So she would run again.
Another caress along the curl he held and then, “I can feel you getting ready to move. Your muscles have gone lax and your breathing has slowed. It is a singular oddity among you and your sisters—instead of your muscles bunching and drawing in to prepare, you go still and soft. It is quite unexpected. Tell me, Bone, will you fight with me or flee?”
She snorted. “I will not fight you. Do you think I have allowed you to live each time we’ve met only to take you now?”
His breath brushed her cheek again as his big body meshed against her back. She wanted to curve into him, let his strength surround her and carry her through her trials. The heat, the strength, the need. It was all there between them.
“You cannot fight without killing?”
She glanced at him, wished she hadn’t. “It is a challenge, Asinimov.”
He smiled. “So you will flee, da?”
She said nothing, just continued to take measured breaths, her body hounded by the one thing it could never have. She hated the weakness, indeed, tasted the need to harm rise in her heart and eclipse her mind with its red haze.
Hurt others before they hurt you and you will survive. Joseph’s words tortured her now. He had trained her personally until she had become too strong for him to spar. She’d been a foot and half shorter and a good one hundred fifty pounds lighter than Joseph, yet she’d been stronger, faster, more instinctive in her movements. He’d recognized it by her eighth birthday and stopped training her, turning her over instead to another, more brutal taskmaster.
She shook the memories off.
“Who is next on your list, Bone?” he asked against her neck.
“Step away from me,” she demanded in a low, cajoling tone.
“Who is next?”
“You are a dog with a—” She caught her words and sighed.
He laughed and it moved through her body in a slow, warm tide. Surely it was the most stunning feeling she’d ever had.
“A bone? Yes, well, I do have one in my hands now, correct?”
His tone was teasing. The situation was anything but.
She turned then, took two steps back and lifted her face. He was stunning. The carved features of his face, thrown in relief by the night lights of St. Petersburg, made her heart beat harder. His gaze narrowed, expression going bleak.
For the laugh he’d just blessed her with, there was no happiness on his face. He was completely shut down.
“Come with me to Virginia, kostolomochka moja.” It seemed a plea wrapped in a command. My little Bone Breaker he called her. The name made her want to smile.
She knew every way to kill it seemed, but this man made her want to live and it hurt.
“No.” She shook her head. “Not yet. Death calls and it is time to mete out punishments. You know this, Dmitry, and yet you refuse to stop this insane crusade of yours. Leave me to this and we, all of us, will be better off. If you persist, we will dance and I will win. I have no choice,” she whispered.
“There are always choices. Do not hide behind your fear to make the right one,” he warned. “Your sisters sent me. They are worried you are losing sight of the goal.”
Anger exploded in her mind. He did this to her—made her experience so many emotions all at once that she couldn’t comprehend the depth and scope of her rage. “Then perhaps they should come tell me themselves? I have been known to kill messengers.”
“Do not make me hurt you, Bone,” he implored, his deep voice smoke over sandpaper. That he mimicked her words from moments ago gave her pause.
Hurt, hurt ,hurt…she was comfortable with that.
She cocked her head and stared at him. “Pain is nothing but a reminder that I was created for death. It is my alpha and omega—my beginning and my end. My heart craves it, my soul requires it. If you thought the prospect of pain would draw me in line, Dmitry Asinimov, you were wrong.”
She struck before she could question the need not to. One, two, three, she hit him with her closed fist, first to the side of the head, the next two to the gut. She sidestepped and went low, aiming a kick at his hip. He stumbled, clearly unprepared for her attack but gained his balance within seconds.
He spun to meet her next blow, blocking the swing of her arm. The force she’d swung with combined with his re-direction turned her. This gave him her back for mere seconds and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest and squeezing. She didn’t draw in a breath, rather she pushed out, because if he squeezed as she breathed out he had the upper hand. Bone aimed a kick backward at his knee as she swung her head back. She connected with his knee and his nose. Not hard enough to maim but she’d hurt him. He grunted and released her, shoving her away.
She glanced up as he shuffled and then once again he was coming, tackling her to the ground but bearing the brunt of the fall.