"Wyatt did mention getting married, Grand-mere," Pepper said softly. Instantly. Helping him out. Mon Dieu, but he loved his woman. "We thought it best to keep a low profile until we're certain the girls are out of danger. Marriage requires paperwork."
Wyatt thought her answer perfect. He sent her his warmest smile.
"These boys are mighty creative with paperwork," Nonny said. "I don' think that's any excuse. He puts another baby in your belly, girl, without marryin' you proper, I'm goin' to have to light candles for his soul at the church every day until I die. Since I'm hopin' to live a very long time, that's a lot of trips to the church just to save his soul."
Every one of the "boys" caught Draden's coughing fit. Pepper ducked her head and nuzzled Elle's thick pelt of dark, wavy hair.
"Well, then, Nonny, I expect you best start plannin' a weddin' because I'm goin' to make certain my woman is carryin' another little one as soon as possible," Wyatt announced.
Pepper's breath hissed out of her. Are you crazy? Four children? I don't know what I'm doing yet.
Babe. He grinned at her, his lazy, charming grin, the one he knew she liked. Think of it as an experiment. I'll have to go sooner or later and I'll need to know you can get through the weeks without me. I don' want to come home and find out I have to kill some man because that fire burnin' between your legs was too much to bear without me.
He saw her hand drop to her boot. He should have been warned, but the knife cut close to his shoulder - the one away from the baby - and lodged in the rocking chair.
There was a small silence.
"Wyatt, I expect you'd better apologize for whatever you jist did," Nonny said.
He laughed. He couldn't help it. "Woman, you know that just turns me on. Is that an invitation?"
"You're impossible," Pepper said. "It's time to put the girls to bed."
The rhythm of the bayou changed subtly. There was no way to explain it to anyone else, but Wyatt had grown up there, had sat on this very porch, hundreds of nights, listening to the music of the world around him. One moment it was natural. Perfect. The next there was a very small, but subtle difference. A new note had entered.
His smile faded, and he turned toward the water, scanning with his night vision. Everything in him went still. "They're comin'," he announced softly. "Right now. They're comin'. Get Trap. Put the others on alert. We need to be ready."
Nonny gasped. Made a single sound of distress. Wyatt frowned at her. She always kept her shotgun handy, always handled any crisis.
"We knew they'd come," Ezekiel said. "We're ready, Nonny."
"Not the safe room. It's not finished. If they get inside..." Nonny started.
"I'll kill them," Pepper said. "No one is going to get to the babies. I'll be in front of the door and you'll be inside with your shotgun with the girls. Let's put them to bed and do this, Grand-mere. I'm sick of waiting for them anyway."
There was steel in her voice. Absolute steel. Wyatt grinned at her. First the knife and now this, sugar. You're makin' me hard all over again. He jerked the knife from his rocking chair and shoved it down into the sheath in her boot. "Keep that handy, Pepper."
Wyatt stood up and reached out one hand for Pepper, drawing her up out of the rocker while holding Thym cradled against him with the other. He was getting very good at using one hand while cuddling a baby to him with the other. It felt natural and right.
Ezekiel was already helping Nonny from her chair. Ezekiel, Mordichai and Malichai hadn't known a family. They'd raised themselves in the streets. Nonny had taken them in, just like she'd taken Wyatt and his brothers in, and she'd turned her special brand of love on them. Wyatt suspected she was doing the same with Trap and Draden. In the meantime, Ezekiel was ever watchful with her. Looking out. Trying without saying a word to make her life better. Wyatt loved his grandmother all the more for her big heart and Ezekiel for his.
"Let's get you inside, Grand-mere," Ezekiel said, and then when she frowned at him, he added, "where you can stand in front of the girls with that shotgun of yours. We'll need to make certain you have plenty of ammo."
Nonny looked appeased at that. "Don' you worry none about me and my gun, Ezekiel, you go on out and do what you gotta do. And don' get shot or knifed like Wyatt did. We don' need any more grumpy men around here."
Wyatt stepped back to allow the women to get inside first. His mind was already working on how the attack would come at them. How much time they had. He kissed Thym and put her in her crib, drawing up a blanket around her. She looked so innocent. She even murmured "daddy," when he tucked the blanket closer. That earned her another kiss.
He felt Pepper's gaze on him and he glanced up to catch her look. That look. The one. Like he was the entire universe. Hot. Intense. Or maybe he wanted to see that look on her face because for him she was the center of his universe. He was hot and intense the moment he thought of her. He didn't have to actually see her to feel that way.
He kissed Ginger and then Cannelle before he took his grandmother's face between his hands and kissed her too. He didn't want to see the sheen of tears in her eyes, and she didn't want him to see them, so he let go immediately and jerked his head toward Pepper. She followed him out.
His arm swept behind her back and he pulled her close, right up against him, his body hard and tight against hers.
"You don' put yourself in harm's way unless you have to, Pepper," he said, pushing iron into his voice.
"I'm a soldier too, Wyatt. This is my family. I'll defend them, just like you."
He gave her a little shake, fingers biting into her shoulders. "I'm not sayin' you can' fight, baby, I'm just sayin' I need to know you're safe until you have to stand in front of Nonny and the girls. Anyone gets that far, I know you'll take them out. I have not a single doubt." He stared into her eyes so she could see the truth there. "I can' lose you, Pepper. Or the girls. Or Nonny. You're my fail-safe."
He saw understanding creep into the dark of her eyes. All the beautiful midnight purple sky. The sky above the bayou. Home. That was why he'd recognized her so fast, knew she was the one. Hell. Even the stars were there in her eyes.
"No one will get past me to hurt Nonny or our daughters. And nothing will happen to me. But you let me know what's going on, Wyatt," she demanded softly. "And you come back to me."
"That's a given, sugar," he drawled, and tilted her face toward his, thumb and finger holding her chin.
"In one piece," she added. "No bloody wounds."
He grinned at her. "Told you you'd be crazy about me."
"I'm just crazy. Kiss me. Right now before I can't let you go."
Her first real demand. His heart turned over. She was going to kill him before it was all said and done. A mixture of sultry, attitude, sex and vulnerability. What man wouldn't fall at her feet?
Wyatt got down to the business of kissing her, and he took it very seriously. She'd asked him, and he was going to give it his all so she made it a regular practice to ask him. Her mouth was hot and wild, and he devoured her, his tongue sliding deep, dancing with hers, pushing into her space to let her know she belonged. It was the kind of kiss that could move a mountain or send an earthquake through the lands. It did both.
"Yeah, babe," he whispered softly, his forehead pressed to hers so they could both catch air. "I'm comin' back to you always."
"Wyatt, just one more thing. I want you to listen to me. I've been giving this some thought and it's important. Just, can you hear me out?"
"I don' have a lot of time here, Pepper."
She nodded. "This is important. You told me that Whitney is behind this. Our getting together, the termination orders, all of it. What if he's not? What if this is about me and Braden, and Braden is messing up whatever plan Whitney had?"
Wyatt sucked in his breath. All the time nothing quite fit. He had the puzzle pieces but none of them actually snapped together - until that moment.
"I made him so angry, Wyatt. He called me into his office and he told me he would iss
ue termination orders on the babies if I didn't give him what he wanted. He was very specific in his instructions. I told him to go to hell. I was so angry, and he was so smug. I think Whitney had already given him the heads-up that the babies might be taken to the States. To here."
Wyatt was still stuck on the specific instructions Braden had given to his woman. He breathed deep through his nose to try to keep the walls from undulating. "Keep goin', honey," he said softly. She was already alarmed by the look on his face. He didn't want his tone to make it worse.
Pepper moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and avoided his eyes. "He tried to rip my clothes, and he was far stronger than I expected him to be. I went a little berserk. I'd already made it clear I didn't want another one of his men putting his hands on me without my consent. It took several of his soldiers to get me off of him and I wiped up the floor with them. I put seven of them down before they managed to knock me out. Seven, Wyatt. He was so angry."
He waited and he knew he wasn't going to like what came next. He heard his heart thundering in his ears, a roar of rage so loud he knew his team members caught it.
She continued to look down at the floor. "He retaliated of course. I was tied to the bed and gagged with this horrible piece of equipment so I couldn't use my teeth on him." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "He came several times a day for nearly a week."
"He's a dead man," Wyatt hissed.
He heard the echoes of his team. They didn't hear her soft voice, he hadn't built that bridge, but it didn't matter. They heard him. They felt him. The rage. The fury. It swept through them all until they were ice-cold and the flames had turned ice blue.
Pepper opened her mouth to continue, but Wyatt pulled her tighter against him and buried his face in her neck.
"You should have told me, honey. I would have been gentler with you. You should have told me."
Her arms slid around him. "I made my mind go blank. I told myself it was training. It didn't matter. He didn't matter. He was no different from my instructors, except he was a disgusting pig."
"Why didn' you tell me?" He pulled his head back to look at her, realizing she hadn't looked at him once. Not once while she was telling him.
She still didn't, but it wasn't hard to tell she struggled with tears.
Wyatt caught her chin. "Look at me, baby," he said softly. "Eyes right on mine. Tell me why you didn't say a word to me about this."
She swallowed hard and shook her head. "Please, Wyatt." Her hands curled into his shirt. "You don't have time for this. Just let me tell you about his soldiers. He beefed them up. He said if I could take them, Whitney's elite soldiers would wipe up the floor with them. So he really beefed them up. That soldier with the harder bone structure you encountered in the lab is one of several. Braden didn't bring very many with him, but he's had time to fly more here. He's doesn't stay at the plant, and neither did his personal soldiers."
He wanted more. He wanted reasons. He wanted to wipe that look off her face. The shame. It wasn't her shame. The humiliation. It wasn't her humiliation. He was going to kill Braden and never look back.
His hand went to the nape of her neck and curled there. He just held her. He needed it more than she did. He was only beginning to recognize what her life must have been like.
"So you think this is all Braden and he's goin' against Whitney."
She nodded her head, still not looking at him. Wyatt tipped her head up to his and bent to take her mouth. He was far gentler. Way more tender. It didn't matter, the flames poured over him and through him, a raging firestorm in spite of the blue flame burning hot in his belly.
He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. "We good?"
She nodded her head. "We're good, Wyatt."
He turned and left her. He didn't look back. He didn't dare. When a man found the one woman who was his universe, he didn't want her in danger. And she sure as hell wouldn't be put in the fire ever again if he had anything to say about it.
He relayed the information about Braden's soldiers to his team. The skeletal structure was amazing protection, but they also had to have something else, something that revved them up. The soldier coming at him hadn't felt much in the way of pain. He should have stuck around and examined the man, but he'd lost too much of his own blood and there'd been no time.
Doesn't matter, Wyatt, Trap said. Fucking Braden is dead and anyone we have to go through to get to him is dead as well.
The rage didn't lessen. He would never forget the look on Pepper's face, or her quiet voice, so devoid of expression as she "confessed." She'd told him the truth for a reason. She blamed herself for Braden making his soldiers stronger. She'd taken down seven of his guards and kicked Braden's ass.
Man does that to a woman, he doesn't deserve to breathe the same air, Ezekiel added. We've got company coming in from the south. He didn't even change the tone of his voice.
He's not going to be with this bunch, bayou man, Malichai said. Once we clean house here, I'll follow the bastard back to France if I have to. More coming in from the north.
Wyatt was aware Braden wouldn't have had too much time to find his own soldiers. More than likely they weren't psychic, or even enhanced psychically. He recalled Pepper telling him Braden was more interested in physical enhancement. So the supersoldiers coming for them were going to be difficult to take down with bullets and knives. He said as much to his team.
Coming in from the east, Mordichai said. I'll go with you, Malichai, all the way to ends of the earth to find this bastard and end him.
Again, there was no inflection. Just a statement.
On the water, Trap reported. They think they've got us surrounded. I'm fading into the night. Draden's already gone into the trees.
We'll take the water, Ezekiel said. He was the logical one to go in, he could control reptiles better than any of the rest, although truthfully, Trap was best in water.
I'm with you, Wyatt said. Malichai, don' let them near my family.
Mind the alligators, Malichai cautioned. No one's getting near your family. It's mine now too.
Wyatt slipped from the porch into the shadows. He disappeared, just like most of his kind could do.
Braden built his supersoldiers to be men with muscles and quick reflexes, but he left off other very important things. Wyatt, Trap and the rest of his team could outthink the soldiers coming for them. Braden already had proved he had no military background when he sent civilian guards in to look for Pepper and Ginger. He hadn't studied his enemy. He didn't know the first thing about Wyatt Fontenot. Braden had believed he was dealing with locals, and that meant Whitney hadn't told Braden about Wyatt.
Wyatt slipped under the pier into the murky water of the canal. He flinched a little thinking of the germs crawling into the mostly healed wounds on his body. Even a slight opening could mean infection. He made a mental note to give himself a hefty shot of antibiotics.
Braden had to know now he was dealing with more than local fishermen, but he still was not thinking like a soldier. He hadn't found their classified files and learned who he was dealing with; again, meaning Whitney wasn't giving him aid. Wyatt knew that because his sister-in-law, Flame, was hell on wheels with a computer and she would have warned him if his file had been compromised.
Keep talkin' so we know who needs help. Wyatt gave the standard order.
Two approaching from the south, Trap said. They're moving through the trees, but they're not coming in stealthy. They have big guns and they're big boys.
Remember the extra bone. I don' know what Braden mixed with it, but I shot that son of a bitch and knifed him. He kept gettin' back up, Wyatt reminded.
So aim for the Adam's apple, Draden said. See how thick that armor plate is.
The eye, the ear, Trap said. Interesting to see what they're made of.
If Wyatt could have rolled his eyes underwater, he would have. Of course Trap would want to autopsy one of the soldiers, dissect him and start figuring out just what Braden did to
them.
They heal incredibly fast, Wyatt reiterated. He's got them on some kind of supercharged drug to make that happen.
I'll get blood samples, Trap said, meaning it.
Trap was a ghost moving through the woods. They'd never see him until he was on them. He went into camps alone and came out when everyone was dead. Wyatt had never figured out how a man who could heal the way Trap was able to could kill without repercussions. Trap never seemed to have any.
Don' let anyone get close to the house, Wyatt cautioned.
Ezekiel was already making his way along the bottom of the canal, straight for the boat coming silently toward them. Wyatt followed close, keeping at Ezekiel's left shoulder, feeling for creatures in the water and broadcasting strongly for them to stay away. The boat was being powered by oars, moving very slowly so as not to create noise.
The moment they were near the boat, Ezekiel went under it, hugging the bottom, Wyatt beside him. They both stood at the same time, using powerful thighs and enhanced muscles to upend the boat and send the two soldiers flying into the water. Zeke yanked the automatic out of the nearest soldier's hands and was on him immediately. He took a breath and dragged the soldier under.
Wyatt swept the legs out from under the other soldier as he turned toward his partner, trying to get a clear shot at his attacker. He went under, but kept his hold on the automatic. Wyatt hooked him with a vicious grip around his throat. At the same time, he brought his knife up and slammed it into the man's left eye.
Blood in the water, he warned.
The soldiers fought to get free. Neither had the ability to stay under anywhere near as long as Wyatt and Ezekiel, but they were strong and they used their bodies and legs to try to propel their attackers backward, to make them lose footing so they could rise to the surface for air.
Wyatt plunged the knife again, looking for any soft spot he could think of. One where there might not be a covering of bone. Go low with the knife, thigh, calves, crotch. Go for the soft parts, eyes, mouth, try the throat.
Blood ran like a river and still both soldiers fought. In the end, it wasn't the loss of blood or the hideous wounds, it was the fact that neither could reach the surface for air. They simply drowned. Wyatt felt the soldier's frantic fight and then the last desperate heave for freedom before he seemed to succumb to the water filling his lungs.
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