by Zoe Chant
Mary gave a squeak as Lewis tightened his grip on her.
Neal fought down his urge to act and reminded himself to be patient, to wait. “You don’t need Plan B if Plan A is still going well,” he bluffed cheerfully. He pitched his voice to the mercenaries. “We won’t hurt anyone who surrenders. You have to ask yourself which party you think is going to end up treating you with more humanity—the resort staff of animal shifters, or the turncoat who relies on people betraying their friends and hides behind women and children when things get tough.”
Mercenaries tended to have a code of honor, and it often excluded using civilians as hostages – especially children. The fact that Lewis was using a defenseless woman now played well into Neal's speech.
Behind Lewis, the dragon shifted his wings and growled, and Lewis turned to glance at him, finally offering the shot that Neal had been waiting for as his finger relaxed from the trigger of the gun at Mary’s head.
As tempting as it was to put a bullet in Lewis’ forehead, Neal took the harder, more humane shot, right through the arm holding the gun.
Lewis howled, dropping the gun as Mary spun out of his grasp and sensibly dropped to the ground with her hands over her head.
Neal heard his own shot in that crazy moment, and Bastian’s dragon roar, and another several rounds being fired. He didn’t see what happened to Scarlet, but heard a crunch of breaking bones and glanced to find the guard falling away from her, shrieking in pain and cradling his gun arm.
Then Neal was driving forward, leaping over Mary to tackle Lewis and bring him to the ground. He heard howls and grunts and more ear-splitting shots as the rest of the staff took on the remaining mercenaries who hadn’t been swayed by his speech, but he focused on Lewis, who was reaching with his off hand for his dropped gun.
“I don’t think so,” Neal said firmly, and smashed him in the face with the butt of the assault rifle he was still holding, taking cathartic delight in watching Lewis’ eyes roll up in his head.
The sounds of fighting died out quickly, and Neal looked around to find Tex relieving the last guard of his weapons. Graham’s mercenary was on the ground, whimpering and holding his hands up for mercy. Bastian was human again, looking disappointed at not having anyone left to fight, and Benedict was cowering against the car with his hands over his ears being completely ignored. Magnolia was back in her human form, brushing her flowered dress back into shape as Chef picked up her wide white hat.
Graham had been grazed with one of the wild shots, and Bastian offered to clean it up. Graham looked down at the blood oozing down his shoulder and shrugged, wincing. “It’ll heal,” he said.
“You all right, Scarlet?” Travis asked.
“He missed,” she answered calmly, smoothing her blouse and tucking a strand of artistically loose hair back.
Neal wasn’t sure if he believed her or not.
“Oh, Neal,” Mary said, uncovering her ears. “You saved us!”
Neal gathered her up into his arms, holding her tight. “I owed you one.”
She wrapped her arms around him, and Neal could have sat there and held onto her forever.
Tex cleared his throat. “What do you want us to do with these guys?” he asked.
Neal reluctantly let go of Mary and helped her to her feet.
Scarlet was scowling at Benedict. “You’ve certainly laid a mess of trouble at our door,” she said coldly. “I presume that the sale is off and you’ll be cleaning this up?”
Benedict opened one eye and looked up at her. “Oh. Um, yes. I’ll be calling my lawyer immediately and canceling the whole thing. I didn’t know he was a… a… drug lord or whatever.”
Neal snapped his fingers at Benedict. “I need to make a phonecall first.”
Benedict obediently handed it over.
“Are you getting any bars of data?” Mary asked merrily.
Neal had to stop laughing before he could dial the phone to warn Judy about Remmy.
Chapter Thirty-Five
While Neal stepped away to make his phone call, Mary felt like the weight of the past few days was suddenly upon her. She became intensely aware of how dirty and tired and hungry she felt, and how ragged and stained her clothing was.
Scarlet, by comparison, still looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon.
“You are welcome to stay longer at the resort,” she offered. “If you can change your plane tickets, I will give you another week in the cottage at no charge. Your Shifting Sands experience should not be so heavy on surviving in the wilderness and being held hostage.”
“I’d like that,” Mary said with a weary laugh. “But right now I’d mostly like a shower and about four hours at the buffet.”
Scarlet laughed with her, and Mary thought it was unexpectedly genuine sounding. There was relief in her face, and Mary realized that she hadn’t just been angry about losing Shifting Sands and being shuffled off the island. She’d been afraid.
It was somehow comforting to know that there were things that someone like Scarlet was afraid of, too.
“We’ll leave the staff to clean this up,” Scarlet suggested. “And I’ll need to add duct tape to my list of supplies to reorder.”
Mary watched Scarlet go off, waiting for Neal to finish his phone call.
He came back with a familiar dark scowl on his face. It lightened when he caught sight of Mary again, and he bent to give her a lingering kiss.
“We’ve got this,” Bastian said, waving them off. The mercenaries were being neatly trussed and completely disarmed, and marched off to… Mary didn’t care where. She assumed that they would be kept until the Costa Rican authorities could get there, and was just as happy to look forward to the promised shower.
“I still have sand in awkward places,” she told Neal. “My cottage?”
He took her hand and walked beside her down the steps. The sun was making its wild lunge into the ocean for sunset, and everything was cast in golden light. The few clouds near the horizon were fuchsia and orange, and the ocean made its siren song over the sounds of birds and insects.
The smells wafting from the dining hall almost made them turn in their tracks.
“A very fast shower,” Mary said, despite the grumbling of her stomach.
“A very fast one,” Neal agreed.
That vow lasted only as long as it took to stagger to Mary’s cottage and strip each other out of their clothing.
She could not keep her hands from the planes of his muscles, and although she got the shower started and pulled him in after her, soaping herself seemed like a terrible use of her time when she could be kissing him, and letting him caress her and lift her up onto the bench with her legs eagerly spread.
He entered her, slick and shamelessly inviting, and Mary had to bite back cries of pleasure and peaking desire.
“Don’t, don’t stop,” she begged in his ear, nibbling at his neck and clutching at those amazing broad shoulders.
“Don’t let go,” he told her back, lifting her effortlessly along the wall to get her into a position where he could thrust easily into her, over and over again until she was drowning in pleasure and her begging was incoherent.
Then he was coming too, thrusting with increasingly urgent strokes until he made an animal noise near Mary’s ear and then coursed into her with his seed.
They stood slowly as they regained control of their breath and the waves of their pleasure ebbed away. Neal knocked a bottle of shampoo off the rack and caught it deftly, but not before it had spilled onto Mary’s shoulder.
“Close,” she said, scooping it up and redepositing it on her head.
After that, the shower was more utilitarian, but if Mary lingered a little longer than was strictly necessary in some spots while lathering Neal with soap then it was understandable, and he certainly didn’t object.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Neal felt like a new man. Showered, dressed in clothing that (mostly) fit, and sitting across from Mary in the open dining hall, it seeme
d like it had been more than just a few scant hours since they’d been rescued from their private cove. It seemed insane that they’d been taken as hostages and rescued themselves in that time, and Neal still found it hard to believe that Lewis—Lewis that he’d been sent to bring down ten years ago—was in custody.
“How does it feel?” Mary asked quietly.
Their plates were empty between them, though they’d been refilled several times by Breck.
Scarlet had insisted that the staff be served in the guest hall, and Graham, Bastian, Travis, and Tex were regaling a rapt Breck with a version of the situation that Neal suspected had little resemblance to the actual events.
Neal shrugged, not sure what Mary was asking about.
“Lewis is why you went to Beehag’s prison,” she reminded him. “Does it feel like closure to finally capture him?”
Neal frowned, trying to pinpoint why he didn’t feel vindicated. “Not exactly,” he said thoughtfully.
“Did you really set Benedict’s phone to ring when you handed it back?” Breck called across the dining room, interrupting them.
Mary laughed, looking up at him. “I just set a timer,” she explained with a shy shrug. “Anything to be disruptive.”
“Honey, you are a mastermind,” Breck said with approval. “Let me bring you guys dessert.”
Despite having polished off several plates of Chef’s braised pork cutlets and tender vegetables with red potato wedges, Mary and Neal both accepted the tall, fluffy slices of angel food cake smothered in fresh berries and whipped cream.
Neal was chasing the last blueberry across his plate when he heard the distant sound of chopper blades, and his restlessness finally made sense.
It was several moments before Mary noticed it, and Neal spent those moments watching her face as she savored the last morsels of her cake.
“What is that?” she finally said, listening.
“That was Plan B,” Neal said cryptically. At her quizzical look, he explained. “That’s my old team. I called them as soon as we got free of the first group of guards. You’re hearing a heavy helicopter, just a few minutes out.”
Mary’s eyes grew wide, but she took that as beautifully in stride as she had their entire adventure.
“How does that feel?”
It was a valid question, and one that Neal didn’t have an answer for, even when they were standing together at the parking area at the top of the resort outside the gates—the only clear, level place at the resort with space for a landing.
Mary stood close beside him, clinging to his hand. Though he suspected that it was for her own comfort, he took an equal amount of strength from it. She shielded her eyes as the helicopter whirled to a landing, but Neal just squinted at it in the darkness. Judy would be using radar to make the landing, and she must know that he was already there, waiting at a safe range by the gate.
Watching his team exit the lit helicopter was odd, the familiar shapes of their shoulders beneath the armor they were wearing; the way they each moved and held their weapons; and the other, more subtle differences that weren’t apparent until they stepped into the light by the gate.
Judy had dyed her hair a deep nut brown and let it grow out a few inches more than Neal had ever expected she would, almost to her shoulders. Gobber still had no hair, and refused to wear a helmet except to battle, but he had more years of wrinkles in his face, and there was a new scar by his ear. Jessy was still tiny and fast, but had braids in her black hair now, and a stiff motion that suggested a healing shoulder injury.
Remmy—Neal’s gut glenched. Remmy still had that too-young look, as red-headed as Neal was, but twice as freckled, with big innocent eyes in his round face. When Neal met his gaze, Remmy flinched so quickly Neal almost doubted that he’d seen it, but when he looked at Judy, he knew at once that she had seen it too, and that it was the last confirmation she'd been waiting for.
She gave a quick, professional gesture, and Thomas, who was giant and dark-skinned and hadn’t aged a day, was swiftly behind Remmy, disarming him with practiced hands before Remmy could even blink. Jessy lowered her weapon in a not so subtle way, keeping it trained on Remmy.
“You got here fast,” Neal said, not wanting to comment on the action, even as Remmy started to protest, “What’s going on guys?!”
“Don’t make it worse,” Judy warned him. “I had my suspicions before I heard from Neal. You couldn’t expect someone like Lewis not to rat you out, could you?” She added a few choice insults, then turned her back on Remmy and said blandly to Neal, “We didn’t want the Costa Rican authorities to get here before we could. Jurisdiction often comes down to who gets there first, and I’m not letting that asshole slip through my fingers again.”
Scarlet had appeared at Neal’s side without his notice, a fact that would have alarmed him with anyone else. “Well, we certainly appreciate having this mess cleaned up as quickly as possible,” she said, all business. “This way, please.”
Not one of the soldiers had a problem accepting her authority and falling into step behind her, each of them giving Neal a grin and a not-so-gentle punch in the shoulder as they went past. All except Remmy, who only glared.
“I can’t believe you’d take his word over mine,” Remmy grumbled. “You don’t even know where he’s been for ten years.”
Judy was the last to pass, and she alone stopped at Neal, and after a moment of staring at him, broke into a grin and enfolded him into a fierce hug. “You son of a bitch,” she said fondly. “You could have called sooner, you know. They’ve got phones here, I hear.”
She stepped back and inspected Mary with critical eyes.
Neal wanted instinctively to step between them, but paused.
Mary swallowed. “How do you do,” she said formally. “I’m…”
“You’re Neal’s mate,” Judy finished for her. “That’s good enough for me.”
Without further formality, she gave Mary a punch in the shoulder and turned to follow the rest of the team into the courtyard where Scarlet had Lewis and his men lined up in duct tape restraints.
Mary rubbed her shoulder and turned mystified eyes to Neal.
“Sorry,” Neal said. “Judy takes a little getting used to.”
“I like her,” Mary said, with a surprisingly large smile.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The courtyard was crowded with nearly a dozen restrained men, Neal’s team, and Scarlet’s staff. Tex, Travis, and Bastian seemed to feel that the handover required their direct supervision, and Benedict, who was not restrained, kept wringing his hands and muttering about his lawyer.
Judy gave Lewis a toothy smile, clearly enjoying his furious sulk.
“I told you I’d be back for you, you bastard.”
“I should be so flattered,” Lewis snarled back. “You’re only here because Neal went whining for his girlfriend to come and save him.”
“And he did a fine job before we even got here,” Judy answered, not in the slightest ruffled. “Because you’re an incompetent jackass who surrounds himself with other incompetent jackasses and turncoats and then wonders why you can’t inspire loyalty.”
“How did you get free of your guards?” Tex asked in an undertone as Judy talked about the legal details of taking custody of Scarlet’s prisoners.
“Gizelle,” Neal said. “Er, the gazelle. I’ve been calling her Gizelle in my head. I have no idea what her name really is.”
“What, did she skewer one of them?”
“Turned into a human and hypnotized them,” Neal said with a sideways smile.
“Neat trick!” Tex said.
“Not as neat as a ‘forget-me field’,” Travis scoffed. “Seriously, Bastian, what was that? You didn’t think that was just a little bit impossible?”
“We’ve already had this discussion,” Bastian said with mock seriousness. “You just don’t remember it.”
“We want to get these guys back on American soil as soon as possible,” Judy said, concluding her d
iscussion with Scarlet. “So we’d best get going.”
“You’re welcome back any time,” Scarlet said warmly.
“I thought the resort was for shifters only,” Judy said with a searching look. “We’re not all shifters.”
“We can make exceptions,” Scarlet said with a meaningful look in return. “Any of your team is welcome to stay here.”
“Does that team include you, Neal?” Judy’s voice was a challenge, and Mary felt Neal’s hand tighten in hers.
But Neal shook his head. “Not any more,” he said, and Mary could hear the mixture of regret and determination in his voice. “I’ve got a lot of healing left to do, and I’m ready to settle down and do what needs to be done. No more hiding.”
Mary felt a little surge of relief. She would never have asked him to give up his team, but she knew that she’d have a hard time being away from him during his missions, missing and worrying for him.
“We’ll miss you,” Judy said frankly, clasping his arm. “We have missed you. But I’m not surprised. I’ll be back for that drink and the story you owe me.”
Neal let go of Mary’s hand to embrace her. “I’ll be waiting,” he said hoarsely.
Judy turned to Mary. “Take good care of him,” she said firmly.
Mary drew herself up. “I intend to,” she said just as firmly.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Neal woke with a start, disoriented, until he realized that he wasn’t in his own bed. He was snuggled up close to Mary’s warm, curvy form.
Part of the disorientation was that he hadn’t woken from nightmares, but from sweet, restful sleep, for the first night that he could remember.
Sunlight spilled around the edges of the curtains covering the big glass doors at the foot of Mary’s bed, and she stirred as Neal sat up.