by Sydney Croft
Creed seized her shoulders and got right in her face, his eyes darkening with his intensity. “Listen to me. I would rather not have kids and be with you than be with anyone else just to have kids.”
“But you want them.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Stop it, Annika,” he said, palming one of her cheeks tenderly. “Just stop it. We’re not having them, so it’s a pointless discussion.”
“What if I change my mind? What if I want kids?”
“You won’t, and you don’t.” Releasing her, he straightened to his full, imposing height. “Remember how you said you don’t have a maternal bone in your body? How you’d just screw a kid up the way your CIA fake-parents screwed you up? You don’t want to risk it.”
She stifled a bitter laugh. She’d been raised by people who’d given her knives and guns as toys, while Creed had grown up with loving, family-outing-type people, who, if not for the fact that they were ghost hunters, could have been the freaking Cleavers. “You mean you don’t want to risk it.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
An irrational anger surged through her. “So you don’t trust me to be able to let go of my past and take care of a kid properly? Is that what you’re saying?”
His harsh exhale was a sound of pure frustration. “Why the hell are you turning this around?” His dark eyes narrowed. “This is about Sela, isn’t it? You’re still upset about her.”
He stared at her like she was insane, which was exactly how she felt. She had no idea why she was baiting him like this or what she wanted from him. If he fell to his knees, begging her for a baby and telling her what a great mom she’d be, she’d be just as upset as she was to know he didn’t want a baby with her.
“Sela?” she spat. “She wasn’t even on my mind, but obviously she was on yours. Maybe she would want to give you a baby. You should ask her. Bet she could raise one without totally warping it.”
“Fuck.” Creed threw up his hands. “I give up.” He grabbed his jacket off the back of the couch and headed toward the door. “I’m going for a ride. When I get back, things are going to be normal again, and we’re done talking about kids, got it?”
Before she could answer, he slammed out, leaving her alone with her insanity.
CREED SPED ALONG THE BACK ROADS OF THE ACRO COMPOUND, ignoring limits and Kat’s screeching at him to slow down.
Sometimes, having a spirit attached to him for life was a real fucking drag. She’d been there as long as he could remember, along with his tattoos—both of which provided him a certain measure of protection.
Neither would protect him from what Oz had predicted last year.
He tried to tell himself that Ani was simply being moody, that she was still worried about Dev, but neither of those explanations fit.
Ani had frustrated him many times before; typically, it was nothing he couldn’t handle, but hot damn, she’d never been like this before, so freaking emotional.
Pull over, Creed.
This time, he listened to Kat—steered to the side of the road, parked his bike and got off. “Don’t say it, Kat. Don’t you dare say it.”
She didn’t, simply put her hands on his shoulders in an attempt to calm him. He was shaking.
And Ani was pregnant.
“How did this happen, Kat?” He paused. “Yes, I know how it happened, but how did it happen? She’s on birth control. She doesn’t want kids.”
Fate always has a way of intervening, Creed. You know that better than anyone.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, and listened to the deafening silence. “Great—now she decides to shut up.”
He sat on the ground, palms down behind him in the dirt, and he pictured Oz, last year, sitting on his couch, dressed in all black. He’d come back to help Devlin again. Such a long and tortured road for those two men.
At that point, Creed hadn’t a clue that Oz was his biological brother.
If I’d known …
Nothing would have changed, he supposed. It was the reality he’d come to after months of mourning. Oz had always been there for him, no matter what. And he’d given Creed Kat and his tattoos for those times he couldn’t protect his brother alone.
At the time, Creed had thought what Oz had told him had been bad enough.
“So, you and Annika.”
“Yeah, me and Annika,” Creed agreed.
Oz smiled, leaned his head back against the couch. “That’s different, but hell, I guess it works.”
“When it works, it’s damned good.” Creed actually had been readying to go over to Annika’s house when Oz showed up.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Oz smiled, but it faded quickly—he leaned forward as if pushed from behind, his eyes went wide and his mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Creed had been around Oz before when he’d had a vision come through. Oz’s souls—the posse that traveled with him—would send him visions from time to time. Clearly, Oz was seeing something now. He stared at Creed without really seeing him at all.
“I’m here, Oz” was all Creed could say, grabbed the man’s hand. It was useless to try to pull him out of the spell—Oz always said it was like being trapped between time, heaven and hell.
Finally, after ten minutes, Oz sat back, breathing heavily. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve promised Dev I’m going to stop holding things back from people for their own good,” he started gently. “It’s about you and Annika.”
Fuck. “Tell me everything.”
“I don’t have a lot of detail, it’s all fuzzy—the vision kept showing the same thing over and over again, like it was stuck. Like the universe isn’t even sure how this one could play out.” Oz paused and then, “You can’t get pregnant.”
“Christ, I hope not.”
Oz stared at him, sobering Creed up again. “There’s something about pregnancy that’s not good for you and Annika. I don’t know if it’s something about you being together, or if it’s only you or only Annika. To be safe, you can’t ever get Ani pregnant, okay? Like, go get sterilized right now, and Annika too.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Half the time Annika and I can’t even be in the same room with each other, let alone have kids together.”
“Someday you’ll want to,” Oz promised. “And you can’t.”
“You’ve got to be a little more specific about the consequences here.”
Oz’s eyes went darker than Creed had ever seen them. “If you get Annika pregnant, one of you could die when the baby’s born.”
Ani hadn’t wanted kids. Ever. It was a no-brainer. And she was always on top of things with her birth control—all the female agents were. It wasn’t so much a part of protocol as it was common fucking sense.
Annika always had an overabundance of common sense. But now she was pregnant with his child. A part of him swelled with pride, with excitement. In spite of her worries, he knew Ani would be a damned good mom.
They’d have a son or daughter. And one of them wouldn’t be around to see the kid grow up.
You’ve got to go back to her, Kat prodded. She’s confused. Angry.
“I know, Kat, I know.” But he didn’t move, kept his ass on the freezing cold ground and called out to Devlin instead.
CHAPTER
Thirteen
It was late morning—they still hadn’t arrived at camp, but not for lack of trying.
Logan had forced himself to move fast and sure over the past four hours; years of Special Forces mental conditioning helped him overcome an awful lot. Except, of course, the total mechanical failure of over half his body.
The jungle was a trying place under the best of circumstances—wet and dark and hot and full of enough red herrings to throw even the best of men off their game. He knew he’d have to maintain full mission mode to make it back to camp.
“Let’s go. Keep behind me and keep up,” he’d told Sela right before they’d left the relative safety of the cave and ventured out into the
jungle. She’d snorted softly at his words, and she’d been keeping up with him.
God, she’d been through hell. The story she’d told him—stories—vibrated through his head and could easily prompt an angry rage. If any of the men who’d hurt her were put in front of him now … Well, they’d have a better chance with the chupa.
He cut some of the branches and vines so she’d have an easier path through the thickest of the foliage—his skin was full of cuts and scratches and bites, but he was better able to handle it, thanks to his bioware.
He heard Sela’s harsh breaths behind him—and when he turned to check on her, he noted she was sweating nearly as badly as he was, but she hadn’t complained once. He’d been about to ask if she needed to take a break, when Sela tugged at the back of his shirt.
“Did you hear that?”
He turned to face her—her eyes were wide and she was pointing behind them.
“I think we’re being followed,” she mouthed, and shit, with his body running on half strength and no comms to call to camp, this wasn’t going to be a good thing at all.
“Let’s keep moving,” he mouthed back, and she nodded, even as he tugged her to walk ahead of him.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled for the next half mile. Sela was right—this thing was tracking them, methodically. Quietly. Like it was … practicing.
And then it growled, and Logan stopped dead, drew his gun.
The growl hadn’t come from behind him so much as it seemed like it came from everywhere, surrounding them, and he circled slowly, trying to locate it before it could make a surprise attack.
Sela had turned so they were back to back and moving together—four eyes circling continuously, an excellent instinctive safety move.
Except it wasn’t instinctive. Someone had taught her quite well, and he didn’t have time to think about why a cryptozoologist needed to know combat moves, because the snarling, red-eyed chupa leaped out of the tree directly in front of him with no further fanfare, as if tired of hiding.
As if it knew it was unstoppable.
Well, fuck that.
Logan shot four rounds at the beast, but the damned thing was fast as well as strong, and suddenly it took him by the throat and threw him, violently.
Sela screamed as Logan landed with a jolting crash against the trunk of a tree. He willed himself not to pass out, because the beast had stopped focusing on him and was moving toward Sela.
With a roar, he used the momentum from pushing away from the tree to fling himself toward the chupacabra.
His mechanical arm still functioned, despite the break in the wires, but it felt weak and his legs weren’t much better. He needed an advantage, and as much as he hated to do it, he let the rage that had been slowly building since he was injured yesterday take over.
It was a risk—he couldn’t be sure if he’d be able to bring himself back from the edge.
“Sela, get to camp,” he managed to yell before he saw red—literally.
The next moments were a blur. He had a vague awareness of grabbing the creature by the throat, the cold, scaled skin crumpling under his fingers. His emotions were out of his control completely for those moments, and he felt the urge to kill race through him. He rolled with the beast, both fighting for the upper hand—he heard his own grunts mix with the chupacabra’s, the metallic taste of his own blood in his mouth from when he’d been slammed by the creature.
Sela’s yells brought him back to a lucidity of sorts, and it was then he remembered Chance and the infection, and he managed to stay out of reach of the thing’s teeth. And he knew that if he didn’t pull back his fury immediately, the bioware malfunction would take over the human emotion … and he’d be as much of a danger to Sela as the chupacabra.
Bad enough she’d seen him so out of control.
He wasn’t sure if he let go or if the chupa got away, but he saw it disappear into the thick brush. “Why did it run? Something must’ve spooked it. Unless I did manage to hurt it—if it’s weak, now’s the perfect time to go after it.”
He heard himself babbling, felt his disorientation. Dammit, he needed his injection, and soon.
“Logan, it’s okay—you must’ve scared it.”
He stared at her. Her eyes held concern not fear, and good, that was good. “I can get it. I have to.”
“No. Let’s go.” She pulled at him and he let her help him drag himself to his feet. His body felt depleted, like he’d run too far too fast, and he leaned against her.
When he was finally upright, she told him, “If you go after it now, you’ll die.”
He stared at her. “I didn’t want you to see me like that. I didn’t want to scare you.”
“It’s okay, Logan. Really. You saved me.”
“I hate this. Hate that I’m built with fucking parts.” He closed his eyes and swayed, didn’t open them until her palm brushed his cheek.
“I don’t hate anything about you. And those parts are what saved us.” Her words were soft, but sure. “But if we don’t get you back to camp, I’m not going to have the chance to prove that to you. And you’re not going to live to capture the chupacabra.”
She was right. And her words made him smile, despite the weakness. He lowered his mouth to hers for a brief moment, holding her and wishing that this could be real. Hoping it was.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Let’s go.”
“Just one second?” Sela gave him a sheepish look as she picked through the forest floor to pluck a couple of the beast’s scales from the dirt. Then she very carefully broke a blood-coated leaf off a branch, rolled it up and stuck it in her pocket.
She was still smiling like a kid on Christmas day as they humped it back to camp.
* * *
DEV WAS AT HIS DESK, FIRMING UP PLANS TO SEND IN OPERATIVES to back up Sela and Marlena in order to accomplish the physical takedown.
He wanted both Akbar and Stryker for this mission. The men made a good team, and Stryker knew the Amazon jungles and had a skill that no one could rival, so he’d be the perfect choice to help Sela and Marlena.
Stryker had just returned from a four-month mission in the Middle East—he’d bitch about going back out again, but if Dev plied him with a twenty-four-hour Seducer-fest, his operative would come around.
Now Dev ran his hands through his hair as his entire body felt as though there was electricity rising off it. Worse than pins and needles, this was a sense of foreboding, as if he’d suddenly become a divining rod leading straight to something that had gone fucking wrong. And it had nothing to do with the Seducers’ mission.
No, this was something different.
He barked for Christine—barked because she wasn’t Marlena, and that was frustrating the hell out of him.
God forbid any of the agents kept up on paperwork since Marlena stopped being his assistant, and Jesus, Christine needed to learn to kick some ass, and fast, or ACRO would go to shit.
It wasn’t all her fault, of course. She was just too … nice. Too accommodating. And she couldn’t read his goddamned mind.
“Give her a break, Dev, she’s trying.”
Dev swung around, to find Gabe sitting on his couch, feet up. “How long have you been here?”
Gabe smiled, the same smile that made Dev want to throw him over the back of the couch and fuck him until they were both exhausted—which was a real possibility.
“I’m in training—I can’t stop for sex,” Gabe told him, and Dev wondered if the younger man really did have mind-reading abilities. “I just stopped in to show off my newest skill.”
“I know you can make yourself invisible,” Dev muttered as he stared at the beautiful blond man. But his lover hadn’t ever been able to sneak into his office undetected. Dev wasn’t sure he liked it, but hell, this could come in handy. “How long have you been here?”
Gabe shrugged. “Long enough. I like watching you.”
Devlin pulled the man to him fiercely. “I plan on doing more than watching you.”
Gabriel melted against him as the two men fought for control—neither won, and they ended up slamming onto Dev’s desk, sending a plethora of objects scattering to the floor, loudly.
Christine finally buzzed in, but bad fucking timing, and Dev told her to belay his order before he turned the radio on, since Gabriel tended to get loud and God fucking knew Christine would call in security if she heard yells.
She was the daughter of one of his oldest and most trusted agents, a psychic who was second in command in that department only to Sam. Christine had no special powers of her own, beyond an intricate understanding of the ACRO structure and its need for secrecy and discretion. So far, Devlin hadn’t been worried about her in those areas.
But in others …
“Stop thinking. Fuck me,” Gabriel murmured breathlessly, stripping himself naked as Dev contented himself with sucking the side of his neck, bracing his hands on the mahogany desk as he lay on top of the younger man.
Content until he heard the voice float into his consciousness.
Dev, fuck—I need help.
“Dev, what’s wrong?” Gabe’s voice mingled with Creed’s—Dev raised a finger. And Creed’s voice came through loud and clear.
“Devlin, I need your fucking help. It’s Ani. We’re in trouble.”
“Where are you?” he asked out loud. Gabe cocked his head and watched him for a second and then he disappeared.
Smart man. Dev knew Gabe wouldn’t hide here under the cloak of invisibility—no, his lover was a hell of a lot savvier than that. Though he might hang out long enough to see who Dev was dealing with.
“Behind your house, the first road,” Creed was answering him. “I can’t go back home to Ani until I talk to you.”
Just then the line on Devlin’s desk buzzed. Christine. “Devlin? Annika’s here, asking to see you.”
“Shit,” Dev said fiercely. “Creed, she’s here.”
“She’s pregnant, Dev. And she doesn’t know that I know.”
Dev felt his heart drop to his feet as Annika stormed into the office. “Gabriel’s not here,” he said, well aware that his standard-issue black BDU shirt was unbuttoned to his stomach.