On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) (34 page)

“We’ll bury him with the woman I had earlier so he won’t be alone,” Maxim said.

Eddie walked through the room carrying a bucket with water in one hand and the first-aid kit in the other.

“You did fine work in there by the way. Definitely worthy of its own reward.”

Eddie smiled. “Thank you, sir. It was my pleasure,” he said before closing the door behind him.

“What’s next on his wish list?” Kragen asked Reed, who pulled up a spreadsheet on his external brain.

“Looks like a month off to indulge himself at the recreation lodge in Vancouver.”

Maxim grimaced, recalling the particular focus of that holding. “Give him a month and a half. I guess I’ll have to tolerate Mitchell while Eddie is away.”

“I imagine you’ll have little use for a personal bodyguard with Sabrina here to occupy your time.”

Maxim felt indescribably light from this insight. No more searching, no more disappointing encounters with insufficient women. “I imagine you’re right,” he said as he stepped out onto the balcony to see clouds gathering fast over the roiling ocean. The strong winds whipped his hair about his face. He felt so free he could almost take flight over the turbulent waters.

He breathed the crisp ocean air. This time everything would work out. He would take her to Basir’s gathering and introduce his soon-to-be wife to some of the less prominent members of the Consortium.

It would probably kill his father…but that would only be an added benefit of their reunion.

* * * *

After the minion left the medical supplies, Sabrina was again alone with Zeus. She fully believed ten minutes meant ten minutes—no more, no less.

Digging through the medium-size bag, she saw it was stocked well enough for a military field doctor. Before she’d left New Orleans, she’d bought a twenty-dollar black bag, filled it with first-aid supplies anyone could purchase at the neighborhood pharmacy, and supplemented it with some items she’d “borrowed” from her mobile emergency medical unit. As advanced as it was, her bag didn’t compare to Kragen’s.

She cleaned Zeus’s wounds quickly and efficiently. Between her mother, Ernesto’s men, and herself, she’d had lots of practice, even before she’d become an EMT in Louisiana.

“Zeus, baby, open your eyes. We don’t have much time.”

She cleaned the bullet wounds, injected him with a small dosage of oxycodone—just to keep the majority of pain at bay—reset his nose, taped gauze to his chest, and wrapped it around his leg. It wasn’t right his body should be marred with more scars. He had gone through so much already.

Zeus opened his eyes. The whites had hemorrhaged, but the gray still gleamed metallic. The most beautiful eyes, she thought as she smiled at him and brushed a featherlight kiss over his jawbone, the only place on his face that wasn’t bruised, busted, broken, or swollen.

She quickly but efficiently wrapped his ribs. “Have I ever told you how much I love your eyes?”

“Said…they were…freaky.”

“But don’t you know I love freaky?”

“Love my eyes?”

“Love your eyes.”

“Me?”

She swallowed, unable to hold back the truth. She didn’t want him to go out there and not have heard her say it. She wanted him to know someone loved him, that someone would grieve for the rest of her life if he was no longer in this world.

“I still don’t like you very much,” she said as she struggled to help him to his feet. “But I don’t want to be with anyone but you, Zeus. Only you. I love you so much. I’ll do whatever I can to protect you.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Kragen promised to release you. I trust him to do it because I’ll be watching. I’ll be watching until I can’t see you anymore; then you’ll have to do what you’ve done since being an orphan on the streets of Marseille. You’ll have to fight to survive.”

“No,” he said, struggling.

“Yes,” she hissed. “I have time. You don’t. I don’t trust him any more than you do. I know he’ll try to kill you the minute my back is turned, but at least you’ll have a chance out there. You have none shackled to this wall.”

“You love me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Stay focused.”

“No better reason to kill than for love, right?”

She snorted. “As if you need another reason.” She rose on her tiptoes and brushed another kiss across his jaw before reaching into her hair and pulling out one of the Asian hair pieces he had given her. “Take this.”

He shook his head, gritting his teeth. “Never lose your blade.”

“You’ll need something to fight with.”

“I always have something to fight with.” His silver eyes glinted with amusement. The man was buck naked! “Hey,” he said in contemplation. Could be the drugs kicking in? “Think I love you?”

“You need to ask yourself that question?” she said, feeling a little petrified over the possibility that he didn’t.

“How the fuck would I know?” he growled, frowning. “Who have I ever loved?”

“Okay, this is a conversation for another time…and you need to stop cussing at me.”

“Well, think about it,” he rasped out. “Let me know what you come up with.”

She heard the door open behind her.

“It looks like my little healer has righted a lot of what you worked so hard to destroy, Eddie.”

The minion snorted.

Sabrina turned to see the two men filling the doorway. She placed a supportive arm around Zeus’s back, preparing to help him to the front door.

Kragen shook his head. “Eddie, assist our guest up the stairs. Sabrina, you and I will follow closely behind.”

She held Zeus’s gaze as Eddie approached. “Behave,” she whispered. Zeus flexed his hands as if gripping invisible blades. She actually imagined the spectral outline of them.

Zeus nodded once at her; then his eyes tracked Eddie as he moved closer. Even with Zeus in this beaten state, without the chains, she would have approached with more caution. Eddie advanced with the overconfidence of a man who assumed his prey was powerless.

Handing Zeus off to the other man was one of the most tension-filled moments Sabrina had ever experienced. If Zeus snapped and attacked, it would be the last time she saw him alive. She knew this. Zeus remained silent, his gaze never leaving Eddie’s face as his body weight shifted from Sabrina to the minion.

“Sorry to see you leave so prematurely,” Kragen said to Zeus. “I had more fun planned for you.”

Sabrina registered the moment Zeus’s eyes turned flat as flint, emptying of all emotion. She’d seen that look before, cold, inhuman. It was no less terrifying outside of the warehouse walls. Following Eddie’s physical cues, Zeus limped to the door.

Sabrina slowed her pace. Love him or not, if Zeus lost his shit, she wasn’t going to risk being cut down once he flew into action. She didn’t trust that whatever stared out of his eyes would recognize her in the heat of battle.

“Don’t be frightened. Everything will work out,” Kragen said, tapping her pendant. “I knew it the moment I saw you wearing my gift to you on the night we first made love.”

Sabrina stumbled, evading Kragen’s hand as he reached out to catch her before she fell. Automatically her hand sought the moonstone pendant.

Ahead of them Zeus stopped at the stairs and turned.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she assured as she pulled away from Kragen’s hot hands. “I just tripped. It’s okay.”

His gaze stayed locked on her as he refused to move at Eddie’s urging.

“Really. Everything’s fine. I’m fine.”

The desperation in her tone must have penetrated, because he turned and allowed Eddie to help him navigate the stairs.

“He’s very protective of you.”

Sabrina clasped the necklace in her fist.

“I don’t fault him for wanting to protect you. His punishment comes from abusing his position and taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. But in no way do I blame you. You’ve always had a trusting heart.”

Tears burned behind Sabrina’s eyes. Samantha,
she
had a trusting heart. The pendant had been hers. When Sabrina found it buried in Sam’s drawer, her sister had begged her to take it, claiming it was a part of her past she didn’t want to remember but couldn’t forget. Sabrina had thought it was the heartache of lost love, but Sam had refused to talk about it.

Sabrina had hated the idea of her sister enduring something she couldn’t protect her from, but she’d told herself to let it go, that Sam had to toughen up because heartache was a part of life. All you could do was survive it.

She looked at Kragen. Was he the reason her sister had taken her own life?

“New York. I met you in New York. It was about eight years ago. I extended my stay because I thought I was in love,” she said, remembering the only vacation Sam had ever taken.

“I knew our time together would come back to you. I knew God wouldn’t be cruel enough to allow you to completely forget me. Forget us.”

Sabrina’s ascent up the stairwell blurred as she recalled Sam’s phone call the first night she’d landed in the New York.

“I’m not you, Bree. I cain’t just
…approach
people and talk to them like I got a right to.”

“Sure you can. That’s the whole point of the trip, Sam. Be free, explore life. Hell, maybe you’ll meet Prince Charming and he’ll sweep you off your feet. And me, I’ll just continue to collect the toads.”

Sabrina smiled when she’d heard her sister’s soft laughter. Sam was always so gentle and restrained, possibly a by-product of the strictness Sam’s father incorporated to stop Sam from becoming anything like Sabrina or their mother.

“Maybe I’ll just pretend I’m you,” Sam said with a sardonic humor that actually sounded like Sabrina.

“Yeah, but be a nicer me, though. You’re prettier, so use that too. Be a nicer, sexier Sabrina.”

Sabrina hadn’t ever been able to carry off sexy or nice for long, but she’d learned early to be good with people to get what she needed.

“You’ll tell me about the necklace soon?” she asked, feeling as if she was losing her mind as she watched Eddie support Zeus to the front door.

Eddie walked Zeus out into the yard, then left him there, naked and alone, to find balance on his injured leg.

Zeus turned and looked at her. “Me?”

“You,” she said. Absolutely him.

Zeus looked out over the misted forest. A storm threatened, yet he limped ahead as if unfazed.

She turned to Kragen. “You meant what you said? He gets to walk away.”

“I meant it without reservation.”

“Thank you,” she said as she watched Zeus move forward until he was a shadow in the mist, then simply was no more.

He was gone.

Kragen took the opportunity to pull her into the circle of his arms, his breath fanning her cheek. “It’s wonderful to have you back. I will do everything within my power to make sure you’re happy.”

“I trust you will, Max,” she said.

He turned her back toward the door, and she looked behind her to see if she could catch one last glimpse of Zeus. Not one much for praying, she prayed to Zeus’s namesake and all the spirits of steel Zeus trusted to protect him and see him to safety.

As she walked back into the house, she threw out an additional prayer that any being willing to listen protect her as well.

Chapter Seventeen

Even injured, Zeus made less noise than the men hunting him.

Five. There were now five. He could hear them moving from different positions, tightening the noose…had he stayed within their perimeter. But with the first kill, he’d gotten behind it. When they realized they were one man down, the hunt would be underway in full force. But time was his enemy on this hunt. Sabrina was in the house with Kragen. The way he’d looked at her had made everything inside Zeus go quiet.

Sabrina loved him, and he was determined to learn what that meant. If Kragen had her too long, he could hurt her so badly she would lose the ability to love. Especially someone like him.

A branch snapped to his left, and he reacted, pushing his blade through the eye of one man, pulling it out only when the man’s spirit stopped residing in his body.

Four.

Zeus was sweating from pain and exertion. His body was on fire even with the cold fog rolling off the ocean, even with the meds Sabrina had pumped into him. Zeus moved to an outcropping of boulders and rested, inhaling the briny air. This wasn’t a good place to stop. Not a good place to rest. He was too exposed here, but he needed to take some pressure off his leg. After a few more breaths he moved forward, headed away from the sound of the ocean, away from the house and Sabrina. The men who hunted him would expect this, and he’d accommodate.

Disregarding the fire at his side, Zeus knelt down and listened. The world blurred, undulating as if it were as fluid as the ocean below. He couldn’t close his eyes; that would only draw the darkness down, and someone was close.

Fisting his most treasured blade, the one he had secured in the faux wounded flesh against his thigh, he breathed out and inhaled as much as his ribs would allow. Tilting his head to the side, he was able to track the sounds of hesitant footfalls advancing in his direction. He could smell gun oil. Cologne, not cheap but nauseating as hell for a grown man. His blade itched to go to work. The coppery smell of blood would go a long way in making the cologne less offensive.

Zeus looked up when the man was no more than two feet away. He could see the automatic rifle butted securely against the man’s left shoulder as he sighted ahead of him, scanning. When he got too close, Zeus cut through muscle and tendon. Blood sprayed, and Zeus smiled. He loved arterial flow. He didn’t love the pain that caused his vision to go dark around the edges, but he loved the feel of his blade sinking into the man’s kidney when he fell, then through the rib cage to his heart. Two rapid-fire gunshots rang out when the man’s finger spasmed against the trigger, upstaging his pain-laden shrieks. Made sense that a man who wore cologne on a hunt would shriek when dying.

Zeus struggled to stand. Three more.

He moved away from the body as fast as his own would allow before doubling back. He had to hunt. No more time for waiting. He wasn’t a superhero; he was pragmatic. He knew he wouldn’t stay conscious much longer. Eventually his system was going to shut down, and he needed Kragen’s men dead before that happened or he’d be the one never to wake up again.