They began to dance. Again and again he let her strike home, absorbing her kicks and punches into his body, showing almost no reaction. He struck at her, not so much to hit her as to force her to block. He wanted to tire her out.
She pivoted on one foot and sent a roundhouse kick toward his head. He ducked and caught her foot, yanking her off balance. She spun free of his grasp, twirling horizontal to the ground and landing on her feet. But even as she did, he was behind her, trying to catch her arms. She snapped her head back to smash his nose. He lurched but did not let go. Together they tumbled backward into the pool.
Opening her eyes underwater, the first thing she saw was a rosy red cloud blossoming around his head. Finding bottom, she shot out of the water, panicked, swiping the tainted water from her face. He surfaced, his face twisted with bitterness and green with pool light.
“What’s wrong? Afraid to join me in hell?”
Using his fingernail, he slashed a vein open in his wrist and snapped his arm in her direction. She turned her head, sealing her mouth while the hot spray pelted her face. He grabbed her by the ears and tried to kiss her with his blood-smeared lips. She slammed her knee into his balls, and followed it with an upper cut to his solar plexus.
Alya was strong as sin and slippery as an eel. Whenever he grabbed her she turned boneless, impossible to hold. Once she broke free, she was all sharp blows and cutting edges.
Now that he’d tasted her and he knew exactly how strong she was, he calculated his odds of winning as being just above half. To her core she was made of steel and ambition. He’d heard her mind. All she thought about were different ways to kill him.
But he didn’t regret giving in to his hunger. After thirty years spent in fog and shadow, tasting her had been like drinking pure light.
For the hundredth time she broke from his grasp. This time she sprang out of the pool and ran for the house. Ran for her weapons.
He pursued, expecting knives. She met him at the door with a shotgun blast. Luck kept him alive. Luck and his fantastically expensive bulletproof shirt. He dove behind her sofa, and rolled behind the fireplace. He couldn’t stay there for long.
“Marry this, you son of a bitch.” She pumped the shotgun.
He leapt over her dining room table, pulling it over with him just in time to deflect the blast. He picked out the route he’d take to the long hall. Knew it led to her kitchen from studying her floor plan. Didn’t know what he’d find in her kitchen, but hoped for knives.
“I didn’t come here to hurt you.” As he said it, he picked up a broken vase and tossed it to the left while he dove right. She fired at the vase first, giving him time to reach the hall.
The next blast blew a hole in the wall between them. He sprinted for the kitchen. It was stocked for humans. For her lovers. Gritting his teeth at the memory of her riding that skinny, pathetic human boy, he grabbed a butcher knife, ripped the fire extinguisher off the wall and pulled the pin.
Poking his head around the corner, he saw her advancing down the hall, confident behind her big gun. He stepped out, spraying the fire extinguisher, blinding her.
Flipping the canister around, he clocked her under the chin with its butt end. Her rifle blew another hole in the wall. He clocked her a second time and the rifle dropped from her hands
Disarmed, she bolted to the living room. Mikhail followed, holding the fire extinguisher and the butcher knife, and found her pulling a decorative scimitar from the wall. Holding the hilt in a two-handed grip, she swiped the blade through the air. It made a wicked wooshing sound. He sighed. It was real.
“I’m tired of you, Faustin.”
Tell me about it. He presented his weapons. Such as they were. The white foam on her face should have made her look clownish. It didn’t. It made her look damned scary,
She swung. He blocked with the extinguisher. The force of her strike shook his arm.
“I remember, you know. That one drop.”
She swung at him again. He spun, protecting himself with the canister, using the knife to keep her a decent distance away. He couldn’t play offense against a scimitar.
“What did it do to you?”
“It made me a ghost.”
“Do ghosts bleed as much as you do?”
She struck low, slicing open his thigh. At the same time, he reached out with his kitchen knife and drew a ragged cut up her arm. They both retreated, nursing their wounds. Mikhail cast around for a better weapon. She probably had them stashed all over her house. He did.
Dancing forward, she swung her scimitar in decorative arcs, showing off. He backed up grimly, watching for any opportunity. As he passed a long, low leather bench, his instincts whispered to him. Sweeping it up, he used it to block her next blow. Her blade sliced the cushion open. But he didn’t want a shield—he wanted to see what was under it, and sure enough, he found a Ruger P89 holstered to the underside.
She rushed him, but he scrambled backward, bringing the pistol to firing position.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” she said, raising her sword.
He shot her in the shoulder. The impact drove her against the wall. Stunned, she dropped to the ground, her hand over the wound. The blood wicked fast through her wet nightgown.
Holding the gun on her, he took a couple of cautious steps forward, kicked the scimitar across the tile, and wondered what the hell he was going to do next.
Long ago he’d lost her because he was too weak to hold her. A show of strength had brought him this far. But he knew in his gut strength couldn’t take him any further. His father said to give her no quarter, but he couldn’t press the gun to her temple and abduct her. It wouldn’t work. Not with her.
Alya Adad wasn’t a willful woman who would respond to a strong hand. There wasn’t a submissive bone in her body. She’d die before she knelt to him. He’d tasted her. He knew.
Echoing his own thoughts, she pointed her chin at the gun. “Finish it.”
“No.”
“I never loved you, you know.”
He tightened his grip on the gun. “You’re lying. I was there. Remember?”
“And they call women sentimental.” She scooted along the wall, trying to escape him even though she couldn’t walk. “I never did. I never will.”
He didn’t listen. He couldn’t afford doubt. If they were destined to be together, then there was a path to follow. But the way was perilous, and the thread of hope fine as a spider’s web. Holding the gun behind his back, he squatted down in front of her. With his free hand he swiped the extinguisher foam off her cheeks.
“Alya, I shouldn’t have bit…”
She caught him with an upward jab. His head snapped back and his teeth cracked together.
“Damn it!” He struck out instinctively, slapping her cheek so hard that his hand went numb to the wrist, but she slapped him right back, a stinging blow to his ear.
He took that one, and she gave him another. And another. She hit him until his face burned and his ears rang. He took all of her blows, paying for her blood, letting her fury spend itself. Even coated in powder foam and bleeding—bleeding from the gunshot he’d inflicted on her—she was full of grace, quick and bright as a flame.
God help me, I think I’ve gone insane. A bit of tooth floated under his tongue. He was wonderfully, obscurely happy.
When her blows slowed, he spat out the broken tooth and said, quite truthfully, “I could do this all night.”
Eyes snapping with fury, she slapped him extra hard for that. “Fuck you. What are you doing here? Is this your idea of revenge?”