“As long as it takes,” Ash said with a shrug. “I could leave it on until we hit Detroit if I wanted to.”
“I don’t think we’ll be flying to Michigan,” I told them. “The captain is looking into other options. He’s going to ring back soon.”
“Well, then I guess we have time to talk about what happened in there,” Cyrus said, jerking his head toward the cockpit.
I shrugged and settled into a seat, looking out of the window and trying to appear casual.
“Reagan,” Ash said, his voice stern. “How the hell did you kill that guy?”
“You saw him,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the dead pilot. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like you used a euthanasia dart to take him out,” Cyrus growled. His tone was cold, and when I glanced at him, his arms were crossed over his chest and he was glaring at me.
“Euthanasia dart?” Ash looked confusedly between the two of us. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a weapon they give spooks who go so deep undercover they don’t always come out,” Cyrus answered, that anger still in his voice. “So that if they have to kill themselves to protect a team or the US in general, they can off themselves quickly.”
“Well, you obviously get the gist of it,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. “So what exactly do you need me to explain to you?”
“I want to know why you had it,” Cyrus said.
“You just said—” Ash started, his tone full of confusion, but the other man interrupted him.
“You don’t work on a team, Reagan. And you aren’t on an ops assignment.”
“I am always on assignment, Cyrus.” I got to my feet and put my hands on my hips. “There is never a minute when I’m not working.”
“Oh bullshit,” he roared, taking a step toward me. “You’re tracking a human, that’s not spook work.”
“You’re so fucking smart,” I shot back at him. “Why don’t you tell me why I carry it on me then.”
“Because you’re so fucking scared of becoming one of us that you’d rather die than live infected.” His tone dropped from fire to ice in heartbeat. The coldness of it made me shiver.
“Jesus,” Ash whispered, turning to gaze at me in shock. “Is that true?”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I stared at the floor as I tried to collect myself. I did not want to cry in front of them. But it had been a long night, between almost dying in an explosion, fucking two complete strangers…twice and then having a gun pulled on me and having to poison a guy, well, my girl brain was just overloaded to the point of breaking.
“Reagan?” Cyrus stepped toward me and pulled me into his arms. I tried to fight against him, knowing I would break down completely if he held me for too long. He was so much stronger than me, and my body just wanted to mold against his. I didn’t have much fight left in me. “What the fuck did that guy do to you?”
“His name was Skip,” I said with a sigh, knowing neither of them would accept the abbreviated version I’d given Cyrus earlier. “I was eighteen years old, and he was a gorgeous, rock star werewolf. I fell for him so fast and so, so hard.”
Chapter Eight
Having spent so many years avoiding even the thought of what had happened with Skip, talking about it became surprisingly easy. Once I started, the whole story just spilled out. How I’d met him the night Mitch had taken me backstage for their concert. How we’d snuck around behind everyone’s backs. How exciting it had been for me. And how I’d begged him to take my virginity, convinced him it was important for me to lose it to someone I loved.
“One night, I was on my way to see him and found him attacking someone in an alley by his loft. It was like my whole world fell apart. I couldn’t believe the sweet man I’d given myself to was actually a killer. Mitch had been right about him all along. Skip wasn’t a good guy; he was a monster.”
Cyrus flinched at my words, and I put a hand over his. “Not because he was a werewolf. Actually, he was a crossbreed. But he was a murderer, Cyrus. To an eighteen year old and the daughter of a man who hates anything not human, it might as well have been the same thing.”
He nodded and squeezed my hand as I continued.
“Anyway, I called the captain and told him what was going on and begged him to change the contract over to me.”
“You asked for it?” Ash asked, his tone full of surprise.
“I knew it had to be me. If nothing else, I could get close enough to get it done without him suspecting anything, but when I got back to the loft he was—”
I closed my eyes as if that would help the images of what I’d seen stop flittering through my mind. Skip’s face had been covered in blood, stalking toward my brother who was laying on the floor. Jarrod was still as death, his stomach ripped completely open by Skip’s fangs.
My body physically jerked as I recalled Skip’s face as the first bullet had hit him, the shock of the gun recoil wrenching through my arm. The second bullet had torn through him, blood spraying everywhere, but he’d kept moving toward Mitch, his face twisted into something horrific. The fourth shot had finally brought him to his knees.
“Then the fifth shot…” My voice dead calm by this point. “It tore his face apart, his skull exploded in fragments and the gore just…” I shook my head, dropping my face into my hands again. I wasn’t crying. No more tears were going to fall for that man. “Then it was over.”
“That’s it?” Cyrus asked, his hand on my shoulder. “Really?”
“Well, Mitch was infected by him, and Jarrod had to override the lycanthropy with vampire blood. I signed up to take out a nest of rogue vamps in Brazil. So…yeah, that’s it.”
“Your ‘that’s it’ would put most people into an institution, Reagan,” Ash said sadly. “How the fuck can you keep doing this?”
“What choice do I have?” I asked, glaring up at him. “I mean seriously, can you see me in some man’s kitchen baking pies and asking ‘how was your day, dear?’ No, I’m a Baine, and this is what we do. We swallow the pain, and we move on to the next kill.”
“No wonder you’re afraid of me.” Cyrus shook his head. “You’ll never be able to see past the wolf, will you?”
“Sweetie.” I cupped his cheek in my hand and kissed him gently. “I’ve already seen past it. And I like you. Both of you. Very much. And trust me, that scares me a hell of a lot more than your inner fuzz.”
My phone went off then, saving me from the conversation.
“How’s it going up there?” my father asked.
“Oh you know, kittens and rainbows,” I answered snidely. “So what’s the word?”
“There is a naval carrier tracking the plane. You’re about twenty minutes out at your current pace. They’ll have their lights on, and you’ll just need one of the guys to land you on the strip.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, looking at the men. “About that.”
“What?” His tone was tense.
“Well, no one up here actually knows how to land an aircraft.”
“Jesus Christ, Reagan!” He blew out a heavy sigh, and I could tell he was counting to ten. Possibly twenty. “Okay. Okay, fine. I’m going to get someone to call you back and walk Ashim through it.”
“Why not Cyrus?” I asked, just being a pest.
“Stop it,” he barked coldly, as if he knew what I was doing. “Give me five.” And he disconnected.
I shared the information with the men, and they nodded their agreement with the plan…such as it was.
This was my nightmare—stuck in an airplane with no pilot, flying over the ocean, probably about to die. I could walk into a gunfight with a roll of duct tape and a Swiss army knife and be less terrified than I was right now.
“Hey,” Cyrus said softly, wrapping his arms around me again. “You’re shaking like a leaf. We won’t let anything happen to you, Reagan.”
Ash stepped forward and ran his fingers through my hair, pulling my head toward him for a small kiss.
“What do you want to know?” Ash asked, looking down at me with a small smile on his lips.
“Oh you know.” I shrugged. “Everything.”
“Well, my parents’ names are Esther and George,” Cyrus said solemnly. “I was born in a tree house Robinson Caruso style—”
I reached out and punched his shoulder with a laugh. My fear subsided slightly as his humor did what he’d meant it to do and cut through the tension. These were good men, and I didn’t doubt they’d do anything in their power to save me. Hell, they’d already proven that to me on base.
“Okay, tell me something real,” I said. “Are you two, like, together?”
“Yes,” Ash said, stepping forward to run a hand over Cyrus’ face. “He’s my everything. I would walk into hell for him.”
“He’s the only light in my life.” Cyrus’ voice was dripping with saccharine. “Any moment, I’m not in his arms is a moment wasted.”
“Jesus, you two.” I laughed so hard tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. “Come on.”
“Look, Reagan,” Cyrus said, his tone serious again. “We’ve all had a long day, you need some levity. I can promise you we’re not going to die tonight. But I can’t promise you aren’t going to be scared out of your mind again in a little while. So for now, we’ll just say that yes, Ash and I are together. More than that, he’s my best friend and we really would die for each other. And now, we would die for you, too.”
I stared at him, trying to process that. Saving me was a lot different than being willing to die for me. That was some pretty heavy shit to hear at thirty-thousand feet.
The phone going off in my hand startled me so much I dropped it. The crack of plastic as the device landed on the armrest across from me and bounced to the floor reverberated through the cabin. The instant cessation of ringing wasn’t lost on any of us.
“Did you really just—”
“How the fuck—”
Cyrus and Ash were screaming at me so loudly I couldn’t make out all of what either of them were saying. All I could do was stare at the broken piece of hardware on the floor. Laughter bubbled up in my chest, nervous and painful as it broke through my lips, and I dissolved into a fit of giggles mixed with tears of terror.
“Reagan!” Cyrus shook me violently until I looked up at him. “Babe, it’s all right. There’s a radio in the cockpit. I just can’t believe you managed to…” He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
Ash was already back at the controls, speaking into a microphone with someone. I moved closer and heard a man talking him through what all of the controls did. Cyrus walked into the cockpit, but I stayed outside, not wanting to risk shorting something out or breaking anything else.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I went back to my seat, and let my eyelids fall. Breathing deeply, I tried to focus on just the sound of my heart beating. If I could meditate myself through this, maybe, I’d be able to keep from hyperventilating.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Yelp like a girl when the plane starts to shake violently. Well this shit wouldn’t work. My fingers dug into the armrests as I tried like hell not to cry.
“Reagan.” Cyrus was back. I opened my eyes to see him kneeling in front of me. “Sweetie, I know you’re scared, but I have to be in there with Ash. I’m so fucking sorry I have to leave you out here alone. I promise you everything will be fine. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Now, suck it up, soldier.”
He slammed his mouth against mine, his tongue forcing its way between my lips as his fingers fisted into my hair. I groaned into him, my nipples hardening to peaks and my pussy flooding despite the intense fear coursing through my body.
“I have to go,” he whispered as he pulled away. “But we’ll finish this later. I promise.”
I nodded, tears streaking down my cheeks as I watched him back away.
“I fucking promise, Reagan.” He turned and rejoined his partner at the controls.
He was right. I was a soldier, and soldiers don’t cry. My father never cried. Mitch didn’t bawl like a baby when he was scared. Baine’s do not shed tears over something stupid like landing a plane on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean without an experienced pilot behind the controls.
Hell, it would be my father or my brother up there doing the landing if they were here. Not that I was fool enough to enter the cockpit. But sitting here simpering like a common…girl was just not who I was.
After a few more steadying breaths, I was starting to feel like myself. My grip on the armrests loosened and I rolled my neck, trying to ease back the tension in my muscles.
Then the plane began to lose altitude, and I screamed until I passed out.
Chapter Nine
“Well,” Ash said as I opened my eyes to find him staring at me. “That’s one way to get through a stressful situation. Good thing, I didn’t take the ‘pass out ‘til it’s over’ route.”
“Fuck you,” I said hoarsely, my voice still raw from screaming. “Did we live?”
“Why, is this your idea of heaven?” Cyrus asked, nuzzling my cheek with his nose.
“Purgatory, maybe,” I said, my eyelids fluttering closed.
“Yes, smartass, we’re fine.” Ash chuckled. “If you’d keep your eyes open and look around, you’d see that on your own.”
“But I’m tired. You said we’re safe. I trust you.” I was lying on something that mysteriously felt like a mattress, and I could tell the men were lying on either side of me. That was enough for the moment. The plane didn’t crash, we didn’t die and I was with them.
“Did a Baine just admit, out loud, that she trusts someone?” Cyrus’ voice held genuine shock. “I think I may be dead, after all.”
“Piss off,” I groaned, reaching over to shove his shoulder. I opened my eyes again to see his blue ones over me, a lazy smile playing on his full lips.
“No way,” he said, his voice husky. “I believe I promised we would finish something once we got you safely off that plane.”
“Right,” I yawned, stretching until my joints popped loudly. “You two were going to tell me about yourselves.”
Cyrus rolled me to my side so each man could press fully against my body. I felt Ash’s erection pressed against my ass and Cyrus’ thick shaft against my thigh.
“Aren’t you two exhausted?” I complained, though my traitorous body reacted instantly to their attentions as my nipples hardened and a small flame ignited deep in my abdomen.
“Yes, actually, I am,” Ash said through a stifled yawn. “But there’s something about your body that makes me rock-hard regardless of the situation.”
“Really?” I asked, leaning back my head to rest on his shoulder. “So did you land the plane with an erection? That must have looked strange to the boys on deck.”
“Even half asleep, you just can’t help yourself can you?” Cyrus asked, and I heard the smile in his tone.
“Nope,” I agreed. “I’m hilarious. You can’t just turn that shit off.”
“I…really like hanging out with you,” Ash said, his words stuttering as if he’d started to say one thing but finished with a different thought.
“Thanks.” My voice was tinged with exhaustion. “You guys are pretty fun, too. But I have to tell you, there will be no more sexy time tonight. I’m too tired and sort of sore.”
“We should let you sleep,” Cyrus replied, placing a kiss on my forehead.
“Mmm,” I murmured. “Talk to me.”
“About what?” Ash asked, snuggling tighter against my back.
“Tell me about you two,” I said. “I want to know more about you. You’ve barely shared anything with me.”
“Well, there isn’t much to tell really.” Cyrus shrugged. “I got attacked by a werewo
lf, and Ashim found me. He healed my wounds but, obviously, couldn’t do anything about the lycanthropy.”
“Yes,” Ash said, his chin nuzzling my neck. “That’s about it really. Our relationship in a nutshell, according to Cyrus Kennedy.”
“What?” Cyrus asked innocently. “That’s how it happened.”
I stifled a groan as I realized Cyrus was about as forthcoming as I usually was.
“Fine,” Cyrus continued. “I’d just been about gutted by a wolf, I was lying in a puddle of my own blood and I looked up to see the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on staring down at me. I couldn’t speak and could barely hear him over the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears, but I understood that he asked if he could help me.”
“He nodded,” Ash said, picking up the story from his lover. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been so relieved to be allowed to save someone before. When I gazed into his bright blue eyes… I don’t know. I just knew he was for me, you know? I wasn’t even supposed to be there that night. It was fate that drew me to that marketplace. Something told me to take the shift, and I found my Cyrus.”
“Ash was already enlisted at that time,” Cyrus explained, as if knowing I was going to ask what he’d meant about taking the shift. “I was in Egypt to apply for school. I thought it would be cool to study pharaohs and dig up mummies and shit.” He laughed derisively. “I still haven’t even gotten to see the Sphinx.”
“That’s not true,” Ash huffed, his breath warm against my ear.
“Google Images doesn’t count,” Cyrus shot back.
I felt Ash smile into my neck and realized this was an old argument. Probably, something they had hashed over so many times it now amused the darker man at my back.
I didn’t see the humor in it at all. It felt like just one more thing the beasts had taken away. When I closed my eyes, I saw a younger Cyrus, his life full of hope and promise. Then he’d been attacked, and his dreams were stolen. Now, he was lying on a ship, preparing to accompany me back to the US. Who knew when or if he’d get back to that land he’d wanted to see so badly. The guilt overwhelmed me, and I knew it was time to come clean with them.
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