Underground Warrior (20 page)

“Uh-huh!” Sibyl insisted. “Back when you had your father frame me for the fire
you
started, the death
you
caused. It was all too pat. Too many important people believed the lie on less than circumstantial evidence. Too many parole hearings went against me. The Comitatus tied it up so neatly,
I
almost believed it!”

But Trace hadn’t. He hadn’t believed.

She leaned into the brace of his side, under the shelter of his arm. Right where, despite her earlier fears, she hoped she might stay.

“So I started researching,” she continued. “Trying to understand. And I found the Comitatus. I found them before I ever found the exiles. And I would’ve destroyed you, too—if it weren’t for the hope that these guys have given me.”

She looked way, way up. One guy in particular.

Trace tipped his face, swarthy and whisker-shadowed, toward hers. Then he used his free hand to pivot her, scoop her up and against him, and finally covered her mouth with his. And…yes.

Sibyl had thought the kisses in his bedroom had moved her world. But now that she knew everything, now that she trusted Trace for who he was—a warrior, a hero, a
man
—and not despite it, she all but dissolved against him. Why not let him take over? Why not sink into his strength, open herself to his power, be his?

If, after all her mistakes, he was willing to be hers.

Her arms wrapped around the back of his neck, to hold herself up. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her calves hard against his tight, blue-jeaned butt. His tongue invaded, conquered, and she welcomed him.

Yes…

Until a sudden lurch, accompanied by Trace’s sudden abandonment of her mouth, woke her back to the moment. And to the fact that Trace had seen something suspicious from Dillon, even in the midst of that incredible kiss. Trace now had the sword of Roland against Dillon’s throat.

Dillon dropped the saber he’d managed to pick up, during their distraction.

For perhaps the first time since childhood, here in the lair of the Comitatus, Sibyl felt safe.

“What do you want, Sib?” Trace asked, his voice rough and merciless—toward Dillon. The free arm that still held her to his broad chest almost cuddled her, in contrast. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

Slowly, Sibyl unlocked her ankles and slid back down his body until her boots hit the gleaming floor. She kind of wanted to kick the jerk again. But considering the situation they were in, she had a better idea.

“Make him confess publicly. Please. I know what happened, logically. I’ve read his version of it in the archives. But I…I want to hear him say it. I want
them
to hear it.”

The bulging muscles in Trace’s arm barely flexed, but Dillon whimpered.

“You heard the lady.” Trace smiled. “Talk.”

From somewhere behind them, Mitch said, “Let me get my camera phone…got it!”

And Dillon talked.

Sibyl didn’t realize just how badly she’d needed this, nor for how long, until she felt the tears dripping off her chin—and felt Trace wipe them away with one rough thumb.

Chapter 14

H
e probably shouldn’t have kissed her.

With the impression of her lips still tingling on his, Trace had a hard time fully appreciating that. But he had a hard time appreciating algebra and physics, too. That didn’t make them any less true.

She’d already said she didn’t want any more to do with him, after learning he’d kept Dillon’s secret. She’d been vulnerable just now. So he shouldn’t have kissed her, no matter how sexy he found her determination here, in the midst of Comitatus territory, or her beautifully executed kick to Dillon’s face.

No matter how certain the sword of Roland made him feel in his grip, between him and their enemy.

Vulnerable,
he had to remind himself.

He only learned just
how
vulnerable when Dillon Charles began his halting confession. Sibyl had already told the story. Her father’s death. Her imprisonment. But hearing it from Dillon’s mouth…!

The idiot tried to make himself the victim?

“I was stupid,” he admitted—of the cheating. “I didn’t understand honor yet. I was…scared.”

Yeah, like with the tip of the sword of Roland against his throat he was scared? Trace considered how easy it would be to just slip. A tiny cut to the carotid artery, and
splash.
Vengeance for Sibyl.

But Sibyl lay her small, soft hand on his sword arm, just barely shook her head. “What about the adults?”

Confusion warred with Dillon’s obvious fear of the sword. “What?”

“Your father prosecuted me. Judge LaSalle convicted me. The school administrators, the police, the parole boards. They weren’t young and scared, were they? Assuming fear was even a good excuse for doing what you did.”

Dillon’s face, strained up and away from the blade, seemed to seek the right answer. But his mouth formed nothing Trace could hear.

“They were cruel,” Sibyl answered for him. “No, worse…they were
indifferent.
The ancient code of the Comitatus gave them wealth and power because they were best suited to manage it, because they needed it to take care of everyone else. Even at your most ‘honorable,’ did you ever put the less fortunate ahead of yourself? Not just me—twelve years old, my father dead, falsely convicted. Anyone?”

Dillon’s mouth opened. Closed. Twisted with misery.

“I didn’t think so.”

And Sibyl turned her back on the man who’d ruined her life, and she tipped her gaze to Trace’s. “That’s it. Thank you. I’m done.”

But he didn’t lower his sword. He wouldn’t trust Dillon with something as precious as Sibyl, even if this
was
it. If she
were
done…with everything Comitatus.

Including him.

“He needs to do more,” Trace insisted. “He needs to promise you’ll be safe.”

When Dillon made a gargling noise, Smith said, “I don’t think he can promise anything until he can talk again.”

So Trace pulled the sword back. Just barely.

“She’s the one who trespassed!” Dillon’s hand, flying to his throat, left a slight, red smear. Oops. “You’re the ones who helped her. And you’re asking us for favors?”

Sibyl caught Trace’s arm before he could silence the jerk with his sword again. “For justice. There’s a difference.”

“Let’s call the police and press charges, and you’ll see justice! With your record?” He pointed at Sibyl, then pointed at Trace. “And your…your brutality? We’ll…”

But he trailed off against the sound of his own disembodied voice. “…so I got her locker’s combination out of the headmaster’s office, and I snuck in after hours to set it up. I got the instructions out of one of those anarchist crazy books—can of spray paint, timer, stuff like that—and I figured, hey, it’d just be a little explosion….”

Mitch silenced his cell phone’s playback, and whistled. “Fifty-seven hits already on the video-sharing site where I posted it. I sure hope you don’t belong to some group that could be implicated in your confession there, Dillon.”

Dillon’s face flushed as he leapt to his feet, practically ignoring the sword now. “You
common narc!
”

“Nah, that would be Trace. The common part, not the narc part. No offense.”

“None taken,” grunted Trace to his friend—and kept the sword of Roland cleanly between Dillon and the others.

“I,” Mitch reminded everyone, “am one of the blue bloods. Oh, well. Guess we aren’t as perfect as we like to think. Sixty-two hits.”

“I’ve got connections!” Dillon insisted, his movements increasingly wide, increasingly less controlled. “I know people in the District Attorney’s office!”

“Not as well as you think.” That was Dillon’s friend Morgan, the one with the pretty face. “And some of us with the D.A. sure as hell don’t know you. Look—” This he said, turning to Sibyl and the exiles. “I can’t promise to control everyone. You should probably stay out of the state for a while, just to be safe. But this young woman has suffered far more than anyone should have to, just to cover someone else’s butt. As long as I’m in the Comitatus, I’ll fight any motions for retribution. Agreed?”

Sibyl said nothing. And Trace was pretty sure Morgan was talking to her.

“Ms. Daine?” he prompted.

Just as Trace began to really worry, Sibyl asked, “How do I know I can trust you?”

Morgan winced. Dillon’s other second said, “Because we take honor seriously.” Dr. David rolled his eyes at the foolishness of that statement.

Morgan said, “I don’t know how to convince you that people like Dillon Charles, here—and the folks who helped him—are the exception instead of the rule. That some of us really are striving for decency. I don’t know who to hold up as an example….”

Which is when Sibyl looked over her shoulder at Smith, at Mitch—and, longest, at Trace. “I’d do anything for at least one of you.”

Did she mean…

Then she turned back to Morgan and offered her hand. “I agree.”

Things got blurry for Sibyl after that. Not while it was happening—the adrenaline of her situation, of the breaking and entering, of the stolen papers in her bag, of the swordfight, gave the next few hours a clarity so sharp, it might have been in high definition.

Morgan—and Smith—left together with Dillon, to allow him the small dignity of turning himself in rather than face a public arrest. According to Morgan, the statute of limitations for Dillon’s arson would have run out, had nobody died in the fire. Because of the manslaughter of Sibyl’s father, Dillon Charles would most certainly face charges.

It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t bring her daddy back, or mend her broken family, or return her lost years. But it was more than Sibyl had ever truly believed she would get.

Mitch made a quick phone call to Arden Leigh and Val Diaz, who met them for coffee and beignets in a café along the Mississippi River. To Sibyl’s surprise, Arden gave her a big, earnest hug and a kiss on the cheek, and even Val clapped her on the shoulder and said, “Way to go, kid.”

As if they’d come here not to support the men, but…her?

Sibyl hadn’t realized how hungry she’d gotten since sneaking into the Arsenal the evening before, until she took that first bite. While the others discussed the wisdom of heading back to Texas as soon as possible, and Mitch looked over some of the papers she’d “liberated” from the archives, Sibyl ate almost as much as Trace.

“This is amazing,” Mitch exclaimed—more than once—as he examined some of the oldest documents. “Do you realize that with this, we know what families had at least ten, no, a dozen of the swords? We can go out searching for them!”

“Why?” asked Val simply. Despite her protests that she didn’t care for Mitch—who obviously liked her— Sibyl noticed that Val had sat immediately across from the blond man instead of in the empty chair to the other side of Trace.

Good.
Stay away from Trace.

“Because these swords represent what the Comi—what the Schmomitatus once was. What they can be again. Maybe if we find them, we can find other aspects of honor that we lost. Maybe even other exiles.”

Which is when, just like that, the adrenaline wore off…and Sibyl felt herself sag, caffeine or no caffeine, against Trace’s side.

“Yeah, well, before that, I think a couple of you need some sleep,” noted Val drily.

Which was the last piece of clarity Sibyl had, until she woke up in a hotel room bed…wrapped not just in a comforter, but in the heavier, dearer warmth and weight of Trace Beaudry.

An orange light came through the high window but, not having paid attention to the hotel’s orientation when he brought her back here, Sibyl had no idea if she were looking at sunrise, or sunset. How long had she slept?

And what had she done to deserve someone like Trace, protecting her even in his sleep, even after everything she’d called him, every way she’d deceived him?

The room around them could belong to any number of decent motel chains. She didn’t care. It could be a honeymoon suite for all that it mattered…or a cave.

Luckily, she or someone else had taken off her cowboy boots before exhaustion had claimed her. She braced a bare foot on Trace’s thick, blue-jeaned leg to give herself the leverage she needed to arch upward for his mouth and kiss his surprisingly soft, sleeping lips.

The chatter of her thoughts melted to silent bliss. Halfway through, Trace seemed to wake up. But that just resulted in a deepening of the kiss. More pressure. Tongue. He rolled while he kissed her back, all but trapping her between the mattress and the hard weight of him, but she didn’t fear him. She felt safe against his masculinity, not fearful.

She also felt powerfully aroused.

“I love you,” she whispered up to him, when his lips released hers long enough for them to catch their breath. His sleepy eyes, gazing down into hers, widened, but she couldn’t chicken out now. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest at first. I’m sorry I was so suspicious. I lov—”

But the kiss with which he silenced her returned the sentiment tenfold. And when she tugged at his T-shirt, wanting to span her hands across his wide, hairy chest… When he slid his hands up her bare back, tugging off her shirt and rasping his cheek across her sensitive, soft breasts… When she fumbled at the waistband of his straining jeans, her thighs itchy with a need only he could soothe…

After preparing her with several juicy orgasms, Trace eventually, tenderly slid himself into her, claiming her completely for himself. When his gasps deepened into growls, his strokes turned into thrusts and his control became a shuddering shout of surrender…

Finally, Isabel “Sibyl” Daine was home.

Trace had saved her, all right.

He’d saved her from far more than she’d ever known to fear.

“I’ll get rid of the sword,” he whispered afterward, his voice sandpaper, as he cuddled her tenderly against his chest. “I’ll stop helping Smith and Mitch. You shouldn’t have to be reminded of that damned—of those damned you-know-who’s….”

Even now, he was keeping his vow of secrecy to them, wasn’t he? Even after she knew as much, or more, than he did.