Warlord Read online

  The thought made his fingers tighten on the silk. A delicate trace of musk drifted up from the fabric, teasing his senses. Baran inhaled more deeply, letting his hyper-keen senses process it. Perfume, some kind of chemicals his computer identified as being from the body cleanser she used, and beneath that, the woman’s own unique scent. Intrigued, he lifted the gown to his face and breathed deeper. His nose was almost as sensitive as Freika’s, and each inhalation carried a wealth of information.

  Now one deep breath told him she was healthy, young, female—and intensely, deliciously aroused. Startled, he sniffed again. The rich smell of desire was unmistakable.

  If he’d been able to slip a finger into her sex, she’d have felt like hot, slick cream. Just waiting for a man to…Baran swallowed.

  What had aroused her? The only male scents he’d detected in the house were weeks old and confined to the living room. He was willing to wager she had no lover.

  Though she obviously wanted one.

  Pull up her image file, he ordered his comp. Obediently the implant created a picture in his mind.

  Jane Colby wasn’t the most exquisite woman Baran had ever seen; in his own time, genetic engineering had made perfect beauty commonplace. Yet there was an appealing warmth in the eyes that were simple human brown instead of the metallic shades fashionable back home.

  She was also lushly female compared to the almost androgynous shape he was used to in civilian women. Her breasts rode high and rounded on her narrow rib cage above gently curving hips and legs that seemed to make up most of her height. She reminded him of the Warfems of his own kind, but without the tough, muscled build. The combination of curve and delicacy made her look both feminine and intensely sensual, as if she’d welcome passion instead of rejecting it.

  Baran wondered what her soft pink mouth would taste like, how her breasts would fill his hands, if her skin would feel as silken as it looked. His cock hardened, going long and tight behind his fly. With a soft growl of hunger, he rolled his head against the gown in his hand, drinking in her smell, the slide of the slippery fabric against his face, the rasp of lace. He imagined thrusting into her for the first time, feeling all that wet arousal gripping him, milking him….

  It had been far too long since he’d had a woman. Days, weeks—he couldn’t remember and didn’t much care. All that interested him suddenly was this woman, this Jane Colby, with her pretty eyes and small, lush body.

  He breathed in her scent again as his hunger spiraled, tightening in demanding coils around his balls. The same genetic engineering that enhanced his strength made his lust even more intense than a normal man’s. Now that hot-burning need sent carnal images spinning through his mind—Jane, naked, on her back, on her knees, spread and ready for him, plump sexual lips slick with thick female cream….

  A rumble of hunger vibrating his chest, Baran opened his eyes and glared down at the bundle of red silk in his fist. He ached to open his fly and wrap the cool, slick fabric around his cock.

  Better not. Jerking off in her negligee would send a worse message than eating the cat.

  He took a deep breath. Blew it out. Fought for the discipline, the control, he’d learned with such difficulty, at such cost. He knew he couldn’t afford this kind of lust on a mission, any more than he could afford blind rage. Violent emotion could get a man killed. The Xerans had taught him that when they’d murdered Liisa.

  Hoping to distract his inconvenient libido, Baran glanced around Jane’s quarters. His eyes fell on a thick sheaf of bound papers lying facedown and open across the sheets. A paperback book, the computer whispered, flashing him images of massive drums spinning words onto long ribbons of white paper. Restlessly he picked up the little book. The English language download he’d absorbed the day before allowed him to read the text.

  She writhed, tugging at the silken ties that bound her to the bed as he delicately tasted the tender folds between her thighs. Any thought of resistance disappeared with each wet stroke of his tongue. She found herself begging for him and felt an instant’s shame. Then she looked down and forgot everything else as he lifted his head and smiled, lazy and taunting, before he…

  Baran blinked as his erection kicked behind the primitive metal closure of his slacks. So that’s why her gown smells like sex. Unconsciously, his fist tightened around the fragrant bundle of silk. Her scent drifted up to his nose again, teasing. He licked his dry lips.

  Helplessly drawn, Baran’s gaze dropped to the bed. A new image appeared in his mind—himself, face buried between her thighs, breathing her scent, tasting her as she lay spread and bound.

  No.

  Why not? whispered a dark, suggestive mental voice. She dreamed of a lover. If he seduced her, wouldn’t she be more inclined to cooperate, allow him stay at her side as her guardian as well as her bedmate?

  And while he was there, he could have her however he wanted, however she wanted.

  That restless thought blew apart his nascent effort at self-control. Goaded, he reached for his fly to free his aching cock.

  No. He dropped his hand and balled it into a fist. He had to keep his mind on the mission. He couldn’t afford to let her have even this much power over him. You know better, Arvid, he told himself savagely. The minute you let a civ get control, you’re headed for disaster.

  Another woman had taught him that lesson all too well twenty years ago.

  Following an order he wasn’t even aware of giving, his computer plunged him into memories so vivid, they might as well have been real.

  Liisa was screaming. She never screamed. He tried to straighten, but the virus they’d used had infiltrated his computer and turned the implant against him. Now it held him paralyzed, bent, as helpless as if they’d locked him in chains.

  Somewhere something hard struck human flesh. A male voice—Lieutenant Ullock?—grunted in that distinctive way Baran had learned to associate with a deathblow.

  “Baran!” Liisa screamed.

  He fought to go to her, fought as his heart thundered uselessly, fought until the blood pounded in his skull.

  The only movement he managed was the slow roll of a tear down his cheek.

  Shit. Baran shook his head hard as the twenty-year-old memory released its grip. The computer-induced flashback had done what it was intended to do: harden the resolve that was already pretty damn hard anyway.

  No civ would ever have the chance to betray him like that again.

  Jane Colby would do exactly as she was told, exactly when he told her to do it. If that meant he had to tie her up and fuck her brains out to gain her cooperation, fine. But even then he’d maintain a safe emotional distance.

  Which didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself.

  The thought slid through his mind, carried on the black mood the memory of his team’s death always inspired. Glancing down at the silky negligee still clenched in his fist, Baran felt a cold, dangerous smile stretch his lips. Maybe he’d have her put the gown on before he…

  “Hey, Baran!” Freika called, snapping him from his erotic preoccupation. Claws clicked on the flooring as the wolf raced toward the stairs. “I see a vehicle’s lights approaching. I think it’s the woman.”

  “Stay downstairs and hide.” Baran dropped the gown back on the bed. “I want to talk to her first.” Freika could be terrifying to the uninitiated, and this conversation was going to be tricky enough as it was.

  The click of claws stopped, then started again as the wolf trotted off, presumably to find some hiding place large enough for his hundred-kilo body. Good luck, Freika transmitted to him through their communication implants. Somehow I think you’re going to need it.

  Jane pulled into the paved parking space in front of her beige- and-white two-story contemporary. Turning off the SUV’s engine, she stared uneasily into the thick woods surrounding the house. How many places to hide could a killer find among all those trees?

  She could almost hear her father’s ghostly sneer: Don’t be such a little coward, Jane.
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br />   Squaring her shoulders, she got out and strode to the front door. Intensely aware of her own vulnerability as she unlocked it, she barely managed to control the nervous rattle of her keys.

  Once the door was locked behind her again, Jane blew out a breath and walked across the foyer’s parquet floor into the main part of the house. She’d left all the lights on when she’d gone out on the call; working murders always gave her a roaring case of the creeps. William Colby, of course, had considered that quirk further proof his only child lacked the Colby steel.

  She set her jaw. Old news, Jane. For years she’d believed she had outgrown her obsession with her father. She’d done a damn good job in Atlanta, winning the respect of her peers and writing stories she was proud of. She’d even begun to believe in her own talents despite years of his verbal abuse.

  But since returning home, it seemed Jane saw her father’s disapproving frown everywhere she looked. Like the Cheshire cat’s grin, it lingered.

  Dammit, Jane, cut that out. Blowing out a breath, she made herself scan the living room she’d spent so much money to decorate. The rich cream leather couch and armchairs had not been cheap, and neither had the antique coffee table or the flat-screen high-definition television. Her journalism awards hung between original works of art she’d bought in Atlanta—here a watercolor of an old Southern mansion drowsing in the sun, there a pastel of a child in a straw hat, the sharp, vivid blue of her eyes skillfully captured in fine detail. The wall lamps had stained-glass shades, and the pale rose carpet was thick and plush under her feet. All of it was a silent statement of Jane’s capability and success.

  Take that, Daddy.

  Okay, that really was pathetic. Dragging both hands through her hair, she sighed in disgust. Face it, girl, you can’t win a war with a dead man. Hell, the only battle that counted was lost when you were ten. Deal with it.

  Definitely time for bed. She always got maudlin when she was tired.

  “Caller said his neighbor’s beating his wife in the front yard,” her scanner announced from her purse as she crossed the living room on her way to the stairs, feet sinking into the pile. “Said he’s Code Five with a baseball bat. The female half is on the ground. One-oh-two Bridgemont Street. Better step it up, guys.”

  Typical Tayanita scanner traffic. Not the kind of incident Jane covered unless there was major trauma involved. Besides, she was so damn tired she wasn’t going out again unless they caught the killer or he murdered somebody else.

  The scanner fell silent. Jane could hear the refrigerator hum in the kitchen. Damn, the house was lonely. Maybe she should get a dog, assuming she could find one Octopussy could tolerate. Her seal-point Siamese was definitely not a canine fan.

  A man might be a better idea. These days the closest she got to male companionship were the romance novels that were her secret vice.

  Jane had always been too obsessed with her job to devote any real attention to finding a lover. And now that she was back in tiny Tayanita, her options had not exactly improved. Between reporting and running the paper, she never had time to go to any of the local bars, that being about the only place single men congregated in Tayanita. Assuming she could even find anybody there whose name she didn’t regularly see on police reports.

  Maybe she should get Reynolds to fix her up with a cop.

  Nah, that’d never work. Cops viewed reporters with all the warmth Octopussy reserved for yappy little French poodles.

  A firefighter, maybe. She liked firefighters.

  Jane sighed, imagining warm, strong arms to wrap around her, a sympathetic ear to listen to her gripe about the school board or the mayor. Someone to hold her while she cried for a murdered woman she’d never met.

  Somebody to ward off killers.

  Paws thumped frantically in the hallway floor overhead. Jane looked up, pausing on the stairs as Octopussy flung herself from the top of the steps. She caught the cat automatically, wincing as her pet dug every claw she had into her shoulder.

  Staring into Jane’s eyes, Octopussy began complaining furiously in a mix of meows, growls, and hisses. Like most Siamese, she was convinced she could talk.

  “What’s got you in such a tizzy?” Jane asked, trying to give the animal a soothing ear scratch that was foiled when the cat jerked her head away. “Are you hungry, or do you want to go outside?”

  Octopussy’s feline gripes rose in volume and bitterness.

  Jane’s mouth quirked as she stepped up into the bedroom. “Or is little Timmy trapped in the well?” The Siamese swarmed up her shoulder and leaped off to head back down the stairs in desperate bounds. As Jane blinked in bemusement, the cat shot under the couch, leaving not so much as the tip of a chocolate tail visible. “Guess Timmy’s on his own.”

  Muttering about inexplicable feline mood swings, Jane walked down the hall into her bedroom, reaching for the buttons of her shirt. All she wanted was to crawl back into the sheets with her book. She’d just gotten to the good part when she’d heard the murder call over her scanner.

  “Jane Colby?”

  Jumping with a muffled shriek, she stopped dead in the doorway, her heart stuffing her throat.

  There was a man sitting in the armchair across from her bed.

  In that first instant of startled terror, Jane saw only size and black clothing and some sort of vivid paint running along one side of his face. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded, clutching her chest with one hand as her heart banged against his fingers.

  “I’m Baran Arvid,” the man said, uncoiling from the chair. “You’re in danger, Miss Colby. I’ve been sent to protect you.”

  Protect, hell, Jane thought, staring wide-eyed as he straightened to a height of at least six-foot-five. If I’m in danger, it’s from him.

  He wore a black cable-knit turtleneck that stretched across impressively broad shoulders. Black pants hugged his long, muscled legs, and soft dark boots covered his feet. A long black duster that smelled like leather fell in folds around his massive body, putting her uncomfortably in mind of Dracula’s cape.

  “Protect me from what?” She licked dry lips and remembered Tom’s gruff warning earlier this evening: Jane, everybody in this town has a reason to be worried.

  Oh, God, was this the killer? No way could she fight him off, not judging by the width of those shoulders. Hell, she wasn’t sure Arnold Schwarzenegger could fight him off; the man looked like a human tank. Jane backed up another step. “And how did you get in my house?”

  “I broke in.” He studied her, his expression dispassionate, no doubt reading the terror that was probably written all over her face. “Don’t look so frightened. I’m not the threat you need to worry about.”

  “Yeah, well, personally I don’t accept reassurance from burglars.”

  He lifted a dark brow. “Even if their only intention is to protect you from a killer?”

  Jane blinked. “Well, that’s certainly preferable to being the killer.”

  The burglar smiled slightly. “I thought so.”

  “Just for curiosity’s sake, which killer are we talking about?” she asked cautiously.

  “Is there more than one?”

  “You never know.”

  The smile expanded, flashing white and charming across his tanned face. Damn, a housebreaker with a sense of humor. “Actually, I’m referring to the man responsible for the murder you covered tonight.”

  “How do you know about that?” Jane thought of at least one way he could have gotten that information—he could have committed the killing himself. She took another step back.

  “I have my sources.” The burglar shrugged. “In any case, we believe the same man will eventually try for you.” His eyes were wide and dark, long-lashed, startlingly beautiful. And hard. Very hard. “I intend to stop him.”

  Apropos of nothing, a thought pierced Jane’s unease: Damn, he’s gorgeous. Not in a GQ-pretty kind of way, but in a primal, utterly masculine sense enhanced by his square-jawed face, aggressive cleft chin, even th
e beard stubble darkening his angular cheeks. Adding a startling touch to all that rough masculine beauty, a strange design in iridescent red and blue swirled down one side of his face from forehead to cheekbone. Not paint, she realized. A tattoo, though she had never seen one so bright and vivid.

  His hair added to the impression of elegant barbarism, falling straight and black around his shoulders. Something glittered against the midnight silk; small jeweled beads, braided into a single dark lock that swung beside one high cheekbone.

  Staring up at him, it hit her suddenly that he was standing a lot closer than he had been. While she’d been gazing at him in besotted fascination, he’d been subtly stalking her.

  Oh, God.

  As Baran watched, the fear deepened in Jane’s eyes again. He almost growled in frustration. For a moment there, he’d seen a trace of feminine response in her gaze, but now the panic was back. She had reason to be afraid with Druas after her, but her best protection from that threat was Baran himself. Which was why he couldn’t let her run from him.

  “I appreciate your sense of civic responsibility,” she told him in an elaborately polite tone as she edged away, “but I think I’d rather depend on the local cops.”

  “That wouldn’t be wise.”

  She pointed toward the stairs. Despite her firm tone, her hand shook slightly. “Let me put it another way: Get out.”

  He shook his head and tried a wry smile. “I wish I could. I did have other plans for the next few days.” Like the General’s assassination, but he didn’t think she’d find that particular detail reassuring. “Unfortunately, my superiors have ordered me to protect you, so it seems both of us are going to have to make the best of it.”

  “What superiors?” Her small pink tongue slipped out to moisten her full lips.

  Baran was instantly reminded of that dangerously erotic red nightgown and its clinging scent of sex. A bolt of lust took him by surprise. He suddenly wanted to taste that mouth. And work his way down. He had to fight to keep his gaze from dropping to those pert, tempting breasts.

  “What superiors?” she repeated, her tone sharpening, voice rising as her fear visibly increased.