Because, according to the records she had looked at, the woman brought in with Talon was indeed dead. Apparently, she had been under observation when she had suddenly attacked the electrified steel bars protecting the window where the scientists had stood on the other side.
And she hadn’t stopped attacking them.
It had resulted in her death and Talon’s escape.
Had she done it in order to give Talon a chance to break free?
The thought that she might have roused a feeling inside Emelia, a sensation that unsettled her. She couldn’t imagine how brave, or how desperate, the woman must have been to do something like that, sacrificing herself for the sake of another.
It made Emelia feel weak.
She pushed that feeling aside. She had been weak, but tonight, she was going to be strong. She was going to see this mission through, and then she was going to face her fears. She was going to be the brave one.
Emelia turned off the water, stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. She grabbed her black underwear and slipped it on, then pulled on her black turtleneck and combat trousers. She tied her hair up in a bun at the back of her head and fixed the collar of her top so it concealed the healing bite mark on her throat. She shoved her feet into her black heavy-soled boots and tucked her combat trousers into the top of them before lacing them tightly. Her pulse pounded, and she breathed steadily, quelling the nerves threatening to race out of control.
No one would suspect a thing.
The plan was sound. Entirely plausible.
It would be a routine patrol along their usual route that turned up an escaped captive. Hopefully, the tiger would play along, because she wasn’t sure her team were experienced enough to hold back if he got a little rough with them.
He was going to be the first non-human they had captured, and that made her uneasy. There was a chance their excitement might get the better of them. She had warned Sable about that, and her friend had promised she would relay it to Talon so he didn’t put up too much of a fight.
Her focus shifted to her mission as she geared up, slipping her tranquiliser gun into the holster on her hip.
She strode from her apartment, working her way down through the building to the parking garage.
Four male voices sounded ahead of her as she reached the underground lot. Her team were rowdy tonight. She sucked down a secret breath to steady her nerves again, struggling with her mood as thoughts of what was to come and Wolf’s continuing absence wore it down, shortening her temper.
She had already snapped at Woods today when his lack of attention had ended with her getting hit in the back with a baton when he had been training with the team, practicing close-quarters combat. A member from one of the other teams in the room had given her a look, one that had left her feeling as if they were questioning her leadership abilities.
She wanted to see them get clocked hard in the back with a steel baton and not react to it. It had hurt like a bitch, and she had a bruise on the left side of her ribs because of it.
As she pushed the doors to the garage open, Carter and Franks mercilessly teased Woods about last night’s patrol, when he had fallen flat on his face in the lake after tumbling down an incline in a shadowy area of Hyde Park.
He had stunk to high heaven when she had helped him out of the muddy water. A smile worked its way onto her lips as she recalled how horrified he had looked when she had threatened to make him run back to HQ.
Riley was laughing his arse off over it still, his deep chortle as warm as his smile as his grey eyes landed on her. Out of the four rookies, the built-like-a-brick-shithouse raven-haired Riley was the only one who hadn’t done something to test her patience.
Her team’s fifth member, Archer, a brunet with some experience in the field, was quiet, leaning against the driver’s side door of the black van as he smoked. He watched the others in silent contemplation, his brown eyes studying them with a disapproving air as he pushed his black-rimmed glasses up his nose with his index finger.
Emelia had been able to pick him herself. He had been part of the team sent to assist King Thorne and one of only a few men who hadn’t treated her differently since her return. She trusted him, and they worked well together, which was more than she could say for the others.
“Quit fucking around and get in the van,” she barked.
Carter, Franks, and Woods jolted and turned towards her.
“Sorry, we were… just…” Woods, the youngest of her team, stumbled over an apology as Franks pushed him into the back of the vehicle, causing him to trip on the step and almost fall flat on his face again.
The fair-haired lad needed some balance training. She made a mental note to request it, even when she knew he would hate it. She had seen recruits going through the training before, and it was gruelling and painful.
She stepped up behind Carter as the blond mounted the step after Franks, pulled the doors closed behind her, and moved to the front of the van.
“Good to go, Archer.” She took a seat behind him where he sat in the cab.
He nodded and pulled away, easing the cumbersome vehicle through the maze of parked cars and fleet vans and SUVs, the strip lights reflecting off his glasses.
“Routine patrol. End point is Regent’s Park tonight.” Where they were going to run into a tiger shifter who happened to be on Archangel’s wanted list.
She steeled herself and focused on her duty, handing out orders and pointers to her team as usual. The patrol passed without a hitch, no non-humans making an appearance to hinder her, and her nerves increased as they neared the park.
Would Talon be there?
They drove into York Gate, following the road into the heart of the park.
Her pulse pounded faster, palms sweating as she struggled to keep her cool. She couldn’t let her team see she was nervous. This had to look good. Real. Her men needed to think this was a lucky encounter with an escaped captive.
If she didn’t hold it together and they noticed something was up, if they grew suspicious in any way, there was a chance they would follow protocol and immediately report it to Mark or one of the other senior commanders.
“Commander?” Archer tilted his head back towards her. “Think we might have a situation.”
She leaned over the seat and her heart thundered as she spotted the black-haired bare-chested man crouching on the grass, his back to a thick copse of trees.
“Are those Archangel cell block trousers he’s wearing?” She managed to keep the nerves from her voice as she frowned at Talon. Her eyes widened. “Fuck. I know him. He’s on the wanted list.”
Behind her, the four men got ridiculously excited, filling the van with their voices.
“Shut up!” she snapped and glared over her shoulder at them for show. “That’s a fucking shifter out there. You want him to hear us coming?”
They fell silent, exchanging looks that said they wanted to blame each other. Some team she had. None of them wanted to take responsibility for screwing up. She added some trust-building exercises to the list of things she needed to do. They were going to need a lot more training before they worked as a unit, acting as a team rather than a group of individuals. She thanked God for Archer. Without him, she might have gone insane by now.
He remained cool and collected behind the wheel, his dark eyes studying the park and the shifter, cataloguing everything.
“Head to the back, now,” she hissed, holding back a smile as the four rookies all crept towards the rear doors.
How many times had she told them they could move around in the van without resorting to stealth?
They were a good distance away from Talon, and even a tiger shifter as powerful as he was wouldn’t hear them talking at this distance, when they were inside the van.
It was soundproofed.
It didn’t stop them from going full ninja, silent for once as they crouched and waited for her signal.
She looked over her shoulder at Archer. “Get us a little c
loser.”
He nodded, put the van into gear, and eased forwards, rolling quietly along the tarmac.
When they were close enough, she signalled Archer to cut the engine and then the other four to go. They opened the rear doors of the van and spilled out into the dark. She followed them, quickly rounding the vehicle to join them as they crossed the grass, not wanting to risk one of them getting a little overexcited and firing on Talon.
The shifter remained crouched on the grass, his muscular back tensed and shoulders curled forwards. There was a dark patch on his side, streaking his skin. Blood.
“He’s injured,” she murmured to her team.
Emelia moved in front of the four rookies when Talon looked over his shoulder and bared huge fangs at her, his eyes bright gold in the low light.
She held her left hand out at her side, her palm facing her team, warning them to stay back.
The tiger’s golden eyes shifted from her to the men behind her, danced over each one, and she didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know he was thinking about how easy it would be to take them all down. He was right. Her team weren’t up to the task of taking him into custody.
But she was.
She wasn’t strong enough to take him one-on-one in a fight, not even when he was injured, but she had enough experience to employ all the tricks at her disposal. Methods she had used countless times in the past.
Her stomach squirmed as she thought about what she was about to do, as she looked Talon in the eye and realised he wasn’t sure what was going to happen but was willing to go through with it anyway.
He was far braver than she was.
He turned and rose to stand in one fluid motion, coming to face her.
She silently apologised, lifted her gun, and fired.
He flinched, face crumpling before darkness washed across it, his eyes narrowing as they leaped to his left pectoral. The dart stuck out from the design tattooed on that side of his chest, one that covered his left arm like a sleeve too, the white feathers bright in the moonlight. He blinked hard, and she could almost see the drug taking effect, and the anger that roared to life inside him.
On a growl, he ripped it from his chest and collapsed to his knees. The dart tumbled from his fingers, and he stared at them, shaking his head as the tranquiliser took hold. His hands fell to his knees, a weaker growl issuing from his lips as he sagged.
His eyes lifted to hers, the caged fury in them clear. She apologised again, but if he had known how it was going to go down, it wouldn’t have looked convincing. He might have done something to give the game away. Even the slightest tensing of his body in preparation for the dart would have clued Archer in to the charade they were acting out.
Talon slumped and landed face-first on the grass, his breathing uneven as he stared blankly at her.
Emelia signalled her team.
Archer joined them and broke right with two of the rookies as the other two headed left. The greenhorns remained close enough for her to keep track of them, but Archer melted into the shadows like a wraith. She didn’t notice where he went as she eased towards Talon, keeping an eye on both the four members of her team and the big shifter, her right hand still clutching her dart gun.
The tiger weakly bared his fangs at it.
She had his attention.
Good.
She twitched the gun upwards. Once. Twice. A third time.
He finally lifted his unfocused gaze from her hand to her face. She mouthed at him, using small motions that her team hopefully wouldn’t see in the slender light. His black eyebrows pinched. She kept on mouthing the two words at him, waiting for him to understand as her team closed in on him.
A flicker of understanding shone in his eyes.
Just a split second before the four rookie members of her team jumped on him.
She held her breath, sure that shit was about to go south.
But Talon just closed his eyes, showing her that he had received her order to ‘play dead’ as he gave a pathetic growl and didn’t resist her hunters.
Carter was a little too enthusiastic as he shackled Talon’s wrists behind his back, and Franks looked as if he was enjoying digging his knee into the shifter’s spine to hold him down while Woods and Riley checked him for concealed weapons.
Archer emerged from the shadows, another unimpressed edge to his expression as he remained at a distance and listened to Carter and Franks.
“Fucking A!” Franks grinned as he dug his knee harder into Talon’s spine, leaning towards the tiger’s injured side. “Not so big now, are we?”
Carter tugged on the short chain between the heavy steel cuffs. “Should hold you. You won’t be getting away from us again. Should get a pretty prize for dragging your sorry arse back to a cell where you belong.”
Emelia was surprised Talon didn’t react to that. She studied him, holding her breath as she waited for him to explode in rage. He remained calm, relaxed against the grass beneath the weight of Franks.
Archer tossed the four rookies a black look and moved a few steps towards the van before he suddenly halted.
A flicker of a frown danced on her brow as she briefly lifted her gaze to land on Archer.
Where had he gone?
She had expected him to remain in the thick of things, not do a disappearing trick when the action had gone down. He didn’t look at her. His dark eyes remained locked on the shifter, his near-black eyebrows dipped low above them as he tracked everything the rookies were doing.
If she had to pinpoint what he was feeling, she would have called it anger, but that made no sense.
Why would Archer be angry about the way they were treating the tiger?
As far as she knew, he was like most of the hunters in Archangel and didn’t give much of a damn about the welfare of a captive. She had seen him fighting demons, and he hadn’t held back, hadn’t hidden the animosity he felt towards the non-humans, not even when he had been surrounded by the demons of the Third Realm, ones who had been their allies.
Had something happened to change him?
Maybe he was like her now, one of a growing number who found the current change of attitude at Archangel distasteful and hard to swallow.
Or maybe he just really hated demons.
The men hauled Talon onto his feet, snagging her attention.
She focused on him, pushing thoughts of Archer aside as worry she had hit Talon with too much tranquiliser ran through her. She had messed with the dosage in the dart, using one big enough for the tiger but removing a third of the violet liquid. She watched as they dragged him through the park, struggling with his dead weight.
Either he was really out for the count, or he was a good actor.
She hoped it was the latter.
The men loaded him into the back of the van, and she sat opposite him, wanting to keep an eye on him. Carter and Franks flanked him, jostling him upright whenever he lolled to his right or left as the van pulled away.
He rolled forwards so he was bent over his legs as they turned a corner.
Emelia jerked her chin at Franks, and the brunet pulled him up, slamming his back against the side of the van. Talon’s lips twitched, a sign that he was still with her.
And wanted to rip Franks’ throat open with his fangs, by the looks of it.
She couldn’t blame him.
His body grew more tense with each mile through the city, with every huff and shove he received from Franks and Carter.
The van hit a downwards slope and eased around a corner, and she glanced at the windshield. They were back. The first part of the plan had been a success, but now she had to end up alone with Talon and get him down into the containment area where he had been held before.
Which was a problem because she didn’t know where it was.
If it existed, it was a secret, just as Sable suspected.
Talon had only been able to tell Sable and the others that he had used a lift to reach the ground floor of the building. There were several service li
fts in Archangel headquarters, some leading to storage and others to the lower car parks, and even some that led down into emergency escape tunnels. She needed him to be lucid enough to tell her which service lift was the right one.
As they pulled to a halt, she leaned towards Talon and slapped his left cheek hard enough to have him swaying towards Carter.
The shifter growled and flicked his eyes open. They blazed gold as they locked on her.
“Good. He can walk himself.” She rose to her feet and removed the dart gun from her thigh holster. “Don’t think about getting feisty.”
He continued to glare at her.
Carter and Franks grabbed his arms, pulled him to his bare feet, and shoved him towards the rear doors, where the other two were already waiting outside. Franks pushed him in the back, and he dropped to the parking garage floor, landing silently.
“Think he always lands on his feet?” Franks prodded him in his left shoulder, and Talon obediently walked forwards.
Emelia didn’t like the look on his face or that glimmer in his eyes. If Franks and Carter didn’t stop poking him, they were going to find out first-hand that it wasn’t wise to upset a shifter. Woods wisely kept to one side. Riley was already at the door that led into the building, waiting to move.
Carter grinned. “We could take him to the roof and find out.”
Talon bared his fangs and clenched his fists behind his back, his shoulders and biceps rippling and tensing as he pulled his arms apart in an attempt to break his restraints.
“Settle down,” Emelia barked before things got out of hand. “Since you’re all insisting on pissing me off… you can all piss off. Go on. It’s past knocking-off time.”
Carter glanced at her, missing the way Talon stared at him as if sizing him up as a meal. “You’re sure? I mean… he’s a lot of guy to handle alone.”
“Are you saying for a woman to handle alone?” Emelia snapped, all warmth leaving her voice as memories loomed, whispered voices filling her head, taunting her with her weakness. “You want me to write that up in my report, Carter?”
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