CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sterling had no idea why the woman in his arms felt so important to him, but as he carried Becca into the piece-of-crap motel room with powder blue walls and nary a piece of furniture, there was no denying what he felt. Protective. Almost possessive. Like she was his. Like she’d always been in some way. With a few awkward maneuvers, he managed to lock the door before carrying Becca to the lumpy, full-sized bed with an ugly floral bedspread. He was ready to figure out what was causing everyone around her to pass out so he could take her to Neonopolis where she could be truly safe.
Flinging back the blankets, Sterling laid Becca on the mattress, tossing aside her shoes, and then covering her. Black hair fluttered over her pale, heart-shaped face, and he reached down and stroked it gently away from her brow. He didn’t even know he had “gentle” in him, not anymore, and not since, well, those days back in the library with her. And here she was now, bringing out the tenderness in him when he would have sworn it wasn’t possible. He checked her pulse; it was steady, and so was her breathing. Even her skin tone had color now. The ICE seemed to be finally working.
A series of coded knocks sounded on the door. Sterling stalked across the room, rubbing his jaw, while mentally scrubbing the emotion from his face. Caleb, Michael, and Damion, all dressed in street clothes, awaited him on the other side.
“You drove my fucking car,” Michael growled. “If we didn’t need you right now, I’d freaking kill you.”
Sterling ignored him, too angry at Damion’s presence. He eyed Caleb and motioned to Damion. “Why is he here?”
“In case you forgot,” Damion said dryly. “I’m the best Tracker we have. Becca is clear. No psychic residue.”
Sterling cut an urgent look in Michael’s direction for confirmation. Michael might have limited tracking abilities, but he trusted him. He didn’t trust Damion.
“No residue,” Michael confirmed. “But before you get all excited about what that means—check her neck for the Lifebond mark. A male Lifebond can shield his female from Trackers.”
Sterling’s vision went momentarily red with Michael’s words, his blood—cold. Becca—another man’s Lifebond? Why did that make him want to punch the wall? Caleb held up a bag, jolting Sterling out of his red haze of anger. “Kelly wants her to take the ICE in the bag that she’s already analyzed in case there’s some variation in the formula causing the fatalities. She included supplies to draw blood and some tranquilizers.”
“Tranquilizers?”
“If Becca’s asleep, she can’t put other people to sleep. At least, that’s the theory. Kelly wants to analyze her blood and make sure there are no red flags that could be dangerous to others before we move her. In the meantime, I’m having the west end of Neonopolis cleared, so you can take her there once we clear her to travel.”
Sterling wasn’t tranquilizing her if he didn’t have to, but he needed the ICE. He took the bag. “I’ll control her.”
“Kelly wants that blood ASAP,” Caleb added.
Sterling nodded and dug the vials of ICE from his pocket, hesitating a millisecond as his eyes collided with Damion’s. He didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him, not with the ICE samples Becca needed to survive.
Caleb and Damion turned to depart, but Michael stepped forward, as if he intended to enter the room.
Sterling blocked him. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“She has twenty-four hours of unaccounted for time with an addiction to a drug only Adam can provide. We need to interrogate the woman and ensure she’s not a spy, and you’re too personally involved to do it.”
“Says who?” Sterling demanded.
“Says me,” Michael replied.
“Figures,” Sterling said dryly. Michael was known for being as cold-hearted as they came, the Dark Knight behind Caleb’s Superman persona. “Try using some of that decision-making and paranoia to get Damion the hell away from Caleb before it’s too late. Becca isn’t a spy.”
Michael ignored the comment and focused on getting into the room. “I’m coming in.”
He really wanted to punch the SOB. “When you pass out, I’ll be sure and give you a blankie and teddy bear.”
“I’m not like the other GTECHs any more than you are,” Michael said, but he didn’t advance, as if Sterling’s words had given him pause.
Sterling snorted. “Yeah well, I’m thinking about that. Becca was around a nightclub filled with humans, and they didn’t pass out. And then there’s me, who doesn’t pack as much GTECH juice as the rest of you. I didn’t pass out. And I hate to tell you this, Michael, but you aren’t human. Not even close.” Only recently he’d discovered he had gone off and grown an extra gene no one else possessed.
Michael glared a moment and then apparently dispelled any concern. “She’s weakened by her withdrawal.” He stepped forward. “I’ll take my chances.”
Sterling didn’t give a damn how powerful Michael was. He stepped forward, toe-to-toe with him. “I swear to the good Lord above, if you set foot in this room, I will find a cliff and drive Carrie over the side.”
“I’ll buy another,” Michael said, his stone-cold expression a permanent feature.
“That’s the worst load of crap you’ve fed me since you said you would never get the healing illness and then you did,” Sterling ground out between clenched teeth. “You can’t buy another Carrie, and we both know it. She’s got sentimental value.” He lowered his voice and added before he could stop himself, “If this were Cassandra, would you let you in this room?”
“I’d kill to protect Cassandra,” Michael said, narrowing his eyes on Sterling. “Are you saying this woman is your Lifebond? Because that changes everything in my eyes if she is.”
What? He opened his mouth to speak and shut it. For a rare instant, he was speechless, the idea that Becca and he were Lifebonds resonating far deeper than he realized. “All I’m going to tell you at this point is to back off, Michael. I’ve got this situation under control.”
Michael’s gaze bore into Sterling’s, and Sterling knew Michael had noticed his lack of confirmation or denial. Tense seconds ticked by before he stepped back. “I’ll be nearby.”
“Do us both a favor,” Sterling said. “Be nearby Damion, not me.”
Michael gave a reluctant nod, and Sterling didn’t stay around for more discussion. He entered the room, slammed the door shut, and locked it. His cell phone buzzed. Reluctantly Sterling maneuvered Becca to the pillow and moved to the end of the bed where he’d left his phone. He punched the button to hear Kelly’s voice.
“How is she?”
“She almost died in withdrawal,” he said. “She turned blue like the other Clanner did and it took way too long for the ICE to kick in. At least half an hour. It took five minutes the last time I saw her dose.”
“I’m not a Clanner,” Becca murmured in a hoarse whisper that drew his attention. He shifted toward her, finding those amber eyes peeking beneath heavy fluttering lashes. “They forced this on me.”
His eyes met Becca’s amber ones, the briefest of contact, before her lashes fluttered, and her breathing slipped back into an even, steady rhythm. It was as if the very thought of being called a Clanner had ripped her from a healing slumber and elicited a rebuttal. He’d seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. Felt it in that momentary melding of eyes.
“Sterling?” Kelly asked. “Is something wrong? How is she?”
Tough, he thought. She is tough and brave and beautiful. “Considering she just woke up from what I thought was a near-death sleep to tell me she is not a Clanner,” he said, “I’d say she’s improving.”
Kelly laughed. “Busting your chops and barely back from the dead. I think I might like this woman. And we both know you get off on having your chops busted.”
Sterling crossed to the corner behind the table and yanked open the minifridge he kept loaded down with Dr. Pepper and cold M&Ms, his two favorites.
“Is that how you justify your abuse?” he asked, snatching a soda. “By pretending I like it?”
Kelly snorted. “I know you do. It’s your deep psychological way of dealing with a misguided sense of no self-worth.”
Sterling ground his teeth, the comment going down about as well as broken glass. “I’m not the patient, Doc,” he said. “Can we focus on Becca?”
“Ouch,” she said. “I guess I hit a nerve. Get me the blood. Damion hacked the German cancer center’s records. I’m working on helping her and hoping she can help us.”
Damion…if he had to hear that name one more time! Sterling claimed a chair and sat down at the wobbly mockery of a table. Ten minutes later, Sterling hung up, having taken a verbal lashing for not drawing Becca’s blood before dosing her, and with instructions to allow Becca to sleep until she woke before moving her.
Sterling set the phone on the table and glanced at Becca where she rested a few feet away. His gut clenched at the sight she made. Innocent in slumber—soft and feminine.
He picked the phone back up and called his bud Eddie at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and had him check up on the two Clanners. The phone went back on the table, his eyes back to the bed—to Becca.
Tension charged his body, and he tried to dispel it, turning the empty soda can around and around, his mind spinning with it. His eyes followed the movement, focused on the can, not Becca. In bed. Making him think of, well, Becca in bed with him, when she might hate him when she woke up. Worse, she might be the Lifebond to another.
He stopped spinning the can. That made no sense. A Lifebond would be fully converted. ICE wouldn’t send her into withdrawal. Then he cursed under his breath and leaned back in his chair. Or would it? Could GTECHs dose on ICE for an extra boost?
Abruptly Sterling got up. He stalked to the bed, a man on a mission. Becca lay on her side, and he approached her from behind. His knees went down on the mattress. His hand slid to her hair and pushed it aside.
She moved, turning onto her stomach. Like the Renegade that he was, a man who knew what he wanted, he pursued. Sterling climbed fully onto the bed, leaned over her, and brushed her hair away from her neck where the Lifebonds would have formed a tattoo—a circle within a circle if she belonged to another man, an unbreakable physical connection, bound in life and death. He stared at the creamy white perfection of the delicate skin and let out a silent breath of relief. No Lifebond mark. Unable to resist, Sterling ran his fingers over the bare spot at the base of her neck. He was one step closer to being able to trust her. And he wanted to…more than he should.
“Mmmmm,” she murmured. “That feels good.” The words purred out of her. Soft. Seductive. Like a woman talking to her lover.
His hand froze there on her neck; the bittersweet rush of uncontrollable raging hormones and pure, hot lust shot through him, thickening his cock. He inhaled, telling himself to back away. She was asleep, drugged for all practical purposes. He started to move, but she reached for his hand and then turned over. She blinked him into focus.
“You came for me,” she whispered. “I knew you would come.” There was a hazy, blank expression on her face that said she was home but not taking calls. She was still dreaming, experiencing some effect from her near withdrawal perhaps. Maybe not even seeing him. Maybe seeing someone else. But as she stared up at him with hope and relief overflowing from her into him, he wasn’t about to take away the peace he sensed in her. The woman had been through enough. She deserved some peace.
“I came,” he assured her and pulled the blanket around her, the air in the room churning fast and hard. His knuckles slid over her cheek. “Rest…so you can heal.”
She reached up and wrapped her hand around his, dragging it to her chest and lacing her fingers with his. His heart froze at the intimate act, and when she nuzzled her chin to his fingers, her lashes fluttering to a close, the message was clear. She had no intention of letting him go.
He wasn’t sure how to react or why his chest felt like a steel thousand-pound ball had been placed on top of it. He was a wham-bam, see-you-some-other-time kind of guy, who didn’t do the touchy-feely kind of stuff—a necessary evil of being Renegade. It wasn’t fair to be anything but a wham-bam guy when you woke up every day facing death. Inviting death. Laughing at death. Especially when the female could be put in jeopardy, on Adam’s radar, just knowing you. So Sterling did what was right, and he avoided intimacy—it wasn’t like relationships had been lucky for him. His mother was gone. His father too. His grandmother—well, she had died, but she’d had ten years of sobriety and happiness after he’d left. All that said—right here and now with Becca, he wasn’t sure he had it in him to pull away.
There was a connection between them, a silent, understood connection. Maybe because Becca, like himself, woke up every day facing death too. Only, unlike Sterling, who’d been doing so by choice, Becca had no choice. A cancer diagnosis had stolen it from her, and now Adam had too. She’d faced the cancer diagnosis alone. Her mother had moved to Europe, remarried, and lived in a happy bubble, which Sterling had a sneaking suspicion was why Becca had decided not to burst it with news of her cancer.
Slowly, Sterling eased onto the mattress, facing Becca, his legs parallel to hers. For several moments he studied the dark half moons of her long lashes resting on pale perfect skin, and with that image in his mind, he closed his eyes. His senses flared into overdrive, the warmth of her nearness invading him, consuming him, rolling through him like the wind, only more like a soft summer breeze. Silently, he vowed that Becca would not wake up her first day outside of captivity facing death alone. She would wake to face it with him. And it was then that he allowed himself the first peaceful sleep since Becca had been taken from him.
Only minutes after Tad had finally finished fucking Sabrina into a trackable liability, Iceman stood in the security booth of the warehouse, waiting as his personal bodyguard, JC Miller, inserted the DVD in a master panel that fed ten security monitors. Tall and athletic, JC was shrewd, calculating, a badass in all possible ways—a black belt in judo, a master with weapons, a lethal killer even before he became a Clanner.
He was also a necessary evil considering Iceman didn’t “ICE” himself. And he was smart enough not to ask why Iceman didn’t juice. He knew and didn’t mention it because Iceman had him by the balls—he was his ICE distributor, and he had records of every kill the man had made sealed in a safe, ready to deliver to the authorities. Knowledge assuring JC’s loyalty to Iceman in a way Iceman would never be loyal to Tad or Adam. Or anyone for that matter.
“Shall I dispose of Sabrina?” JC asked as nonchalantly as if he were talking about a bag of trash.
“Not yet,” Iceman said, stroking his clean-shaven chin and considered. “Perhaps there is a way we can use her against Tad.” The DVD footage started to roll, illuminating images of club Zeus that flickered to a woman he recognized from photos as Rebecca Burns. At the obvious urging of the Clanners, she headed to the back of the club. A second later, a man flashed across the screen in pursuit.
“Sterling,” Iceman said, lips thinning in a mixture of irritation and admiration for the bounty hunter who walked both sides of the law, a man he knew well and kept at a measurable distance. Of course, Sterling did not know he was Iceman.
“He shows up where there’s trouble far too often,” JC commented dryly, having long tried to convince Iceman to force an ICE addiction on Sterling. “We need to control him.”
“His free agent status serves us well,” Iceman stated flatly and pointedly added, “We have his resources at our disposal, and he’s not a risk as long as he’s properly monitored.”
JC’s jaw noticeably flexed, his gaze shifting to the monitors, and Iceman had a distinct impression he was soon to discover JC did not have Sterling as well monitored as he should. JC hit the remote, and another monitor flickered to life with new feed. “Tad didn’t see this footage. The manager of Zeus managed to keep the cameras inside the warehouse a secret, despite being beaten to a pulp by Tad and his goons. He’s been rewarded as you would expect.”
That meant paid and paid well. Iceman believed in extremes—learned that one from Pops. Beat ’em until they can’t see straight when they fuck up; lots of ice cream—translation, cold hard cash—when they did well.
The warehouse feed began to play—the two Clanners from the bar cornering Rebecca Burns, teasing her with the prospect of ICE. It was clear they planned to rape the woman, not give up their ICE. A code of conduct existed for Clanners, devised to stay off police radar, and this was not it. Their Clanner movement had been one of silence—a slow, sinuous takeover of the city.
As if reading Iceman’s mind, JC said, “They will be dealt with.”
Iceman didn’t respond. JC doing his job was expected—the man didn’t need to be patted on the head like a dog.
With interest, Iceman watched as Sterling pocketed the IDs of the Clanners, even greater interest when Tad’s men appeared in the warehouse and then dropped to the floor, lights out in a flash. No indication as to why. Immediately afterwards, Sterling carried the woman away. JC killed the visual.
“Are they dead?”
JC shook his head. “They were knocked out about half an hour.”
“What weapon did this, and why don’t I have it?”
JC shook his head. “I’ve enhanced the footage every way possible, and there’s no weapon, at least nothing visible to the eye. I’ll get it, whatever it is.”
“Judging from Tad’s urgency to get the women, I’d say she holds the weapon. Find her, and bring her to me by whatever means you find necessary. Just make it happen.”