Page 81 of Deep Within Me

Even as Zeke rested, he wouldn’t pull out of her. Liz slept so deeply at times, he strained to hear her breathing and kept checking her pulse.

It beat steadily.

How long would it last?

He ached for sleep but didn’t dare surrender to it. When the time came that he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, he’d have Jacob come in here to hold and protect her…to mount her if that proved necessary.

For now, Zeke ran his fingers over her arm and back. He kissed her cheek and buried his face in her hair, pouring his love into her, strengthening their bond. It didn’t matter that they’d come from different clans. That they’d once been enemies. No one would separate them now.

Not even Isabel, or whatever her real name was.

Zeke fought panic as he wondered what her next demand might be and how he could fight it without her removing Liz from his mind. Maybe it was an empty threat. Maybe not. When Isabel made her move, would he have time to flee thisstronghold with Liz, Jacob, and her father? What if he wasn’t able to do—

His thoughts halted at the hissing he heard. Accompanying it was dazzling white, signaling his newest vision. He tried to fight it, didn’t want to know what new horrors the damned future would bring.

Relentlessly, his mind focused on the images that bled through the intense glare. He saw the young woman Carreon had threatened to kill earlier, her dark hair and black nails. She stood next to a man Zeke couldn’t see. Shadows fell across his face, obscuring his features. Lust and violence radiated from the two of them, no different from Carreon.

Zeke blinked rapidly, suddenly straining to see more, to determine what the vision meant.

Impossible. The images evaporated as quickly as they’d arrived, leaving him unsettled, uneasy about his clan, Jacob, Liz.

As though sensing his distress or having felt the tension in his body, she awakened. Her eyes were clear, her color good. “I love you,” she said.

Zeke held her so tightly he feared he’d crush her but couldn’t help himself.

Liz didn’t complain. She hugged him in return and whispered, “Carreon’s really gone.”

She sounded astonished as many did when a world leader was assassinated or a film star met an untimely end. Some people are so much larger than life they seem immortal.

Not Carreon.

“Yes,” Zeke said.

“It’s over, then?” she asked.

He wanted that more than anything else but sensed it was not. The evil that was coming would be even deadlier than it had been with Carreon.

Again, he recalled his vision. The woman’s dark nails, her blue-black hair, and a detail he’d forgotten.

Her smile—empty, predatory.

Epilogue

Trinidad leaned against an arm of the leather sofa in what had once been Carreon’s penthouse suite. Soft lighting glowed beneath the lamps’ bronze shades. Coppery pavers and beige walls gave the space a Southwestern feel.

Carreon owned—or had owned—the entire building. His most important lieutenants and their families lived here so he’d always been able to keep an eye on them. On the night Carreon had died, Trinidad went to his stronghold, her intent simple. To steal as much as she could—money, weapons, the priceless art, and drugs she’d heard he had there—then disappear with the treasure, selling and using it someplace else. Perhaps Vegas. Maybe New York. Even Mexico had crossed her mind.

Roberto Amo, the man who’d made torture his specialty, had been waiting for Liz and her father at the stronghold. He stopped any hope Trinidad had of escaping despite the assault rifle she held. He had his own, along with several armed men who would have killed her in a moment on Roberto’s orders.

“I should make you scream,” he’d said upon learning of Carreon’s death from Ernez. How Trinidad had ordered him to burn the body. “Then I should kill you slowly.”

“But you won’t,” she’d murmured. She’d seen the lust in his dark eyes, the sexual tension building in his large body.

He’d smiled at her audacity then took her in front of Ernez, mounting her from behind, demanding she submit to him. During the following days, he’d enjoyed her repeatedly, their coupling wild, just as Trinidad liked. She left scratches on his back and ass. Marks from his belt crisscrossed her buttocks, his punishment meted out not only to arouse her but to make certain she obeyed his every command without hesitation.

Roberto gave her no other choice.

It took him less than a week to fill the power vacuum left by his former boss. Anyone who dissented was tortured then murdered. Roberto stepped up the clan’s recruitment efforts among their people.