RULES OF LOVE (A Navy SEALs Romance)

by Bella Grant

  “Why the hell are you armed?” he snapped.

  “Because I’m not the damn target,” she shot back. The glare she threw him caused him to hesitate. “You are.” She grabbed the radio from him and tried to get Shane again. “We have a sniper, Shane. We’re pinned down in the kitchen.”

  “Working… on it,” he grunted through the radio, and Eddie tossed it aside.

  She poked her head around the side of the island and a shot whizzed by, hitting the stove. “Bastard.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Beau demanded. “Who are you?”

  “Can we get through this first?” She pushed up and winced because of her left leg. She aimed and fired two shots before ducking again, another shot from the sniper barely missing her. “Damn it! He’s on the wall.”

  Beau glared at her, but despite the questions he wanted to ask, he wanted to get out of this alive first and with whomever this woman was. He glanced around the other side of the island, trying to locate the sniper’s position on the back wall, but it was too far.

  “We need to get you to the front,” Naomi muttered. “When I say so, go. I’ll cover you.”

  “That is not happening,” he growled.

  Naomi turned her gun on him, and Beau froze. “Do it, Savage, or I swear to God I’ll shoot you myself. This is not the time for this shit. When I say so, move your ass for the front.”

  He gritted his teeth, trying to adjust to this new reality—staring down the barrel of a gun held by the woman he thought he knew. He nodded once, stiffly, and she aimed it away from him. He watched her steady her breathing. One shot then another shattered the dishes in the cabinets. The second there was calm, Naomi rose and yelled for him to go. Beau heard the shots fired from her gun as he took off for the front door.

  His hand reached for the handle, Naomi close behind him, but a moment later, he was blown backwards. Ears ringing as the world spun around him, Beau heard Naomi’s yell of pain, and everything went dark.

  Eddie groaned as she opened her eyes and glanced around. Beau… the gunshots… her eyes searched the debris that had been the front door. An isolated explosion had cut off their escape route. How the hell had they reached the door? She shifted, rolling onto her stomach as she struggled to find Beau through the dust. She coughed and sat up when a kick landed to her face. She sprawled backwards, blood trickling from her nose.

  “Found one,” a man said. “Damn, now I know why the boss liked her so much.”

  “Stop gawking and get her up.”

  Eddie let herself go still as the man moved around to her head again, his black boots stopping by her face. Carefully, she shifted her hand to the knives still tucked at her back and pulled one free. Beau cursed and yelled somewhere nearby. The sound of a fist hitting skin and bone met her ears, and the other man yelled in pain. At least Savage could hold his own.

  Where the hell are Shane and Ted? She pictured their dead bodies lying outside the house, and her anger grew. The second the man near her reached down, she yelled and plunged the knife into his foot, pinning him to the floor. He shrieked in pain and tried to grab her, but she scurried back. When she got to her feet, holding her left leg up to keep weight off of it, she punched the man in the jaw. He staggered backwards and fell with a grunt to the floor.

  “Savage!”

  She saw him fighting off another, his arm around the man’s throat as he drove him to the floor. His attacker tried feebly to loosen Beau’s grip, but he was too strong. Blood trickled from Beau’s head, but otherwise, he looked unharmed by the blast. Eddie took a deep, steadying breath and looked for the damn radio, but another man ran through the shattered front doors, a knife glinting in his hand, heading for Beau’s exposed back.

  Her Sig was across the room. She yelled a warning, but the man lunged at Beau, slicing him across his shoulders, and Savage staggered forward, tossing the unconscious man aside. He whipped around and brought his arm up, blocking the other attacker’s. But the man he’d tossed aside was not fully out. He rolled his body, and Beau fell over him. The man with the knife loomed closer. Eddie gritted her teeth and, screaming from the pain shooting through her body, rushed forward and tackled the man to the floor. They rolled together until the man wound up on top, pinning Eddie. She cursed, forcing his hand with the knife away from her throat as he leered down at her.

  “Remember me?” he whispered and grinned wider.

  “West, you traitorous bastard!”

  “To some,” he hissed and pressed harder. The knife was close to her neck, and she fought to keep the blade away, using both hands. “You won’t win, Eddie, you’ll never win.”

  “Naomi!”

  She heard him, but she couldn’t see him. More grunts sounded as Beau fought the other attacker. West pressed harder, and the blade touched her skin. With a shove, she managed to get it away, but he sliced her forearm, weakening her grip against his attack. He laughed as he pressed it back to her throat again. She screamed and pushed back with the last surge of adrenaline she could muster as blood trailed down her arm. West reached for something in his pocket. Eddie took her chance and brought her knee up into his groin. West grunted, and she managed to roll them over, fighting the biting pain in her leg as she aimed the knife at his neck.

  But West didn’t look frightened. Instead, he cackled, and Eddie felt a sharp prick in her side. “Hugh sends his love.”

  Red filled her vision, and Eddie screamed, plunging the knife down until it stabbed into West’s neck. He choked on his blood, his hands falling to the sides while the rest of his body convulsed under her. When his eyes dulled, she slid to the side and fell on her back, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

  “Jesus… Naomi?”

  Beau’s face appeared over hers, but something was wrong. Eddie felt funny, and she couldn’t get her limbs to work right. “Not… Naomi.”

  “Got that,” he muttered. “Can you stand?”

  She closed her eyes tightly, fighting the sudden rush of heat flaring through her body. “Shane… find him,” she whispered. “Radio…” Her whole body shook violently, and Eddie was floating free in a gray, lonely place where they’d never find her.

  Beau watched Naomi’s eyes roll back into her head. No, not Naomi. She’d been protecting him… Why? He shook her shoulders, but she didn’t open her eyes and didn’t speak. Her breathing grew ragged as her body convulsed. He pressed his hand to her face to find her skin feverish. What the hell?

  He turned from the dead man nearby to the two unconscious ones. An attack he thought was meant for her… Beau shook his head. Didn’t matter. He needed to radio Shane and Ted, needed back up. Naomi’s body convulsed harder against his hands, and he struggled to hold her down as he fumbled for the radio at his side.

  “Shane? Ted? Anyone read me?”

  Only static met his ears. He threw the radio aside in anger until he heard steps shuffling through the backdoor. He grabbed the knife at his back, ready to throw it until he saw Shane limping towards him, his face battered and bloodied.

  “Sniper’s tied up out back,” he muttered. His eyes landed on Naomi. “Eddie! What happened?”

  “We were attacked, she fought him off… I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  Beau watched Shane move from the woman he’d called Eddie to the dead man on the floor. He scrounged in his pockets and picked up the dead man’s hand. “Shit.” He held up a syringe, and Beau felt his chest tighten in panic. Eddie muttered between them and her body shook violently.

  “I need to find a working cell or radio,” Shane muttered. “And Ted. I’ll get these men tied up. Get her to the tub. That fever’s too damn high.”

  “She needs medical attention,” Beau snapped.

  “I know, I’m calling it in, but if you don’t cool her body right now, whatever he gave her is going to kill her. Get her upstairs, Savage, now.” Shane glanced worriedly at the woman and whispered, “She’s my sister. Just take care of her.”

  Beau’s mind reeled. What the hell was goi
ng on? He needed answers, but Eddie thrashed again, her body shaking uncontrollably now, so answers would have to wait. He wasn’t going to let her die on the floor after she saved his life.

  “Shit, Eddie… Wake up,” he muttered, her real name strange in his mouth. He picked her up in his arms. “You need to open your eyes,” he ordered, and they fluttered. “Come on, Eddie, don’t give me that bullshit. If you can hear me, say something.” He moved to the stairs with her tucked against him, stepping over debris.

  Her hand moved, and her eyes blinked open for a moment before her whole body convulsed and fell into him. Beau rushed up the steps as fast as he could, ignoring his bleeding wounds and aching limbs. All his thoughts were focused on her.

  “Hang on, just hang on,” he muttered through gritted teeth. Her fever was dangerously high. He took her into the bathroom and turned the water on lukewarm. “This is going to hurt like a bitch.” He lowered her into it, and she screamed in pain, fighting against it, but she was too warm. Holding her in the tub as it filled, Beau used his other hand to turn the faucet to cool the water so her fever would come down.

  Beau held Eddie in the water against her sudden bursts of strength and fighting to get out. “Eddie, you have to stay in here,” he grunted in his efforts to keep her from hurting herself or him, but she either couldn’t hear him or didn’t care.

  She fought harder and started screaming, her eyes rolling back in her head. “Let me go! Bastards… Let me go! Don’t touch me… Get your damn hands off of me!” She let out a scream, cursing and punching at empty air, but Beau quickly realized she wasn’t fighting. “Don’t take him! Stop it, take me! Just kill me!”

  Each yell was worse than the last, and Beau knew whatever she saw was what she screamed about in her sleep. She thrashed in the tub, and he tried to avoid her punches and not hurt her in the process. Her scream was blood-curdling, and suddenly, she stilled. Blood trickled from her mouth and nose, and Beau shook her shoulders, watching her head roll limply on her neck.

  “No… no!” He picked her up out of the water and laid her on the bathroom floor to check her pulse and breathing. Both had stopped. “You do not get to leave yet,” he ordered fiercely and started compressions on her chest. “Eddie, you hear me, damn it? Do not do this to me!”

  He pushed down on her chest and breathed into her mouth, tasting the coppery blood there, and watched as more seeped slowly from her nose. He worked and cursed, yelling at her to open her damn eyes and yell at him. Help needed to get there… The medics would save her… But as his hands pressed down again, a wretched howl of pain escaped his lips when nothing happened.

  In a fit of desperation and despair, Beau slammed his fist down on Eddie’s chest. She coughed and sucked in a breath. Relief washed over him as he sat her up, blood covering his shirt as she choked and coughed, shaking violently in his arms. He held her so she didn’t hurt herself and heard shouts echo up the stairs.

  “Here! We’re up here!” he yelled, his voice ragged. “Help’s here, Eddie, just hold on. Please, God… hold on.”

  A limping Ted was the first through the door followed by a man carrying a medic bag. They helped Beau get her onto the bed and the medic went to work.

  “What was she given?”

  Beau ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I don’t… I don’t know. It was in a syringe.”

  The man continued to check her as he pulled up her shirt. “Where? Do you know where she was injected?”

  “No… I didn’t see… What’s wrong with her?”

  Eddie coughed harshly, and her eyes shot open, her hands grappling for the medic. He told her to calm down, asking her what was given to her. Beau wanted to shout at the man, tell him to back off, but Eddie whispered, “Gift from Hugh,” and collapsed back on the bed.

  Beau didn’t know what that meant, but Ted let out a string of curses. “Overdose, the man gave her a goddamn overdose with a speedball!”

  The medic grabbed his bag, and Beau watched him get an IV going with what looked like a saline solution. Beau wanted to ask the man why the hell they weren’t rushing her to the hospital, but he knew better. She wasn’t stable, and until she was, they wouldn’t move her. Ted’s words were meaningless to him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked Ted.

  “Hugh’s signature style of taking out his enemies,” Ted snapped. “Overdose on a mix of cocaine and heroin. Fatal if not pushed out of the system fast enough.”

  “Luckily I caught it fast enough,” the medic said. “She’ll feel like shit when she wakes up, but she’ll be alive.”

  “How did you even get her so fast?” Beau asked.

  “I managed to radio for backup before I was dragged from the guardhouse,” Ted muttered. “More agents are downstairs. Reinhart’s on his way, and I’m sure you’d like to have a word with him now that the game’s up.”

  Beau’s eyes slid sideways to Ted. “Yeah, I guess it is. Mind telling me what the fuck this game is?”

  “After you get checked out,” the medic said as he tended to the wound on Eddie’s arm. “There’s blood all over your back.”

  He’d been slashed with the knife. Beau remembered now, but he only had eyes for Eddie. “She’s Eddie?”

  Ted nodded. “Eddie Sage, one of the agents assigned to protect you, and before you bombard me with questions, get yourself patched up and sit with her. We’ll tell you everything once downstairs is cleaned up.”

  Beau wanted to argue, but at the same time, he didn’t want to leave this woman’s side, so he let Ted leave the room. The medic pulled up his shirt and cleaned then bandaged the slash on his back. No need for stitches. He wanted to examine Beau completely, but he wasn’t having it.

  “You want to change?” the medic asked. “Before I head back downstairs?”

  He frowned until he glanced down at his shirt to see blood—Eddie’s blood—covering it. “I will when she’s awake. I’m not leaving her side.”

  The medic whispered, but Beau didn’t hear it. His ears were filled with Eddie’s screams from earlier. Over and over, they replayed in his mind and his lip curled in a snarl. Whomever hurt her, he was going to find them and kill them. All those scars on her body… Her being an agent… Pieces of the puzzle that was her past fell into place, and he knew in an instant what had happened to her was much worse than a bad fiancé or a car accident. Much worse.

  “You are going to wake up,” he whispered to Eddie. “You hear me? You are going to wake up. You have a lot of explaining to do, woman. You’re not getting off that easily.”

  He watched her sleep, muttering every now and then for them to let her go and to stop touching her. Beau could do nothing but smooth her hair back and hold her hand.

  An hour after the attack at the safe house, Reinhart arrived on the scene, his face red as he hurried through the mess to see who the hell attacked. Four men sat at the kitchen table, their hands cuffed, in various states of consciousness. Only one dead body was on the floor, and thankfully, it was not one of his people.

  “What do we know?” he snapped, and an agent hurried over to him.

  “Sir, this is what we recovered from West’s pockets,” she said, handing him a cell phone, a slip of paper with codes on it, and two glossy photographs.

  Reinhart took the photos and stared at them, pausing at the slashes through the faces of his two top agents: Beau Savage and Eddie Sage. “Damn it! He’s upped the game. Where is Savage?”

  “Upstairs, sir, with Sage. He refused to come down.”

  “Fine. I want all of them taken in for questioning. I want to know how the hell this happened, and I wanted to know yesterday!” He stormed upstairs as his people worked to get what they could before they moved out.

  Beau hadn’t moved from Eddie’s side, and her hand was still tucked tightly in his. Whatever rushed through her system was running its course, but until she opened her damn eyes, he wasn’t going leave her side.

  “Savage. A word,” a man said f
rom the door, and Beau turned to glare at Reinhart.

  “You bastard,” he growled. “What type of game are you playing?”

  Reinhart’s gaze slid to Eddie, and his face darkened. “A word, outside. Now.” He turned for the hall, but Beau didn’t budge.

  “No. I’m not moving until you give me some goddamn answers.”

  “Fine.” He pulled two photos from his pocket and handed them over. “Those were found on our dead friend.”

  Beau took them reluctantly and stared at the pictures of him and Eddie. “What is this?”

  “The dead man’s targets,” Reinhart said. “They’re after both of you.”

  “Eddie said they were after me. Who the hell is it?” Beau was on his feet, inches from Reinhart’s face, the pictures crumbled in his hands, forgotten.

  “Hugh Coleman,” Reinhart said calmly. “He’s coming for you. He sent you the threats.”

  “I don’t need a team of people protecting me! I don’t need them risking their lives like this.”

  “And I am not going to lose one of my top men because of his arrogance!”

  “I would’ve been fine!”

  “They blew up your house, Savage,” Reinhart snapped, and Beau took a step back, shaking his head in shock. “The day we pulled you from the country, your house was blown up. They are trying to kill you. The threat is real, and I was not going to have you gallivanting around the world until we caught the bastard.”

  Beau stepped back again, running a hand down his face. “My house…”

  “Better than your life,” Reinhart growled. “Though now I see I’ve underestimated our enemy. Once she is stable, the two of you will be moved to a new safe house and both of you are under strict orders to not put yourselves in harm’s way.”

  Glancing back at Eddie, Beau frowned. “Why is he after her?”

  “For the last six years, the two of you have been working on the same target. She’s the recon end of it. Her intel is what let you get so close all those times,” Reinhart said.