by Sydney Croft
Praise for the
NOVELS
OF
SYDNEY CROFT
Taming the Fire
“Sydney Croft creates a thrilling paranormal read with action and scorching romance at every turn.”
—Darque Reviews
“Totally outstanding … [a] sizzling hot series that has never failed to keep my undivided attention. The collaboration of Sydney Croft is nothing short of brilliant.”
—Fresh Fiction
Seduced by the Storm
“If you like intrigue, espionage, danger and sexy secret agents with psychic abilities, you will love this book—especially when one agent has to disperse a hurricane with sexual energy! Croft’s realistic characters have real, flawed motives that keep the action suspenseful and the sex extra hot.”
—Romantic Times
“Ms. Croft pens a tale where she manages to combine action along with sizzling hot passion. You will not be disappointed in this book, it is a keeper.”
—Night Owl Romance Reviews
Unleashing the Storm
“Red-hot romance and paranormal thrills from the first page to the last! Sydney Croft writes the kinds of books I love to read!”
—LARA ADRIAN, New York Times bestselling author
“The tension, both romantic and plot-driven, was well created and upheld…. This is an author to watch.”
—All About Romance
“This second book in the ACRO series is fabulously sexy and intriguingly hot. I have become addicted to the collaboration of the two authors known as Sydney Croft, and I’m ready to find out what happens next. Definitely a must-read.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Unleashing the Storm is one of those rare reads where the characters linger long after the story ends. Intense intrigue, action, eroticism and a fascinating world combine to create an enthralling winner. Sydney Croft is a fabulous new talent.”
—CHEYENNE MCCRAY, USA Today bestselling author
Riding the Storm
“In this action-packed, inventive tale, each character’s strengths and weaknesses are more fantastic than the next. The various plots and characters ebb and flow together seamlessly…. Croft redefines sizzle and spark with weather-driven passion.”
—Romantic Times
“Absolutely fabulous!! Riding the Storm has the perfect balance of action/adventure and hot, steamy sex.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Riding the Storm will ride your every fantasy … a power punch of erotic heat, emotion and adventure. Remy takes you on an adventure you won’t soon forget.”
—LORA LEIGH, USA Today bestselling author
ALSO BY SYDNEY CROFT
RIDING THE STORM
UNLEASHING THE STORM
SEDUCED BY THE STORM
TAMING THE FIRE
HOT NIGHTS, DARK DESIRES
(WITH EDEN BRADLEY AND
STEPHANIE TYLER)
To all the members of LIST and the Writeminded Reader Loop:
You have been enthusiastic, supportive—and, basically,
you all rock!
And with thanks to M. Sgt. Richard Walker, who is always there
to provide technical support. Our plane crashed nicely
with your help!
Big thanks to Gina Scalera, Rosemary Potter and every
bookseller who has supported authors everywhere. We
appreciate all you do!
Contents
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
About the Author
Copyright
PROLOGUE
Chance McCormack had been given his name about three minutes after being born on the floor of a Las Vegas casino, his mom too busy playing craps to care about something as unimportant as labor pains.
“We’re from strong stock—farm stock,” she used to tell Chance, who wouldn’t bring up the fact that she’d never lived remotely close to a farm in her life and that her entire family had been born in Manhattan. But she seemed to enjoy having that make-believe become a part of her life and Chance never had the heart to break her out of fairy-tale mode.
She had a pretty shitty life and if telling stories like that made her happy, he was all for it.
And so Chance had grown up on the edge, skating the thin line between right and wrong and counting on luck of the draw to carry him through.
Today, though, he had a sickening feeling that his luck might’ve run out, had known something was wrong the second he stepped into the goddamned jungle, and it had nothing to do with the tangos waiting in ambush. His SEAL team had taken care of most of them, cleanly, efficiently and, most important, silently.
So yeah, a typical mission with the typical shit going down, and still, unease sat in his gut like a fucking boulder.
Sweat trickled down his back, when suddenly, inex-fucking-plicably, he shivered.
He heard breathing and it wasn’t his, wasn’t Billy’s or Campbell’s or Joe’s. No, it was a harsh sound. Inhuman.
He gripped the butt of the rifle so hard his fingers were nearly blue, kept his eyes level to the horizon and tripped before he took three steps.
Billy. The only way he could identify the SEAL was the patch on the uniform.
All that was left of the man beyond the bones was the skin on his face, his mouth stretched into a mask of horror. His eyes were wide open, as if looking over Chance’s shoulder.
As if warning him.
Chance stiffened, held tight to his M14 and turned to face a wall of fetid breath. He readied for the fight of his life, knowing that, for as long as he lived, he would remember the red eyes of the beast staring back at him.
He knew there wasn’t time to scream if he was going to make it out of this alive.
CHAPTER
One
Sela Kahne sat at her desk, staring at the computer screen and wondering why she hadn’t taken one more day of vacation time. An extra day would have meant another layer of tan on her normally pale skin, another couple of chapters of the latest James Patterson novel read and a few more hours’ reprieve from typing up reports that all said the same thing in conclusion: HOAX.
She sighed heavily and reached for the bag of Skittles she kept on her desk. She popped two into her mouth and cringed. She’d lost a filling during her vacation and desperately needed to see a dentist.
“ACRO’s dentists are the best in the area,” Torrence Olivia, the only other psychic besides Sela who worked in the agency’s Covert Rare Operatives’ Cryptozoology department, said as she walked by.
“I hate it when you do that,” Sela grumbled, mainly because her own psychic ability was restricted to reading people only during orgasm.
“Hon, I didn’t do anything. You have dentist written on your to-do list.” Torr tapped the notepad next to the computer with a crimson-painted nail.
“Oh.”
“What’s wrong?” Torrence crossed her arms over her chest, her dark skin contrasting beautifully with her cream blouse. “You just got back from vacation. You should be vibrant. Unless … was Puerto Rico not as relaxing as it should have been?”
Sela stiffened. “How did you know I was in Puerto Rico?”
“Hello?” Torr tapped her temple. “Psychic.”
She never knew whether or not Torr was kidding when she said things like that, but given that Sela had told everyone, including her immediate boss, Mitch, she was going to the Bahamas, she could only assume that Torrence had gone psychic on her.
“You didn’t tell anyone, did you?” Not that her change of plans had been a huge secret, but she was supposed to have been drinking fruity cocktails on a beach instead of investigating the origins of el chupacabra.
She couldn’t wait to debunk the myth of the “goat sucker” once and for all. Confirming that the crazy things people believed in were false was a passion of hers, and it made her one of the few cryptozoologists in the field who was in it to disprove mythical creatures’ existence.
And the cryptid she wanted the most to prove didn’t exist was the one highlighted in the book in front of her, Chupacabra: Myth No More. The author, an eccentric, egomaniac billionaire she’d met half a dozen times at cryptozoological society gatherings, claimed to have spent years in the jungles of Central America observing chupacabra behavior like one of those nuts who infiltrated a pack of wolves.
The chupacabra is a solitary creature that will kill others of its kind, though they do appear to mate for life. They give birth to a single offspring, which is capable of living on its own within six months. Males are larger than females, and they mark their territory by spraying scent and clawing trees and fences. Their ability to heal from wounds is nothing short of amazing, something I witnessed after a young female was attacked and nearly killed by a jaguar …
What a freaking blowhard con artist. The book had made Parker Grady a celebrity in the cryptozoological circles, but Sela thought it only made him look like an idiot.
“Earth to Sela …” Torr waved her hand in front of Sela’s face. “I just said I won’t tell anyone about Puerto Rico. It’s not my place.” She shoved her glasses up on her nose. “I’m going down to the lab. Oh, I almost forgot—a messenger delivered that package on your desk. He said after you watch it, you’re supposed to call Dev.”
Dev. The big boss. Head of ACRO, whom she rarely saw … and she preferred it that way. He hadn’t exactly hired her under normal circumstances five years ago, and while she didn’t regret how she’d come to ACRO, she did feel a little sleazy about it.
Twenty-one, cocky and just sure she was smarter than ninety-five percent of the planet’s population, she’d pretty much forced her way into the agency. Only later had she realized that Dev could have taken her apart and made her disappear so completely there wouldn’t have been a trace that she’d ever existed.
For some reason, he hadn’t. He’d played her game, let her believe she had the upper hand … and even after she figured out Dev had been one move ahead of her from the beginning, he never rubbed it in. But he knew she knew. It was in his gorgeous brown eyes every time he saw her.
Stop thinking about it.
She shook out of her past, out of the things she’d done before she’d come to the Crypto department, and opened the padded envelope. Inside was a DVD. She slipped the disk into her computer, entered her individual access code and palmed a handful of Skittles.
The screen filled with trees. Thick brush, vines … a jungle. The camera shooting the scene was in motion—a helmet-cam? Yes, definitely. The person wearing the camera turned to the side, and she made out two men in camouflage, their faces painted, their rifles aimed and braced against their shoulders.
She popped a piece of candy into her mouth, remembering too late to chew on the left side. Pain shot from her molar into her skull.
On the screen, one of the men made a hand signal, and the camera panned to the right. Slowly, it moved forward. The camera jolted and then focused on the ground.
Sela slapped a hand over her mouth to hold in a gasp of horror. What was left of a man lay strewn about on the forest floor, his bloody mouth frozen in a terrified grimace.
And all hell broke loose. The sound of guns firing, men shouting and something screeching had Sela reaching for the volume.
The camera jerked around wildly, giving her only glimpses of the action, but what she saw sent chills up her spine. The men seemed to be fighting off some sort of creature. It moved fast, and if the film could be trusted, it had red eyes and huge fangs.
What the hell was it?
Suddenly, the camera stopped moving, its angle skewed, apparently lying on the ground. Sela saw clawed, scaly feet approaching. Her heart shot into her throat, blocking the candy as she tried to swallow. Between the thing’s legs she could see the men. Well, parts of them, lying in a growing pool of blood.
A snarl vibrated the camera, and then there was a gaping mouth, a splatter of blood on the lens … and all went black.
Sela choked on her own breath. Dear God, those men had been … slaughtered. Dismembered, disemboweled.
Her phone rang, and she nearly bit her tongue. She’d seen some gruesome things during her career as a cryptozoologist, but nothing could have prepared her for seeing humans torn apart before her eyes.
She picked up the phone with a shaky hand. “Sela.”
“It’s Dev. You watched the video?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me at my office in ten minutes.” He hung up, and she slumped back in her chair. Something told her it was a good thing she hadn’t unpacked yet.
ANNIKA SVENSON WASN’T READY FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF your-lover-is-an-ass with Dev, but Gabe was fucking impossible to deal with. The guy had learned to go invisible with more control, which was great, but he was relying on his invisibility to get him out of trouble. Which meant that he was slacking off on learning the basics of self-defense, combat and intelligence work. He had yet to figure out that no matter how great your gift was, something could always circumvent it.
Everyone had a kryptonite.
Creed was hers, and speak of the sexy devil, he was just leaving Dev’s office, so things were looking up. Grinning, she waved as he started down the old military building’s steps, but he didn’t see her because he’d been accosted by Sela Kahne.
Sela’s black hair fell in a severe angle, shorter in the back to longer in front, coming down just below her jawline, but as she looked up at Creed, she tucked one side behind her ear, which was pierced all the way around. Creed, being pierced everywhere, probably loved that.
Not that Annika was jealous. Creed wasn’t going anywhere, and if he tried, Annika would kill him.
Simple as that.
Still, she really wanted to slap the smile off Sela’s face. Annika had never been overly fond of the woman, whom she mostly saw only in passing, but the way she was looking at Creed, with a little too much familiarity, made Annika’s electrical battery charge up. Lightning tingled on the surface of her skin, and she had to take a deep breath to calm herself. Anyone who touched her right now—anyone but Creed—would get a nasty shock.
“Hey, baby,” Creed said, when he saw her approach.
She mounted the steps until she reached him, smiling when he hooked an arm around her neck and tucked her next to his big body. He always knew how to handle her, knew when she needed a little extra attention or needed to be left alone.
Sela nodded in greeting. “Annika.” She looked at Creed again, all smiles and exotic green eyes. “Nice seeing you.”
“You too.”
Sela headed up the steps, and once she’d disappeared into the two-story building, Annika peeled away from Creed. “I don’t like how she looks at you.”
Creed cocked a dark eyebrow, making the piercing there climb up. “How does she look at me?”
“Like she wants to lick your tattoos.” Which weren’t truly ta
ttoos, since he had been born with every single one of the Native American symbols that covered his entire right side from head to toe.
Creed just laughed. “She didn’t lick them.”
“I know that.” Annika rolled her eyes. “I don’t think she’d just walk up to you in public and—” Wait. Something about the way he’d said Sela didn’t lick them … and the familiarity in her eyes …
“Oh, my God,” Annika breathed, which was difficult, because a band of jealousy had just wrapped around her chest. “You slept with her.”
Creed’s big brown eyes got a whole lot bigger. “Ah … I thought you knew.”
“Why the hell would I know?”
“Because that’s how she came to ACRO.”
This time when her body flooded with electricity, she didn’t bother tamping it down. Maybe Sela would come back out and “accidentally” touch her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I just figured Dev would have told you back when it happened.” Creed tugged on his jacket a little uncomfortably, and yeah, Annika would just bet he was sweating despite the cool spring breeze. “Sela and I, uh … we got together for a night. Years ago. She didn’t know about ACRO, but she’s—”
“Sexually psychic,” Annika ground out. “I know. She was assigned as a Seducer when she first came here.”
“Yeah. She read me during sex. Found out about ACRO.”
“So … what? She blackmailed you? Said she’d spill the beans about ACRO if she didn’t get a job?” Actually, Annika didn’t see that happening; Dev would’ve had Sela shut up if he’d believed she was a true danger to the agency.