Trisha Telep (ed)

by The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance (epub)

  He turned before they got to the door. “Listen carefully,” he whispered against her ear. “Demons can’t force their way into your mind or body – they need permission to enter.”

  “I’m sure not going to give it to them,” she murmured back, the butt of her Sig pressed against his side. “But I’m going to make certain you’re covered when you go into one of your trances, right?”

  “Just keep your ears open. Don’t answer any strange questions.”

  “Anything else, Ghost Boy?” Her words were softer than usual.

  “No destructive thoughts. No anger. No resentment. Think happy. Demons hate that.”

  “Most of the time, so do I,” she muttered.

  Without further talk, he moved aside so he could watch Ani kick the door open with one fluid motion, her body vibrating with energy.

  He knew she’d want to take point, be in the lead – and keeping her happy was right up there with keeping her safe on his priority list.

  Beyond that, he trusted her with his life. Whether she felt the same way remained to be seen.

  Creed stared over her as she bent at the knee, hands outstretched and weapon trained, surveying the scene in front of them. An empty kitchen, shrouded in darkness. Rain slamming against the windows, wind howling. She used a single fingertip motion to zing electricity to the light on the ceiling. It sizzled and smoked.

  “Power’s cut,” she said. “Probably from the storm. But the room’s clear – of humans anyway.”

  She stepped aside to let him pass, her gun still at the ready.

  Kat told him that blood sacrifices had taken place here.

  That meant the energy in this place was corrupt. The majority of the cleansing would have to occur after that bastard Bender was killed.

  He’s in the attic, Kat said. Which left them three floors to move through. More demons to conquer. The one in the basement was nothing compared to what was coming.

  He turned back to Ani, who was staring at the ceiling. “If I had an ACRO AK, I could shoot him straight through the floors.”

  He didn’t doubt it. Annika had training most special-forces soldiers would kill for. She’d been practically bred in the CIA with some special child-training programme and she’d worked on more covert ops by the time ACRO had taken her in than most agents worked in their entire careers under ACRO’s leader Devlin O’Malley.

  She was strong and sure, handled weapons better than any man – and that was before she used her special powers. The woman was a force to be reckoned with, although he’d much rather tussle with her in bed.

  Wind whooshed through, nearly knocking both of them down. He grabbed for Ani but she’d already latched on to him as they lost their footing. Kat had begun to chant but she had to be careful of the demons too – their influence extended to ghosts and, although she and Creed had never been parted on a hunt like this, they couldn’t afford not to be cautious.

  He actually felt Kat’s fingernails clawing at his neck as she held on too.

  It’s forming, Kat warned.

  Creed began to chant with Kat as he felt himself fade away. He heard Ani calling his name, but when he faded out like this, it was hard to come back until the job was done.

  “Creed, I can’t move,” Annika persisted. And yes, the demon had taken an opportunity to encircle them and bind them to the floor.

  “Welcome, Annika.” A smooth male voice. Bender. “I was hoping you’d come by.”

  Three

  If glares were lasers, Bender would have had four smoking holes in him. But since Annika didn’t have laser eyes (like one of ACRO’s newest operatives did), she’d just have to make those holes the old-fashioned way.

  She raised her weapon . . . only to have her arm gripped by some invisible force and pinned to her side. “You son of a bitch,” Annika gritted out. “Can’t play fair, like a normal bad guy. Have to hide behind ghosts and demons.”

  “Normal?” Bender laughed. “You’re one to talk. Is anyone at ACRO normal? Are you?”

  OK, he had a point. But still, using the supernatural to do your dirty work was just low. She opened her mouth to tell him how low, but Creed cut her off.

  “Annika! Don’t talk to him. Don’t say another word.”

  Thunder shook the house, rattling windows and Annika’s nerves. She really, really hated this supernatural crap. And no, she didn’t consider special gifts like hers to be supernatural. Most of the operatives at ACRO, with their super speed or ability to control the weather, were considered anomalies of evolution. But the ghosts and demons and freaky mind-reading stuff? Yeah . . . if Annika couldn’t see it, she didn’t want any part of it. “I think I know how to handle a pathetic little human bad guy, Creed.”

  “He’s—” Creed clutched at his throat, eyes wide as he struggled to breathe.

  “Stop it!” She lunged at Bender – tried to, anyway. Her feet were frozen to the floor, her weapon arm still as useless as if it were superglued to her body. “You son of a bitch! Call off your dogs . . . hellhounds. Whatever they are.”

  Bender gave a dismissive snort. With his spiky blond hair, emerald eyes and sharply defined facial features, women probably panted after him. But Annika thought he’d look so much better with a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead.

  “Tell me,” Bender said, as he circled them, trailing his fingers over the dusty dining room table on his way past, “how many more agents can I expect to show up?”

  “Screw you.”

  “If you want your partner to live, you’ll answer me.” Bender halted in front of Creed. He cocked his head and, suddenly, Creed’s face turned into a crimson mask of pain and his struggles became more frantic, as though what little air he’d been getting had been cut off.

  Annika’s pulse pounded in her ears as bands of panic tightened around her chest. Not that she’d ever let Bender know she was anything but cool and collected. “A dozen,” she said. “They’re on their way right now.”

  “You lie.” Bender waved his hand. Creed let out an agonized hiss and dropped to his knees.

  Don’t react, don’t react . . . “You won’t believe me no matter what I say, so why are we playing this game?”

  “Game,” Bender snarled. “This is no game. You will tell me the truth and, trust me, I’ll know if you’re lying.” Roughly, he gripped her hand and pressed two cold fingers to the pulse in her wrist. She resisted the urge to shudder, but couldn’t stop her skin from crawling at his touch. “How many agents are on their way?”

  Swallowing dryly, she glanced at Creed. He was clawing at his throat, gasping for air, but he shook his head fiercely at her. The message in his dark eyes was clear: don’t tell him anything.

  What the hell was he thinking? Yes, every special operator, whether they were military, paramilitary, government agent or ACRO, accepted the risks and knew they might have to give their lives in service to their country. Annika might not like Creed, but she wasn’t going to let him sacrifice his life right now. She’d been in worse situations than this before, and no way was Creed going to die over a dumb answer. Besides, she had a plan. She always had a plan.

  “None,” she snarled. “We couldn’t call in back-up because your minions screwed up the signal.”

  Bender’s evil, twisted smile froze the blood in her veins. “Thank you.”

  She smiled right back at him, and fired up her special gift. Electricity rippled through her, starting somewhere deep inside and forming a circuit through every cell until she was a giant live wire. Bender’s eyes shot wide open as she slammed 10,000 volts into his body. A split second later, in a blast of fire and smoke, she flew backwards, crashing into a cabinet and dropping, stunned, to the floor.

  In her fuzzy head, she heard laughter. Inside her head. In her veins, evil ran like a sludge. Distantly, she heard Creed yelling her name, and then his hands were on her and he was chanting again. She raised her weapon to blow his brains out.

  No! Her arm kept lifting, bringing the barrel of her pistol
even with his temple. Noooo!

  Her finger slipped from the trigger guard to the trigger itself. Deep inside her mind, she screamed at herself to stop, but something else had taken control. What if it was stronger than her?

  More chanting – urgent, loud – and then, in a whisper of air, the evil was gone. Creed was holding her tightly. She trembled in his embrace no matter how hard she tried to control it.

  “Annika? Hey, are you OK?”

  Numbly, she nodded. “What happened?” she whispered against his chest.

  “He possessed you. I tried to tell you he wasn’t human.” Creed inhaled raggedly. “And I told you not to talk to him, dammit!” He pulled back, gripped her shoulders and met her gaze head-on. Angry red splotches put colour in his cheeks. Oh, yeah, he was royally pissed. “I told you not to answer questions! He was a freaking demon, and you never, ever, want to tell a demon the truth. When you did that, you allowed him inside your head. When you tried to shock him, you gift-wrapped a conduit for him to get inside your body.”

  Oh God. With that demon controlling her body, she could have killed Creed. Could have gone on a rampage few people could have stopped. “I’m sorry Creed. I didn’t know.”

  “That’s because you didn’t trust me.”

  The truth of his statement hit too close to home, so she dredged up some righteous indignation. “You were going to die! What was I supposed to do? Let it happen?”

  He shook his head. “Kat was working on it. And even if she failed to keep the demon from strangling me, better that than letting it gain control of your body. What do you think would have happened if a demon was running around with the freaking power to electrocute people? He could have gotten inside ACRO by pretending to be you. How much damage could that have caused?”

  Nausea turned her gut inside out at that last thought. “I told you, I’m sorry—”

  He cut her off with a gentle shake. “Annika, this is my job. I know you’re unmatched at yours, but you’ve got to trust that I’m just as good at mine. We’re in this together, like it or not, and you’ve got to listen to me like you would any other agent you work with. I know you don’t like that we’ve slept together, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m fucking great at what I do. Got it?”

  Man, it bit to admit she was wrong, but she’d just nearly got him – and maybe herself – killed. She knew she’d made all of this too personal, which pissed her the hell off. She was normally a cold, efficient agent with no emotions, and the fact that she’d put that aside the moment she’d seen Creed was inexcusable. “OK, yeah. I’m sorry. I trust you.”

  For a long, tense moment, he just stared at her. And then, with a nod, he stood and held out a hand. Annika’s first instinct was to ignore the offer and get up without his help. But something told her this was a test, and one she couldn’t fail.

  Taking a deep breath, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

  One floor down, two to go. Creed’s throat felt like he’d swallowed fire, but otherwise he was all good. Ani held him by the biceps as if to steady him and he felt Kat leave his side and head up the stairs, abandoning them for a second. Annika stopped to let Creed catch his breath.

  “What did that demon try to do with you?” she asked finally. “I mean, was it really going to—”

  “Kill me? Yeah.” Kat had fought with everything she had to keep his protective shield up, but despite all his warnings to Annika, Creed found it very hard to keep his mind free of thoughts of her. Right now, she was his main vulnerability. “Thanks for trying to save my life.”

  He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or if her cheeks pinked slightly before she asked, “Are you ready to move?”

  “Ready.”

  “Good.” Ani took the lead up the stairs, calling, “All clear,” when she reached the top of the landing. “Well, of humans, anyway,” she said with a shrug.

  “We’re clear of demons on this level, too. Kat’s worked her magic,” Creed told Ani, as Kat crowed triumphantly in his ear. “Bender’s definitely on the third floor, along with two of the stronger demons.”

  “What does it feel like, when the demons are fighting with you?” she asked. “Is it like when the demon got inside me?”

  “A little, I guess. Only they don’t get inside me. The only way I can really describe it is that we fight with our minds clashing together. Hurts like a mother.”

  She nodded and started to walk, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Sometimes it’s worse than others. Adrenaline kicks in, that helps. I’d imagine it’s not much different than when you’re fighting.”

  She nodded. “Sounds it.”

  “Ready?” he asked and she hesitated. He’d never seen her do that before. Typically, she needed to be held back, as she had a tendency to go balls-to-the-wall, zero-to-one-hundred, without listening to anyone. “What’s got you shaken about this guy? I thought he was your standard issue, jack-of-all-trades slimeball. Nothing you haven’t dealt with before.”

  He waited for her to turn on him, to get pissed and tell him she wasn’t scared of anyone or anything in this world. But that didn’t happen.

  Instead, she stiffened and her eyes glittered with a harsh flash. “He trafficks children.”

  Creed felt his body go cold. Even Kat stopped her screeching for a second to listen. “What?”

  “He finds the right kid for the highest bidder – for adoption or sex or whatever the hell someone would want a kid illegally for. Sometimes, it’s just for someone who gets off on torturing and killing them.”

  He nodded, waiting for her to tell him more. Because yeah, that was one sick dude, but for Ani to get this worked up, there had to be something more behind it. “You’re so angry about this.”

  “Damned right I’m angry. This bastard. He hurts children. No one has the right to hurt children.”

  He hadn’t even seen Ani . . . emotional. Not like this. From the little he knew of her background, her own childhood hadn’t been particularly easy – or even much of a childhood at all.

  No, Ani had appeared to be born a trained operative and soldier. In a way, they’d both been born into their current professions, with little choice in the matter. But he’d had a semi-normal life growing up. Adoptive parents who loved him. Accepted him – tattoos, spirit guide and all.

  Whatever Ani had lost out on in her childhood, the demons were sensing it. Trying to use it against her.

  He couldn’t let that happen, even if it meant sacrificing himself. “Ani.”

  But she stood, as stiff as a board, eyes screwed tightly shut, hands fisted at her sides. And then she started shaking her head back and forth, murmuring, “No, no, no,” over and over as if trying to block out voices in her head. “Bender . . . no . . . no goddamned way,” she whispered.

  He didn’t like the shock that clouded her blue eyes. “Annika—”

  “Oh my God,” she rasped. “Bender found me. That’s how the CIA knew where to find us. He’s the one who targeted me, sold my location to the CIA so they could kill my mother and take me from my family. I was just a toddler. This bastard is responsible.” Her body shook with rage and anger, and the house – the demons – responded to those emotions. They could bore their way into her brain easily now that her defences were shaken. They could possess her and then he’d have a hell of a time stopping them.

  By God, he wanted to race up the stairs right now and strangle Bender with his fucking bare hands for stealing Ani from her parents – from stealing her sense of peace.

  Do something! Kat yelled at him.

  “They’re talking to me,” Annika whispered. She clamped her hands over her ears and shook her head but that wasn’t going to do her any good. “God, I wish they’d shut up.”

  “Stop listening.”

  “I’m trying, Creed. But they’re telling me things – horrible things. And I can almost hear those kids screaming as they’re hurt.”

  He grabbed her and kissed her hard. Deep. A kiss desig
ned to make him think of nothing but her touch. Instead of giving her permission to the demons, she was offering herself to him, pressing herself to his body, drinking him in.

  It locked her mind to his completely. When she was kissing him, she was happy, damned happy. And even with the lightning and hail slamming the house so badly the floorboards shook under their feet, Creed wanted her.

  And nothing – not even demons – would stop it.

  He tried to tell himself it was for the good of the mission – and it was – but that’s not why he wanted her. He wanted the curve of her breast in his hand, wanted to tug her taut nipple between his teeth, to fill her with his cock until she lost complete control and let the electricity sizzle between them, bringing both of them to screaming orgasm.

  Yeah, he could come just thinking about it. And, judging by the way Ani wrapped herself around him, she was pretty damned close herself.

  Not the time, Creed, Kat admonished.

  But it was exactly the right time. And he ignored Kat, who finally left them alone to deal with the hell breaking loose within them.

  He would deal with Ani, who clung to him as if needing him to make everything right. He pushed her against the wall, spreading his legs to gain balance while her hands moved between them to stroke him through his leather pants.

  He moved her shirt up to mouth a nipple, the electricity strumming through her and catching on his tongue piercing, creating an incredible, mind-bending buzz that had her calling out his name and wrapping her legs around him.

  The house went completely dark as his mouth met hers again.

  Four

  God, this was crazy. A hot rush. Danger was definitely an aphrodisiac. And as Creed’s hands roamed into all Annika’s sensitive places, triggering a rush of liquid need, she barely found the presence of mind to flip the safety on her pistol.

  “Creed . . .” His name was little more than a moan against his lips. “We can’t. Not . . . now. We’ll be vulnerable.”

  “Shh.” His hands tore at her jeans. “Your mind is vulnerable already. Focus on me, Annika. Focus on me.”