“Almost positive.”
I paced the small space in front of me. “I don’t know where they would have taken him. Do you?”
Dia shook her head. We weren’t getting anywhere.
“I don’t work on this side of the country. I’m an east coast recruit only recently arrived because I requested the transfer. I don’t know all their hidey holes for this area, assuming they kept him local.”
They would. My mother wouldn’t have Inarus abducted unless she intended to hold him over me. Was that why he’d been taken?
“We need to get in touch with Jason and Emerson.”
“Who?” Dia asked.
I brought her up to speed on our activities of the day.
She whistled. “Your mother is a real piece of work.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m aware.” I scratched the back of my neck. “I’ll try and get ahold of the guys. See if they’ve found anything or if they have any idea of where we can start looking.”
“Let me go back in.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Let me go. I’ll go back to my checkpoint and see what I can find out from the inside.”
I shook my head. “That’s a horrible idea. It’s been over a week since the attack. They’ll wonder where you’ve been. You’ll get yourself killed.”
Dia shook her head vehemently. “I have to do something. I can’t just sit here while my brother is missing. Let me do this. Please. I’ll come up with a story about being taken, sedated, and escaping when I finally came to.”
I didn’t like it. Dia’s wellbeing wasn’t my concern, but if she wound up killed, Inarus would never forgive me.
Robert stepped forward. “I’ll cover her. I can’t go in with her, but I can remain close and in communication. I’ll have two more of Clan Cadinae on site as well should we need back up or should we need to extricate Dia.”
I turned to Declan, wondering what he thought of this. “She could give him up the moment she walks inside.”
“Hey! I wouldn’t do that!” Dia exclaimed.
Declan shrugged. “We don’t know you,” he said and turned back to Robert. “But I trust your judgment. If you think sending her in has merit, then go. See Brock before you leave, and he’ll get you set up with communications.”
“Thank you.” Robert said and turned to leave.
“Dia,” Declan called. She stopped in the doorway and turned to face him. “If my men don’t come back, I’ll hold you responsible.”
She swallowed hard but nodded and left the room.
15
The bed dipped, and a warm body slid in beside me.
Warm hands splayed across my bare stomach, pulling me tight against an equally bare and muscled chest. The smell of pine and mint filled my nose, and I snuggled deeper into the embrace.
Declan nuzzled my shoulder, his five o’clock shadow rough against my skin, causing goosebumps to break out along my flesh.
“Why do you insist on sleeping in here?” he asked.
I sighed and pulled the covers up higher toward my face. Sun filtered in through the window, letting me know it was morning, but I still wasn’t ready to get up.
“It’s my bedroom,” I mumbled. “Where else would I sleep?”
A growl vibrated through his chest and along my back. “This is a guest room. Your place is with me. In our room.”
A ghost of a smile tilted the corners of my mouth. I knew it bothered him that I hadn’t moved into his room but come on. I’d just accepted this whole mate bond thing a little over a week ago. Living in the Compound was a pretty big step if you asked me. And living in his quarters was an even bigger step. And while the idea of waking up beside him every morning had its appeal, I wanted to give us time to get to know one another, and if I was being honest with myself, I sometimes needed my own space. A room to escape to when he was driving me up the wall. Not that I would tell him that.
“It’s only been a week,” I mumbled. Sleep still tinged my voice, and I yawned.
“A week is plenty long enough,” he said. “I want you by my side. I want to fall asleep beside you and have you be the first thing I see every morning. I know you’re it for me. You feel the same. I know you do. Stop being stubborn and move your things to our room.”
Aww, wasn’t that sweet?
I rolled over to face him.
“A week is not that long. Most people date for, oh I don’t know, a year or more before they move in together.”
Declan’s lip curled. “I’m not a human. I don’t need time to confirm that you’re my mate.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “I know that. But I’m not a shifter. I need time.” I reached out and cupped his cheek, brushing my fingers over the stubble on his jaw. “I’ve accepted the bond. You’re my mate. I know that and I …” My voice trailed off.
I wanted to tell him I loved him. Because I did. With every fiber of my being, I loved him. But the words lodged themselves in my throat.
I swallowed and met his emerald gaze. “I’m still adjusting. If we have forever together, is giving me a little time to adjust too much to ask?”
Declan’s lips pressed into a thin line before he leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. “I’ll give you time because you want it. But I won’t be happy about it. I’m empty when you’re not with me.”
I melted into a puddle of goo.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled Declan into a tight embrace and crushed my lips against his.
I kissed him with a fever I couldn’t contain.
He growled and rolled until he was braced on top of me. Looming over me, his eyes filled with gold, his tiger present. “Careful, Aria,” he warned.
Careful? I didn’t want to be careful. Not with him.
I reached up and tugged him down as I wrapped my legs around his hips. His erection pressed against my abdomen, and I moaned into his mouth.
“Why are you wearing clothes?” I groaned.
Declan chuckled and used one hand to free himself from his boxer briefs. “You’re not bare either,” he reminded me.
With a quick tug of my panties I remedied that and then unclasped my bra and chucked it over the side of the bed.
“There. Better?”
His chest pressed down against me, and he captured my lips with his. “Much better.”
I groaned into his kiss as Declan positioned himself at my entrance. I ground my hips against him, aching for him inside of me, but he held back.
Declan trailed hot, wet kisses down my neck, moving lower until he captured my breast in the wet heat of his mouth.
My back arched off the bed, and I moaned.
I tangled my fingers in the short white-blonde strands of his hair. “More. God, please, don’t stop.”
Declan switched to lave his attentions on my other breast, and my insides turned liquid. My breaths came out heavy as fire coursed through my veins. I sucked in a ragged breath and forced myself to calm down. The bed shook, but I ignored it. Nothing was on fire, and the building was still structurally sound. A little bed shaking would be fine.
Pulling Declan up, I kissed him again, and he slid his length deep inside me in one long, powerful thrust.
I cried out while tugging him closer. Declan moved in a chaotic rhythm. Both of us too far gone to care if it was perfect.
I thrust my hips up to meet his and my core tightened around him.
God, it felt so damn good.
I moaned into his kiss. Our tongues lashed with one another, and our teeth crashed once or twice with our frenzied movements.
I didn’t care. I didn’t need perfect. I needed real, and this was it. It was hot and frenzied and everything I craved.
When Declan leaned back to stare down at me, I took advantage and switched our positions. He could have stopped me, but Declan rolled to his back as I pushed his shoulders and settled myself on top of him, straddling his waist without ever breaking contact.
I rocked back and forth on his length. Satis
faction bloomed inside of me with each grunt and groan he made.
His fingers clenched my hips in a bruising grip, and I reveled in the moment as my climax grew closer and closer.
Declan’s thumb worked in slow circles over my clit, and I exploded, rocking my hips and crying out as his own climax erupted from him with a roar.
I collapsed on top of him in a sweaty heap. My breaths coming out in labored gasps.
I kissed his chest and slid off to lie beside him. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and his emerald eyes shone with barely restrained passion.
He pulled me closer.
“Oh, no. Round two is beyond me right now,” I said and tried to wiggle away.
“I think I can make you reconsider.”
And he did. With painstaking tenderness he loved me with his body, pushing me to a second climax that left me shaken to my core.
16
Robert checked in with Declan twice a day, but he’d had no word from Dia in the three days since she walked inside one of the HAC’s Spokane facilities.
Worry churned my gut, but Robert seemed positive.
Activity remained low at the HAC site, which he interpreted to mean business was going as usual. If that changed, he’d let us know. Until then, we had to wait.
I sucked at waiting.
On the fourth day, I got a phone call from a phone number I didn’t recognize.
“Naveed.”
“We found out where Inarus is. He’s being held in Sandpoint, Idaho. I can give you the address, but …” Emerson Suede trailed off.
“But what?” My skin vibrated with anticipation. This was good. We had news. And if the HAC was still holding Inarus, then it meant he was alive.
Relief surged through me at the realization that I wouldn’t have to bury my friend.
A sigh on the other line had me holding my breath. “But I don’t know how you could possibly get him out without starting a full scale war. The Sandpoint facility isn’t some hideout. It’s a full-fledged encampment with over three hundred men at the ready. It’s the HAC’s version of a fortress, and it’s damn near impregnable.”
I sat down. Alone in my room, I stared out the lone window toward the edge of the Compound property and into the sprawling forest. “I won’t leave him to rot,” I ground out.
“I’m not telling you to. But you need to know what you’d be walking into.”
I listened as Emerson told me about the multiple layers of security. The cameras, sensors, and perimeter that was manned by veteran soldiers and psykers alike.
“It won’t be easy, and if you go in full bore, you’ll get hit with casualties.”
“Can he be ported out?” I wasn’t a teleport capable telekinetic. At least not that I was aware of.
My TK abilities were still too new for me to know for certain. Aiden had been teleport capable, but that didn’t necessarily mean the skill had been passed on to me. But if Inarus could be ported out, then dammit, I’d try.
“No. The facility is warded. Our abilities work, but they’re dampened. No telekinetic I know of can execute a port in that environment.”
There went that idea.
I worried my lower lip. There had to be a way to get him out of there without starting a war. I’d battle for Inarus’ life, but I couldn’t put Declan and the Pack in the position of doing so. Not when I couldn’t guarantee every shifter would make it out alive.
“What would you suggest?” I asked, hoping that he hadn’t called with nothing but bad news.
“Call your mother.”
My breath hitched, and I pulled the phone away to look at it for a second before returning it to my ear. “What did you just say? Clearly I must have misheard.”
“You didn’t. Your best bet is to call her. Viola is behaving erratically. Your call would throw her off balance, and you might be able to convince her to negotiate Inarus’ life for yours. I don’t expect you to give yourself up, but getting Inarus out of that building will greatly increase your chances of a rescue.”
I mulled that over. He had a point.
“Thank you,” I told him when it seemed there was nothing left to say.
“Don’t thank me. I did it for selfish reasons. Your man said if we helped find him …”
I nodded, and then remembered he couldn’t see me. “I remember. I’ll let Declan know. You’ll need to decide when you want to get the psyker extraction moving and how much support you’ll need from the Pack. But Declan is a man of his word.”
“We’ll talk soon, then.”
And with that, he hung up.
I stared down at my phone for several long minutes. Indecision warred within me. Hearing my mother’s voice was the last thing I wanted. Each time I did, it split me in two as my mind rebelled between the knowledge that this was the woman who loved me, raised me from birth to my teenage years, and held me tight whenever I cried, yet was also the same woman who’d abandoned me and considered me an abomination she’d rather be rid of.
The child inside of me wanted her mother’s acceptance. But the woman knew she’d never have it.
Before I could make up my mind, the door opened and Declan strode inside. I stared up at him, stark pain etched into my soul. Declan sank to his knees in front of me and clasped my hands between his large calloused ones.
“What is it?” He pressed a kiss to my forehead before leveling his concerned gaze on me. “I felt your heart break right here.” He placed a palm over his chest. “What has you feeling so broken?”
A single tear slipped out to spill down my cheek. Declan was quick to thumb it away.
I hid my face as pain and rage and an ache so deep I didn’t know how to make it go away threatened to consume me.
“Hey. Shh … Whatever it is. We’ll handle it. Together.”
I nodded and tried to get my emotions under control. They had to have been going haywire for Declan to have noticed so quickly that he’d rushed to my side.
Taking several deep breaths, I let my cheek sink into his palm as he pulled me close. “I have to call my mother.”
Declan stiffened but waited for me to continue.
“Emerson confirmed that she has Inarus. He’s in Sandpoint.”
He pulled back and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Then we go get him.”
I was shaking my head before he’d even finished. “This isn’t a hideout with a handful of guards. Emerson says they number over three hundred. We can’t—I can’t ask the Pack to get involved in this. Not when there’s another way.”
Declan scowled, a furrow forming between twin white-blond brows. “We go in with a stealth team. Fewer bodies will make it easier to get in and out unseen.”
I shook my head again, love rising to clog my throat. How amazing was this man that he would take such risks for me? For someone I knew he loathed, all because that same someone mattered to me.
“Emerson gave me the layout of their security. It won’t work. We need Inarus out of that building if we’re going to have any chance of rescuing him. And for that to happen, the HAC has to move him. I don’t have a choice. I have to call my mother.”
The phone shook in my hands as I waited for her to pick up. It’d been weeks since we last spoke, but it felt like years.
As the dial tone continued to ring, I worried that she might have changed her number. What if she did? How would I get ahold of her then? A knot formed in the pit of my stomach.
Just as I was about to hang up, there was a click on the other line, and I held my breath.
“What?” Annoyance filled my mother’s voice.
“Hello, Mother,” I said into the receiver. Taking a seat across from Declan, I waited to see how she’d react to my call.
It didn’t take long for her to compose herself, and all hints of irritation were erased. “Aria, darling. It’s wonderful to hear from you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I rolled my eyes. As if she didn’t know. “Inarus is missing,” I told her.
> “Oh, my. That’s terrible. But why would you be calling me? You know he and I aren’t on the best of terms since … well … you know.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to play games. I didn’t have the energy for it, but with my mother, it was always a game. “Mother, I know you have him. I’d like him back, please.” That last word took considerable effort to force past my lips.
She laughed, and the sound grated along my nerves. “My dear, so what if I do? If I took him, clearly I have a use for him.”
Declan squeezed my hand, and I squeezed it back. “You don’t need him. You have plenty more telekinetics in your ranks. Why take him?”
She heaved a long-suffering sigh as though I were some petulant child she didn’t think she needed to explain herself to. “Inarus is a top level telekinetic. Yes, I have others, but none as powerful as he is. I wouldn’t have needed him if you hadn’t killed Aiden …” She let her words trail off.
Fury washed through me. So what, this was my fault? I should have just let Aiden rip my pyrokinetic abilities from me?
Flames licked my arms and ran down to my fingertips, forcing me to pull away from Declan’s grasp.
No. She was not going to turn this around on me.
“Aiden’s death is on your hands, not mine. You never should have done what you did to me. I’m your daughter, for Chrissakes, does that mean nothing to you anymore?”
I didn’t want her to answer. She’d either confirm that she didn’t care about me anymore, or she’d lie through her teeth and pretend that she still did. Either way I’d still feel like shit, because dammit she was my mother. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for some unconditional love here.
“You’ve turned your back on your own kind and allied yourself with animals.” Her words were filled with disgust. “You should be thanking me. I tried to save you.”
“You tried to kill me!”
“Think what you’d like, Aria. But the fact remains, you have nothing to offer me in exchange for Inarus, and until you see that you’ve taken the wrong path, we have nothing left to discuss.”
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