Page 7

My heart stops, lodged firmly in my throat as my brain races back through memories like a sickening fall from a skyscraper. My stomach drops right with it as the surge of images floods my brain.

A black-haired assailant, chasing me. Hunting one another through a maze of pillars.

“You love him. Your brother,” she taunts, her Russian accent thick. Her eyes are pained, concerned. For me? No. For him.

“You loved yours. How did it feel to lose him?” My voice sounds hollow. Cold. Too familiar, yet completely foreign.

“Losing him truly to death is better than having him turn on me. Abandon me.” I hear her say and rage boils over inside me, forcing me out of hiding, rushing her.

Stupid mistake. Impulsive and angry. That’s not like me. Something’s very wrong with my mind…

Her thrown dagger soars at me, blocked with my forearm, making me flinch as she swipes my leg out from under me. I roll with the fall, recover, and we exchange a flurry of blows in half a breath.

But I’m hesitating. Faltering.

“When we fought before, you fought to die. What changed?” She jabs, parries, stabs, slashes.

I respond in kind. Stab for slash.

“You tell me? Why have you only gotten more fierce since the first time we clashed?” I sound excited, almost desperate.

“You would not understand.” She smirks.

“Hey, move it,” the Czech guard growls behind me.

The sound of shattering glass and screams echo in my head as I snap back to the present.

I’m stopped in the middle of the walkway, breathing hard. Swallowing across a sandpaper throat, I stare into an office at the senior officer who’s looking at me like I’m out of my mind. He only vaguely looks like my twin brother. The secretary woman across from him tilts her head, eyeing me warily.

Yes,Kapitan, Iamout of my mind.

No sooner do I gather my scattered psyche back into a heap of shattered glass, than I come around the next corner into the lobby, and an all too familiar face stares at me from the waiting area. The goddamn woman of my dreams. And the most colossal thorn in my side.

Circe sniffs with that little smirking sneer on her face, making my hackles rise like needles in my back. Gah, she pisses me off.

In my dreams, she’s a vague memory, silk and comfort, sanctuary and solace.

In reality, every time we meet, she’s sandpaper on a sunburn.

Worse than that, she’sundermy skin before she even gets a word out. Like she’s a part of who I am. A part I can’t fucking stand.

Especially when she narrows her eyes like that and touches the tip of her tongue to her top lip and I feel myself start to get rock-hard. Double dammit.

Sheer force of will forces control over my wayward wang, my top lip curling at her, showing just a hint of snarling teeth. She looks away.

Yeah. Take that.

Until I see my reflection in the window. I look like death’s asshole. And again, my inner voice echoes someone else’s voice, so similar to my own. I can almost hear his snicker.

“Sign here.” A pen is thrust into my hand.

I don’t bother reading it except where it says that I’m effectively a John Doe and that bail has been posted. Again.

It’s always the same. In every city, every few months.

I run, skip the border, come into some cash through less than legal means, blow it all on losing myself and fighting. Eventually the locals catch me, lock me up. Sometimes I escape before she shows up.

Most times she pays my bond and picks me up.