Anew: Book Two: Hunted (9 page)

“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs. “More than you can know.”

“Not true. I’ve longed for you every waking moment and at
night…” A quickening of remembered pleasure stirs in me. Helplessly, I flush.

“Amelia?” His voice is at once stern and amused.

Reluctantly, I say, “I had dreams…”

“About me?”

“Hmmm, yes.”

His humor deepens but so does the dark fire stirring in his
eyes. “Were they arousing?”

“Yes…”

He quirks a brow. “Did you come?”

I look away, my face flaming. Given all that we’ve shared, I
can’t imagine why I’m embarrassed but I am all the same. “Sometimes! All right?
Can we move on?”

His answer is to thrust against me, making me vividly aware
of his erection brushing my hip. His voice is low and hard as he says, “You’ve
been in my dreams. I’ve cursed every dawn that’s taken me from you.”

Oh, my! When did Ian develop such a romantic turn of phrase?
I’m far more accustomed to the stark, crude words he whispers in my ear as he
thrusts deep inside me. They never fail to send me soaring over the edge. But
I’m no more immune to this new, tender passion.

My throat thickens with unshed tears. “What are we going to
do?” I whisper. I don’t mean just now. How are we ever going to reconcile the
seeming impossibility of being together? And what if we can’t?

I don’t think that Ian deliberately chooses to misunderstand
me but he isn’t willing to be distracted by so problematic a future.

“This,” he says and takes my mouth with his. His kiss is a
wild, primal claiming that robs me of breath and sets my heart to pounding. He
gives no quarter, nor do I want any. But with my arms still held above my head,
I can’t touch him. The frustration quickly becomes unbearable. I lift a leg,
kicking it free of my long skirt, and arch it over his hip. He grunts and slips
a hand under my knee, drawing me tight against him. The smooth fabric of his
evening trousers can scarcely contain his erection. I arch my pelvis, rubbing
my slit over the hard, growing bulge. The pressure through the thin scrap of my
wet panties is exquisite. I am desperate to be closer to him, needing him to
complete me, longing…

He breaks off the kiss and stares down at me, his gaze wild
and raw. I feel as though he is stripping me bare. “I’d like to make you come
right here, right now,” he says. His hips thrust, once, again… “You’re close,
aren’t you?”

I can’t deny it. All the pent-up desire of the past ten days
is rushing together into a hot, urgent core of sensual hunger whirling at the
center of my being. I’m trembling on the edge, an incandescent nova on the very
verge of exploding.

The shadows around the ancient tree protect us. We’re alone
in a world of our own making. My need for him is unbearable. But still
something holds me back.

“That won’t solve anything.”

The words are wrenched from me. My own body rebels against
them, clenching painfully. But the truth is inescapable. The passion we share
has never been in doubt. It’s the results of it that we both fear.

Ian hesitates and for a moment, I think he isn’t going to
relent. But then a ragged breath escapes him. He rests his forehead against
mine.

“What do you think would?”

He’s asking me? The one with almost no experience in the
messy, bewildering, sometimes frightening but still exhilarating struggle
called life?

“I don’t know…just being together? Taking things moment to
moment? Is that even possible? Do people ever manage that?”

I have no way of knowing but Ian seems to think that the
idea has merit. He takes a step back, gently lowering me until I’m once again
standing on my own two feet. Slowly, he releases my arms and draws them down as
well. Holding my gaze, he says, “Let’s try, all right? If nothing else, we can
see where it leads us.”

Moment to moment. Each one allowed to unfold without the
rush and clamor of expectations. What a difference that would make after the
weeks of living between the shadows of both past and future.

A bubble of excitement rises in me. Buoyed by hope, however
fragile it may be, I nod.

Ian

A
n hour later, I grin
down at Amelia, relishing the excitement in her eyes. She’s practically jumping
up and down like a little kid.

“Do you think they’ll be coordinated to music?” she asks as
we join the crowd moving outside where the fireworks are about to begin.

“Absolutely they will be,” I assure her.

Her smile is radiant. “Something by Mussorgsky, maybe, or
Elgar. Dvorak, perhaps, or Mahler?”

She has a nearly encyclopedia knowledge of classical music,
thanks to Susannah. But when she plays for herself, she prefers
twentieth-century jazz. Just one more way that Amelia is her own person.

“Uh, yeah, any of those would be good.” I’m looking ahead
toward the double doors. The crowd is bunching together in front of them.
There’s some sort of hang up. Patience runs thin in a group where everyone is
accustomed to going first. Already, the grumbling is starting.

From the corner of my eye, I spot Davos leaving through a
small side door. He’s maintained his distance from Amelia ever since I warned
him off but I’ve kept an eye on him all the same. I don’t trust the slimy
bastard as far as I could throw him. Several other sleek men in evening clothes
are with him but the vast majority of the guests remain right where Amelia and
I are, unable to get out.

The combination of the stuck crowd and Davos slipping away
has hit the tripwire that’s always present in my mind. Normal people, suddenly
alerted to the possibility of danger, experience an adrenalin rush that either
freezes them in place or makes them flee. It’s different for me. Time slows
down and everything takes on a heightened clarity, every small detail standing
out in stark relief. I become hyper-focused, which is a big part of why I’m
good at the darker side of what I do.

I spot Edward, thankfully on the fringe of the crowd. His
mother, Marianne, and my mother are with him. Over the heads of the people
surrounding us, I shout, “Go!”

I don’t know for certain what’s about to hit us but the
strategy of bunching a target set as closely together as possible is classic.
Whatever it is, I’m sure of one thing--the situation is about to get butt ugly.

I have to hand it to Edward, he doesn’t hesitate. Nor does
Adele. She grabs my mother’s arm as Edward takes hold of Marianne. He lifts her
off her feet and moves fast, keeping the two other women beside him, toward the
far edge of the room. Anything that hits will be aimed at the center, which
makes the margins not a good place to be but the best that’s available.

Amelia and I are a lot more hemmed in. She’s looking at me
with the first stirrings of alarm. I grab hold of her and clasp the back of her
head, pushing it into my chest.

“Close your eyes,” I order and quickly do the same with my
own, at the same time ducking my head against her shoulder, shutting out as
much light as possible.

The first flash grenade crashes through one of the glass
panels a moment later and instantly detonates. Several more follow quickly.
Searing white light blast my retinas. I’m temporarily blinded but that doesn’t
prevent me from hearing the screams that break out all around us. People are
panicking. When the initial surge of shock starts to wear off in a few seconds,
they’ll try to run. The biggest and strongest may manage it; the rest will be
trampled.

“Hold on!” I tell Amelia as a countdown starts in my head.
Ten…nine…eight… We don’t have much time before the stampede starts. I push
through the people around us, heading instinctively in the direction I mapped
out in the few seconds before the grenades hit.

Beyond the screams, I can hear weapons fire outside. The
sound is grimly satisfying. Only a handful of my men were close in to the
Crystal Palace. The rest were hidden among the nearby trees, all of them well
concealed by some of the latest tech to come out of my own labs. The attackers,
whoever they are, are getting a nasty surprise. Whatever they had planned,
they’ve been stopped in their tracks, buying us at least some time.

Edward is waiting on the edge of the chaos. The women are
wide-eyed and obviously afraid but they’re holding it together. Adele and my
mother are both tough old birds, and I mean that as the highest compliment.
Marianne’s a different story. Nothing in her life has prepared her for anything
remotely like this yet she isn’t so much as flinching. I’m damn proud of her.

 “We can’t stay here,” Edward says as soon as he sees
me. “One stray energy beam and…”

I know what he means. The glass walls of the Crystal Palace
offer no protection. Without further delay, we head for the escape route that
we agreed on earlier. I take point, leading the way. By sticking to the edge of
the vast ballroom, we avoid the worst of the crush but the going is still
difficult. Edward guards the rear, keeping the women between us. Neither of us
wants to hurt any of the poor bastards who are just trying to get the hell out
the same as us but we’re not about to let them get in our way either.

Before we can advance very far, half-a-dozen men come
through the side door that Davos used. They’re dressed in black, helmeted but
with their visors up to be sure they can be recognized. The weapons they carry
are the latest design straight from my R&D division. Hollis is in the lead.
He and I exchange a quick nod as my men take up position around us. They form a
phalanx that clears our path through the crowd quickly.

When we reach the kitchens, they’re empty, the workers
having sensibly scrambled for safety at the first sign of trouble. A trapdoor
in the floor stands open, leading to a flight of wooden steps. Hollis and two
more of my men descend swiftly. After several tense moments, Hollis sticks his
head up and signals that the tunnel is clear.

I hang back as Edward helps the women descend. When they’ve
done so, he jumps down to join them, then glances back at me expectantly.

“I’ll meet you on the other side,” I say.

Edward looks at me for a long moment, then nods. I don’t
have to worry about him, he gets it. Not so the ladies, who all stare at me as
though I’m nuts.

“You aren’t--” My mother begins.

“Ian, really--” Adele adds.

“You can’t!” Marianne exclaims.

Amelia doesn’t say a word. She just brushes past Edward and
starts back up the steps as though she can somehow stop me all by herself.

Edward sighs, snags an arm around her waist, and pulls her
back down. She doesn’t hesitate but responds with a swift kick to his shins.
“Let me go!”

Hollis chuckles. With an apologetic shrug to Edward, I lower
the trap door back into place just as Amelia lets loose with a string of curses
that turns the air blue. Where she acquired that vocabulary I can’t imagine but
damn, does she know how to use it.

Still shaking my head over the crazy idea she has that she
could somehow stop me, I strip off my tuxedo jacket and vest, loosen my tie,
and accept the body armor that one of my men holds out. Once its snapped into
place, I feel more like myself. Moments later, weapon in hand, I head out into
the fight.

The night is pleasantly warm with a hint of rain to come. I
can smell dark moist earth sharpened by the ozone of high-energy weapons. I’m
moving at a swift trot through the shadows, my muscles feeling loose and
limber. This is what I do, who I am. I make no apologies for it even if there
have been times, especially lately, when I’ve caught myself wondering about a
different kind of life. One that more than anything else involves Amelia.

I can’t afford to be thinking about her now. With the
discipline that I’ve depended on my whole adult life, I force myself to
refocus. The bodies of attackers are scattered on the ground. I flip one over
and take a close look. The dead man is clean-shaven, well-nourished, wearing
camo with no insignia.

A high-energy beam strikes the ground inches from where I’m
crouching. I barely notice. If it had hit me, the next-gen body armor I’m
wearing would have absorbed most of the blast, assuring no more than a minor
injury. All the same, my men respond instantly. More bodies fall.

I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye.
My own weapon goes up automatically. I fire. Another of the attackers hits the
ground and lies there, unmoving.

A short time later it gets quiet, except for the sirens I
can hear off in the distance. The Municipal Protection Services are on the job
or they will be shortly. What’s the old saying? When seconds count, the police
are minutes away? They can’t really help that, of course, but the truth of that
statement has never been more clear to me.

Knowing that lives hang on every moment, I move with my men
toward the main doors of the Crystal Palace. As I suspected, they’ve been
deliberately jammed from the outside. I can see the people smashed up against
them, well dressed men and women who a short time ago were enjoying yet another
pleasant evening in their privileged lives with no thought to the possibility
of danger. Most of them are still pounding desperately against the glass,
trying to get out. But a few are on the floor, ashen and unmoving.

Since there’s no way for the people closest to the doors to
back up, my men can’t blast them open. Instead, they just sheer both sides off
at the hinges, then do the same to several of the glass panels closest to the
ground, creating other openings for people to escape through. They stagger out,
gasping, crying, falling to their knees. The more aware among them are looking
around frantically, calling out trying to find whoever they came with. I see
several tear-filled reunions. Behind the crowd, on the floor of the Crystal
Palace, a dozen or so bodies remain.

Whatever attack plan the assailants had in place has
crumbled under the defense mounted by my men. The enemy has either fled or been
subdued. I conduct a quick in-field debrief. We’ll review the engagement much
more thoroughly later but for the moment it’s enough to know that our own
casualties are minor and are already being evacuated.

With no interest in hanging around to deal with the MPS, I
give the order to move out. My men and I are withdrawing from the perimeter of
the Crystal Palace, advancing deeper into the park, when the air suddenly
quivers all around me. In the next moment, I’m on the ground.

Spitting out dirt, I turn my head in time to see the entire
structure of the Crystal Palace lift off its foundations in the instant before
it flies apart. Huge, razor sharp splinters of glass rain down in a broad arc
across the park. Diving for cover, I offer up a silent prayer that Amelia and
the others are well away from the hell that is suddenly falling from the sky.