixteen and was contracted by the FBI a few months later. I was restricted to desk work until I turned twenty-three, but by then I was working for the taskforce and we tend to bend all sorts of rules. After all, we don’t really exist.”

“Then you’re in your early thirties?”

“Why is my age important? How old are you?”

“I’m older than I look. Between my Rodyte heritage and my nanites’ ability to regenerate flesh, I could live for hundreds of years.”

“Lucky you.” She took another bite of pizza and tried not to brood, but human existence had never felt so limited before. She couldn’t paralyze people with her mind or teleport. She didn’t have nanites to regenerate her flesh and—she could nurture a growing life inside her body and give birth to the next generation. That was something he would never be able to do, even if he lived for a thousand years. Maybe she wasn’t so useless after all.

“Did something I say upset you? You seem annoyed.”

She laughed. “I’m sitting here in my underwear eating with restrained hands. Why would I be annoyed?”

“Stop trying to run away and I’ll unlock the cuffs.”

She wiped her mouth with a napkin and picked up her glass. “You have your powers back. Why do you need me?”