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  Published by The Hartwood Publishing Group, LLC,

  Hartwood Publishing, 400 Gilead Road, #1617, Huntersville, NC 28070

  www.hartwoodpublishing.com

  Bone Deep

  Copyright © 2015 by Lea Griffith

  Digital Release: March 2015

  Cover Artist: Georgia Woods

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Bone Deep by Lea Griffith

  Her tears will never reach Heaven.

  She was formed of the earth, and time has hardened her into stone. To her marrow Bone is the coldest of killers. She is the only one of First Team who lusts for death. Yet even a killer’s heart can bleed.

  He has never wept for his greatest loss.

  Dmitry Asinimov knows well what it is to lose the ones you love. Nothing is thicker than blood, nothing. He has hidden his pain, but never has he stopped searching for vengeance. Now he’s close to answers, but first he must break the woman whose eyes whisper of pain and whose strength is unlike anything he’s ever known.

  Bone and blood. Two sides of one coin. Retribution draws them together but before all is said and done they will learn love can either break you or make you stronger.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all of my G’s BadAssAssins--Jess, Amy, Laura, Thaty, Kelley, Ange, Sarah H., Jennifer, Kasey, Fallon, C.C., Michelle, Sheri, Sarah C., Holli, Andrea, Diana, Kassi, Krystal, Danielle, Stephanie ,Megan and Brianna--You kick much ass and I love you, not just because you’re awesome, but because you love my killers.

  It’s also dedicated to every reader who has hit me up via email or social media—you might not know what your words do but they are my bread and butter. You’ve given me the courage and strength to finish this book and while I can’t name you all, you know who you are. I hope you love what you read and come back to me for more.

  Lisa Hart – This book wouldn’t have happened without you. Thank you for making my words shine.

  Georgia Woods – Thank you for your unwavering belief.

  Author Notes

  This is a romance, but the themes present in this series are sometimes harsh and brutal. Please keep in mind this is a work of fiction.

  Also, I have taken liberty with some of the places mentioned in this work. I try to stay as true as I can to geographical references—any mistakes are mine.

  The Russian translations in this book wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity of Lolla Zvonova Stovall. Russian is hard, y’all, and for a girl raised in Georgia, that’s USA, they were damn near impossible. Thank you, Lolla, for your time and patience.

  I must also give a shout out to Rebekah James. Her insight into the Hebrew culture was invaluable. I love you much, Reb. Thank you for your time and patience.

  The Beginning

  Arequipa, Peru

  22 Years Ago

  The night split open above her, the black fading to gray and slowly the gray to pink. Fingers of orange sifted through the clouds like a mother stroking her child’s hair. The colors bit deep into her mind, but as the darkness exhaled and gave up its breath to the light, all Bone knew was a pin-pricked numbness, and it was beautiful. She didn’t move except to breathe, taking in the dawn and recognizing this day would change so much.

  Maybe she would leave this bright morning as she’d left that black night so long ago…maybe she would be different. Her belly swelled as she took in air and the rope taunted her. She was strung up, the burn on her skin having long since faded, leaving her marked but still alive.

  Always Bone was left alive.

  She had been forced to stand the entire night. When her legs became tired and she drooped in the hold of the rough bindings the short, bristly fibers dug into her skin, reminding her she was a prisoner. There were choices she had to make. Good or bad. Right or wrong. Live or die. She knew this to be true and yet the pinks and oranges of morning rained down, stealing her concentration and forcing her to remember.

  Forcing her to hate. She was no stranger to that emotion—had been reared in its taloned grasp by her parents. But she could not control it and that made her suspicious of what she’d become. There was a tug inside her now—a craving she didn’t know how to name.

  She shifted, feeling the wind caress her naked body as it brought stinging drops of fog. The air smelled of the ocean that existed beyond the white-capped mountains of this place she’d been brought to. These mountains were nothing like the plateau of Masada. They were higher and jagged, and they did not call to her soul.

  Her mother said God was everywhere, saw everything, but Bone knew God did not live here. He’d abandoned her in this hellish place.

  The gray mist that stalked these mountains never stayed very long but blanketed all it touched. Like the ocean it smelled of, the fog carried salt into her wounds, scalding the marks left by Minton’s rope. If she weren’t tied she imagined maybe she could float away with it, back to the sea—disappear beneath the waves and sink to the bottom. She would be carried away into the cold grip of the water and cease to exist. She was so tired. Maybe those waters would carry her soul home to Jericho. How she longed for that.

  “The sky’s very blue, Gretchen. Why do you think the sky’s very blue?” The little girl’s voice was growing weaker, and it scraped across Bone’s nerves, tightening her scalp, calling to the demon in her that wanted to end the child’s torment.

  Kill. Kill. Kill. It could have been her aba’s voice or her imagination. Her father’s tone had always been frightful, taunting the hate that lived inside her even though she tried to conquer it.

  Bone had not been afraid in a long time though she couldn’t remember how many days and nights she’d been here in this place of black mountains and pain. The little girl’s voice made her heart pound and her skin prickle under the rope. She searched for the reason behind the phenomenon and found it…fear.

  “I’m Bullet now. Remember?” Bullet’s voice was pleading. She too was scared.

  The demon rose with little effort, engulfing Bone with warmth. It fed on fear and drank from the overflowing spring of rage inside her. It didn’t matter whose fear, hurt or anger it was, the demon, once released, eclipsed all she knew. It was beyond her control.

  Bone’s eyes burned and she sniffed. She would not cry here. She would not. She would hate instead and let the heat of her anger dry the wetness in her eyes. A kind’s treren reissen himlen. It was her mother’s favorite saying and how Bone remembered it now she did not know. Her mind translated the words into English, French, and Russian, the phrase rebounding through her ears in every language, eclipsing her own native Hebrew. She wasn’t allowed Hebrew any longer.

  The phrase had been meant to punish and held power over her now—a child’s tears reach the heavens.

  And Bone was no longer a child. Had never been a child. Tears would be fruitless.

  This was their second night in the cold. The night past had b
een punishment because of the little girl…Ninka. The day before last had been because of Bone. Her hate and rage needed release. Without it, the demon taunted her. In her weakness she failed a test—she’d been told to engage in the rakad shel mavet with Blade, she with her fists and her sister with her sword. Bone had walked away, spitting on the ground and turning her back. Blade had done the same and they’d all been punished.

  Bone had spent the night dangling over the cliff, eyes wide open, breath locked in her chest. The others had been forced to stand naked in the freezing rain, watching as Blade held the other end of the slippery rope. If Blade relaxed, or let go, Bone would fall to the river and rocks below.

  She had prayed to the God of her fathers that Blade let her go. She wanted to watch the ground rush up to meet her, dash her on the rocks and spread everything she was in the water. Her shame had been great—only the weak prayed for the end—and her shame fed the demon inside her small body, making it stronger.

  She worried about the things she would do to silence the evil spirit spreading its darkness inside her. She was six and all she wanted was death. Hers or others it mattered not. The only ones exempt from her hatred were the other girls. Her sisters.

  How they’d all suffered—some more than others. The memories prodded, relentless and rending and she wanted to scream. She wanted to tear the ropes from her body and fling herself off this mountain. She would die here. The demon whispered it in her mind, and she believed him.

  Bone couldn’t move her head. Minton had used her hair to tie her head to the tree. She was bound effectively, the bark digging into the skin of her back and buttocks, but at least she wasn’t hovering over the river in the valley below them, hundreds of the feet in the air, trying to survive the fraying threads of Minton’s ropes.

  “You’re not supposed to use names, Ninka,” Blade said in a harsh whisper that carried in the eerie silence of the clearing.

  “She wasn’t talking to you, Blade,” Bullet reprimanded her in a low voice.

  Bullet was making noise. She’d be punished. They would all be punished. The black-eyed man would withhold food or maybe put them back in the water pit. He would let Minton tie Bone up again, the threads of the rope squeaking and groaning as they held her slight weight above the ground so far below. She was only ever a breath away from falling.

  Would her end be like that of her aba and ima? They too had died bound by Minton’s ropes, the plop, plop, plop of their blood draining to the sand below them a death prayer of its own. She’d been forced to watch.

  It had taken them a long time to die.

  Bone closed her eyes and swallowed, then opened them again watching the fog begin to recede. Take me with you, she wanted to scream. Please! She remained silent. How much longer could Ninka survive with meager rations? How much longer could Bone contain the hate inside her before it burned her up from the inside out?

  Her gaze met Blade’s and in the other girl’s grass green eyes was a rage that equaled her own. Bone swallowed again, desperate to quiet them all.

  “That’s why we’re out here, though, Bullet. She used our names and we all got tasked,” Blade said.

  Still Bone said nothing but the creatures had risen with the lightening sky and circling above was a hawk, preying on things revealed by the retreating fog. The hawk held a powerful position in the air, watching over everything below. It chose when it would strike and when it would rest.

  She despised the hawk even as she envied its freedom.

  Some insect or animal scurried over her foot but it didn’t matter. She had long ago learned not to fear the crawling things. The black-eyed man had tried desperately to find her weakness. Water, darkness, creepy crawlies, pain—he’d attempted them all. Ultimately, it was Minton who discovered it. Then he’d made her suffer in ways her young mind had been incapable of handling. He had found the thing she feared the most and cultivated it.

  “Bayu-bay, all people should sleep at night,

  Bayu-bay, tomorrow is a new day

  We got very tired today,

  Let’s say to everyone 'Good night’,

  Go to sleep

  Bayu-bay”

  Ninka’s voice was pure and tinted with the colors of her homeland. There was a comfort to be found when Ninka spoke her native language—a cold beauty that drew Bone’s mind from her lust to kill. But the child’s ramblings this day might get them all killed. Bone shifted again and this time she embraced the pain, moved harder to scrape and tear her skin. As there was comfort in Ninka’s language, there was pleasure in the hurting.

  “She’s dying, isn’t she?” Arrow asked and in her voice was the calm Bone needed. If only she could be like Arrow, controlling her fear and hate, settling the waters of her mind until she felt…nothing.

  She could not. She wasn’t that strong. “Stop talking,” she spat. “Stop talking,” she demanded again. If they didn’t shut their mouths, Ninka would pay the ultimate price. Ninka with her yellow hair and soft skin, her fragile bones and weak mind.

  Death was stalking, curling around them all with the rising wind. The hawk was a harbinger. They wouldn’t escape the black-eyed man. He knew everything.

  “Gretchen, the sky is turning very blue,” Ninka whispered louder now.

  Bone could see the blue. It was startling in this place of sorrow and loss. The lighter colors taunted the sky but the blue overrode them.

  “Hold on, Ninka. This task is almost over,” Bullet croaked out.

  “She’ll get herself killed and the rest of us punished. Shut up, Ninka, please,” Blade pleaded.

  Oh, Blade was angry. Bitterness leaked into her tone and should the black-eyed man hear it, he would punish her—make her take another life and another and another until she screamed her throat raw. Blade had killed more than any of them since they’d arrived here. She lost control more than any of the rest of them, even Bone. It was always painful to watch, but stunning in its own way. Her blades made a lovely noise when they danced in the air…or across skin. For some reason when Blade was pushed close to the point of breaking it made Bone want to destroy the black-eyed man—punch through his chest, take his heart in her hands and squeeze it until he was dead, dead, dead.

  One day she would be strong enough.

  Her breath caught, the sound a loud click in the silence left by Blade’s plea. “Shut her up, Bullet. She’ll get us all back in the water pit,” Bone whispered.

  “The sky is blue, blue, blue,” Ninka sing-songed.

  Bone shuddered. The cold wrapped around her feet, moving up and coating her entire body, dispersing the warmth of her hate and locking its sharp teeth into her soul to shake and tear.

  “They come,” Arrow said in her voice that spoke of ages long passed. Arrow had a voice like Bone’s ima…ancient.

  “Kar li, ima” Bone said on a breath but the wind took her voice and flung it. I feel the cold, mother.

  “Ninka, hush poupon, don’t say a word,” Bullet pleaded.

  Ninka was beyond them all now. The Etz haChayim, Tree of Life, called and her voice would only be heard there after today.

  “Bauy-bay, Bayu-bay, tomorrow is a new day,” Ninka trilled out, nearly yelling now. “Gretchen, my mama is calling me. Do you hear her?”

  Panic threatened to choke Bone. Her young body was weak. Not as weak as Ninka’s but too tiny to break the binds that held her. She wanted to grab Ninka from the ground and run. Instead she closed her eyes.

  “Yes, Mama, I am here…” Ninka cried softly.

  The sun’s rays grabbed at the clearing where they were staked, heralding the entrance of the big, tall men coming to make sure they’d remained silent. Their boots thudded against the ground. After all, they had no need to be quiet.

  The black-eyed man and his minion, the one called, Minton walked into the small clearing and there was another with them, Julio. He would be the death dealer today. In her heart she knew it to be true because he had the look of evil riding his dark face.

  H
er feet went numb and her vision swam as fear thrummed through her veins. It was potent and even as the cold settled over her, her bladder leaked, the wetness a frigid serpent down her leg. Her hands knotted into fists.

  “Ibadti et haderekh sheli,” Bone whispered. I am lost.

  “Come to me, Mama, from the very blue sky,” Ninka said in a fading, hoarse whisper.

  Ninka was shavur. Broken. The weakest one of them had splintered under the force of the black-eyed man’s training and Bone’s belly burned. It was a cold fire but it blazed brightly.

  The fog left a sheen on the grass that held her gaze captive. The dew was so thick it fell to the parched earth at Bone’s feet, mocking her. Even the dew was free to go where it would. Her ears rang in the sudden cacophony of silence.

  “She’s tiny, Minton, but she’s survived.” The black-eyed devil said to his minion. Then to Bullet he said, “Tell me, dove, did you stay silent?”

  Do not speak, Bullet. Do not, achot.

  Bullet nodded her head and the black-eyed man smiled. He had been there with Minton the night her parents had been slaughtered like sheep in front of her. He had given the order. Minton had carried it out with a smile on his face much like the one the black-eyed man had now.

  They would both pay. She would break them into tiny pieces and eat their flesh so they did not rise again and they never knew another life. She had not been taught the softer emotions like love, but she knew possession, revenge, and pain well. They’d been her mother’s milk and daily bread. The black-eyed man and Minton would eventually benefit from her rations.

  “Minton, have Julio take care of little Ninka, would you?” the black-eyed man asked.

  “She’s such a waste,” Minton spat and his eyes tracked to Bone. “Julio, you heard him.”

  Bone stared at him, her belly still burning, her throat closing in rage. His gaze skated away from hers and she knew in that second that she would be the one of them to kill Minton—maybe she would even take him first so the black-eyed man would know she was coming. One day…