The Chosen (14 page)

Oh, joy. How on earth could he read while bottled up in this tin can? Just the constant rumble of the engines that shook the ship and the thought of being under the endless expanse of blue made her feel woozy. The soft trace of his Bay Rum aftershave infused the air around her, adding to the dizziness, making her light-headed, but for a whole other reason.

“Would you mind looking at these with me?”

Yes, she minded. Because it meant she had to be close to him. But if he could act all cool and collected-like, as if there were nothing there between them, dammit, so could she. “Sure.” She followed him into the next room, lifting her troublesome skirts, careful to step over the raised edge of the connecting doors between compartments. Each door had a huge locking wheel in the center of it. Monica had said it was to keep water contained if the submarine sprang a leak, something China didn’t even want to contemplate.

He laid the codex on the table, his finger tracing below the section he was reading. “It says here the way in is through a sacred underground entrance.”

“Fantastic,” she said without enthusiasm. Sometimes the traits of her strongest and most frequent animal shifts tended to leak into her human form. An intense dislike for large bodies of water and swimming were among them. And she was more sensitive to it after having assumed her mountain lion form previous to boarding the submarine.

Just beneath the codex he spread out the map he’d been sketching. “I believe the entrance will be about here. In the Veracruz area, based on the longitude and latitude notes from my mother’s diary. The captain—”

“Monica—” China said, absently watching his lips move as he talked. And watching his lips made her remember how the man could kiss. Lord, could he kiss. And thinking about how he and Monica had been so chummy and talkative on the trip from Caborca to the submarine made her angry.

Maybe he liked the submarine’s captain because she was human, not a Darkin. Either way, she didn’t care. He could have the girl.

“The
captain
,” he continued, “said if we make land here, we will need to cross over the bottom of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range to reach Veracruz.”

“And how are we going to hike across all that jungle in such a short time?”

Remington grinned, and it was breathtaking. The man could power a whole town with the intensity of his smile alone. “You haven’t seen what they’ve got down in the hold, have you?”

“I didn’t make a point of sneakin’ around and bein’ light-fingered if that’s what you’re askin’.” Sure, it sounded a bit snide, but she was in a twist. Nothing had felt right since she got in this tin can. Monica had made it clear from the moment they’d stepped on board that this was her domain and she was in charge. That was pain in the ass number one. China didn’t like people telling her what to do. Especially a beautiful woman who looked at Remington like he was her next meal.

Pain in the ass number two came from the tin can itself. Truth was she’d been so seasick, walking around only made it worse, so she’d confined herself to her makeshift cabin in the map room as much as possible and avoided the mess hall and any smells of food. Since one had to pass the mess hall in route to the hold, she hadn’t bothered.

He ignored her rebuttal completely, just like he’d mostly ignored her for the past three days. China suspected he’d been spending his time talking with the “captain” and looking over his books. Other than a polite howdy-do in the confined passageways of the ship, he’d mostly kept himself too busy to spend any time talking to her, but seemed to be somehow constantly in her space regardless, as if he were checking on her.

“They have one of Marley’s Blasters and a Spider Walker.” She had no idea what he was blathering on about, but his eyes were so bright and his manner so genuinely excited, like a kid on his birthday, that she became infected by his enthusiasm.

“A Blaster, huh? That some sort of gun?”

“It’s based on the technology Marley used in Colt’s Sting Shooter.” China was familiar enough with that little weapon to know it could blow a hole clean through a man from ten feet away with nothing more than an electric shot produced by a Tesla coil. It was like having lightning in your pocket. Dangerous, unstable, and highly effective.

Now he had her attention. “A Blaster sounds like it might be a bit bigger than a Sting Shooter.”

“It is.”

China gave him a cat-in-the-cream smile. It sounded promising. “How big is it?”

“Big enough to shoot a man-sized hole clear through the metal hull of this submarine.”

“Perfect.”

His face turned deadpan. “You’re not shooting the submarine.”

Damn. She’d been hopeful that she might be able to once she was off of it. “Well, not while we’re in it. But I’m sure there’s at least one or two things we’ll need the Blaster for in the deep, dark jungle.”

“Hopefully we’ll be able to travel right over the mountains and jungle in the Spider Walker.”

China screwed her face up. She’d changed into a lot of things before, but never a spider. She didn’t like them. All those eyes and spindly little legs gave her the jitters.

“You all right? You look a little green, like you swallowed a bug.”

China glared at him. The last thing she wanted was for their first major conversation in days to be about how horrible she looked. “How sure are you this Spider Walker thing will work?”

Remington shrugged. “Haven’t any clue. But most of Marley’s inventions are utterly brilliant.”

“Or a horrible failure,” she shot back. “I saw the scars Colt had from a close encounter with one of Marley’s mechanical cacti that Colt says he’s got as security around his place.” She shook her head. “Those were nasty scars.” She intentionally didn’t mention they were on Colt’s ass. Things were already weird enough between her and Remington without bringing up his brother’s intimate body parts.

 

 

Remington knew precisely where Colt had his scars from the mechanical cacti. He’d helped Marley pull the metal barbs out and had held his brother down while Marley stitched him up. His insides curled with a strange, burning heat. What in tarnation was that? Jealousy? He absently rubbed at his stomach, hoping to ease the uncomfortable sensation. “I know the ones.”

Since when had he ever been jealous of one of Colt’s many conquests? Never. That’s when. Usually their taste in women was so completely different, it hadn’t mattered. He liked smart women with a bit of spunk. Colt wasn’t as picky. He liked women so long as they were available and pretty.

She stared at him with those wide gray eyes fringed in sable lashes. “You do?” She swallowed, and he watched the movement down the length of her neck.

So what was it about this Darkin that intrigued him so? When she’d bent over the table, staring at the map, even without a bustle, her derriere had a luscious curve to it. He fisted his hand to keep from touching her. He liked that China wasn’t built like a rail. She had very feminine curves. The dress revealed the silky valley between her breasts. Her skin looked like cream and smelled like vanilla, and he wondered if the spot would taste just as sweet.

Ever since he’d kissed her, inappropriate thoughts had intruded at every opportunity, and he was starting to think he’d never think of vanilla the same way again.

“Why are you staring at me like you want to eat me for dinner?” she asked, her tone breathless.

Remington turned and took a step toward her. China took a step back, putting her smack up against the metal hull of the ship. He stepped in, bracing his palms on the steel wall on either side of her head, trapping her there for a moment in the cage of his arms. But he was well aware caged animals were dangerous.

“You’re an intelligent woman. Why don’t you tell me?”

Her soft pink tongue nervously slicked a trail over her bottom lip. “I think it’s better if you just stop this right now, Jackson. We ain’t fit for one another. You’re a Hunter, I’m a—”

“I know exactly what I am, and what you are,” he growled. “That doesn’t change a damn thing. Neither does the fact that you were with Colt. Are we clear?”

“Crystal cl—”

 

 

He fit his mouth over hers, hot and intense. The scrape of his teeth against her bottom lip nearly lifted China up off the floor. Muscle memory flooded back, and her body went from stiff and annoyed to pliable and needy in mere heartbeats.

In a single, mind-bending kiss, he was able to reach in, take her heart, and twist it inside out.

His hand slid from the wall to the bare expanse of her shoulder, where he spun slow intimate circles over her skin with the pad of his thumb. Each spiral undid her resolve a little more. He pulled back and gazed into her face, his eyes twin points of blue flame that seared away her common sense. She wanted him to kiss her, to touch her.

But it would only lead to heartbreak, her common sense insisted. Colt had proven that. Even if Hunters and Darkin occasionally dallied with one another, it never lasted. It couldn’t. But wouldn’t he be worth it? Just once, her body argued back.

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to ignore you?” The rough timbre of his voice crept beneath her reserve and made her quiver. No. She would not give in. Being stubborn was one of her best traits.

So ignoring her
had
been deliberate. Interesting. Perhaps Remington Jackson was not as hard and cold as he appeared to be. Perhaps an actual heart beat beneath that broad chest. But it was too little too late. She spread her fingers on his chest, intending to push him out of what little air space she had left, and instead felt the rapid, hard knock of his heart against her palm.

“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and personally I always found the easy way works best for me. You can let me go, or I can make you let me go.” She said it with more bravado than she felt. She was perilously close to the edge of giving in.

He laughed at that and leaned down, bringing his fantastic mouth a hair’s breadth away from hers. “Maybe when I’m done with you, China McGee, you won’t want me to let you go.” Remington brushed his lips back and forth against hers, so lightly she found herself leaning in for more.

He moved before she could kiss him, his mouth trailing searing kisses across her cheek and jaw, then down her throat. They grew hungrier and more demanding the farther down they went. Try as she might to rein her body in with her mind, her determined libido was having none of it.

China squirmed. “And what if I resist you?”

His hands spread and flexed on either side of her rib cage—a most inappropriate and welcome corset, his thumbs brushing against the soft underside of her breasts in unison. She gasped at the sensation, wishing once again that she wasn’t wearing a dress. Her breasts tightened, waiting for and wanting his touch, the points becoming hard. Desire flared in his eyes.

She found her legs giving way, her body sagging against the wall for support. His hands moved lower, resting against the indention of her waist, holding her up, lifting her against him. His eyes had grown softer, sexier, as the lids dropped partially down.

“You won’t resist,” he said, his tone half cocky, half a rumble that amped up her need to feel him against her. “You want to know how I know?”

She leaned into him, her hands twining about his shoulders, and nodded. “I have tells?”

He chuckled. “You mean besides the blush that turns your skin to strawberries and cream or these?” He reached up and gently rolled a hardened nipple between his fingers. China arched her head back at the onslaught, barely able to breathe. “I know because when I kiss you properly, you start to fall apart in my hands.”

He followed up on his assessment with a practical demonstration of his talents as he kissed slowly and with deliberation down the length of her neck and across the tops of her breasts. The warmth of his mouth shot a surge of heat spiraling through her from the tips of her breasts to the apex of her thighs. China was beginning to realize that as cold as Remington had been in the midst and aftermath of battle, he was equally as hot now—all intensity.

The whirr of the engines made the air within the submarine vibrate with a hum she could feel to her very core. The throbbing sensation intensified, a most pleasurable discomfort. Remington cupped her bottom in his hands and in one smooth motion lifted her up and spun around, brushing the charts aside with a sweep of his arm and sitting her neatly on the table. He kissed her again, muddling her mind and making her hyper-aware of the flavor of him.

China scooted to the edge of the table, letting him step in between her legs. She wrapped her legs over his butt and rocked against him to ease her torment. It didn’t work. All it did was make it worse.

“So what are we going to do about it?” She barely managed to get the words out, her voice husky and heavy with need.

His sinful mouth tipped up at the edge in a way that made her stomach swoop. “Let me show you.”

Remington’s hands disappeared beneath the black fabric of China’s skirt, inching it up higher to pool around his forearms as his fingers skimmed up along the dainty turn of her ankles and the sweet curve of her calves. He didn’t need to see to be able to feel . . . and he only needed to feel to imagine.

Her bare skin was silky and hot, especially behind her knees. She shivered beneath his fingers, and her hot, sweet breath fanned his face. “Maybe this dress wasn’t such a bad idea after all,” she murmured.

“I know.” He kissed her lightly, touching his forehead to hers and looking into her eyes. They were fierce and bright, desire bringing a delightful blush to not just her rosy cheeks, but to her neck and the pale skin of her plump breasts. He really couldn’t resist any longer.

“You are exquisite.”

China gave a husky laugh, the movement of her body rasping her damp heat against him. “I ain’t ever been called that before.”

“A shame. Especially considering how perfect you are.” Though she looked as fragile and beautiful as a porcelain doll, her skin as clear and smooth as any doll’s, China was far from breakable or brittle. She was pliant and soft, and he sought out her lush mouth for another kiss, like a thirsty man in the desert needed water.

“Now you’re just sweet-talkin’ me, ’cause I know I ain’t perfect.”

“You’re perfect for me.”

Just her touch, the fragrance of her skin, the small sounds she made as he skimmed his fingers along her inner thigh made him hyper aware of how much he’d been missing when it came to women. Oh, he’d enjoyed them, yes. But none had given him a sense of power, a sense that he could change their world with a flick of his fingers. And yet it wasn’t the power that humbled him, but the sense that he wanted to please her like no one else ever had. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch, a need he couldn’t satisfy until he saw her come completely undone in his arms.

He moved his hand from beneath her skirt and slid it over her shoulder, slipped the strap that held her bodice firm in place down her arm. China made a low growling sound deep in her body that resonated through his chest and trebled his desire to touch her. He was hot and so damn hard he could have chopped wood. He didn’t want to ruin her gown, but he wanted it out of the way, the sooner, the better. Somewhere in the recesses of his logical mind, he realized he had her up on the chart table, and that anyone could happen upon them if they merely opened the door. Another part of his mind reminded him how dangerous she could be. She was still Darkin and he was taking a tremendous risk, leaving himself vulnerable to a possible attack by her.

He didn’t give a damn. Not now. Not when she was shimmering in his hands. One slow, persistent pull on the upper edge of her bodice bared her right breast. As he’d suspected the hardened peak he’d felt earlier was a soft rosy pink. Score one for his imagination. Her lashes fluttered shut as she tilted her head back, her mouth open, her breath coming in pants.

He filled his hand with her breast, indulging himself with the warm silky weight of it. But if one was good, two were better. He slid the other strap off her left shoulder and exposed her left breast to his hungry gaze as well.

There was no point in resisting; the pulse thrummed so loudly in his ears, he was deaf to all other sounds. He laved the hardened nub of her breast with his tongue, enjoying the sweet, salty taste of her skin on his lips. China rose up off the table, arching, her heat rubbing against him, making him flex and buck in response. He wanted to sink in deep and wrap himself in her wet heat and never leave.

His kiss wasn’t soft, nor was it slow, but revealed the full fury of the raging inferno inside him. He moved to tear the dress from her, to feast on her. And China gave as good as she got. Her nails scored his skin straight through his shirt, and she nipped at his bottom lip then suckled it as she drew him up flush against her, her bare breasts pressing against his chest.

“Jackson!” Monica called out. Remington stiffened as if he’d been hit. “Jackson, we’ve made land.” The captain’s voice echoed on the metal hull of the submarine. He and China broke apart, both breathing hard and fast. They locked gazes, and the lightning there between them could have burned the place down had it not been made totally of metal.

“What in the hell was that?” China said between breaths.

“The captain.”

“I know it was her! Where? Has she been watching us the whole time?”

He glanced to the door and shifted his position, making sure China had time to cover herself as he waited for the wheel on the door to turn, expecting Monica to step through at any moment. When she didn’t, he frowned in confusion. He’d plainly heard her, just as China had.

“Mr. Jackson, I know you can hear me. Everyone on the ship can hear me. Please pick up the speaking tube.” He swiveled, glancing up, and realized a brass horn, rather like the horn on a gramophone, was positioned on the wall just behind his head. He could only assume Monica meant the long, black braided chord attached to a smaller version of the brass tube. He picked up the smaller horn and spoke into it. “Jackson here.”

“Finally. I thought I was going to have to come and locate you. We’ve made the point. I can get us close to shore here, but you’ll need to assist with unloading the Spider Walker.”

He glanced at China. Her gray eyes sparkled like diamonds, bright with desire. Her lips were bee-stung and swollen from their kisses, and her bare breasts rose and fell with the fast rhythm of her breath. He wanted to tell Monica to go to Hell, or at least wait an hour.

But dallying with China wasn’t what he was here for. He was here to recover Elwin’s piece of the Book of Legend. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” He could not resist kissing her just once more. Five minutes wasn’t going to tip the fate of the world.

 

 

The engines slowed, the constant
thrum
growing slower and slower until the hulk of the ship came to a stop. He hadn’t realized the motion of the ship had affected him so, but now that they were simply bobbing about like a cork, his limbs had an uncharacteristic lightness to them, as if they’d somehow fallen asleep. But perhaps that had as much to do with having touched China as it did with the machine. She sure affected him more.

He walked briskly toward the top decks of the submarine. Monica came wheeling around the corner and joined him as they marched to the entrance hatch.

“We should be able to see the coast from here and determine the best place to lay in so we can unload.” She gave a hand signal to her crewman, who began to twist a series of wheels on the wall.

With the mechanical clank and click of several gears, the secondary entrance hatch used when out in the water, opened above them. Natural light flooded in, making them all squint at the unbridled brightness. Monica ascended first. He followed, climbing the metal rungs quickly. They stood together on the narrow teak platform and stared out at the ridge of land before them.

It was an endless stretch of pale golden sand and jumbles of gray and tan rock, turquoise and sapphire surf rolling into lacy white waves, and verdant jungle as far as the eye could see.

“Welcome to the Gulf of Tehuantepec,” Monica said with a touch of pride. “See, I told you I could get us here.”

Remington heard the rustle of fabric behind him and saw China had climbed the rungs to join them. “How can you tell we ain’t just washed up on some deserted tropical island?”

Monica arched a brow, the breeze buffeting her dark hair about her face. “I run these waters with my father once every month. My instruments give me bearings. And the sea floor starts to climb just past this point and becomes much shallower. This is the best point for us to bring the submarine closer in to land.”

The deep blue waters split before the bullnose of the submarine, peeling apart into frothy white waves that formed a V-shaped wake. The smell of brine above mingled with that of engine oil coming from the staler air below. China shivered, and Remington put his arm around her and tucked her into his side.

Monica lifted her chin into the wind and pointed to a spot where the water was darker around the rim of land. “We’ll pull onto the beach there and open the forward hatch. We should be able to pull out and assemble the Spider Walker quickly.” She glanced at them. “Then you two can be on your way.”

Remington placed a hand on Monica’s shoulder. “You don’t know how much your help has meant, Captain.”

Monica shrugged and looked back at the beach. “Don’t be flattered, Mr. Jackson. I didn’t do any of it for you, or for Miss McGee. I did it because my Uncle Diego dedicated his life to restoring the Book of Legend. For him, my father and I have made this journey and helped your cause.” She flicked her suddenly fierce gaze at him. “Do not disappoint us.”

She turned and headed back down the rungs, leaving Remington and China alone on the upper view deck. “Do you think it’s even possible?”

“Assembling the Spider Walker on a beach or reuniting the Book of Legend?” he teased.

China swatted at his chest. “Reuniting the Book, of course.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve discovered as a Hunter, it’s that anything is possible.”

 

 

They pulled the individual mechanical legs of the Spider Walker out of the hull one at a time, each one requiring four people to move it. The bulbous body and brass-rimmed glass canopy that topped it each came out separately.

China grimaced. “Are you certain we need this thing?”

Remington smiled. “I take it spiders aren’t your favorite thing.”

“It would have been easier if they’d had a giant mechanical jaguar or even a mechanical parrot for us to fly. Besides, I thought you didn’t like mechanical things—like Tempus.”

He shook his head and laughed. “A horse is a far different thing. I’d take a real one of those any day over Colt’s mechanical version. But I’ll mention the jaguar and parrot to Marley next time I see him. Until then I can be quite satisfied in this machine. I don’t especially care for it, but this should help get us up those hills.”

Farther inland stark gray and tan points rose up out of the lush green vegetation. Monica wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. “Here, Miss McGee; make yourself useful.” She handed China a wrench.

China grumbled beneath her breath. She and mechanical things rarely got along well. Give her a good gun, a few explosives, and some inside information on how to sneak into a place, and she could accomplish far more than she could with a dozen wrenches and screwdrivers.

She bent down and started turning the lug nuts on the bolts Monica had indicated. They spun off and fell into the sand, causing China to curse as she dug through the gritty sand to find them and brushed off the metal rings on the hem of her black dress. Monica sighed. “Righty tighty, lefty loosey,” she admonished.

China shot a glare at her the minute Monica’s back was turned.
Righty tighty, my ass. How about a nice right upper cut? That would fix things nicely.
It would make her feel better at any rate. The nut became harder and harder to turn. “This ain’t working,” she muttered loudly. China frowned at the wrench. She knew it wasn’t Monica’s fault she didn’t possess a drop of mechanical skill, but it felt better to rail at her in her mind all the same.

Truth was, China didn’t like feeling as if she were the outsider. Of course that had been a near constant state her entire life. Among the humans she was an outsider because she was a bastard. Among the Darkin she was an outsider because she was marked by Rathe. She was a thief. She had no family.

Remington’s large hand covered hers. China glanced up into his face, and every touch came rushing back with a vengeance, making her shake. “It’s just cross-threaded. Here, let me help you.”

He used his strong fingers to twist the nut back, freeing it up. Somewhere deep inside her a small flicker of hope kindled into a flame. No one had ever watched out for her before. It was something so refreshing, so utterly new that she was afraid to believe it was real. “Thank you,” she said softly.

He offered her a patented Jackson smile that could charm a habit off a nun. “My pleasure.”

China’s heart sped up, and her cheeks heated. A soft step of a boot in the sand caused them both to look up.

“How’s it going? We’ve got two more legs before we can raise up the body pod.”

“Almost finished here,” Remington replied.

Monica’s mouth turned down at the edges. “You’d better get her out of the sun. She looks like she’s burning.”

China muttered underneath her breath and attacked the rest of the nuts and bolts on the mechanical leg with renewed vigor.

Remington grabbed hold of her hand, keeping her from using her wrench. She glared up at him. “What am I doing wrong now?”

His mouth cracked a lopsided smile. “Not a damn thing. I just wanted to tell you not to take the captain’s criticism personally. She’s that way with everyone, not just you.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

He chucked her under the chin with his finger. “Chin up. You’ve got other skills she can’t possibly match. And they’re ones I need far more.”

The compliment hit China all wrong. She didn’t want to be accepted or appreciated because of what she could do—or who she was or wasn’t. She wanted to be appreciated for just being herself. She nodded stiffly and returned to work.

 

 

It didn’t take them too much longer to get the rest of the Spider Walker assembled. Small metal steps stuck out of the Spider’s front legs like stiff hairs, allowing China and Remington to climb up into the body pod, which housed two cushion seats in black leather with high backs, a panel full of brass levers used to maneuver the machine, a special transponder unit to communicate with the submarine, and the bulbous glass dome that hinged down over them and locked in place with a curved bolt lock. A hole directly behind the chairs in the pod wall was designed to fit the Blaster. It would power up the boiler, which comprised the majority of the spider’s abdomen. Their supply packs were stored beneath their chairs.