by Juniper Hart
Paranoid much?
Paranoid or not, she had no choice but to be careful. She desperately wanted to believe that Xander had been released unharmed but without seeing him, she would never be certain.
Already, she was feeling longing pains for Nicoy’s arms, but there was little she could do but continue with her job and wait for the blessed day that Anatoli headed back to Virginia.
That has to be soon, doesn’t it? Why has she been here so long already?
She forced herself to concentrate on her job, to regain her Sleeper persona, the one she had trained long and hard for in the States.
You still have a job to do, she reminded herself. Block everything else out and do it.
Anatoli had returned to the unit by the time Laurel was finished her collection. The witch eyed her with cool interest.
“Welcome back,” she said without any emotion. “I heard you had a little adventure.”
Laurel grunted, averting her eyes so that her face was unreadable.
“I wouldn’t call it an adventure,” she murmured. “More like a humiliating accident.”
“I imagine you were humiliated,” the director intoned. “With your training, imagine walking into a bear trap.”
Laurel didn’t think she could endure Anatoli’s patronizing after all that had happened.
“Well, maybe if I was out training with the other recruits instead of being stuck in a lab all the time, this wouldn’t have happened,” she replied sweetly. Anatoli balked but suddenly, Laurel saw a glimmer of appreciation in her eye.
“You’re probably right,” the director agreed, smirking lightly. “But I’m guessing you won’t do that again, will you.”
“Hopefully not.”
“I heard you had a little adventure of your own,” Laurel said lightly. “With a young man?”
“Little snot,” Anatoli chuckled. “I gave him a little fright, but he’s relatively unscathed. I think Preston’s shifting sent him over the edge more than my crying spell.”
Laurel smothered a groan of sympathy.
A crying spell caused anyone to sob uncontrollably, sometimes resulting in bladder loss. It was meant to humiliate and degrade.
“I thought that was just an interrogation technique,” Laurel said through clenched teeth.
“Interrogation, entertainment… Whatever you want to call it,” Anatoli laughed. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
She turned her head away so that the director wouldn’t read her expression, dropping the cooler bag of samples onto her desk. She raised her head and looked around for Preston.
“Looks like I can’t keep track of either of you these days,” Anatoli chirped, following her gaze. “You started a free-for-all on skipping out of here.”
I think you started that, Laurel managed not to say.
“Consider me on-site and working diligently henceforth,” she replied, sinking back into her chair.
“Glad to hear that,” Anatoli replied. “I’m leaving in two days.”
Laurel’s head jerked up, a rush of air escaping her lungs before she could stop it.
“You are?”
Anatoli’s smirk faded.
“Try not to be too excited about it, Laurel.”
Hastily, the fox dropped her eyes and shook her head.
“I’m not,” she assured her superior. “I’m sure you have other matters to attend to with the new recruits and all.”
“Yeah,” Anatoli sighed. “Some of you are proving to be a bigger pain in the ass than others already.”
The statement piqued Laurel’s curiosity but she didn’t bother to ask. Whatever issues the others were having were not hers. Laurel had enough issues of her own as it was.
But if the director is leaving in two days, I’ll be free to see Nicoy, uninterrupted, Laurel mused.
She could hardly wait for the day to come.
17
Nicoy did not end up in a ditch as he had predicted, even though he did get stuck in the mud several times during his search for Xander.
His scouting took him all the way to the fjord, to the docks, and even to the closest neighbors, none of which produced his friend.
He hadn’t seen Xander leave the house which could only mean that the man had snuck out for some unfathomable reason, but why? What had Xander been thinking?
That was the problem with Nicoy’s roommate. He was highly emotional, impulsive, and oftentimes stupid.
He hadn’t been thinking at all.
Yet Nicoy’s anger didn’t keep him from forsaking the search. His concern far overrode whatever exasperation he was feeling and he knew he wouldn’t be able to breathe until he laid his eyes on Xander.
He reasoned that he just wanted to think badly about the man who had taken Laurel from him, but was that really fair? She had gone willingly, happily almost.
Or was that just a show?
Over and over on a loop, he replayed what had happened until the combination of Xander’s absence and Laurel’s departure threatened to make him entirely crazy.
As the sun finally began to set at ten o’clock, Nicoy knew he had no choice but to return home or risk being stranded somewhere in the dark. If Xander hadn’t returned by the following day, he would call out a rescue team of their closest coworkers and friends, but the thought didn’t do anything to inspire confidence in Nicoy. If he couldn’t find Xander, he didn’t have high hopes for anyone else being able to do it either.
Slowly, he pulled the truck to a stop in front of the cabin, his eyes darting hopefully toward the tree line. He wanted someone to appear—anyone at that point, but he saw nothing but row upon row of birches.
Should I go back out and look for Laurel now?
The thought was tempting but he didn’t, for the same reason he’d given up searching for Xander. He didn’t know where to start.
And I have no idea what I’m walking into with Laurel.
His confusion was heavier than it had ever been in his life, his self-confidence shattered as he begrudgingly pulled himself out of the truck and made his way to the front door.
As he neared the entranceway, his heart stopped.
Light was pouring out from the interior and Nicoy was sure that he hadn’t turned any on before leaving.
He pushed open the door and to his utter relief, he saw Xander sitting on the edge of the sofa, nervously playing with his hands.
“There you are!” they yelled at one another in unison. Xander jumped to his feet and hurried to embrace his roommate, much to Nicoy’s surprise. He returned his hug eagerly before pushing him away and scowling furiously at him.
“Where the hell were you?” he demanded. “I just spent the entire evening looking everywhere for you!”
“Nicoy, we need to talk,” Xander said urgently. “It’s important.”
On closer inspection, Nicoy saw that his friend looked terrible, his face drawn, hazel eyes bloodshot as if he’d been through an ordeal.
“Are you okay? What the hell happened to you?” Nicoy pressed as Xander nodded for him to sit down.
“I-I’m not entirely sure but…” he inhaled. “Is Laurel gone?”
Nicoy bristled at the question.
That’s his biggest concern after all this? he wondered, shaking his head.
“If you picked up your voicemails, you’d know she was,” he growled, flopping onto the couch. “She left today. Some guy came to get her and…”
He paused, unsure if he wanted to hear Xander’s smug response.
“She seemed eager to get out of here.”
Xander shook his head.
“I don’t know if that’s true,” he said quietly. “In fact, I don’t know what Laurel’s mixed up in, but I don’t think she’s safe, Nic.”
The words sent spikes of alarm shooting through Nicoy’s massive frame and he stared at his friend blankly.
“What? Why are you saying that? What do you know?”
Xander inhaled and reclaimed his spot on t
he edge of the couch, sitting forward to fold his hands nervously.
“I did something foolish,” he confessed. “And I don’t expect you to forgive me for it, but if I hadn’t…”
He trailed off like he was collecting his thoughts, but Nicoy didn’t allow him to go off.
“What did you do? What happened? Where were you and how do you know there’s a problem with Laurel?”
“Just hear me out,” Xander begged. “Before you bite my head off.”
Nicoy hoped he’d be able to do as requested and somehow, he managed to bite his tongue.
“I may have been wrong about Laurel but not in the way that you think,” Xander began. “I think she was lying but only to protect us from the people she works with…or rather…”
He stopped again and looked at Nicoy sheepishly.
“Rather what?”
“The shifters she works with,” he concluded. Nicoy’s mouth gaped open.
“What?” he choked.
“You promised to hear me out,” Xander reminded him gently. “And what I’m going to tell you is unbelievable to some, but you need to keep an open mind.”
That’s exactly what Laurel said, Nicoy thought as his stomach tightened with anxiousness.
“There are beings called shifters that live among us,” Xander went on. “Bears, wolves, among others that I probably don’t know about.”
Foxes, Nicoy added silently but he didn’t say that aloud.
“How do you know about them?” Nicoy demanded. “And why didn’t you tell me that you knew about them before?”
Xander pursed his lips together and hung his head.
“I promised I wouldn’t,” he confessed, not meeting Nicoy’s eyes. The bigger man was perplexed.
“Promised who?”
“Eli.”
Nicoy’s head whipped up and he gaped at his friend in shock.
“Eli?” he echoed, his voice coarse. “Eli was a…?”
“He’s a wolf,” Xander muttered. “It was one of the reasons he wanted to come out here. His ancestors could be tracked to this area and he thought he would find community here with another pack. At home in Florida, his pack wasn’t accepting, and Eli always felt like he didn’t belong. He thought that coming here would change all that but…”
“It was too isolated for him.”
“He always complained that I didn’t understand,” Xander muttered, a pink tinge of embarrassment touching his cheeks. “I tried but I guess it wasn’t good enough.”
“Oh, Xan, I’m sorry,” Nicoy sighed, a flash of sympathy shooting through him as he read the regret and pain in his friend’s eyes. “I had no idea.”
“How could you? Eli swore me to secrecy and honestly, I was a little terrified by the entire concept.”
I know the feeling, Nicoy thought grimly.
“What does this have to do with Laurel?” he asked innocently.
“I think she’s a shifter too,” Xander explained. “Her friends certainly are.”
Nicoy’s eyes popped and he sat forward.
“What makes you say that?” he breathed worriedly. “What happened to you, Xan?”
“I didn’t realize that Laurel was a shifter before I did what I did,” Xander offered quickly, meeting Nicoy’s concerned eyes. “Or I wouldn’t have gone after her.”
“What did you do?”
“I went back to the place where we found her,” he said sheepishly. “Hoping to find a bag. She brought it up, remember?”
“I remember,” Nicoy growled, shaking his head. “What did you find?”
“I found her bag,” he replied quietly. “And I learned that she’s some kind of scientist, likely an environmentalist. I think she’s working for one of the oil companies.”
The wind deflated out of Nicoy’s lungs.
“Really?” he sighed.
“She had a kit to collect samples and given her dedication to her amnesia story…”
“What else did you find? Where were you?”
“Well. that’s where things get interesting,” he went on. “When I was coming back, I got stopped on the road by a wolf shifter and what I think was a witch.”
“What makes you think they were what you say they are?” Nicoy asked, trying to keep his voice neutral but curious. Xander scowled at him.
“Uh, maybe the fact that the man shifted into a giant wolf and the woman took me somewhere in the middle of Hornstrandir to put a spell on me.”
If it had been a week ago, Nicoy would have been worried for Xander’s mental health but given what he’d learned over the past forty-eight hours, he knew that every word his roommate spoke was true.
“Why did they take you?” he demanded, anger sweeping over him. “If they were with Laurel, what business did they have with you?”
Xander exhaled in a dramatic show.
“Because I pretended I didn’t know who she was,” he admitted. “But they didn’t believe me.”
A swell of pride filled Nicoy’s heart as he stared at his friend, the words sinking in deeply.
“You didn’t tell them where to find Laurel?”
“A lot of good that did,” Xander muttered. “Looks like they found her anyway.”
“But you didn’t sell her out, Xan. Why not? You haven’t liked her since she woke up.”
Xander raised his head, his eyes narrowing.
“Just because I didn’t trust her didn’t mean I wanted to see her harmed, Nic. I was the one who found her, remember?”
Nicoy nodded but his palms were suddenly clammy.
“Whatever they’re doing here, Nic, it’s not good for Laurel. I think we need to get her out of there before it’s too late.”
Nicoy sat forward, his eyes widening with excitement.
“You know where they are?” he asked. Xander sighed and shook his head.
“The witch didn’t take me wherever they were working. She held me in a spring cave for a few hours and had a little fun with me before cutting me loose. It wasn’t anywhere near any form of civilization.”
The men sat back in silence for a long moment, each lost in their own thoughts.
“Strangers can’t come to an area like this to do business without rousing some attention,” Nicoy said suddenly, a plan forming in his mind. “If they’re around here, which they must be if Laurel ended up here, we’ll find them.”
“We need to be careful, Nic. I got the worst vibes off the two of them, like they would kill if they had to.”
“No one is killing anyone,” Nicoy said firmly with far more confidence than he felt. “We’ll be discreet and find Laurel to ensure she’s safe. For all we know, she’s happy to be mixed up in whatever it is she’s doing.”
He couldn’t get the way she’d left out of his mind—not even so much as a backward look.
But if what Xander was saying was true, she had done that to protect them. His stomach churned with the prospect of what was to come.
Laurel is trying to protect us and Xander was trying to protect her. Now it’s time for me to get in there and protect us all.
“Whatever I thought about Laurel,” Xander said quietly, “I could tell she cared about you, Nic. I think if she had the choice, she would have stayed here.”
The words inspired hope in Nicoy’s soul and a newfound sense of determination surged through him.
“Come on,” Nicoy told his friend. “We have work to do.”
18
The next twenty-four hours crept by painfully, Laurel’s eyes trained on the clock as if staring at it would move time along faster. If anything, it only seemed to prolong Anatoli’s inevitable departure.
“You really can’t wait to get rid of her, can you?” Preston whispered in her ear, catching her off guard and making chills of displeasure snake down her spine. Laurel whipped her head around from her desk and glowered at him.
“Can you get out of my personal space?” she snapped. He smirked but didn’t step back, his eyes glittering with something she didn’t quite un
derstand.
“Soon it will just be the two of us,” he crooned. The statement bothered Laurel more than she wanted to admit.
Is he going to take over breathing down my neck where Anatoli let off? she wondered. She hadn’t anticipated that Preston would be a problem but the way he was acting suddenly made her wonder.
“I can’t wait,” she retorted sarcastically, turning her attention back to her work.
The day crawled by and Laurel found it impossible to concentrate on anything but running back to Nicoy the moment Anatoli disappeared over the Icelandic horizon.
I’ll need to be careful, she thought but the excitement of being close to her mate again far outweighed the worry she felt about Preston. She didn’t know how they were going to iron out the kinks of being together, but she was sure they would find a way.
They had avoided being caught thus far and she was with him for two days. With the director gone, it should be much easier.
At midnight, Dex appeared in his full dragon form, startling Laurel as he breezed into the unit. His huge body morphed into his burly human form.
“How’s it going?” he asked nonchalantly, sauntering inside as if he belonged there.
“Good…” Laurel replied slowly, moving the laptop off her legs to study him. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“He’s here to take me back to Virginia,” Anatoli announced, sweeping out of their shared bedroom. “And I’m ready to go.”
Relief slithered through Laurel as she realized that her wait was finally over.
Those two will leave and I’ll wait for Preston to fall asleep before going to Nicoy, she silently decided. I need to see Xander too and make sure he doesn’t have any permanent scarring after what Anatoli did to him.
It was risky to do it so quickly, but Laurel was sure she would burst if she waited another minute to see Nicoy and explain why she’d left so abruptly.
She was almost giddy with excitement.
“I trust you two have everything under control here,” Anatoli said crisply, eyeing them both as she slipped on a pair of leather driving gloves. Laurel was mildly amused by the attire, but she only nodded in agreement.