Surge: Bolt Saga Volume Five (Bolt Saga #13-15)

by Angel Payne

  All the brilliant energy from his end drops beneath a fast fade. “Then we punt like hell for a Plan B,” he murmurs. “But either way, Mrs. Richards, I promise you’ll hear back from me within twelve to thirteen hours. It won’t be weeks this time, okay?”

  I swallow again, letting him hear the residual rush of my breath, followed by the sounds of me determinedly fortifying myself. Staying strong is no longer an optional prerogative for me. It’s not just my life depending on the perseverance anymore. With that determination behind me, it’s easier to say, “Okay.”

  Once again, I can all but hear him mulling over my response. “Dearest wife?” he prompts.

  “Yes, my dearest husband?”

  “You believe me, right?”

  “I believe in us, Reece Richards.”

  So come home…

  To us.

  Ohhh, yes. I really did just leave that spoiler alert solidly in the realm of silence.

  Because what will I gain from telling him now—except a husband who’s attempting to save mankind from a psychopathic bitch by having her vital intel shock-waved into his bloodstream? Who, in doing so, is willing to expose himself to the possibility of being controlled by her again? Who has given up more than his wedding night to do all this?

  Who might be sacrificing life as he knows it for this?

  As soon as we disconnect from each other, I get out of bed and throw on a casual sweats outfit, preparing for the interminable wait I’m about to face—

  And the thoughts I’ll have to confront through every second of it.

  The possibility that my husband may get back here and not know who I am or the man he is to me.

  The chance that he may come home as a corpse instead of a man.

  The potential that he may not come home at all.

  What about then?

  The question slams at my senses, over and over, as I wash my face, brush my teeth, and prepare to head into what might be the craziest day of my life. And considering the life I’ve had so far, that needs to be Craziest, capital C…

  A conclusion that, in its own wacky way, supplies my final answer to the query that simply isn’t giving up on tormenting my mind, my heart, and my soul.

  “What about then?” I challenge back to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Then, you punt like hell for a Plan B, Emmalina Richards. You punt…and you pray.”

  “Okay, do I have permission yet to blow up my mind?”

  Lydia’s crack, its humor layered atop a bedrock of genuine bewilderment, gets answered by Neeta first. “Stand in line,” my friend blurts, her chocolate eyes bugging and her generous mouth falling all the way open.

  Not that I blame her—because my face probably looks just as thoroughly stabbed by lightning. And electrocuted by amazement. And surrendered to a complete, captivating assault of holy-shit-this-can’t-be-real.

  But unless we’re being really, really punked, this is real.

  Except that the only suspects for the punking have as much figurative skin in this game as the three of us do—at least I’m assuming so, based on Sawyer, Wade, and Fersh’s giddy reactions from the second Angelique played preliminary prophet for the stork in the training center a few days ago. Even as we attempted to sneak out of the main house and back down here, into the bunker, the guys spilled out of the laboratory wing to dole out their hugs for good luck—and, to be brutally honest, to gawk at the growth of my midsection. I was happy to stand there and let them, actually reassured by their fascination.

  Everyone else’s reactions have been the insurance policy for my own. I’m not going loony. I know that every new mother feels like their baby is growing at the speed of light, but in this case, I wonder if that might not truly be the case.

  And, thank God, both ’Dia and Neeta seem to be my real-world backups for the argument. Now, it’s just a matter of waiting on the hardcore stats from my friend with the smile that blazes so brightly against the dark sienna silk of her skin.

  “Emma.” She shakes her head, loosening a few strands of her long ebony hair from its claw clip. “This is…remarkable. Look there. The new definition of the face. The fingers and toes, getting longer.” She flings her gaze between my face and the monitor. “If I didn’t know firsthand that this had happened overnight, I would have marked the difference between yesterday’s and today’s images at least two days—maybe even three.”

  “So has anyone done the math here?” Lydia cuts in. “What does this really mean?”

  Neeta shuts off the ultrasound and starts wiping off the small mound that is now my stomach. “That our super girl is really carrying a super baby,” she declares, beaming a broader smile.

  “Yay!” Lydia pumps both fists before swinging her hands down to help me climb off the exam table. “That also means shopping.” That part is given on her hearty chuckle—as I fight to keep Reece’s biggest dress shirt tugged over my distended front. “Lots and lots of shopping!”

  “If this kid doesn’t decide to make his debut first.” I work to make it a joke, but there’s not enough there for a true jest. If this galactic-speed gestation is really going to be half the norm, and six to seven weeks of it have passed already, we have just over three months to prepare for the arrival of the world’s newest Richards.

  We.

  We?

  Cart before the proverbial horse, anyone? Or in this case, before the superhero daddy still out there, God knows where, fighting to find and route out the doyen of derangement before she takes down the world with her insanity?

  Only now, entertaining a little lunacy of my own.

  Thinking we is going to even be a thing.

  Thinking I’m just going to hike up these steps and find him strolling my way, as well. Actually assuming—even knowing every horrific pitfall of that verb—that the Barcelona Plan A actually worked, when every Plan A we’ve ever had hasn’t worked. Okay, so maybe thinking that the Plan B worked and will give us the same end result…

  And then having to talk myself out of all those thoughts and simply accept that I’ll be dealing with Plan C.

  That the distinct, beautiful baritone I hear from ground level is just my imagination making hopeful twists on Wade or Sawyer’s voice.

  That the whiff of orris, cinnamon, and smoke that hits me is just a strange mix of autumn flowers with some concoction Fershan has going in the lab.

  That the laugh on the air, so full and throaty and strong, is a figment of my fantasies.

  But then I look up.

  And see a pair of legs so perfect and muscled and long, I know no fantasy can measure up.

  And get in an entire lungful of his scent, able to pick out the cardamom and leather notes too.

  And raise my head as I climb into the sun…

  To take in all of my decadent, dazzling slash of lightning.

  My gift from heaven. My miracle of a man. My perfect, grinning husband.

  “Welcome home, Mr. Richards.”

  “Good to be home, my beautiful Velv—”

  And suddenly, my unconscious, toppling tower.

  “Heads up!” Wade calls out, flagging Sawyer over. “Daddy down! Daddy down!”

  Chapter One

  Reece

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

  Yeah, but since when does it also make a man’s wife pregnant?

  More crucially, when does it make my wife pregnant?

  My wife, who has told me so many times that my superhero sterility isn’t a deal-breaker for her. Who has let me be her freak-of-nature fuck buddy for over a year, allowing me to take her succulent body in every kinky way I can. Who has been a willing, receptive participant in all that crazy copulation, even during those “times of the month,” which have arrived with spot-on accuracy every four weeks.

  Except last month.

  When she wrote off the interruption to stress…

  “Oh, holy shit.” The words are the first to tumble out of my newly conscious mind, a fact that hits my awareness as soon as
I blink open my eyes, all but spitting up gravel and dirt from where I’ve passed out cold. Yeah, seriously. Yeah, in my own goddamned driveway.

  In addition to the bright blue of the sky over the Northern Malibu canyon, my view consists of five familiar faces. It looks like the gang’s really all here. Sawyer, Lydia, Alex, Angie…

  And the most vital visage of them all.

  The features that suck my breath away all over again. That lush-lipped smile. Those brilliant turquoise eyes. The skin, now glistening with bright gold sparkles, that entices me to reach out and touch, just to confirm she’s real. With shaking fingers, I stroke the side of her face and down the column of her neck. Finally, I drop my hand to her sweetly rounded belly. My breath stutters out of me, thick with my astonishment and awe, when the life inside her surges toward my contact. So tiny and tentative but still there. A perfect, innocent vibration…

  Blasting me with a depth of feeling I’ve never, ever known.

  What is this?

  Connection? Devotion? Love?

  No.

  I’ve known enough authentic versions of these to at least recognize them. But this I don’t comprehend. I can hardly fucking handle.

  This is deeper. Broader.

  More.

  “Holy…shit.” I’m doomed to say it a thousand more times today alone, but I hardly care. Every dazzling light in Emma’s eyes conveys that she’ll happily hear me out. Perhaps will even join me. Even so, I manage to croak out, “It…it wasn’t just stress.”

  She bursts with a watery laugh. “I guess it wasn’t.”

  I pull in a fierce breath. Of course, that means a throat full of all the dust I just gacked across the driveway, with a fun bonus of pebbles and bugs. Sawyer offers a hand, and I gratefully grab it.

  As I sit up, he cracks, “Nice timing, Bolty Boy.”

  “Tell her that.” I roll a nod Emma’s way, but as soon as Angie and Lydia help her stand, new conviction sets in. This moment needs much more than a goddamned nod.

  I shrug off Sawyer and stumble the two steps necessary to be glued to my woman’s side—where I swear I’m going to stay until this kid decides to greet me in the more conventional sense.

  Holy hell.

  This kid.

  Holy hell.

  My kid.

  I’m washed in a new downpour of inexplicable, invaluable feelings. As they flood even harder, I twist a hand into my wife’s hair. I practically hoist her off the ground in my need to kiss her. To claim her. To brand her. To worship her.

  And now, to whisper to her. “How?”

  Another sputter of the woman’s gorgeous giggles. “Errrmmm, if you need to ask that, mister…”

  “No.” I buss her firmly. “I mean, how did you find out? Or even know?”

  She mellows the mirth into a soft smile. “Well, aside from the obvious”—and then leans back far enough to provide the visual aid in the form of her adorable baby bump. “It was Angie. She was the one who heard him first. Sawyer and I were sparring in the training center, and I felt a little woozy, so Angie just—Reece! What the hell?”

  But I barely hear her. I’m already whipping around, lunging to grab Foley by the neckline of his faded “Attack on Titan” T-shirt. Appropriate, since I’m beyond tempted to go into attack fighter jet mode on his ass. “You were sparring with her?”

  The guy flashes a glare through the dirty-blond fall of his hair. That observation, along with Emma’s miffed huff, almost has me backing off. Foley really has given up a lot since Alex and I traipsed off to Spain, especially the solitude he and Lydia used to enjoy out at his Redondo Beach place a few nights each week. But since the team now includes my unborn baby, every one of the rules has changed. Drastically.

  “Seriously?” Foley’s growl ramps in proportion to my stranglehold on his shirt. “Do you really think I’d pull that kind of stupidity, knowing there was a damn good chance that Angie’s intuition was right?”

  As remorse creeps in, I loosen my grip. There’s a lot about Sawyer Foley I’ll likely never know, though the depth of the man’s honor isn’t one of them. Of course, I’ll also never forget the two seconds he was fascinated with Emmalina in his own right before realizing that she wasn’t the Crist woman destiny had in mind for him. Still, his devotion to Emma has never wavered. I have no doubt that if the compound got raided in my absence, Sawyer would have ensured that those bastards had to rip him limb from limb before getting to Emma and Lydia.

  “Yeah.” I half grunt it while stepping all the way back. “I do know. Sorry, man.”

  “You’re cool, fucker.” But he finishes the drawl by focusing a narrow frown just past my right shoulder. I pivot the same direction. Neeta and Angelique approach and then calmly wait. There’s a familiar figure with them. He lingers close to Angie, primal protectiveness all but gushing from of his pores for our resident empath.

  “Angie.” I greet her with a brief hug. “Wade.” I bro-clasp him and then follow up with a shoulder bump. “This fucker is glad to see you both.”

  Lydia slides a sardonic snort into the exchange. “Good thing you’re front-loading those F-bombs now, brother.”

  “Huh?”

  “Juuuust wait.”

  Emmalina elbows her sister. “We’ll talk,” she tells me. “Later. For now, you were about to thank Angelique for utilizing her power when she did.”

  “I was?”

  She arches her brows expectantly. “You were.”

  Before I can open my mouth, Angie cuts in with a humble “Pssshh, C’est rien.” She colors a bit, and I don’t miss Wade’s obvious fascination with her. “It really was nothing. The easiest and most joyous message I have ever relayed.” She demonstrates the point by stepping over and folding one of Emma’s hands between hers. “I hear that strong little bolt getting stronger every day, as well. Be assured of it, mon ami.”

  “Thank you, honey.” Emma’s answer is resplendent with all the emotion Angie just invoked—and I can’t help but be swept up in the same. Elation, excitement, amazement, awe… They’re all here, and at least a thousand more. I never thought I’d compare my bloodstream to a force beyond lightning, but it’s really happening now. I’m a walking comet, transcending galaxies and cosmos and universes. I’m more than power, more than light. I’m a freaking god.

  No. Better than that.

  I’m a father.

  As that impact fully sets in, I’m physically knocked back. Dizzy with giddiness. And yeah, digging a hard grip into Foley’s shoulder. He lunges over, preventing me from crumpling all the way into the dust again. “You threatening to biff on me again, asshole?”

  “Give me a break, choad bucket,” I grumble back. “I’ve had the breath zapped out of me twice in the last twelve hours.”

  Alex folds his arms and chuckles. “And I’m pretty damn sure the defib paddles were a walk in the park compared to this homecoming present.”

  “I’m pretty damn sure you’re right,” I drawl.

  “Yet you’re here, coherent enough to recall everything.” Fershan, having emerged from the lab right after Wade, inserts himself into the conversation. “Which means that the defibrillator jump worked.”

  Alex grins. “Better than we thought it would.”

  I flash a tight glower. “Says the guy who wasn’t flat on his back in the airport security room, having a thousand volts of electricity stabbed into his chest?”

  “Oh, God.” Emma’s husky mutter makes me instantly regret going so graphic. I yank her close and bury my lips into her hair.

  “Velvet.” I rub my hands up and down her tense spine. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m just slinging shit at Alex because I can.”

  “And because you took a thousand volts to your chest?”

  “Nothing Faline and the lab didn’t properly train me for,” I assure. “And, as Tex Trestle here has eloquently said”—I nod toward Alex, ensuring he knows that the handlebar mustache will never be truly forgotten—“our kill-the-Batman fix for the USB key worked bet
ter than we imagined.”

  I’m about to apologize for the obnoxious slang, but her confusion is so adorable that I linger for a second, giving Alex room to puff up his chest and explain. “One hit of the defib paddles, two taps at the monitor, and three minutes of the download wheel later, we were ready to toss the original key and get the hell out of Barcelona.” His cocky expression sobers by a few degrees. “Now, we just pray everything stuck to Chrome Dome Dexter the way we hoped it would.”

  Emma crunches a frown full of fresh perplexity. “Chrome Dome who?”

  “We’ll talk.” I wink.

  She giggles and cuddles closer—and just like that, the weeks of being apart have melted away. Everything is the same between us, yet nothing is the same. Despite the extra buzz in my brain, which constantly reminds me of the dangerous Consortium information that’s literally my extra mental baggage, life has gotten a brand-new start. A stunning, amazing new beginning. “We’ll talk a lot,” I affirm, tilting my head to take her lips again. It’s a tender, savoring, lingering embrace, and I’m just fine with letting it go on for several more minutes…or hours, or days—whatever this breathtaking creature will bless me with.

  When Foley clears his throat with pronounced intent, it’s clear I’m not going to get my way.

  “So what about the solar infusions?” His scrutiny is just as forceful as his inquiry, as if he can gain the answer just by looking at me. “Can you tell if the ol’ hematocytes held up through the defibrillator fun?”

  I straighten to blast some thought-clearing air through my own head though refuse to lick Emma’s taste from my mouth. I need her there, lingering in my senses with that mix of wind and woman and magic, despite the very real urgency of addressing Foley’s concern. “As best as I can tell, the ions held firm.” A new scowl. “And Faline’s not exactly the queen of subtlety. If she had a viable inroad to my head, I’m damn sure she’d be breaking the metaphysical speed limit to let me know.”

  “We conducted the download right at the hangar at El Prat for that very reason.” As Alex asserts it, he peels off his leather jacket—and it escapes no one’s notice that the tight fit of the T-shirt underneath has quietly registered on Neeta’s radar. “We assumed the bitch was physically located within a hundred miles,” he goes on. “Which was why we got Reece off that table and onto the plane as soon as the download was complete.”