by Joan Swan
“Climb!” he ordered.
Shit. She didn’t think she had the energy to climb. But neither did she have a choice. She tightened her stomach muscles to get her feet swinging, building momentum. With her fingers knotted in Luke’s forearms, she threw her leg up and over the edge of the roof. Luke released one of her hands, grabbed her thigh, and jerked her the rest of the way onto the angled surface.
“Oh, my God.” She didn’t let herself experience the shock hovering at the boundaries of her mind, for fear it would take over. “Are you hurt?”
“Me? You’re the one who almost fell to your death.” He breathed through the words. “Are you hurt?”
“I . . .” She mentally scanned her body, wincing at all the pains bursting to life in the wake of the adrenaline rush. “Don’t know. Give me . . . a second.”
“We don’t have a second. Rescue’s here.”
The familiar roar of fire filtered in, as did the continued gunshots and mini-explosions throughout the compound. But the whap-whap-whap of helicopter blades drew her gaze up.
“Let me have a quick look.” Luke bent over her, intercepting her view of the circling Black Hawk.
His experienced hands unlatched her helmet and swept over her skull, down her neck, across her shoulders. The touch infused her with confidence, easing the stress. Her gaze held on the pulse at his throat, strong, fast. Familiar. And she imagined she could still feel it beneath her lips as they’d made love.
“Hey. What’re you doing?” He snapped his fingers in her face, startling her out of the drift. “Don’t go out now. If you make me throw you over my shoulder and hoof you back to staging, I’ll drop you at the feet of your team. You’ll never live it down.”
He patted her arms, picked up her hands, and sucked air between his teeth. “That’s going to hurt like an SOB in a few hours.”
The warm, tingly, feel-good sensation flowing through her skin everywhere he touched was replaced with irritation.
“Everything’s going to hurt like an SOB in a few hours.” Worst of all, her heart. She’d made a point of avoiding contact with him for a reason. Recovering from this run-in would not be fun.
“I’m okay.” She pulled away from his touch and tucked her feet underneath her, pushing up with significant effort. “Or I will be.”
Which brought her mind back around to the reason she was on this roof in the first place.
“Let’s get into position,” Luke said. “They’re picking us up.”
She was going to argue as soon as she gained her feet, but then she straightened and looked over the roof peak. Her gaze locked on the second story of the building where she and Luke had been standing just minutes ago. The explosion hadn’t just broken the window. It had blown out the entire wall. In the gaping hole, fire chewed at the drywall and two-by-four remnants.
The kids. Oh, God, the kids.
“No. Oh, God, no.”
“You can’t help them now.” Luke directed her to the peak of the roof where the helicopter hovered for retrieval.
Screams vibrated in Keira’s head. Real or imagined? Past or the present? She needed answers before she left this roof or she’d never sleep again.
“I have to check.” She broke from his hold, met his eyes, pleading without restraint. “I have to. Please.”
“Keira—”
A high-pitched scream raked across her skin. A girl, no more than eight or nine, stumbled out of the room and onto the roof. She held her arms out to the sides, and fire crawled from her shoulders to her fingertips, like wings of flame.
Shock succumbed to instinct as Keira patted her chest, searching for something to smother the flames. She fumbled for the straps on her vest. But before she got them unlatched, Luke swept by. He enveloped the girl in his arms, using his body to snuff the fire. When the flames were out, the girl collapsed against him, unconscious.
He carried her toward the rescue location. Overhead, the army Black Hawk maintained its float within the angry smoke, the propeller creating a windstorm of debris and embers. The crew dropped a litter out the open door, another helicopter hovering nearby with snipers perched on the ledge of each opening, covering the first.
Luke settled the injured girl into the metal basket as more victims emerged from the fiery pit. A young Hispanic boy carrying an even younger child, both cut and bleeding. A Caucasian teenage girl, blood soaking her blond hair and white shirt. Several African American elementary school-aged kids, stumbling and screaming. All covered in soot. Some with charred clothes and skin.
But no Mateo.
She guided the victims toward Luke and the chopper, all while praying Mateo would miraculously appear. But he didn’t.
“Keira!” Luke’s call came muffled in the chaos surrounding them. “Let’s go.”
She peered into the fire, searching for the sweet little face she’d come for. With her hands cupped around her mouth, she yelled as loudly as she could. “Mateo!”
Luke swung her around by the arm. “Dammit. Get to the chopper.”
“But—”
“But nothing. This place is going to—”
His gaze snapped behind her.
Keira felt Mateo with a quick, sharp tug at the center of her chest. She swept around and settled her eyes right on him, where he lingered in the background.
“Mateo!” She gripped Luke’s arms. “Luke, he’s alive. He’s there. Right there.”
Luke’s gaze skipped between Keira’s face and Mateo’s. Right behind a ten-foot wall of flames.
“That doesn’t matter for you.” She didn’t even try to hide the fact that she’d read his thoughts. “Please, Luke. I can’t explain it, but I need him.”
A flash of irritation darkened Luke’s eyes before he yanked from her grasp. “When did you get so into kids?”
That was low, but she didn’t care. Because he strapped his rifle over his back and headed right toward that ten-foot wall of flame. Only one example of why she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind or her heart.
“Base to SS,” the radio on her shoulder chirped. “Target sighted headed your direction. Mega firepower enabled. Repeat, mega firepower. Over.”
Luke must have heard the transmission the same moment Keira did because he pushed into a run just as a man came sprinting through an inside hallway, directly toward Mateo.
Rostov. Wild eyes flashed with menace. Soot-blackened hair stood on end. Forehead bled in rivulets. And several machine guns lay strapped over his chest. One clutched in his hands.
Luke reached for the semiautomatic at his thigh.
Rostov aimed his weapon at Luke’s chest and screamed, “Noooooooooo!”
Muscle memory flexed Keira’s arms before she made a conscious decision. Rostov appeared in her crosshairs before she decided to aim. But when her finger squeezed the trigger, she was one hundred and fifty percent invested, mind, body, soul.
The familiar pump to her shoulder delivered an almost indescribable sensation—a mix of triumph and vengeance. The target jerked, stumbled backward, and dropped.
Perfect.
A second later, Luke also dropped.
Not perfect.
“Luke! No!” Fire exploded in her chest as if she’d been hit. She sprinted, dropped to her knees, and swept her hands over his body, searching for the injury. “Luke. Luke. Talk to me. Luke, Jesus Christ, Luke!”
His golden lashes brushed his cheekbones, drifting up, and exposing glazed blue eyes.
A wash of agonizing relief softened her bones. “Okay, good. Stay with me, now. Where are you hit?”
“Ve-vest,” he rasped. “Hit me . . . in the vest.”
She let her hands rest for a split second. Let her eyes fall shut. Let the relief sink into every cell. Thank you, God.
She pulled at the hem of his shirt, slipped her hands beneath, and palpated his chest and belly. She found his skin intact. No sticky, warm wetness seeping from any wounds. And despite the dire situation, the hardness of muscle, the softness of skin
, and the warmth of his body registered in an elemental part of her mind. He felt good. Really damn good.
He caught one of her hands. “Help . . . me up.”
She pulled him to his feet. Then suddenly remembered—Mateo. She whipped toward the still-burning building so fast, she nearly fell over. “Ma—”
Something gripped her leg. Heat trailed up her thigh, trekked through her torso, and tied around her heart. The scar low on her back pulsed and she looked down into a big, soft pair of eyes she knew. Mateo.
“Tó’ksera óti tha erhósoon gia ména, Thia.”
Given the circumstances, Luke wasn’t sure he wanted to know how the boy had found his way around—or through—the fire and to Keira’s side in bare freaking feet and without a scratch on him. He appeared out of the smoke like an apparition, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.
He was small, maybe three or four years old. Yet he remained silent—no tears, no screams. Hardly a flicker of emotion—except for the clear light of terror lingering in his big, dark eyes.
As soon as he grabbed Keira’s pant leg, she swooped him up, and he latched on to her neck with both arms as if they belonged together. As if they’d been waiting for each other.
“Oh, God, I was so worried,” Keira mumbled into his hair.
The instant affection set off a firestorm of questions in Luke’s head. For a frightening instant, he wondered if the boy was hers, but he quickly calculated the numbers and they didn’t work. He and Keira had still been together a little over three years ago, and considering her aversion to children had been the wedge between them, Luke was certain this boy was not her son. But if not hers biologically, then what the hell was he to her? And what did he have to do with this situation?
Resentment tangled with suspicion, but his questions would have to wait.
This time, when he pulled her toward the chopper, she didn’t resist. She held the boy tight, one arm wrapped around his bare back, the other holding his head securely against her shoulder.
As they approached the rescue site, a crew member dropped a ladder out the open doorway, the metal rungs rolling toward them like red carpet. The thought of scaling that thing while it whipped in the maelstrom of chopper blades made the pain in Luke’s torso throb, but he knew the last child he’d lifted into the chopper wouldn’t have been stable enough to move from the litter.
He tightened his muscles against the ache, grabbed the bottom of the ladder, and held it firm. At the top, one of the crew started down, tethered by a harness.
Luke grabbed Mateo around the waist with his free arm. “You’re going to have to let go of him.”
“I’m not the one holding on.” She pushed at the boy’s chest, but he clung tight.
“Honey, you have to let go,” she yelled over the noise. “There’s a man at the top. He’s going to help you.”
The sweet talk didn’t work. The kid didn’t budge. And Luke hit his patience limit. He wanted to get the hell off this roof and out of this compound.
With the weight of the other man holding the ladder steady, Luke released the rung and pried the boy’s arms off Keira’s neck. When he lifted the kid away from her body, Mateo squirmed like a wildcat separated from its mother. Battling a forty-pound child into the arms of army rescue strained every screaming muscle in Luke’s body.
Out of breath, pain rocketing through him, Luke lunged for the bottom rung again as the rescuer ascended with Mateo strapped into the harness.
“Get up there,” he said.
Keira searched Luke’s eyes, then laid a hand on his chest. “You go first. I can’t sit up there knowing you’re down here.”
Heat penetrated his Kevlar, slid under his skin, and eased the ache floating beneath his rib cage. The one that never went away, no matter how hard he worked or whom he slept with. But he didn’t need to get kicked in the gut again. He could only survive her abandonment once in his lifetime.
“You’ve got blood oozing everywhere,” he said. “You’re injured . . .” I need air. I need to get my head on straight. “Just go, dammit.”
After a second of indecision, she took hold of the ladder and climbed. She scaled the rungs like a chimpanzee—effortless, skilled, almost acrobatic. The Bureau SWAT team had definitely honed the skills she’d already cultivated as a firefighter: climbing, rescue, marksmanship.
She tumbled into the chopper, turned, and hung out the side waiting for him to ascend. And in that moment, looking up at her, so warrior-princess-like covered in blood and soot, Luke experienced a deep pang of pride for all she’d accomplished and a wicked stab of guilt that he had tried to stop her from reaching her full potential.
He took a couple deep breaths, readying himself for the climb, and started up. Knowing Keira waited at the top spurred him on, and when he came into reach, she gripped his forearms and dragged him into the chopper the same way he’d drawn her back from the roof ’s edge.
Luke rolled to his back on the chopper’s steel floor and breathed through the pain.
Keira retreated to one side of the cargo space and pulled off her helmet as the boy scrambled into her lap. She tugged the band out of her hair and shook it free. The long, dark strands fell around her face, giving her that soft, tousled, sexy look she’d always had after they’d made love. That memory combined with those that had invaded his brain on the roof—ones that almost seemed to have come from Keira herself—kicked up that familiar ache in his chest.
The kid fisted his hands in her jumpsuit, curled his arms and legs into his body like a turtle, and buried his face against Keira’s shoulder as if he wanted to disappear into her.
Keira’s troubled gaze focused on the opposite side of the space, where a crew of medics provided emergency care for the other children. The stench of charred skin wafted through the cabin, replaced by fresh smoke as the blades whipped and lifted them into the air.
Luke pushed himself up to sit. The crew member who’d helped pull him in, a young Hispanic man, his head shaved to the skin, poked at Luke’s vest. Luke looked down to find the man’s finger engulfed in one of the bullet holes.
“Armor-piercing bullets.” He lifted dark brown eyes to Luke’s face. “You cheated death, man.”
That reminder burned into Luke like a hot poker. An intense panic that often invaded after-the-fact and warped the mind waited at the edges of his mind for the perfect ambush. “My lucky day, I guess.”
But he doubted it.
As he rolled to his knees and crawled to Keira’s side, he slid one hand beneath his vest to feel the backside where the bullet should have—correction, had—penetrated. It lay flush with the Kevlar, the smooth metal cool in contrast to the canvas. The Kevlar hadn’t stopped the bullet, Luke’s skin had. The vest hadn’t saved his life; being with Keira, which had amped his powers and created an impenetrable skin, had kept him alive.
He’d lost those enhanced abilities when Keira left three years before. The sensation had been agonizing, as if his life essence was draining. His powers had grown weaker each day until he’d been left with nothing but his basic resistance to fire.
Now, within a few hours of proximity to her, he was once again bulletproof.
Unnerved more than he wanted to admit, he eased to a spot beside Keira, leaned against the wall, and braced his boots on the floor.
Her sparkling blue eyes narrowed with concern. “I thought you weren’t injured.”
“Just sore.” He avoided focusing on her by watching the boy. “Who is the kid?”
Keira’s eyes flicked away. “The son of a coworker.”
“Whoa.” Heat flared, which was good. Anger was so much easier than longing. “You’re going to lie to me? Now? Seriously? Did you forget who you were talking to? What’s wrong with him?”
She tried to pull away from the boy, but he stayed plastered to her body. “What do you mean? Is he hurt?”
“No, I mean what’s wrong with his mind? He hasn’t made a sound.”
Her shoulders relaxed, but she slante
d him a glare from beneath her lashes. “You’ve been off a fire engine too long if you can’t recognize signs of shock.”
An explosion from below rocked the helicopter. Luke dropped an arm around Keira, bracing her against his body. Kids screamed. Medical supplies spilled from their bins and slid across the cargo area.
“What was that?” Keira looked up at him. She was an inch away, her blue eyes strikingly bright against her soot-stained face. Instinct urged him to drop his head. Feel those perfect lips against his. He couldn’t count the number of fantasies he had of doing just that over the years, but intellect told him that would be the most asinine thing he’d done in his entire life. Her breath fanned his cheek, tingled down his neck, and tilted his mind off-line. “Luke? What’s wrong?”
He refocused and found her inspecting his face. The chopper banked hard right. Luke’s gaze drifted past her shoulder and caught on the destruction below. The entire compound blazed. But what held his attention was a silo at the west end of the property where purple flames shot skyward. Neon purple flames. Peppered with cobalt blue sparks arcing out in every direction.
What the hell?
“What? What’s—?” Keira’s gaze followed his. “Oh, my God.”
Luke’s mind flashed back five years to the incident that had changed their lives, and he saw it all again as if it were happening in the moment—the fiery interior of that military warehouse, the barrels igniting, the explosion. All seven members of their team jetted through the air like missiles. Keira lying next to him on the concrete—twisted, bones broken, turnouts torn, skin charred, unconscious. And those bright purple flames and cobalt sparks spitting in the background just before the darkness closed in on him, too.
Fresh sweat collected along his forehead, his upper lip. What wasn’t she telling him?
“I don’t know anything!” Keira answered his unspoken question with such conviction, he almost believed her. “I swear. I don’t know.”