by Julia Mills
He hoped he had gotten his point across; he meant every word. She laid her hand on his cheek, “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you, but I’m glad I did it. Thank you, Aidan.”
He leaned his forehead against hers, “I love you, Grace.”
He heard her intake of breath. “I love you too, Aidan.” Her whisper reached his waiting ears and his heart leapt for joy. She loved him. She had just said she loved him. He grabbed her around the waist and spun her while he kissed her until they were both out of breath. Once again he placed her on her feet, holding her until she was steady.
They stood there looking into one another’s eyes. He was sure she saw the tears he was fighting hard to hold back. It just would not do to cry in front of his mate. “I guess I better get dressed unless you plan on keeping me out here naked for your pleasure,” she wagged her eyebrows, causing him to burst out laughing. “But don’t think we are not going to talk about you having Lance drag me away from you back there, or the stuff he told me about you and your younger brother when all this shit is over.” She paused for a moment. “I want a partnership with the man I love, not a dictatorship with a caveman,” she smiled, and he knew it was to soften her words.
“My first thought is and will always be to keep you safe and far from harm, but I will work harder to remember to discuss my decisions with you,” Grace raised an eyebrow and he was sure he had something wrong. “I have lived a long time, mo ghra’, so give this old dragon some time to change his ways,” they both chuckled at his attempt at humor. “And as much as I would love to keep you naked for weeks and months and trust me, as soon as all of this is over it is going to happen, you are right, we don’t have time right now.”
He handed her the clothes he had gathered from the ground. “Get dressed before I change my mind,” he watched as she pulled her jeans over the tennis shoes he had not bothered to remove. He turned and began picking up the paperwork he had retrieved from the warehouse. He knew they were important and she would be upset of they were lost or damaged.
“I’m ready whenever you are,” Grace called from behind him, just as he picked up the last of the paperwork. He walked over to where she stood and kissed her forehead.
“All right pretty lady, I just have to say, if I had it my way we would be heading as far away from here as I could carry you.” He saw the fire leap in her eyes and her shoulders square for battle. He held up his hands in defeat, “But I know better than to try to change your mind once it’s made up,” he watched her relax a fraction. “So let’s creep up to the edge of the woods and see what is going on with that helicopter and its occupants.” He pulled her as tight as he could into his side. “Stay right by me, Beautiful, there is no way I’m letting anything happen to you.” As they headed back towards the debris of the devastated warehouse, a shiver ran down his spine; whatever they were walking towards was not going to be pretty, but with his amazing mate by his side, there was nothing he couldn’t do.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
And the hits just kept coming. His incredibly bad luck kept going from bad to worse. He had what he thought was a foolproof plan to get away and run a dagger through the heart of the brother that left him for dead all those years ago, but then that damn helicopter landed. So he was still hiding in the bushes with a bunch of worthless wizards, trying to figure out how to get the hell out of dodge, alone and unseen, while whoever the hell had landed the biggest freaking helicopter he had ever seen was just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing but holding up any plans he had to put this catastrophe of a day behind him. The worst part had been watching Aidan throw his mate over his shoulder and run in the opposite direction, completely wrecking the plans Andrew had for kidnapping the raven-haired beauty and finally getting to make that stupid son of a bitch suffer.
He searched for another escape route while he focused on the military helicopter that had just been sitting in the clearing for almost twenty minutes. He had witnessed no movement and the windows were so heavily tinted that he could not see how many men were inside. He had only seen a copter of this caliber a few times during his military career. When their Force had been deployed during the Gulf War, similar aircraft were used to move high ranking officials from site to site. Those helicopters could hold up to twelve men and all the gear necessary to effectively guard the assets inside and launch an offensive assault, if necessary. Whoever was in there either had military connections or a shitload of money to buy whatever and whoever he wanted. Andrew was betting on the latter of the two choices since they were in the middle of nowhere, beside a smoldering mess of a building that not even an hour ago was to be the site of a serious black magic ritual. The people in that damn helicopter had something to do with either the wizards or the abandoned warehouse or both. He was so lost in his thoughts and his pity party that he missed Aidan and Grace’s reappearance at the opposite side of the massive parking lot.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Aidan stood at the edge of the woods, listening to the voices of his brethren in his mind as they attempted to rescue the girls that had been trapped in the lower level of the warehouse by the explosion. From the sounds of it, there were six young women that needed rescuing. At least the girls had still been in the back of the trucks and protected by the thick walls of the trailers when the explosion had happened, or they would not have survived the blast. Still, it sounded as if some of them had tried to get out and were caught by falling debris. He could not help but wonder why the hell the local law enforcement and fire department still had not shown up. He was sure Rayne would have had someone call them, but still no one had responded. He also looked towards the huge helicopter still sitting stationary in the clearing, and wondered what the hell they were doing there and why they weren’t making a move.
Grace tugged on the hand she held, “What’s going on, Aidan?”
“Rayne, Lance, Royce, and Max’s men are getting the young women out of the rubble in the basement,” he pointed towards the still smoldering rubble. “Aaron, Devon, Max, and Sophia are spread out in the woods looking for the wizards that ran when the building exploded. Some were killed in the blast, but at least eight of them got away,” he hesitated and pulled Grace closer to his side, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. He kissed the top of her head, “And I’m sure my little brother is with them.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Grace could tell from the tone of Aidan’s voice that he wanted to be out there looking for his brother, but contrary to what she heard, she could feel his resolve to ensure her safety. She snuggled a little closer to his side and once again thanked God for bringing this amazing man into her life. There was no way she could keep him from being there when they captured his younger brother.
As they stood there scanning the scene before them, two of Max’s men emerged from the warehouse, each carrying a battered and bruised young woman. A shiver ran down Grace’s spine as she took in their condition. Her determination to see justice for these young women and the others that were still trapped below rose within her. ‘The Auctioneer’ and his associates had to be stopped. The men she now recognized as Juan Carlos and Ernesto moved with their enhanced speed towards Grace and Aidan.
Grace grabbed the blankets each man had thrown over the shoulders of the young women and spread them out on the grass. She was awed by the gentle way each man laid the young women down, carefully positioning their unconscious bodies to avoid any further pain. Juan Carlos handed her a bag of first aid supplies from under his arm. “Would you clean and bandage their wounds, please?” He kept his eyes on the girls as he spoke, “Ernesto and I are going back down to help get the others out.” He finally looked at Grace while he spoke the last few words.
“Sure, I can do that.” She opened the bag of supplies. “Be careful,” she spoke to his back as he walked away.
“Here mo ghra’, let me help,” Aidan reached for some of the wipes and gauze pads. “If we work together, we can get these two cleaned up before they bring the others out.”
She smiled at her mate, once again amazed at the depth of the man that stood before her. She glanced back towards the warehouse as she wiped dirt and soot from the wounds of the unconscious woman that lay helpless on the ground. Her spidey senses kicked up a notch and she caught movement to her right. Turning her head, she saw the doors on the helicopter open and men dressed in full combat gear pour out. She counted ten men in total, fanned out in a formation she had seen in the military movies her father liked to watch. She reached across the young woman she had been caring for and laid her hand on Aidan’s. “Aidan, look,” she nodded towards the helicopter in the clearing. Before her next breath, Aidan was standing at the very edge of the woods using a large patch of foliage for cover, and the buzzing in her head began stronger than she had ever felt before.
She hurriedly finished bandaging the young woman’s wounds, folded the other half of the blanket she was laying on over her, and moved to the girl Aidan had been taking care of to finish her first aid while waiting for Aidan to tell her what was happening. She did not want to call out for fear someone would hear her. Keeping these poor, defenseless, unconscious girls safe was her first priority; so she worked as fast as she could and tried to not let her nerves get the best of her.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The men from the helicopter were obviously military trained and protecting someone very important. They were covered in tactical military gear and held automatic rifles. The same equipment most SWAT teams wore. The men from the helicopter had taken a defensive position, five on each side, forming a semi-circle around a tall, bulky man also dressed in combat gear, but only carrying a hand gun that he kept at his side. The man in the middle did not have his face covered like the others, but the cap he was wore pulled down as far as it would go and it obscured everything but his mouth and chin from Aidan’s sight. They moved as a unit, obviously well trained and used to working together.
“Rayne, we have got a serious shit storm brewing up here. Eleven men in total, ten protecting one in the middle, just got out of the helicopter and are heading towards the warehouse,” Aidan sent through their connection.
“What the hell is so important about this fucking warehouse?” Aidan could hear the anger and frustration in Rayne’s voice. “And where the hell is the local law enforcement and fire department?”
“I don’t know, man. But we’ve got to do something about these assholes right now or they’re going to be on your ass before you know it.”
“You’re right.” Rayne agreed. “Aaron. Devon. I need you to get to the rear of the building. The assholes from the helicopter just decided to join the party and ‘A’ says they are dressed to kill. Bring Max and Sophia with you. I’m sending Royce and all but two of Max’s men up to help. Lance is with me. Keep them off of us until we can get the girls out of here. Any luck finding the asshole wizards?”
“No,” Aaron’s voice sounded loud and clear and filled with frustration. “They have to be using black magic to hide their position. Dev picked up the taint of it just before you called.”
“Fuck! Nothing we can do about it now. See you topside,” Rayne answered.
Aidan listened as all the men of his Force answered their Commander. He moved back to Grace and the battered, unconscious young women. “Mo chroi,” he put his hands on either side of her face.”I have to go. We have to keep those commandos from the helicopter from getting to Rayne, Lance, and Max’s men while they are getting those poor young women out of that mess down there.”
He touched his forehead to hers, “I need you to promise me that you will stay right here. I hate leaving you but I have to go. It is going to take all of us to keep those assholes away from those girls and our guys.”
He shifted his hands to the back of her neck and lightly messaged. “You are hidden behind all these bushes and trees. Don’t make a sound unless you absolutely have to.”
He leaned back and locked his eyes on hers, “If you feel any type of danger or see anyone getting to close to you, scream like you have never screamed before and I will come running.” He pressed his lips to hers and poured all the love and reassurance that he could into that one brief kiss. He needed to make sure she understand exactly how much she meant to him and how important it was that she stay hidden.
He ended the kiss, but only moved a fraction of an inch and kept his eyes closed, “I love you, mo ghra’, with every beat of my heart.”
Grace simply nodded her head and leaned forward to place one last chaste kiss upon his lips. He dropped his hands and stepped back. Their eyes locked. He saw all the love and devotion he felt for her mirrored in her beautiful blue eyes. She was absolutely perfect. With love filling every cell of his being, he turned and sped towards his brethren before he could change his mind, while offering a silent prayer to the Universe to keep his mate safe.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She watched as Aidan sped away, mesmerized by the man that had chosen her. Sitting between the unconscious girls, she laid the back of her hand on their foreheads to make sure neither had a fever. A little smile came to her lips as she remembered all the times Miss Annabelle had taken care of her through all her various illnesses and injuries. These girls looked so young, lying there bruised and broken but her intuition told her that with the right medical and psychological help they would make it through this ordeal. She would make sure they got everything they needed as soon as they were out of this mess. Completely lost in thought, she jumped when alarm bells rang in her head, her special intuition screaming that something major was happening in the direction of Aidan and the warehouse. She knew Aidan would lose his mind if he knew she was even thinking of peeking over the edge of the foliage hiding her and the young women from view but she could not ignore her intuition. Something catastrophic was about to happen and she had to see that Aidan and the others were ok.
She crept forward and peeped through the leaves and branches that were serving as her cover. The Dragon Guard along with Max, Sophie and their men were surrounding the military looking men as they worked their way closer to what was left of the loading docks at the side of the warehouse. It didn’t look like they had any intentions of harming anyone but that their sole focus was to protect the man they surrounded and get him into the still smoldering warehouse. They had moved enough that they were now positioned directly across from Grace and only about fifty yards from the large loading dock doors. Aidan’s back was to her but she could see that his were flexed and he was ready to pounce. She jumped when she heard him speak. ”Who are you and what business do you have here?”
The man that was being protected turned to face Aidan but did not lift his hat, “This is my building. I have every right to be here. It is you who are trespassing, whoever you are.”
Something about the man’s voice seemed familiar to Grace and caused her special intuition to bounce around in her head. She lifted her hands to her ears in an effort to quiet the alarm in her mind.
“If this is your building, then why did you sit in your helicopter and not even attempt to help us rescue those trapped by the explosion?” Aidan asked. She could hear the contained violence in his voice and was sure no one was going to like the mystery man’s answer.
“Saving these people really does not concern me. I’m only here to get what is mine,” he answered, and his tone said he knew exactly what was going on in his building and really didn’t give a shit.
“So you knew there were young women being held here and did nothing to stop it?” Aidan asked, the anger radiating from his every pore and causing his muscles to bunch even tighter. Grace could feel it across the distance that separated them.
“I don’t have to explain anything to you. As I explained, this is my building and you are trespassing. Now you and your band of merry men have one minute to get the hell off of my property or these highly trained mercenaries will gladly shoot you and throw your cold, dead bodies into the rubble. It is your choice; either way is fine with me.”
Aidan took a ste
p forward and his voice shook with the force of his rage, “Look asshole, I don’t care who you are, and your goons don’t scare me. You’re not going into that building until we’ve gotten all the survivors out. So I suggest you take your happy asses back to your fancy helicopter and chill out.”
The mystery man took an aggressive step forward and stood staring at Aidan. Grace counted to six before the mystery man spoke. What she heard made the hair all over her body stand on end. She had heard that voice before, many times. Frantically, she searched her memory as he continued to tell Aidan what was going to happen if they did not stand down. There was no way she could be right. She shook her head and listened more intently. Fear washed over her, combined with disbelief. Her instincts had to be misfiring because of everything she had been through in the last day and a half. There was no way it could be who she thought it was. As she was trying to convince herself of her mistake, the mystery man and Aidan’s voices grew louder and angrier. The tension in the air was threatening to strangle them all. Just when she was sure she had been mistaken, the man who obviously thought he was in charge reached up and removed his hat. What she saw had her screaming a warning to Aidan without any thought of her own safety. The mystery man, the man being protected by his own small army was her boss, the State Prosecutor and from the little he had revealed and her spidey senses, he was also ‘The Auctioneer’.
With her only thought of getting to the man that had lied not only to her, but absolutely everyone in law enforcement, and keeping him from hurting her mate, she burst from her hiding place, running as hard and fast as she could towards Aidan. Before she had made it more than fifty feet, she felt a burning sensation tear through her left shoulder. At the same time, something plowed into her right side and threw her into the air. She heard the sounds of gunfire and shouting as she landed flat on her back on the concrete. Her bones rattled and her head bounced from the impact. Black spots rose before her eyes. She heard yelling that echoed in her head like it was coming from the bottom of a barrel. As she tried to clear her vision and shake the cobwebs from her rattled brain, a large calloused hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her across the asphalt, scraping the skin from her lower back and causing her head to bounce a few more times against the unforgiving parking lot. She kicked and fought, trying to get her ankle free from the large paw that continued to drag her away from Aidan, but no matter what she tried, the grip around her ankle only tightened. She twisted and turned, trying to grab anything she could to stop her forward motion, but her every movement caused intense pain in her left shoulder and her left arm refused to cooperate, it just flailed about like a wet dishrag. She continued to kick with her free foot, listening to Aidan scream after her as the gunfire and commotion all around seemed to get farther and farther away. She only prayed her mate would catch up and free her from whoever had decided to drag her like a ragdoll.