by Honor James
Lacey frowned and cocked her head to the side. “You have better eyesight than I do,” she whispered. “But isn’t Norman a blond, not a strawberry blond?” Her stomach twitched and she felt like she was going to puke. That wasn’t Norman. She was sure of it. She was practically positive that was not Norman but someone who looked just like him.
That had his attention and he jerked his head around to stare out the window. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed out. “Z, we’ve got a problem. Our actual target is posing as Norman, our fake target. I repeat, Lacey’s stalker is playing the part of Norman.”
The silence over the comms was intense, and then all hell broke loose. She could hear the various voices coming through Ansell’s earpiece as he pulled it from his ear with a wince.
Lacey pulled her weapon and looked to Ansell. “Do we go in and help out?” She couldn’t see them letting anyone on their team get hurt, but shit, what to do? They were one of the cars furthest from the meet point, they were basically just there for shits and giggles, and because Lacey had refused to stay home.
Shaking his head he leaned forward, bracing his arms on the steering wheel. “No, not unless we have to,” he said. Someone called out that a car was coming in, the other part of their supposed sting now going horribly wrong. “Shit, this is going to go bad. Mark, can you signal him and let him know that shit’s going down?”
“Trying, I’m getting nothing back though. He’s proceeding straight in as if all is well, not even slowing a little,” another of the snipers said in reply.
“Z, we have to do something,” Ansell said.
“Already on it,” Zhubin’s voice came through strong. “Stay in reserve unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Shooting her a look, Ansell nodded. “Copy that.”
“He’s going to do something really, really stupid isn’t he? He’s going to do something that is going to make me want to beat him, huh?” she muttered. “Because I’m sure that is true.” Gosh blessed it all. She was positive that Zhubin was going to do something that was going to cause her to beat him later.
“Oh, he’s doing something stupid enough I may just beat him,” Ansell said. She couldn’t exactly tell where his attention was but, whatever held it wasn’t going to go well, she knew. The second car had just stopped and parked, their other agent getting out of the vehicle. Norman, who actually wasn’t Norman, lifted a hand and then slid into the warehouse with their guy following on his heels.
“I swear to the Gods I’m going to kill that freaking man,” Lacey muttered as she watched the happenings carefully. She didn’t dare pull up her binoculars for fear of reflection but her eyesight wasn’t nearly good enough to see everything that was happening, so she was a mite pissed off.
Ansell was staring intently out the window, his finger pressing his earbud in deeper as he frowned. “Z, you fucking lunatic,” he muttered. When she shot him a look he pointed to their right slightly, his finger tracking slowly, and then she could see him. Zhubin raced in and out of the shadows toward the warehouse.
“Oh, I am bloody damn well going to kill him,” Lacey muttered darkly and sighed. “So what’s the game plan here? How do we help?” She didn’t know what would be the best way for them to help, the best way to ensure that they were all safe. But she was still damn well going to beat Zhubin for this stunt.
“We stay right the fuck where we are and, if help is required, I go in. You stay put. Only under the absolute worst of possible probabilities do you leave this vehicle now,” he said. He was still watching the warehouse, his concentration intense. He had to be getting a crap-load of information from everyone if the slight buzzing from his ear was anything to go by. “No, go through the side door, you moron. Yes, that side door. Uh, yeah, who’s the bonehead diving in nuts first and, for the record, Lacey plans on braining you for this move.”
“Oh son of a bitch, I’m killing him,” Lacey grumbled as she sat forward, her hand holding the dashboard so tightly she was sure that it would crack. “Oh god, to the left. Ansell warn him. Warn them all that there is something fucking huge coming from the left.” She had no clue what the it was, but it was massive.
“He sees it and so do the snipers,” Ansell said, his eyes twitching back and forth now. “Move Z, that thing, whatever the fuck it is, is almost on you. We can’t shoot it until we know we have our target, damn it! Fuck.” He looked to her and pointed a finger her way. “Do. Not. Move.” Then he was out of the truck and racing to intercept whatever the fuck was thundering in.
“I am damn well going to kill them both,” she muttered as she watched the two men she loved the most in the world jump headfirst into trouble and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it because they were right. Right now she was a hindrance. She would only divert their attention from the objective and that pissed her off like crazy.
Zhubin disappeared into the warehouse as Ansell slammed into whoever or whatever was also out there. With a wince she watched as he barreled into the guy hard enough she actually could hear the hit. They fell in a tumble of limbs, already pounding on one another. One hit threw Ansell back a good six feet but he was right up again and hitting the other being in the gut.
She was bloody damn well going to kill both of them, she thought to herself as she watched Ansell fighting with a massive…hell, she didn’t know what race the being was but he was freaking huge, and Zhubin sneaking into the danger zone. Yep, she was killing her mates when they went home. Dammit.
Ansell got in a couple of good shots and then, then he went down, hard. That, that thing hit him so hard that his head snapped back and he just dropped like a sack of bricks. Boneless, he lay on the ground while the other being circled in closer to him. Reaching down with a large hand he grabbed Ansell by the hair and pulled him up into a headlock. No, not a headlock…
She had enough of just sitting and watching. Sting be fucking damned, she wasn’t going to allow her mates to be killed because of her inaction. She had slipped from the truck and before Ansell’s neck could be broken, put the large beast down with a single shot to the middle of his forehead, the sound of her weapon only a small whisper. The small hole in the front of the beast’s head dribbled a bit of blood and he looked confused for a moment, but when he dropped, the entire back of his head was missing. Sliding up to Ansell, she helped catch his weight. “Do you need a medic?” If not she was going to go in and damn well end this all. Now.
His lids fluttered slightly. “Told you to stay in the car,” he said. His words were heavily slurred though, so it was a guess. When he finally pried his eyes open he squinted and blinked and groaned. “Lace,” he whispered her name and passed out. Pressing a hand to his neck she felt a sticky warmth on her fingers from his shoulder. Blood.
“Fuck.” This was a shitstorm of epic proportions and she knew it. She grabbed her comms unit and whispered, “Abort. All black. Need medics.” Fuck, did she ever need them! She was holding Ansell’s shoulder tightly where the wound was and grumbled. “I need fucking medics rolling, now!”
A gunshot rang out and then another. A brief moment of silence and then all hell truly broke loose as a hail of gunfire sounded. All from inside the warehouse. “Man down, man down.” Zhubin’s voice. “Target injured, pursuing,” he said.
“Two down,” Artaxias’s voice came in over the comms. “Both unconscious and breathing. Tagged for later retrieval,” he added just as a loud screech of metal came through the comms. “Inside the warehouse, Z, where are you?”
“East side heading north.” Zhubin’s voice was low. “Got a blood trail here but it looks to be tapering off, he must be staunching the blood flow.”
“Coming to you,” Ax and a couple others said almost all on top of one another.
“Medics are inbound,” Jonas’s voice came to her. “Two minutes. Sorry, but we had to keep them out of the area so hang in there, Lacey.”
“Says you,” she grumbled and rocked with Ansell’s head in her lap. “Don’t you dare die on me. I mean it.
You die on me and I will follow you. I refuse to lose either of you and you damn well know that.” She was grumbling, muttering darkly and dangerously. “Thanks Jonas.”
“Not dying,” Ansell slurred out, his jaw starting to puff up and darken. “But may ask you to shoot me soon,” he said on a groan. “Z?” he hissed out, opening one eye to squint up at her. “Where’s Z?” His eyes closed and his features pinched in pain.
“I don’t know. Jonas, where is Zhubin?” She didn’t ask Zhubin because at the moment she was far too pissed off at both of her men to ask him, at least that was the story she was going with because the honest truth was she was scared shitless that Z was doing something that he shouldn’t, and her voice would only hurt his cause instead of help it.
“Uh.” He sounded out of breath. “Heading right for me and, in theory, so should be our target. Best I can figure they’ll pop out somewhere on the south side. Downside, there are three doors and two of us back here.” He muttered something she didn’t quite catch and then there was silence.
“Heat signatures heading your way, counting three,” Mark said quietly. “Two are close together and the third is out front and stumbling. Our target definitely took a hit.”
“Shoot the fuckers. I don’t care, just end this shit.” Lacey growled. “I mean it too. End it.” All she could think of in that moment was just getting Ansell medical treatment and getting Zhubin out of the fucking building and into safety.
“Can’t fire, too much distortion. Z and Ax have to flush him out of there into the open,” Mark said.
“Movement,” Jonas hissed out.
And everyone held their breath. A few shouts could be heard, not through the comms but bouncing off the buildings. More gunfire and then silence. A long, tension-filled silence.
“Target is down. I repeat, target is down,” Zhubin said through the comms. “Sorry, Lace, but I had to put him down hard. You can still kick him if you want but he won’t be feeling it, babe.”
“Ansell’s down,” Mark said. “Ambulance is coming in dark, two seconds out.” As he said that she could hear the crunch of gravel at her back. “Coming up on you now, Lacey. Two medics,” he warned her.
“What happened?” Zhubin’s voice was frantic and he sounded like he was running. Just as the medics reached her and made her move back she spotted him clearing the far end of the warehouse at a dead run for her.
Lacey had her bloody hands wrapped around her middle. When Zhubin stopped and wrapped her up close she began to cry. “You both just had to go and do something stupid. I could beat you both. Instead of blowing that fucking thing’s head off, he gets into a fist fight with it. Really? A fucking fist fight when an exploding round did the trick.” She grumbled darkly and watched as they hooked Ansell up to more machines. “You are both totally on my shit list.”
Zhubin stroked her hair, over and over. “He’ll be fine,” he said, his voice tight and too soft. “He’ll be fine, Lace, you’ll see.” Holding her tight as Ansell was lifted onto a gurney he grabbed a medic and found out where they were taking him. “Come on, we’re going to get them there as fucking fast as we can.”
“We had better,” she grumbled and walked with him back to the truck that she and Ansell had been in. “But you got him, right? The fucker that did all of this to us, you put him down and he will never get back up, right?” She had to know that the threat to their family was gone. Period. “And we will be able to figure out if he was working with anyone else, right?”
Nodding, he loaded her in and then joined her, turning the engine over and roaring out of the lot, the ambulance on their ass. “Yeah, he’s dead. Artaxias confirmed but will remain with the body until Briar does her first cut just to be absolutely, one hundred percent positive.”
“Good.” She shivered and shook her head. “Will Briar be okay with doing this autopsy?” she asked quietly. “Because if not then we will need to ensure that someone else that we can trust will be the one to do it. We have to ensure that this bastard’s turned inside out on the table so that we can figure out everything about him. We also will need to go to his place and turn it over and again because this is fucking ridiculous. We have to ensure that this never happens to us again.” She didn’t want to live in fear.
“She’s more than ready for him,” Zhubin said, shooting her a look. “I spoke to her before we left and let her know the odds were good we’d be bringing him in dead. She wants him under her knife, wants to ensure you get peace from your demons and if she can help, she is willing. Personally I think it will let her face some of her own too.”
“I could kiss that woman. Are you sure that Ansell will be okay?” She was jumping from one topic to the next, but she couldn’t help it. “Positive. I mean, without a shadow of a doubt? He had lost a lot of blood, Zhu, and God.” She couldn’t lose him. Couldn’t lose either of them and Zhubin knew that.
“He will be fine. He has grand plans for teaching our kid all sorts of things that will pay me back for most of the shit I pulled as a kid. No fucking way is he going to miss out on that. I am in such deep shit when he starts that.”
“That’s a very good thing.” Lacey laughed and shook her head. “I doubt that. Something tells me that you are going to be right there with him helping to teach our son things. This child might genetically be yours, but it’s his too in the heart and he knows that. So he will be good. Somewhat.”
Snorting, he shot her a look that said he wasn’t buying that in the least. Shaking his head, he seemed to focus on the drive again, his attention locked on the road. Before too long they were pulling up to the hospital, the ambulance to the emergency doors and them into a parking stall. Jumping out, Zhubin swiped his wrist over the meter and then grabbed her out of the truck. Taking her hand, he jogged toward the emergency room.
Lacey was a hot mess and if not for having Zhubin there to hold her together she likely would have already fallen apart. Sliding into the emergency room, Lacey looked at the closed room and frowned. “I need to know how he is. Work your magic and find out.” She insisted that Zhubin could charm information from anyone at any time, and now she was demanding he do just that.
Shooting her a look, he rolled his eyes. Sitting her down, he looked at her, a hard look. “Don’t move a muscle,” he said. Pressing a kiss to her hair he went over to the nurse’s desk and smiled at one of them. She could see him talking with the woman. Hell, the man even let out a tear on command. That was seriously impressive. Fucking award material right there. He shook the woman’s hand and then came toward her, not looking all that happy.
Lacey felt her knees go a little weak. Looking to Zhubin she frowned. “What?” she demanded. “Come on, tell me. What? Please.” She whispered when he pulled her into his arms and began to rub her back lightly. “Please, nothing bad,” she begged.
“He’s lost a lot of blood and his pressure keeps bottoming out. They just wheeled him into surgery and the nurse I spoke to, Connie, said they were just getting the X-rays and such done up. The surgeon thinks he’ll be in there for three, maybe four hours on this session. If it’s what he thinks it is, then Ansell will need at least one, maybe two more surgeries. The surgeon said he’ll be out midway through this operation to let us all know what’s going on. Connie offered to show us up to a private waiting room on the surgery floor so we’re there when the surgeon comes out if you want to go up.”
“Yes please,” Lacey whispered. “But he will pull through, right? Tell me that he will pull through. He will be fine, right?” She had to know that Ansell was going to be okay. She needed to know that her other mate was going to make it. She was rambling, repeating herself but she was in utter shock at the moment and completely beside herself that he just ran right into danger without giving it a second thought.
“Yes, he will be fine and pull through,” he said softly. Giving her another squeeze he got to his feet and pulled her to hers. Tucking her close, Zhubin led her to the nursing desk where Connie was waiting on them.
“He had damn well better or I am going to beat him. I mean it too,” she muttered darkly and moved with him to the nurse, Connie. Remaining quiet, Lacey followed at the nurse’s heels into the waiting room that was close to the operating rooms and then closed the door behind herself. Taking in a deep breath, Lacey shook her head. “I really hope that this doesn’t take long.”
Catching her hand, Zhubin tugged her with him. After sitting, he pulled her into his lap and held her close. “It will take as long as it needs to take. He needs this and to know we are here thinking of him and praying he will be all right. That’s what matters right this moment. All the rest can wait until he’s back on his feet and you’ve beaten him back off them.”
“You are my rock,” she whispered and curled up closer to him. Her body was wrapped as close to him as she could possibly get, she was holding onto him as best she could and finally sighed. “It’s just that I love you both so very much. It is killing me that he got hurt.”
“I know, Lace, but try not to worry. He’s not human so his chances of recovery are way better than if he were, you know that. We’re built to survive. No, we’re not invincible but we’re not easy to put down either.” Squeezing her closer, he rocked her slowly, stroking her hair gently.
“I know, but I still think of the human ways that people react. I know that’s bad and all but it’s how I have lived my life. I know that you guys have a hell of a recovery rate, but that doesn’t erase the blood, and seeing him hurt as he was,” she admitted.
“Lacey,” he said softly, tipping her chin up so they were eye to eye. “It is not bad to think as a human. You are human so you’re going to think that way and it’s perfectly normal and amazing. Don’t ever apologize for being human, we love you as you are, Lacey. And that is as a human woman that is too damned sexy for her own good.”