“What will you do now? You have no guns to hide behind. And you can’t possibly stand toe to toe with us,” Rex said, laughing. “Give me the I-Ops names and descriptions and I’ll let you walk away. It’s that easy.”
Missy stared at the wolf, not wanting it to get the upper hand. “You don’t really expect me to tell you anything, do you?”
“Do you know what the wolf before you can do? He’ll take hold of your neck and rip your throat out, if you’re lucky. He could always take his time with you. Tell us what we want to know and I’ll be sure to make your death as painless as possible. One as young and as new to all of this as you can’t possibly expect to win against us.”
Smiling, Missy kept her gaze locked on the wolf before her. “Hmm, who wants to sing with me? I believe we’re now at three big bad bastards on the wall when we started at twelve. Yeah, I could never hold my own. Anyone else feel like I need a bottle of rum and an eye patch?”
No one answered.
“Guess it’s just me.”
“Tell me, do you have a death wish?” Rex asked, sounding a smidge closer than before.
Shrugging, Missy snorted. “Dying hadn’t crossed my mind but I have no problem doing it to keep them safe.”
“Why? You are nothing to them. They aren’t here to help you. None of them care if you live or die.”
“And your point is what?”
“That you’re not only a fool but clearly in love with one of them. Let me guess, it’s the one you left the bar with.”
Sitting still, Melissa laughed slightly. “Oh, wait, this is the part where I’m supposed to spaz out on you and confess some undying love. Give me a minute and I’ll do my best to drum up another award winning performance.”
“You can’t expect to win.”
Missy did a fake yawn and nodded at the wolf. “Does he always ramble like this? I’m thinking of bashing my head against the wall and killing myself just so I don’t have to listen to his mouth run anymore.”
“Kill her!”
The wolf bared it teeth and lunged at her. Missy smacked its open mouth with the butt of the handgun hard, sending its head twisting to the side. Kicking up hard, her boot connected with its ribs, breaking them easily. Missy sprung to her feet and straddled the wolf. Taking hold of the sides of its head, she snapped its neck fast and let it drop to the floor.
Turning her head slowly, she met Rex’s hazel gaze head on and smiled. “Yeah, about that can’t possibly win thing. Willing to take it back now?”
Rex gave her a lecherous smile as he tucked his arms into his sides. Knowing he was up to something that she wouldn’t like, she felt out, trying to sense exactly where the last man was. The second she found him, she arched her brows and smiled wide.
“Is something funny?”
Missy nodded. “Yep. Your boy is scared shitless and thinks you are a fool. He’s also got me in his sights. Now, I wouldn’t be worth a damn at my job if I went and let myself get shot so I’ll be back in just a minute.”
Not waiting for Rex to respond, Missy took over running at the man with the speed of every cat mixture in her. The man fired and the shot went wide. He reeked of fear and it only served to drive Missy onward.
* * * *
Roi watched with wide eyes as Missy ran straight for the man shooting at her from the corner. He was already so shocked to see his tiny Missy drop nine men and a partially shifted one that he could do little more than stare.
“Holy shit, she’s fearless,” Wilson said, softly.
Eadan let out a soft laugh. “Yeah, that’s a serious character flaw of hers.”
“I agree,” the General said.
Missy ran directly into the man. Roi watched as she thrust the hand with the gun in it against the wall. The weapon fell to the floor, as the man started to shift. Missy leapt backwards fast, springing up and onto the table. She looked so lethal standing there staring down at the half-shifted man, but she also looked stunning. The second Missy yanked her turtleneck off, Roi’s stomach tightened. Wearing only a tiny black tank top, she wrapped the turtleneck around her forearm.
“Damn, she’s fine!” Wilson whistled and made a small odd sound.
Growling, Roi felt the beast within rising up. “You are not to look at her like that. I will…”
Wilson put his hands in the air. “I know, I know. You’ll beat the shit out of me until Lukian or Green take pity on me and pull you off.”
“I won’t stop him this time. That’s his wife you’re talking about,” Green said, softly.
“She’s amazing.”
Hearing Jon say that made Roi smile. Jon wasn’t prone to say much about anyone. Though he did comment when Wilson was being an ass.
Roi stared at his wife. “Yeah, she is.”
Missy tapped her arm lightly. “Argenttus.”
“What did she just say?” Roi asked, as he watched the turtleneck around her arm change from black to silver.
“Silver-plated,” Green and Eadan said simultaneously.
The half-shifted man came at her fast. She spun around and struck it with the now silver-plated, cast-like weapon on her arm. It sent the man hurtling towards the wall. She was on him instantly, kicking him hard and repeatedly slamming the silver cast into his face.
He sunk to the floor. There was no doubt in Roi’s mind that the man was dead. The only question on his mind was how in the world Melissa had managed to make something silver-plated.
“Bravo, young one. Tell me how you learned that little trick,” Rex said, his voice grating on Roi’s last thread of sanity.
Melissa turned slowly, looking every bit the hellcat he thought she was. Smiling, she winked. “Just a little something my ex-husband gave me to help in situations like this.”
“Ex-husband?” Roi couldn’t remain silent.
“Shhhhh, do you want her to go head to head with the man while she’s afraid of what you’ll think of her?” the General asked.
Roi narrowed his gaze on Eadan. “You. You’re the ex-husband.”
Eadan nodded, the slightest hint of amusement twinkled in his eyes.
“Eadan?”
Roi glanced quickly at the General, wondering why he seemed shocked by the news. “Hey, are you just finding out now too? Tell me I’m not the only one Missy lied to.”
“Did you ask her if she’d ever been married before?” The smug look on Eadan’s face made Roi want to bash his face against the wall a few billion times.
“No.”
“Then how did she lie to you?”
Goddamnit, I hate it when people go all logical on me.
General Newman struck out hard and fast, hitting Eadan and sending him flying backwards. Roi couldn’t help but smile. Eadan rose to his feet magically, not appearing hurt in the least.
“She may not have lied to Geoffroi but she certainly lied to me!”
All the Ops watched the General.
Eadan nodded slowly. “I know. She didn’t want you to separate us.”
“That is exactly what I would have done. I knew you cared for her. I even suspected that something small might have gone on, but I never expected that you mated with her.”
Mated? Ohmygod, that’s how Missy knew she could still walk away if he wasn’t her true mate. She’d been through it once before.
“How long were the two of you married?”
Eadan didn’t answer the General.
“I asked you a question. You will answer it.”
Eadan’s jaw tightened. “Sir, Missy forbid me from discussing this with you. I will honor her wishes.”
The General stepped back and shook his head. “You, you were the one she was protecting.”
Protecting?
Eadan looked away from the General, a sure sign that he was the man in question.
“What the hell is going on?” Roi asked, needing answers.
General Newman looked at him and let out a sigh. “You said that you loved Melissa. After hearing she was mated to another, do you
still?”
Roi’s mouth dropped open. “How can you ask me that? Yes, I still love her. I’m beyond pissed at the moment but that doesn’t change how I feel about her. Now tell Blondie to let me go. I need to help my wife.”
“Before you set foot through that door you need to answer one question for me.”
“I really don’t give a shit that you’re the head of PSI. I’m tired of the games. Let me go.”
The General ignored him. “Have you and Melissa discussed children yet?”
Instantly, Roi knew where he was going with this. “Yes, and I’m fine with adopting. I already told her that.” He stopped in mid-sentence and thought about how this subject had come up. “Blondie has something to do with why she can’t have children. Doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” the General said coldly.
Eadan’s brows drew together. “Neither of us knew she was pregnant, Jack. I didn’t want her to go back in from the get go. You talked her into it, like you talk her into everything else. She walked through the gates of hell to play buddy, buddy with the enemy because she didn’t want to disappoint you. We didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know that she was five months pregnant?”
Missy had been pregnant?
Eadan shook his head. “Jack, she’s a hundred pounds on a good day. She wasn’t showing. In fact, she’d lost weight. Remember?”
“You are the reason she almost died. One, she stepped into the line of fire because she knew you couldn’t survive if you took a normal bullet to the heart or head. She leapt in front of you to save your life.” The General teared up. “I had to sit outside of PSI’s emergency room for eight hours while they pulled bullet after bullet out of the two of you.”
“Jack, I had no idea she was expecting and I had no clue that…”
Green drew in a sharp breath. “That the baby Missy carried had enough supernatural Fey DNA to coat Missy’s cells with it, rendering her powerless against normal bullets but able to heal injuries caused by silver ones.”
The General and Eadan nodded.
“They came out and told me that they were able to stabilize her and that they could do nothing else until a Faerie was brought in to heal her. They said she had too much of it in her to accept their normal course of treatment.” General Newman shook his head. “They then stood there and told me that while they could save her, they weren’t able to save the child. That his mother had lost too much blood and that he too had been injured. How in the hell do you think that made me feel, Eadan? I wanted to kill the bastard who touched her. When she came to, she swore to my face that it wasn’t you and I believed her. I believed that Melissa would never lie to me.”
“How the hell do you think I felt, Jack?” Eadan glared at the General and then at Roi. “My son died and my wife almost died as well. After all was said and done, Melissa had our marriage dissolved. Everything was ripped away from me then, Jack. I’ve had to learn to live with the fact that she and I will only ever be friends, not lovers, not man and wife--just friends. During all of that, we’ve both had to come to terms with the fact that our child died.”
The General sighed and nodded his head. “It’s been hard on all of us, Eadan. That much I’ll give you.”
“Hard?” Eadan asked, sounding shocked. “It was hell. It still is. On any given night Missy’s prone to wake up in cold sweats.”
Wilson said something but Roi ignored him. Instead, he focused on Eadan. “You know what it’s like to fear losing her yet you pin me here and force me to watch her in there.”
The second he said it, Eadan stared at him. “If you didn’t see her in action, see what she’s capable of and know that she is good at what she does then you’d have gotten in the way again. Only, the next time she wouldn’t have just gotten injected with something. She would have ended up dead or captured. That’s not an option, Majors.”
“Let me go. She needs me.”
Wilson whistled loudly. “Children, if you will be so kind as to look at Missy you will see that she’s in deep shit.”
* * * *
Missy stood still as Rex held two handguns on her from across the room. He leveled his gaze on her and smiled wide. “It would appear that your luck has run out. Care to tell me about the I-Ops now?”
Knowing her chances of walking out were slim, Missy nodded. “Sure. Ask me anything.”
“What are their names?”
“Hewy.”
Rex seemed to hang on her every word and he smiled lecherously at her.
Missy continued onwards. “Dewy, Lewy, Larry, Curly and Moe.”
Instantly, his face reddened and fur covered his arms. He fired a shot at her. Dropping to the side, touching her hand to the ground behind her, she felt the bullet whizzing past her. Knowing another would follow, Missy flipped fast and rolled to the right. Bullet after bullet struck the floor as she went, so close to her that she could feel the wind nipping at her.
Missy.
Eadan’s voice distracted, slowing her enough that a bullet struck her upper left shoulder. Crying out, Missy tried to lunge in the other direction, knowing that Rex had her route covered. Another bullet hit her, this one in her right thigh.
Pain radiated throughout her, blinding her to Eadan’s voice. Her body kicked into overdrive, knowing that it needed to protect itself. The silver bullets wouldn’t kill her but they hurt like hell. Rising to her feet as fast as she could, Missy locked gazes with Rex and smiled. He fired again, this time scoring a direct heart shot. The magik that Eadan had passed on through their unborn child kicked in.
Never able to control it, Missy let it go, let it do what it felt was best. It whipped around her fast, spinning her in a circle as more bullets came at her. None hit her. Instead, they seemed to catch in the circle of air building around her.
Sensing someone nearing the door, Missy concentrated hard, hoping beyond hopes that the magik within her would keep anyone she cared about from entering the room until she was done dealing with Rex.
Pain gripped her tight. Screaming out, Missy felt the power within let loose. It thrust the bullets it had collected out in all directions, cutting Rex down as they went. She stilled, no longer spinning but feeling the after effects of it. A bit disorientated, she watched Rex crawl on the floor. The trail of blood he left behind him told her just how injured he was.
Covering the distance between them as fast as she could, Missy stood over Rex and put her foot on the only remaining weapon in his hand. She kicked it away fast and stared down at him. “How many of there are you in PSI?”
“Go,” he coughed, “to hell.”
“Been there. The view sucks but the company wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
Rex laughed methodically. “You’ll bleed to death before … you get to help.”
“Perhaps,” she smiled even though she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry from the pain, “but I’ll die knowing that the I-Ops are safe. What will you die knowing?”
“That you’ll never know how many of us turned.”
A wave of dizziness took hold of her and she swayed slightly. The sound of the door opening caught her attention. The second she spotted a head of blond hair she smiled.
“Missy-bean!” Eadan was on her in an instant, lifting her in the air and taking her to one of the tables. He set her on it lightly and stared down at her chest. “How bad is it? Did it hit your heart?”
“Direct hit,” she bit out. “Am I covered in blood?”
Eadan laughed. “Why are you always worried about the way you look? You have three bullets lodged in you. One in your heart. Why isn’t that more important?”
“You are so not a girl. You couldn’t possibly get it.”
“Let me go!”
The sound of Roi’s voice made Missy’s breath catch. “Roi’s here?”
Eadan sighed as he put his hand over the wound on her chest. It came out in his hand and he healed her quickly. “Yeah. The General had me pin the I-Ops in place so they could watch how well you
handle yourself.”
As Eadan’s words sank in, Missy began to see red. She locked eyes with Eadan and he nodded as he backed up. “Go ahead. I’ll follow you.”
Missy touched his hand lightly as she hopped down off the table. Pain shot through her leg and she had to bite her lower lip to keep from crying out as she went for the door. Her eyes widened as she saw all of the Immortal Ops pinned in various spots. Each one looked as though they were waiting for the opportunity to kill something.
Turning slightly, Missy spotted the General and went straight for him. “How dare you allow them to see this?”
“Roi, your wife is even crazier than I thought,” Wilson said. “She’s going to attack the Director of PSI.”
Missy ignored him. She charged forward and stopped directly in front of the Director. He looked down at her with tears in his eyes. “Melissa, it wasn’t easy for me to watch that but they had to know you’re on their side. They had to understand that you have their best interest and that of the nation at heart.”
“They,” she motioned towards the I-Ops, “did not need to see this. To see me like that. To see me have to…”
“Shh, Melissa. It’s okay.”
“No, Dad, it’s not okay.”
“Dad?” all the Ops said in unison.
The General nodded and cleared his throat. “Yes. My wife and I adopted Melissa.”
“Let me the fuck go. I want to go to my wife,” Roi said, growling as he went.
“Eadan, release them.”
“No, Melissa,” her father said, softly. “They all currently want to kill Eadan and Rex.”
“They’re welcome to kill Rex but if one of them lays a hand on Eadan I will personally remove it. I’m thirsty. My head hurts. And I’m suffering from the heartburn of a lifetime no doubt having something to do with a bullet lodged in it and my leg is killing me. Pissing me off would be very bad.”
The General glanced behind her. “Let them go but I would advise some sort of shield for yourself until they calm down. I can smell their desire to rip you to shreds, Eadan.”
“Ah, I’ve lived with Missy most of my life. One week a month she lets off the same vibe. I’m a hell of a lot more scared of her than them.”
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