Three
Baran edged closer, making up the distance she’d put between them as his mind ticked through his alternatives. He had a set of force restraints in his pocket, but he’d rather try to charm her first.
Jane, however, was not in the mood to be charmed. “Yeah, well, I think the only one I need protecting from is you,” she told him, obviously doing her best to hide her nerves under a shell of cool courage. “I’m not bluffing. Get out, or I’m calling the cops.”
Baran frowned. He couldn’t allow her to contact the authorities. Arousing their suspicions would make his job even more difficult. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Let’s find out.” Jane whirled and bolted for the stairs.
Baran growled a curse and lunged forward, grabbing her wrist and spinning her around. “No.”
“Let go!” she snarled, and went directly for his eyes with her free hand, fingers curled into claws. She had to reach up to do it.
He snatched her hand out of the air and curled a lip in warning. The ferocity in his gaze would have instantly quelled a woman of his own time. Jane just bared her teeth and tried to knee him in the balls.
He barely sidestepped in time. “If you don’t stop this, I’m going to put you in restraints!”
“Try it and draw back a nub!” She darted her head toward his hand, evidently planning to sink in her teeth.
Baran jerked out of range and put her wrists together, transferring them into the grip of one fist. “Fine. Restraints it is.”
Jane threw herself back, trying to drag free of his grip, but he held her easily. Given his enhanced strength, there was no way she could escape. She struggled anyway, brown eyes blazing at him. “You can’t do this, you son of a bitch!”
“Watch me.” Maybe after he tied her up, she’d see sense. Baran reached for a back pocket.
“No!” she spat, and launched her knee at his crotch again. This time she actually made contact with his thigh, though she was the one who grunted in pain at the impact. “What are you, the Man of Steel? Dammit, let go!”
“That’s it!” Before Jane could kick him again, Baran used his grip on her wrists to snatch her off her feet, swing her around, and force her back toward the bed a few feet away. Ignoring her shrieks and kicks, he pushed her down on the mattress and dropped on top of her, flattening her with his greater weight. “Now. You’ll listen,” he growled, riding her slim body grimly as she bucked and fought.
“Do you have any idea of the kind of time you’ll get for this?” she gritted through her teeth, glaring into his eyes. “And don’t think I won’t press charges!”
Despite his anger, he felt a niggle of admiration. She might not know what a Warlord was, but she was perfectly aware he outweighed her by a hundred pounds. It was hard not to admire a woman who wouldn’t give up even when she was so obviously overmatched. “Calm down, Jane. I’m only trying to protect you.”
“Yeah, right, you’ve got my best interests at heart!” She squirmed. In contrast to her rage, her full, soft breasts pressed against his chest so tightly he thought he could feel the bumps of her nipples through her clothing. His cock hardened as he lay in the cradle of her long legs. “That’s obvious from the way you broke into my house and threatened to tie me up!”
His irritation took on an edge of heat. “Judging from your taste in reading material, I’d think you’d like that.”
She froze under him, her eyes going wide at the taunt. As he watched, a mortified blush spread up her face. “You read my book?”
Frustrated and aroused, he gave her his darkest grin. “Oh, yeah. Want to act any of it out?”
Great. Just great. Break-and-Enter Boy had been flipping through her romance novel, and now he thought she was easy pickings.
Jane fought angry tears. Her legs hung off the end of the bed, and the burglar’s powerful torso rode between them. He felt so damn big, so damn strong, so damn hard as he pressed her into the mattress. If he was the killer, she was dead.
But she still wasn’t a coward. “Creep,” she growled, feeling completely helpless, but damned if she’d show it.
He took a deep breath, visibly trying to rein in his temper. “I realize you’re frightened. I don’t blame you, but you’re in no danger from me.”
She licked dry lips. His dark gaze flicked to her tongue, tracked it with hot male interest. “Then get off.” To her shame, a quiver of arousal shimmered along her nerves. Damn, she thought. What kind of sick bimbo would find this a turn-on?
“Stop fighting me.” He let more of his weight settle between her thighs. “Otherwise I’ll have to restrain you.” The heat in his gaze intensified, mixed with a cool calculation.
Staring into his handsome face, Jane suddenly noticed glowing striations of bright red ringing the soft, rich sable of his pupils. She stared. She’d never seen anything like that fiery shimmer in anyone’s eyes before. It was as if he wasn’t quite human.
He lowered his head until she felt his breath against her mouth, warm and spiced with some scent she couldn’t identify. “Do I have your word on it?”
Was he getting hard? Oh, God. Distract him, Jane thought. Stall. “Okay. Okay.” If she could lull him into believing she’d given up, maybe she could get a chance to escape. Her chances were certainly better than if he bound her to the bed. Or did whatever it was he was thinking about that put that look in his eyes. “You said…you said earlier you had orders. From whom? What’s going on?”
He paused. “I was sent by the government.”
“Which government? I know every cop in Tayanita County, and you’re not local. Are you state? FBI?”
He hesitated again as if he didn’t even recognize the terms. Then his expression cleared. “I’m an FBI agent.”
So the Bureau’s new look is facial tattoos and shoulder-length hair? I don’t think so. But she had to convince him he had her fooled. If she stayed pinned under his massive body much longer, he might decide to do something about it.
She licked her lips again. He tracked the movement like a cat watching a mouse just out of reach. The red striations in those dark irises brightened, sending a shiver down her spine. Definitely time to get out from under him. “Okay. Let me up and we’ll talk.”
That hungry cat gaze flicked back up to her eyes. She tried to look defeated and submissive. Evidently she pulled it off, because he nodded slightly and levered off her. She sucked in a deep, grateful breath. He backed up a pace, watching her, his big body loose and combat-ready.
Jane eased off the bed, watching him right back. No way in hell was she going to get away with him eyeing her every move. She had to find a way to put him down before he decided to drop whatever game he was playing and get rough.
Unexpectedly his gaze softened. “I’m not going to hurt you, Jane.”
Damn, she wished she could believe that. At five feet eleven, Jane wasn’t used to dealing with men who were six inches taller. Her height had always made her feel she could hold her own with most men, but her captor’s sheer size did not permit that illusion.
She needed a weapon. Scanning the room covertly, Jane spotted a cluster of bottles on her mirrored bureau. To distract him, she said, “This killer you mentioned.” She took a deep breath. His attention instantly flicked to her breasts. Jane fought the instinct to cover them. You’re wearing a perfectly adequate shirt, you twit, she told herself. You are not naked, no matter how he looks at you. “Who did you say you were sent to protect me from?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t say. His name is Kalig Druas.”
Okaaay…Play along, Jane. “From the sound of that, I assume he’s not from around here.” She moved toward the bureau, trying to look casual.
“He’s not. What are you doing?”
She glanced warily over her shoulder. Crimson striations burned a bright warning in his hard, suspicious gaze as he watched her. “Brushing my hair,” she improvised, picking up the silver-backed brush. Yes, I’m the kind of bimbo who’d fight you one minute and primp the next. Work with me here. Think gullible.
Giving the brush a pass through her curls as if to restore them to order, she turned back toward the mirror and surreptitiously checked out the bottles. Beaning him with one would obviously be a waste of time, but maybe…“So what does this Caleb Druis have against me?”
“Kalig Druas. He’s got nothing against you, other than that you’re female. He’s”—he hesitated, as though searching for the correct phrase—“a serial killer. He murders for entertainment. And profit.”
A chill slid over her. His expression was so intense and demanding, she almost found herself believing him. But if he was from the Bureau, why the hell hadn’t he told any of this to the local cops?
True, it was possible he had and Tom Reynolds just hadn’t mentioned it, but she didn’t buy that. The detective would have been a lot more specific in his warning if he’d thought Jane herself was a target of the killer.
No, this guy was playing some kind of sick game with her, because it was for damn sure he was no cop. She knew cops, knew the vibe they gave off, and he was something altogether different.
So if he wasn’t law enforcement, that made him the killer. And if she didn’t get the hell away from him…
Forcing her fear into a tight, controllable ball, she picked up a tube of lipstick, bending close to the mirror to apply it. His attention never wavered. Pretending to study the results, she reached for the big bottle of White Swan that had been a Christmas present from an old boyfriend. Casually she uncapped the perfume. “So the Bureau sent you to protect me. Why do you think the killer is targeting me specifically?” She daubed the cap against her pulse.
“We’ve seized evidence that…” He stepped closer.
Jane spun and tossed the perfume into his face. His hand snapped out to snatch the bottle from her hand, but too late. The liquid splashed directly into his dark eyes. He fell back with a startled roar, both hands going for his face in an attempt to wipe away the burning perfume.
Jane shot past him and out into the hall to bound down the stairs three at a time. She sprinted across the living room for the front door. If she could just get to the SUV…
Something black and snarling sprang out of the darkness. She yelped and leaped aside, but it caught the hem of her flared jeans anyway, bringing her crashing to the carpeted floor hard enough to see stars.
Jane looked down to see what held her. And screamed with all the air in her lungs.
The biggest dog she’d ever seen clenched her jeans hem in fanged jaws. It looked more like a wolf than anything else—if wolves grew to the size of Saint Bernards. With another screech, she drew back her free foot.
“If you kick me,” a deep male voice said, “I’ll bite you. And then I’ll eat your cat.” Impossibly it seemed to be coming from the wolf, or dog, or whatever the hell it was.
She looked around wildly, but nobody else was in the room; the burglar was still upstairs.
“I’ve got her, Baran!” the voice called. Jane thought she saw blue light flash in the fur around the wolf/dog’s neck.
“Good,” the man growled back. “Hold her.”
Hell. She considered planting a kick across the wolf’s furry black head despite the voice’s threats, but one look into that feral canine stare stole her courage. She licked her dry lips. “Who are you? Who’s talking?”
“Who do you think?” The wolf/dog’s mouth didn’t move when it spoke—its jaws remained firmly clamped on her hem—but she saw lights flash again in its fur. Looking closer, she saw what appeared to be a ring of glowing gems implanted directly into the animal’s skin. LEDs for some kind of speaker, maybe?
Her heart was pounding so hard, she could feel her pulse in her ears. She felt sick. “What the hell is going on here? What kind of game are you playing with me?”
“This is not a game, Jane,” the burglar said, stopping to flick on the light as he descended the stairs. “Not for us, not for you, and not for the man who wants to slit your throat.”
Feeling sick and hunted, Jane watched his approach. His eyes were swollen, the whites bright red and bloodshot. The glowing striations in his pupils had expanded until it seemed twin flames burned in his skull. The fury on his face turned her blood to ice. Oh, God, she thought. He’s going to kill me.
And those eyes…human eyes just didn’t glow like that. What was he?
“Damn, Baran, you stink,” the wolf/dog said, Jane’s pants leg still gripped in his jaws. “What did the little bitch do to you—and why did you let her do it?”
“I think she hit me with some kind of chemical weapon.” The burglar moved to stand over them. Even Jane wrinkled her nose at the choking floral stench. She must have splashed the entire bottle on him. “I underestimated her,” he said grimly. “I won’t do that again.”
He reached into a pocket of his leather duster. Instinctively Jane tried to jump up and bolt, but the wolf/dog jerked her hem so hard, she fell back on her butt. Opening her mouth, she drew in breath to scream.
“Shut up,” the burglar said, his voice so low and deadly she found herself obeying. She watched in suspended terror as he lifted something in one hand.
Even as Jane instinctively shrank against the floor, he pointed the object at his own face. A blue light shot out to play over his features. He waved it back and forth several times before running it over his chest and arms next.
“What’s that?” Her shaking voice sounded far too high.
“A chemical neutralizer,” he told her, his tone emotionless despite his molten stare. “It analyzes the weapon you used and renders it harmless.”
Inhaling, she realized the overwhelming smell of White Swan had disappeared. How had he done that? “It wasn’t a weapon. It was just perfume.”
The wolf/dog gave her a look of astonished loathing. “You wear that substance? On purpose?”
“Well, I don’t wear quite that much of it.” And I’m having a conversation with a talking wolf.
Baran reached down a big hand and grabbed her collar to pull her to her feet as the animal released her leg. Her bubble of paralyzed disbelief popped. With a choked scream, she went wild, fighting like a rabid mink to get away.
In two strides he dragged her to the nearest wall and banged her back against it so hard the impact shocked her still again. “I am not the killer!” he roared. “If I were, I would have butchered you by now!”
For an instant they stared at each other. Until, slowly, a realization crept over Jane: He had a point. After the perfume trick, even a psycho bent on playing head games would have slit her throat.
Maybe he wasn’t the killer.
But he wasn’t FBI, either, not with those eyes. So what was he? Had he been sent to protect her? And if so, by whom?
“What do you want from me?” Her voice shook.
He lifted the corner of his handsome mouth in a snarl. “I want to catch Druas. And you’re going to help me whether you like it or not. Turn around and brace your hands on the wall.”
Jane stared at him, wide-eyed. “What? Why?”
“I’m going to search you.” Catching her by one shoulder, he turned her around to face the wall. “I don’t have the patience for any more surprises.”
“And I don’t have anything to surprise you with!”
He thrust his face close to hers, the pupils of his bloodshot eyes glowing. “Do you honestly expect me to take anything you say on faith?”
“What did you expect? You broke into my house!”
“And if you don’t start cooperating, I’m going to do a lot worse.”
At the lethal note in his voice, a shudder shook her. She slowly lifted both hands, flattening her palms against the cool plaster.
The first touch of his big hands on her ribs made her flinch. As if reading her fear, he hesitated. Then briskly he ran his hands up her sides and along the length of her braced arms.
Jane had seen cops pat down subjects before, though male officers rarely searched women if they could help it. Despite his evident fury, the frisk her captor conducted was just as professional and impersonal as the ones she’d witnessed. At least at first.
Until he kicked her ankles just hard enough to knock her feet apart. The kick didn’t hurt, but something about the way he did it struck her suddenly as a gesture of pure sexual dominance.
He went still behind her. A moment of silence spun out, almost thrumming with tension. Suddenly that sizzling mutual awareness was back again, rushing in to fill the air between them with heat.
He crouched behind her. She heard the rustle of his leather coat as he moved. He put his hands on her thighs. Even through the fabric of her jeans, she could feel the heat of his long fingers as he slowly ran his palms down the length of her legs. To her horror, Jane felt her nipples peak.
Instead of his earlier cool professionalism, there was now something darkly possessive in his touch, even when he paused to pull up the cuffs of her jeans and explore inside her boot tops for weapons. Yet on the surface there was nothing improper in his technique.
So why did she feel…claimed? Like a slave girl being explored by her master?
Don’t be so damned ridiculous, Jane, she snarled at herself.
But when he rose to his feet again, his sheer, brawny size added to her sense of helpless femininity.
His coat rustled again as he stepped closer. He seemed to surround her in heat. The rich smell of leather blended with his own clean musk as he cupped her bottom. Jane stiffened, but his hands didn’t linger, sweeping around over her abdomen and upward to her breasts. As if the careful restraint had worn thin, his hands hesitated just a beat, then blatantly cupped her, lifting the soft mounds.
His thumbs brushed the tight, erect peaks of her nipples. She sucked in a breath to curse him, but the heat bolting along her nerves made the words seem hypocritical. She found herself longing to lean back, to ease into his arms.
Dammit, Jane! “Let go,” she gritted.
To her relief, he did, dropping his hands and stepping away. But when she looked around at him, she saw dark male satisfaction in his strange, hot eyes, as if he’d tested her somehow. She didn’t think she wanted to know the results.
Jane fumbled for a topic that would put them back on safer ground. “You said…you said you wanted me to help you catch the killer. How?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” the wolf/dog said, moving to look up at them. Its jaws gaped, revealing an impressive set of very sharp, very white teeth. “You’re going to be the bait.”
Jane looked down at the animal, perversely grateful he’d broken the erotic tension. The intelligence she saw in those pale canine eyes was far more human than animal. A sense of vertigo swept over her. “What are you? And don’t bother with the FBI bull, because I don’t think even the Bureau has a talking K-9 corps.”
She looked over her shoulder at her captor just in time to see him pull out a length of what looked like thin gold cable. He reached for her right wrist.
“What are you doing?” Jane started to whirl, but he calmly stepped in and leaned a broad shoulder into her back, pinning her to the wall as he wrapped the cable around her wrist. Like a snake, it instantly coiled tighter. “Stop it!”
“I warned you, Jane.” His deep voice was grim and cold. Using his grip on the cable, he dragged her right arm down even as he seized the other wrist and pulled it back. She squirmed, but he kept her mashed against the wall. To her disgust, she felt another potent snap of sensual awareness at the feel of his hard, muscular body pressed to hers.
“You’ve got no right!” she spat, struggling against both his grip and her own potent reaction. The effort did her no good in either case. He was so damn strong she couldn’t break his hold no matter how she twisted and jerked. She might as well have been a toddler for all the effort he expended controlling her.
Fear slid through her fury. Granted, she didn’t make a habit of struggling with men, yet even so his strength seemed somehow abnormal. As if he wasn’t quite human. Instinctively she covered her unease with a snarl. “This is illegal!”
He simply ignored her, looping her other wrist in the cable. The thin metal seemed to coil around her arms like a snake, binding her hands. “They call this kidnapping, you son of a bitch!”
“Yes, and I don’t care.” He stepped back just enough to grab her shoulder and pull her around. The glowing striations in his pupils were still hot and burning, though the bloodshot red of his eyes had already begun to fade. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to catch Druas and keep you alive. So don’t push me. You won’t like the results.”
She tugged futilely at her bonds. Impossibly, the restraints squirmed around her wrists like something alive, maintaining their grip. She’d never even heard of a metal that could do that. It was impossible.
Impossible. Like the talking wolf/dog. Like her captor’s glowing eyes and amazing strength. Like the device that had instantly eliminated her perfume from the air.
The hair rose on the back of her neck. “What the hell are you?”
His handsome mouth took on a mocking twist. The iridescent tattoo on his cheek shimmered. “What do you think I am?”
Jane studied him, taking in the erect carriage, the fluid way he moved, the cold determination on his face. During her stint in Atlanta, she’d interviewed her share of soldiers, sailors, and Marines. He showed all the signs. “Military. Some kind of commando. Maybe.”
His eyes flickered in reaction. “Good guess.”
She relaxed slightly. That would explain all the James Bond toys. God knew what the government had cooking in the depths of some top-secret lab somewhere.
But what about the glowing eyes and the Big Bad Wolf? Not to mention the hair and beads, which sure as hell didn’t look like any recruiting poster she’d ever seen. And…“What does a Navy SEAL—or Delta Force or whatever the hell you are—care about serial killers?”
Just for an instant he glanced down at the wolf, which tilted its head in a gesture curiously like a shrug. It wasn’t the kind of look a man exchanged with a pet, or even an animal outfitted with a speaker as part of some elaborate masquerade.
It was the sort of glance you gave a partner when you wanted advice.
No matter what Wolfie looked like, he wasn’t an animal. And she’d be willing to bet that turning out sentient timber wolves was beyond even the United States government.
Which left…
“Are you some kind of aliens?” She felt ridiculous the minute she blurted the words.
Baran looked up at her, startled and amused. “Do I look like an alien?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced down at the animal, who watched them with sardonic intelligence. “But he does. He’s sure as hell no dog, whether that’s a speaker around his neck or not.”
“Dog?” The wolf drew up in an affronted reaction that couldn’t be anything but genuine. “I’ll have you know I’m a genetically engineered timber wolf. There are no dogs anywhere in my family tree. And that’s a vocalizer around my throat, not a ‘speaker,’ you ignorant hick.”
Her lips tugged upward in reluctant amusement at his outrage. “So what’s a vocalizer?”
“My body isn’t designed for speech,” the wolf told her with an outraged sniff. “My internal computer picks up my thoughts and sends them to the vocalizer, which turns them into sound.”
“Which is my point exactly,” she said to Baran. “Nobody has technology like that in the twenty-first—” Jane broke off, eyes widening as a new and even wilder idea occurred to her. “Are you from…” Damn, she couldn’t believe she was saying the words. She took a deep breath and forced them out anyway. “Are you time travelers?”
Baran’s brows lifted in an expression of startled interest. “What makes you say that?”
“The wolf. Your eyes. Your equipment. Like I said before, nobody on Earth has anything like this stuff. Yet aliens wouldn’t look like anything that had evolved on this planet.” Jane felt her tension building, stretching out, as if she were riding a roller coaster toward the top of a grade and the plunging drop on the other side. She took a deep breath and went right over. “But if you’re from the future…”
Baran stared at her a long moment, but not like a man inventing a good lie. Like someone who was calculating how much truth to tell. “Yes,” he said finally. “We’re from the future.”
A rush of goose bumps spread over her skin as Jane experienced a rush of the familiar quivering excitement she felt whenever she was on the trail of a hot story. And it didn’t get any hotter than this.
Unfortunately, this situation also had implications that were far more personal than any story she’d ever covered. Terrifying implications. Swallowing, she asked the question that was gnawing at her consciousness. “Is that…is that how you know this guy is going to come after me?”
“Yes.” Her captor said it so starkly, so simply, she had no choice except to believe.
“And he really is a serial killer?”
Baran’s sensual mouth tightened. “Yes.”
Jane licked her lips. “But you’ll stop him. If you’re from the future, you know what happens. Right?”
“Not necessarily.”
“What does that mean?” A chill rolled over her skin. “You don’t necessarily know or you won’t necessarily stop him?”
He drew his big body to its full height and looked down at her. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop him.”