“Mother—where have you buried her?” The question was pulled from her. She wanted to call the words back and swallow them—they conveyed weakness.
“She is on the ridge behind the house. The sun shines on her all day long, Bone. She is safe,” Bullet murmured.
Mother hadn’t been ready for the mission Joseph sent her on. The little Jewish girl from the streets of Tel-Aviv had taken care of the babies when Bone had been away, hence her name, Mother. She’d never been a killer. She had simply been another tool for Joseph to hurt First Team. Minton had taken the young girl’s life and left Bullet to bury her.
If she could resurrect him she would give up whatever part of her soul was left for the simple pleasure of snapping his neck over and over again.
Dmitry reached for and covered the hand holding the knife, pressing it to the table. “You are bleeding, Etzem. Perhaps it is time to fight?”
“I am happy to have taken him,” she said so softly she wondered if anyone heard.
“Yes,” Dmitry replied.
She looked up at him then and lost her breath. The man understood her in a way few others ever had or would. Why now? She had more to do and could yet lose her life in the process. Dmitry deserved someone softer—someone not versed in a thousand different ways to take life.
He pushed his chair back and walked around the table, heading for the doorway but not looking back. She followed, not glancing at her sisters or their men. She concentrated instead on quelling the virulent ache rising in her blood.
Her body softened, preparing—but for what? The lust on her tongue had a different flavor. It wasn’t the sour yearning to feel endings. It was a lighter, more colorful desire to know a beginning.
Dmitry walked with purpose, his wide shoulders a lighthouse in the midst of her present storm. She was on a hair trigger, unable to suppress the contrasting desires raging inside her body. She followed because she was unable to do anything else.
Fight, fight, fight, her soul demanded.
Do not harm him, her heart cautioned.
She was wary of the differences in her need. The unknown mocked her. She was a killer. It was all she knew, all she had ever known, all she wanted to know. Yet the blue of his eyes and the taste of his kiss urged her seek more.
She had told him earlier she didn’t know what it was to be afraid. Yet each time Minton strung her up on that cliff in Arequipa, she’d known the soul-rending thump of it. It mattered not how she yelled or struggled. Those ropes were her bane and her salvation and the simple truth was it had been fear that locked her muscles and kept her from falling.
She had prayed for the end so many times that when faced with a beginning she had no knowledge of how to respond. The end she could handle and was wholly prepared to meet with blood on her hands and hate in her heart. But now she was afloat in a sea of uncertainty. Not knowing how to move forward or back she decided to take refuge in what she did know…fighting.
With the miasma of emotion tearing through her, she doubted she could control the demon demanding bloodlust. She would have to ask Dmitry’s forgiveness before they danced with one another.
Bone watched him disappear through a doorway and followed, her footsteps sure, her heart anything but. She entered a workout room of some sort. Various instruments of health and fitness lined the walls of the enormous space. The ceiling was vaulted, with intermittent hooks dotting the pristine whiteness. From those hooks hung several ropes.
Kill, kill, kill, the demon demanded.
She forced herself to look away lest she adhere to the mantra and become death. Dmitry offered her surcease from the violent winds whipping at her. She would not kill him—not this man who saw more inside her than she damn well knew was there.
Insight took her breath.
He’d introduced her to something she’d never known—not on the plains of Jericho, or within the stone embrace of Masada, not in the entire world. This man with eyes that reminded her of the day she became nothing more than a death-bringer. This man with his kisses that upended her heart, spilling out emotions she’d never imagined she could feel.
He’d introduced her to hope.
Her fists clenched and she looked back to the ropes. Remember, she told herself. He cannot have you—you could be the death of him. And he would hate her when he discovered the truth of who she was and what she had done, indeed, what she was going to do.
“I am versed in all manner of warfare, Etzem. Where should we begin?” he asked in a low voice.