by Anya Nowlan
All that mattered was keeping Holland occupied long enough for Sienna to get to safety. At the same time, there was another part of Arlen that just wanted to rip Holland to shreds, for ever coming into Sienna’s life in the first place and for keeping her against her will.
Holland leapt at him, claws out. Arlen ducked down at the last second, head-butting his opponent in the stomach as he flew over him. Before he could get a chance to sink his teeth into Holland’s soft underbelly, the tiger managed to roll away.
Their dance started again as they circled each other, looking for weakness. Holland’s ears were pressed against his head as the hair on top of his spine bristled. But the anger he felt couldn’t possibly match the fury boiling inside Arlen.
You will never lay eyes on Sienna again, he thought as he pushed himself off the ground and onto Holland.
His powerful hind legs gave him the speed needed to catch Holland off guard. His mouth clamped over the tiger’s neck. With one ferocious yank of his head, he pulled Holland off his feet and to the ground. Holland thrashed around, growling, but Arlen just continued dragging him across the asphalt, tearing at his flesh in the process.
The pounding of footfalls drew his attention to the building. Holland’s men were pouring out, ready to defend their boss. Simultaneously, the sound of flying gravel and spinning wheels erupted from behind him, as Sienna brought his car jumping over the sidewalk and pushed open the passenger door.
“Get in!” she yelled, eyes darting from Holland to his goons.
Arlen was itching to finish Holland off, but delaying would most definitely put Sienna in danger. Holland’s guys were already running in their direction. Cursing his lack of time, he made the only right choice in the moment afforded to him.
He quickly shifted back and jumped in the car, not even managing to close the door before Sienna was already off, flooring the gas and sending them flying off of the sidewalk and into traffic.
Sienna’s eyes were fixed on the road as she headed in the direction of the safehouse.
“You could have just left,” Arlen commented, fastening his seatbelt.
“And where would I have gone?” Sienna scoffed.
“So that’s why you came back for me? Because I’m your last resort?”
Sienna was silent for a while. He could see her jaw tighten as she contemplated her response. Arlen looked at the rearview mirror. It didn’t seem like anyone was following them. Yet.
“You told me to trust you. I don’t think you know how big of a request that is. But in that moment, I realized I wasn’t going to get through this if I didn’t trust someone. And when you took my hand I realized I wanted to believe you. So I decided I would. Are you going to make me regret it?”
Arlen could tell the words didn’t come easily to Sienna, which made him appreciate them even more. He relaxed against the seat, feeling like someone had popped a valve on him and released the pressure building up inside.
Whatever had happened in her past, it had made her distrustful. She had leapt to judgment, based on only snippets of his phone conversation, and acted rashly. But these weren’t exactly ordinary circumstances they were operating under either.
In the end, he was just glad he got to her in time and that she was safe. And the way she opened up to him now soothed any residual disappointment or hurt he might have been carrying. He could focus on the plethora of obstacles in their path to Sienna’s safety in earnest now.
“Thank you for putting your faith in me,” he said. “I won’t let you down.”
“Thank you for saving my ass,” she replied with a small laugh.
“There’s more you should know about that phone call. Now we know why Holland was so desperate to have you. It’s not just because of your massage skills, I’ll tell you that.”
Sienna threw him a worried glance before focusing back on the road. And good she did, because at the breakneck speeds she was maneuvering through traffic scared even Arlen a little.
“Then what?” she asked, sounding like she could already guess at the answer.
“He was blackmailing your parents.”
“He doesn’t need to blackmail them to get them to spit out cash for me,” she said, her voice strained.
Arlen could see Sienna’s hands on the wheel tighten. He decided not to press the topic right now, but they were going to have to discuss her family sooner or later. Arlen had a feeling it was not going to be pretty.
They made it to the apartment in record time and Sienna pulled up to the curb with a screech of the brakes. Arlen’s seatbelt was the only thing that kept his head out of the windshield as the car jerked to a stop.
“Remind me to never let you drive again,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Hey, I’m an excellent driver! I got us here in one piece, didn’t I?” Sienna protested, jabbing a finger at his chest.
Arlen raised his hands in a peaceful gesture.
“Okay, okay. Why don’t we discuss your missed calling as a stunt driver inside?” he replied.
She gave him one last scolding look before moving to open her door. Arlen was scanning their immediate surroundings, something that was second nature to him by now. Something caught his eye, or someone, to be more exact.
He grabbed hold of Sienna’s arm as she was reaching for the handle and pulled it back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking around as well.
Arlen’s eyes were glued to the mountain of a man ordering coffee from a nearby food cart, wearing a dark baseball cap and a loose-fitting hoodie. When the guy looked up from under his hat, his suspicions were confirmed.
“Drive,” he ordered, teeth gritting.
“Just tell me what’s going on,” Sienna demanded.
“Someone’s after us. And that’s their leader right there,” he said, pointing at the man he recognized as Travis, one of the more senior Shadow Squad agents Arlen had the privilege of knowing.
When The Firm wanted something mopped up, they sent in the Shadow Squads. Arlen wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to be flattered that The Firm thought he warranted a whole team on his tail, but it definitely meant one.
Things just got a lot more difficult.
Seventeen
Sienna
Sienna restarted the car and slowly pulled back into traffic, careful not to attract attention with any sudden maneuvers. From Arlen’s demeanor alone, she could tell the man he’d recognized wasn’t there to talk things out over a nice cup of coffee, but she needed more information.
“What’s a Shadow Squad?”
“It’s a unit of highly effective operatives that’s sent in when things go sideways during a mission, or if there’s too much fallout to be easily contained. They’re the clean-up crew, basically.”
Arlen’s eyes roamed their surroundings, his body tense. She could tell he was on full alert, his hand hovering near his sidearm. Sienna’s stomach turned hollow at his words.
“And what are they here to clean up?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
Arlen flashed her a quick look and she could see something akin to guilt in his eyes.
Does he feel bad about being dragged into this? she wondered with a sudden start.
“I disobeyed a direct order by not handing you over. By that action, The Firm can conclude that I’m not about to hand you over to Holland either. From their viewpoint, I am not only disobedient, but my professional judgment is also clouded, because I’m not using everything at my disposal to get the job done. That means the whole mission is basically a write-off and they’re cutting their losses.”
Sienna gulped. So maybe it wasn’t what she thought it was after all.
By protecting her, Arlen had burned a lot of bridges. And now, they were in even more trouble than before.
Not only was Holland after them, Arlen’s employers were gunning for them as well. Those were two powerful shifter organizations now that they’d managed to piss off and they’d barely known one another for a day.
<
br /> If there wasn’t anything else to say, then at least they worked damn fast.
“What will they do if they find us?” she asked, taking random turns and driving around aimlessly with the apartment building far behind them.
“The Firm already has a deal with your family, so you’d be handed over to them. As for me… I don’t know. I’ve never defied a superior before. I’ve seen what they’ve done to others, but there’s not a lot of guys like us around. We’re valuable. I’m still an asset. I don’t think they’d kill me outright, unless I resist being brought in…”
“Whoa, stop right there,” Sienna interjected. “I didn’t know straight up murder was on the table!”
The man really was laying everything on the line for her freedom. Her doubts were going down the drain fast and she was glad to see them go. The more she heard, the guiltier she felt.
As if she needed another reason to feel bad besides jumping to conclusions and putting both of their lives in danger by going back to her apartment.
“It’s not very likely. Some extreme discipline is more probable,” he said reassuringly, as if that was supposed to make her feel better.
Extreme discipline. I bet I know what that’s about, Sienna thought sourly.
She was in no way prepared to handle the situation they were in, but by his demeanor, it was obvious that Arlen was.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked, glancing over at him.
Arlen was rubbing his jaw, which had been clean-shaven when they first met, but was now covered in stubble. In Sienna’s opinion, it made him even sexier. Not that this was the appropriate time to ogle, but she just couldn’t help it. Even in the face of danger, she couldn’t disregard how his presence made her feel.
Safe.
“The Firm has many safehouses around town, but we can’t use any of them now. I have a small cache of essentials hidden away in a locker I’ve rented, but it’s not much. Just a couple of weapons and some cash. It was meant as an emergency reserve for if something went wrong during the mission, but I never thought I’d be running from The Firm itself,” he explained, his gaze a million miles away.
Sienna’s heart started to thunder in her chest. They way Arlen spoke about The Firm, she knew it wasn’t an organization one wanted to mess with. They needed a plan, a way to make things right before they got caught. All the options that Sienna could think of would end up with either her back with her parents, and/or Arlen facing ‘extreme discipline’. Neither of those options was inviting.
Arlen turned his steely eyes to her, his voice suddenly soft, as if sensing her anxiety.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe. You won’t have to do anything or go anywhere you don’t want to.”
He placed his hand on her thigh and squeezed gently.
How could he tell I’m freaking out inside? …God damn it, he can hear my heartbeat, can’t he? Sienna realized with some chagrin.
It was obvious, now that she thought about it. His senses were superior to those of mere humans, his little lie detector test had confirmed that much. Knowing that he’d been essentially listening in the whole time, sensing it every time when her heart pounded in her chest out of excitement was sort of sweet. He hadn’t picked on her for it or made her feel uncomfortable in any way for it.
“I must be such an open book to you,” she commented with a small smile. “I can’t hide the way my body reacts.”
Arlen smiled. She liked seeing him do that, especially when they were both so on edge.
“I might be able to read your physical reactions, but that doesn’t mean you’re still not a mystery to me,” he answered, his gaze growing more intense.
Sienna wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but the atmosphere in the car had taken such a sudden turn, she found herself afraid to ask. The hand he still had on her thigh was turning from feeling comforting to seductive, as his touch sent heat snaking up her body.
She turned her attention back to the road and Arlen removed his hand, but the electricity sizzling between them still remained. Sienna could feel his eyes all over her body. It was like lying out in the sun on a warm summer day.
“Do you want me to continue driving around or do you have a destination in mind?” she asked as the silence between them grew too long and too heady.
She needed to break the tension, before she hit the brakes and jumped right on top of him in the middle of the Chicago traffic.
“Take the first right and I’ll tell you where to go from there,” he replied, his voice a little deeper than before.
After stopping by Arlen’s locker and him returning to the car carrying a backpack and a large metal case, he inexplicably instructed her to head to the suburbs. Sienna shrugged her shoulders and followed instructions, getting them out of there as fast as she could without attracting any unwanted attention.
He probably knows what he’s doing. If he doesn’t, we’re really screwed.
Getting through rush hour traffic took some doing, but after a while they left the city behind. Skyscrapers and streetlights were replaced by groomed lawns and basketball hoops.
“Why are we here?” Sienna finally asked, driving by one identical house after another.
Lights were turning on all around, as the sun was starting to set. Arlen kept staring out the window, as if looking for something.
“The Firm knows my patterns and the protocols I work under. I have to do something unexpected. They probably already have men out, scanning all the hotels and motels, keeping an eye out at airports and bus and train stations. But they won’t be looking for us here,” he answered, craning his neck.
Sienna was thinking that over when Arlen suddenly pointed a finger at a house located at the end of a cul-de-sac.
“There, pull up there,” he ordered.
“Are you sure? Do you know someone who lives there?”
Sienna’s brows were knitted, but she took his directions.
This is crazy. All of it. Just pure madness.
“No, but the windows are dark and there’s mail sticking out of the mailbox. I’m guessing the occupants are on vacation.”
Sienna couldn’t help but love the way he spoke when he got into work-mode. So concrete and to the point, with hints of trade talk seeping in.
“Won’t the neighbors be suspicious of a strange car out front?”
“Not if we park it in the garage.”
Arlen grinned confidently, visibly relaxing in the seat now.
Nothing like some breaking and entering to get a man excited, she thought with an eye-roll.
She had a feeling Arlen was unused to not being completely in control. Being on the run and not being able to guarantee their safety had to be doing a number on him. Having a plan and taking steps to realize it must have been sating that little issue.
Sienna killed the headlights and Arlen snuck outside, opening the trunk and pulling out a long piece of wire. She followed him, tracking his movements with a raised brow. God only knows why he had that thing in his trunk anyway, but that was a question for another time.
“And what exactly do you plan on doing with that?” she asked.
“You’ll see,” he answered.
Sienna’s hands flew to her hips as she considered him, glancing around sporadically to see if anyone was watching. Luckily, some nearby trees obscured their actions from the closest neighbors. Suburbanites didn’t mess around. Sienna knew they had to get in fast if this was going to work.
Arlen bent the wire, forming a hook at one end and aiming it at the upper edge of the garage door.
“Wait, are you sure no one’s home?” she asked, grabbing hold of his bicep.
The large muscle flexed under her hand as he turned to explain, filling Sienna’s mind with memories of his hard body moving and rippling against her. Arlen looked from her hand to her face with a smile that told her that her pulse had just spiked.
“Heightened senses, remember? There are no people inside, trust me,” he replied, covering
her hand on his arm with his.
Sienna nodded. For the first time in a long while, she felt okay with putting her faith in someone. Arlen continued on with what he was doing, offering whispered explanations as he did. The wire slipped into the opening between the door and the rest of house and he started wiggling it around.
“The mechanism that closes and opens the door has an emergency release cord for when you lose power to your house and get stuck inside the garage. It’s like a large switch, basically.”
Sienna could tell he was listening intently as he adjusted the positioning of the wire. His tongue was tracing the inside of his bottom lip as he stepped closer to the door, making her think entirely inappropriate thoughts.
She almost jumped when she heard a bark in the distance, that’s how on edge she was. The last thing they needed was a nosy dog walker stumbling onto what they were doing.
Arlen gave the wire a yank and she heard a clicking sound come from within the house. Not a second later, the door groaned to life and rolled up, exposing the garage. Sienna didn’t have time to celebrate as she hurriedly jumped back in the car and drove it inside. They didn’t exchange a word. She just did what needed to be done.
Arlen lowered the door after her just as the barking was growing closer.
Now they just had to hope whoever’s house they were breaking into didn’t have a security system installed.
One could hope, right?
Eighteen
Arlen
Arlen charged shoulder-first into the door connecting the garage to the rest of the house. The wood shook and cracked and the door flew open after the second slam, allowing him and Sienna to step inside.
They didn’t turn on any lights, just in case, and started roaming around the dark house. The lack of light made his senses go into overdrive to compensate, which in turn made him all too aware of Sienna’s presence.
The way she walked behind him, close enough to touch. Or the way he could hear her soft breathing or smell her unique scent. None of those things helped with the need to be completely aware of his surroundings. As much as the heat, the Bonding as some called it, had allowed him to settle down after their night together, his appetite for her was insatiable.