Superlovin': Midnight Justice Read online

  No. There he was. His back to her, staring straight ahead like a statue.

  This time her entrance had been less dramatic, so no one had even looked at her, the commuters exhausted after a long day, their thoughts already on the weekend ahead. Darla tapped those closest to her on the shoulders and waved them toward the next car when their eyes widened at the D emblazoned on her chest. She worked her way down the car, urging as many people as possible out of the line of fire before Lucien noticed her.

  How much time did she have before he set off the bomb? There were no landmarks in the dark tunnels that ran beneath the city before spitting out onto the suburbs, nothing to tell her how far they were from Victory Hall.

  Passengers at the other end of the car had started noticing her and the exodus at the back. They quickly gathered up their things and moved to the next car up, leaving only Wroth, frozen with his eyes faced front, and a young woman in a pencil skirt, nibbling on her lower lip as she focused raptly on the e-reader in her hands. Darla found herself wishing whatever the woman was reading was a bit less engrossing, but it couldn’t be helped. She’d gotten as many civilians clear as she could, and she couldn’t wait any longer. They were too close to Victory Hall.

  Darla struck her familiar pose and called out, “Wroth.”

  The woman in the pencil skirt eeped and rushed toward the far door, but Darla hardly registered the movement because Lucien was already slamming into her superfast. They hit the wall, and the entire train car rocked, staying on the rails by a hair’s margin.

  Jesus. He wasn’t holding back.

  His hands closed over her throat and he squeezed, his teeth bared in a snarl even as his eyes remained blank, devoid of that familiar fierce black spark. There was no playful banter, none of the mischievous gleam that had marked their previous encounters, only deadly intent.

  “Lucien,” she choked out, gripping his wrists tight and trying to jerk his hands away from her airway, “you don’t…want to…do this.”

  Did he? From what she’d learned about mind control, the commands were always most potent when they were similar to the subject’s true desires. She’d convinced herself there was a core of goodness in Lucien, an honor and integrity Kevin wouldn’t be able to violate, but what if she’d been wrong? He was a villain, wasn’t he? His father’s son? What if he didn’t want to stop?

  She didn’t want to hurt him, wasn’t even sure she was physically capable of disabling him with his strength more than a match for her own. The superstrength taser she’d pulled off one of the SWAT guys was heavy against her hip. Shoot to kill. Would anything else stop him?

  “I don’t…want to…hurt you…Luc…”

  But she would. If that’s what it took to avert disaster. If it was him or millions, he had to be the one to die. Darla’s heart lurched, already pounding like a jackhammer as she fought for air. His fingers twitched at her throat, easing a fraction, but not enough for her to get a breath. She searched his black gaze from a distance of inches, looking for any trace of recognition, any spark of Lucien in his eyes, but there was nothing. No one was home. And she was starting to see stars as her brain begged for oxygen. She couldn’t wait any longer for him to come to his senses.

  “S…sorry…Luc…”

  Lucien watched his hands squeezing the breath from Darla. He could almost feel her skin beneath his fingers. Almost. But he couldn’t stop. Something violent had triggered in his body when she’d called his name, a powerful compulsion to take her out, finish her off so he could get back to his task, his purpose.

  He saw her lips moving but couldn’t hear the words. He raged and clawed against the restrictions in his mind, but a tiny twitch of his fingers was his only reward.

  No…not Darla.

  Her lips moved again. He was still deaf to the sound of her voice, but he thought he saw the word Sorry on her mouth. Why would she apologize? What had she done? He was the one who couldn’t seem to stop trying to kill her.

  He didn’t see her move, but he felt the blow land. He actually felt it. The sudden, nausea-inducing tide of pain. He might have rejoiced in the returned sensation from his body—if she hadn’t just pulverized his family jewels.

  Lucien doubled over, wheezing hard and struggling to stay on his feet. Another wave of pain hit and he gave up, crumpling to the floor. “Jesus,” he moaned, cupping himself.

  “Lucien?”

  He looked up to see Darla standing over him, eyes wary, a taser held at the ready.

  “Yeah.”

  A look of intense relief washed over her face, and she sank to her knees beside him. “Oh thank God. You’re you again.”

  He grunted the affirmative. “Next time, can we try a different way of snapping me out of it?” he pleaded, carefully arranging the remains of his once-proud manhood. “Cut off a finger or something.”

  She gave a little shadow of a laugh. “I thought I was going to have to…” She trailed off, waving the taser. He’d seen the devices before. They were modified to provide a single blast of electricity, designed to stop a super’s heart.

  “Good girl,” he whispered, dragging himself to a sitting position.

  “I knew you wouldn’t do it,” she swore, but there was doubt in the way her eyes flicked away from his. Her voice was scratchy, rough from the abuse he’d laid on her vocal cords. “I knew you would stop.”

  He grunted. “That’s more than I knew.” He raked a hand through his hair, just being able to feel his own hair against his skin confirming he was himself again. “My father can coerce people to do his will, but you always know it’s his command, even if you can’t resist. This was different.” And a thousand times more horrifying. “It felt like it was coming from inside me. Like it was me. The thoughts were all mine. The rationalizations were the way I would rationalize things, but the conclusions were all wrong. And I couldn’t stop.”

  “You did,” she assured him. “You were stronger than it was.”

  He snorted. “Your knee was stronger than it was.”

  She made a sympathetic face, her gaze landing on his lap. “Are you okay?”

  A low buzzing caught his attention, tangling around his senses, filling his head with wet gauze.

  “Lucien?” Darla’s voice was distant, echoing through a tunnel.

  It’s time. Time to save Mirabelle. Sacrifice yourself. Activate the rock.

  “No.” It was back. The compulsion surged through him, clogging his thoughts, twisting them. The bomb was going to go off. He was going to set it. And Darla was too close to the blast.

  “Darla…run…”

  His hands were moving toward the laptop case, which emitted a low, constant buzz, the timer going off.

  “Lucien?” She caught his hands, but he wrenched them away from her, roughly throwing her off.

  “Save yourself…” he growled, dragging the laptop case onto his lap. “For once don’t be so damn heroic. Let someone else save the world for a change.”

  The laptop was wrenched from his hands and flung across the train car. His body lunged after it without his consent, but Darla was there, tackling him to the ground, pressing his shoulders down as she straddled his chest.

  “You really are an idiot, aren’t you? I’m not here to save the world. I’m here to save you.”

  Her mouth landed on his. The clamoring war inside his head went silent. The fog in his senses cleared instantly under the blinding sunshine of her kiss.

  He was achingly aware of her lush body above him, her sweet mouth. He sank a hand into the thick red curls at the nape of her neck and angled her head for a deeper exploration. Their tongues tangled and the need to breathe became secondary to his need to taste her, possess her, own her. They fit together as they always did, the explosive chemistry of opposites clashing somehow blended with the perfect fit of yin and yang sliding into harmony against one another.

  Darla lifted her head after several minutes, her eyes dazed, pillowy lips glistening. “Did it work?” she asked, breathless with
a vulnerable hope.

  “Best to be sure,” he rumbled, dragging her mouth back to his with his grip at her nape.

  Darla didn’t offer even a token resistance, throwing herself back into the kiss with an eagerness that turned it into a celebration as well as an inferno of lust. Lucien rolled her beneath him without ever easing the pressure and pull of the kiss. For someone so strong, she was exquisitely soft, her body melting against his. Perfect.

  The train burst out of the city tunnels and into the suburban sprawl beyond, the evening’s golden sunshine pouring through the windows to warm them both. Lucien raised his head, fighting only his own reluctance. He felt drugged on the taste of Darla, but wholly, precisely himself, completely in control of his own skin again. Victory Hall was miles behind them. The laptop case was no longer buzzing, the Apocalyptum harmless within.

  DynaGirl had saved him.

  Lifting himself onto his elbows, Lucien looked down into Darla’s bright green eyes, brushing the hair away from her face. “Since when is a villain worth saving?” he asked, his voice unaccountably rough.

  “Everyone is worth saving,” she replied, her tone as hushed as his had been. As if she was as reluctant as he was to break this fragile moment.

  The words hit him hard. She meant them. He was a cynic to his core, but Darla was the real deal. She would risk her life for someone the rest of the world didn’t believe was worth saving. Her heroism wasn’t a farce, put on for the benefit of the press. It was who she was. So much a part of her, it didn’t even occur to her to be anything else. It wasn’t a lack of choice, it was a choice so deep it couldn’t be changed.

  She pushed gently on his chest, and he let her up, hating the awkwardness that instantly filled the space between them.

  “Do you know where Mirabelle is?” Darla asked.

  Mirabelle. Not Kevin. Mirabelle. She could’ve gone after the bad guy, but she wanted to be sure his sister was safe first.

  “I have an idea,” Lucien said, shaping the words carefully.

  Darla grabbed the laptop case and slung it over her shoulder. “We’ll drop this at Trident on the way,” she explained, her expression showing how eager she was to get rid of the most powerful device ever discovered.

  Lucien watched her, feeling something hard shift in his chest. Darla didn’t care about fame and glory. She really did care about justice, truth and saving the world from itself. Saving those who couldn’t save themselves.

  God. He couldn’t be more wrong for her. And damn if he wasn’t already falling…

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Couple that Kicks Ass Together

  Darla couldn’t look at Lucien without blushing. Which meant she was blushing a lot since it was hard to avoid looking at him with her arms wrapped tight around his brawny shoulders, flying through the clouds.

  Apparently, her most effective superpower was being a slut. She’d saved the city…by shoving her tongue down Lucien Wroth’s throat. Not exactly a story she could regale her grandchildren with. Or her parents.

  She wished she could say it was all part of her master plan, blinding him with her epic sex appeal for the greater good, but the truth was, in that moment, she hadn’t been thinking or planning or even considering the fate of the universe. All she’d seen, all she’d felt, was him.

  Now she couldn’t meet his eyes as they flew off to one of his father’s old lairs so Lucien could save his sister. And so Darla could drop-kick the asshole who’d fucked with Lucien’s brain into next week.

  What did you say to a man after you’d sucked the tongue out of his head to save a few million people? Was it good for you? Because it had been fucking epic for her. World-shattering. She’d practically come from the taste of him alone. Yet another thing she couldn’t tell her father.

  “There.” Lucien pointed to a small cave at the base of a sheer black cliff. “That’s the entrance.”

  She dove down and landed lightly at the lip of the cave, setting him on his feet. Darla dropped her arms and put a couple feet of distance between them. Lucien didn’t seem to notice her reaction. He was too busy peering down the darkened passageway leading into the heart of the cliff.

  “Are you sure they’re here?” Darla frowned into the unlit tunnel. No footprints marked the inches of dirt and dust on the floor at its mouth.

  “No,” Lucien admitted. “But it’s the best guess I’ve got.”

  “If Mirabelle is here, we wouldn’t know if they were all standing right in front of us, would we?”

  “Spread out,” he ordered, walking to the far side of the passageway and starting down it. “The more different our perspectives, the harder it is for her to maintain multiple illusions.”

  Darla followed, keeping as far from Lucien as she could while still guarding his back. The dark passageway sloped slightly upward and curved just enough she knew they weren’t going straight, but not enough that she could keep track of how far they’d turned. The effect was disorienting.

  She strained to pick out any whisper of sound, but only heard their footsteps—Lucien’s moving so quickly she was having trouble keeping him in sight in the low light.

  “Lucien—”

  A loud clang echoed from the cave mouth. The limited light it provided vanished, swallowing them both in absolute blackness.

  Trapped.

  Darla heard Lucien swear, and then there was only the rasp of her own breathing, too fast, too ragged. She wasn’t afraid of flying, falling, or much of anything—but being buried alive wasn’t high on her to-do list. She heard a low keening noise, realizing with shame it was coming from her own throat.

  “Hey now.” Instantly, Lucien was there, somehow having found her in the black, his scent warm and familiar, his hands firm as they cupped her face. “You afraid of the dark, DynaGirl?”

  “No,” Darla insisted, hating the thready, weak sound of her voice. “It’s more the suffocation, smothering, starvation, insanity—”

  “Easy, princess,” he murmured, his breath whispering across her temple and stirring her hair. “It’s all in your head.”

  “My head?” she squeaked. Trapped in the dark, no escape, buried in the heart of a mountain.

  “Bright as daylight in here,” he murmured, his voice so sure and steady she almost wanted to punch him for being so composed. “There’s no door to block that entrance. It’s all Mirabelle. She’s just saying hello.”

  An illusion. It’s only an illusion. “Damn strange hello.”

  “She knows I know there’s no way to block that entrance. She wants me to know she’s here.” His heat shifted away from her. “Brace yourself, princess. Things are about to get rough.”

  Darla braced her feet even as her brain scrambled to keep up. Rough?

  Lucien sucked in a breath, and she stumbled, pulled toward him, as if the air itself was magnetically drawn to him. The moment held, a suspension in time, an eternal waiting heartbeat, then wham.

  Energy exploded outward. She staggered, barely keeping her feet as a shock wave slammed into her. Her ears rang as the percussion of the shock wave echoed like they were in an enormous cavern.

  And, suddenly, they were.

  Darla blinked up at what looked more like the inside of a brightly lit aircraft hangar than the inside of a mountain. The inside of an aircraft hangar that had just been hit by a tsunami. Kevin lay on the ground about twenty feet from them, Mirabelle crumpled at his side. About two dozen uniformed men littered the ground beneath assorted fallen debris.

  “Belle!” Lucien sped to his sister, unnaturally fast.

  Darla ran after him, intent on restraining Kevin before the mind-fucker had a chance to recover. He lay on the ground, groaning softly, blood trickling out of his nose. Darla pulled a zip-cord out of her belt and reached for Kevin’s wrists.

  “Careful!” Mirabelle cried from her supine position. “Not his skin. Don’t touch his skin.”

  Darla jerked her hands back. She used the edge of Kevin’s shirt as a buffer between their han
ds as she secured him.

  “Belle?” Lucien’s voice was thick with concern.

  Darla’s heart ached at the care with which he cradled his sister. Her pupils were contracting to points and expanding to nearly cover her bright blue irises. Contracting and expanding disturbingly fast, like a camera snapping between aperture settings, unable to lock on one.

  Mirabelle frowned up at her brother. “Did I bring you here?” she asked, the words wavering with her confusion. “He kept telling me to bring you in, but I wouldn’t, Luc. I wouldn’t.”

  “You didn’t. You did great, Belle.”

  Around the room, Kevin’s henchmen began shoving themselves to their feet. Darla watched them for signs Kevin’s effect on them had worn off, as it seemed to be doing on Mirabelle, but when they looked at her, their expressions held the eerie blankness she’d seen on Lucien’s on the train. “Um…Lucien?”

  “I’m so sorry, Belle. I should’ve been here.”

  She hated to interrupt his touching moment of fraternal devotion, but the henchmen were moving faster now, picking up bits of debris—a club here, a shard of metal there. Their faces contorted into masks of avid fanaticism, cultish adoration rising in their eyes as they gazed at Kevin lying at Darla’s feet.

  “Lucien…”

  “I’ll always be there for you, Belle. Always. I’ll never let you down ag—”

  “Lucien!”

  The henchmen swarmed like locusts, heads down, weapons out. Lucien jerked upright, reflexively striking out at the first one and sending him catapulting through the air.

  “Don’t hurt them!” Darla yelped, taking the more moderate approach of crushing the weapons they raised against her. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”

  Lucien cursed and pulled his punches, but without throwing them across the room, the henchmen were relentless. “Fucking zombies,” Lucien snarled. “How do we wake them up?”

  “I could try kissing them all.”

  “The fuck you can.”

  Ignoring her surge of girly satisfaction at his possessive growl, Darla spun and gave a love tap to the freakishly fast zombie rushing her from behind. He staggered back, wheezing and clutching his sternum. Damn, hope I didn’t break it.