CODE NAME: KAYLA’S FIRE
A Warrior’s Challenge Book 2
Natasza Waters
Sensual Romance
Secret Cravings Publishing
www.secretcravingspublishing.com
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A Secret Cravings Publishing Book
Sensual Romance
Code Name: Kayla’s Fire
Copyright © 2013 Natasza Waters
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-974-7
First E-book Publication: November 2013
Cover design by Dawné Dominique
Edited by Tamara Hoffa
Proofread by Laurie White
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Secret Cravings Publishing
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Secret Cravings Publishing
www.secretcravingspublishing.com
Dedication
To the men and women I serve beside. We are a working family. Together we watched our children grow, marriages begin and end, the senior hands retire, and took new recruits under our wings. Our ship might be sinking, but I would rather be up to my neck in water alongside you all, than to have never known you. Our parting will be bittersweet, but we did a lot of good,
and we did it together.
Safety first. Service always.
Acknowledgments
My first bow of thanks goes to my editor, Tamara Hoffa. She’s my friend, as well as my conscience, good sense, and master of the written word.
Molly Daniels, thank you, and your husband, for being my subject matter experts, and steering me back on course when I drifted.
My Street Team, Water’s Warriors, are a gifted group of women I can no longer live without, especially the captain of my team, Kimberly Hickey and executive officer Tonya Smalley.
I am especially honored by Apocalypso, Faith Martin. She is a very talented jewelry designer from New York who read Code Name: Ghost, and was inspired to design a line of beautiful pieces for each of the books in the Warrior’s Challenge series @ www.etsy.com.
As always, I thank my anchor, the man who puts up with a wife who’s in her writing lair for hours. With sheer bravery, he ventures inside to visit me, and is splattered with inane babbling and evolving plots.
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**Forget Me Not, paranormal erotic romance:
A war is brewing, a war that could destroy an entire vampire race if left unchecked, and Julian Marino has been requested to participate in it. He stops his search for a long time friend to go home and discovers there is more at stake than just his wants.
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CODE NAME: KAYLA’S FIRE
A Warrior’s Challenge Book 2
Natasza Waters
Copyright © 2013
Prologue
His special lady exited Base Command, and he watched. His pulse raced with a glimpse of her. Petty Officer Mace Callahan tossed Kayla’s bag into the backseat of his car. They couldn’t see him, sitting in his own vehicle, admiring her through the window of the vehicle parked next to him.
Alpha squad protected and fawned over her. Kayla was a challenge, yet everything he longed for. He wouldn’t rush. When he slowly angled the knife between skin and flesh, she would agree her death was just. When he was done, her body would be a work of art.
His heart skipped, remembering how close he’d come to having her. Because of her defiance, Kayla had slipped through his fingers. If she had listened to Austen and remained in his house, she would have been his to carve and teach at his leisure.
The coolness of the blade against his chest comforted him. Hidden in the special pocket he’d sewn into the interior of his jacket, it remained his most important tool. Like a painter’s brush, it stroked and sliced with beautiful perfection.
Kayla jumped into the passenger seat and drew her seatbelt. So many choices, but his heart had set itself on one extrao
rdinary example of femininity. The Lilith of all women. Kayla wound men around her finger, toyed with them and no doubt, tempted them to betray their wives or girlfriends. A shining example of treachery. Her aloof attitude made his blood boil. She needed his discipline. She needed him.
Captain Austen and Lieutenant Manchester were both spinning their wheels trying to catch him. The Navy had taught him well. He could avoid anyone who wanted to stop his important work. They didn’t understand his mission, the good he was doing on behalf of all of them. Hunting these women was a noble act. When they were in his possession, he showed them their failings, cut the darkness out of them, and each of them had bowed before him. He’d told each of his wives he loved them, but only fear reflected in their eyes.
He would take his time with Kayla, far longer than he took with the others. She was special, and he knew she wouldn’t break easily, but he would persevere until she did. As life left her, he would gaze into her defiant eyes and watch the blood drain from her body. He’d collect every precious drop. Kayla was wickedly beautiful, and she would be his prize for all the hard work he had done to rid the base of the women who walked among them with only betrayal in mind. Soon, his fellow combatants would thank him for disciplining these women.
Instead of driving Kayla back to the apartment, Mace turned his car, and headed for the entrance to the base. Mace, with his sharp sniper eyes, noticed him. Kayla leaned forward, and they both waved.
He smiled and waved back. “Patience,” he murmured to himself.
His mind whirled with frenzied possibilities. So fair. So immoral. He twisted the key and pulled out a few cars behind them to follow. Maybe today would be his lucky day, and Kayla, the lost lamb, would break from her pack. He would be waiting.
Of all the women who’d betrayed him, Kayla needed him the most. Her penance would redeem her, and she would never beguile a man again. He would skin the beauty from her, and leave the world with an image of what she truly was: deceitful, evil.
Chapter One
“What the hell is it with you two?” Mace griped, taking her bag, and tossing it in the backseat. “Every time you and the Captain have a fight, he takes it out on us. I ended up being volunteered to the MTS Master Training Specialist on the Grinder today working with a Phase One class, sweating bullets out my ass.”
Mace always picked her up, no matter what shift she worked, and drove her back to his place, which was ridiculous. He lived on the base, and within steps of Base Command, but those were his orders.
“If you’re talking about the overbearing egomaniac we all call Captain Austen, ask him.” She jumped in next to Mace, her mood morphing into a healthy case of cranky, knowing she had to face her small cell for the evening, aka Mace’s apartment. “Take me home, my home.”
“Nuuu, Kayla,” he said, knowing he’d be swimming to the Mexican border and back if he didn’t follow the Captain’s orders.
“Then let’s go out for dinner.”
“You sayin’ something’s wrong with my cooking?”
“No. It’s my turn to cook tonight.” Cooking was the last thing on her mind, but she was starving. She’d been too darn angry to eat after seeing Miss Sweater-too-tight sidling her perfect cosmopolitan figure against Thane. Carrie Watson, their new admin assistant, was turning up the heat. She could almost smell the sexual vapors coming off the woman. After Karen had been fired, Kayla hoped for a sixty-plus, tight-bunned, grandmotherly type. No such luck. Carrie had a silkworm smoothness that made her feel like an old frayed carpet. The woman wore her sweaters tight to show off her voluptuous “D” cups, and she constantly draped them in front of Thane.
“Afternoon, sir.” Mace waved at someone sitting in one of the parked cars, and she leaned forward, adding her own wave. Driving slowly past the gatehouse at the entrance to the base, and giving the guard a nod, Mace turned onto the Strand headed for town. “I’ve only got so much finesse in the kitchen, and you’ve had my spaghetti five times already.”
“Then let’s go to Old Town. I need something hot.”
Mace curled a brow, reaching for his phone. “Since when?”
“Don’t you dare call him, just drive.”
“Kayla, he’s gonna wig out.”
“I don’t care what he does—drive.”
Of course, Mace called him anyway. The traffic was heavy on the Coronado Bridge, and they followed a school bus filled with youngsters bouncing in their seats. Since time immemorial, kids waved at passing cars out the back of big yellow buses, and she waved back.
“He wants to talk to you,” Mace said, holding out his phone.
“I don’t want to talk to him.” She crossed her arms, and stared out the side window looking out over the bay.
“Sir, why am I stuck in the middle of this?” Mace asked, changing lanes trying to get away from the fumes of the bus. “So, let me get this right. I’m going on a date with your girlfriend.” Mace quickly pulled the phone from his ear.
“Give me that.” She brought it to her ear once the hollering stopped. “Are you finished yelling at Mace?”
“Kayla, just give me thirty minutes, and I’ll take you for dinner. I’m just giving…somebody a hand.”
“Giving who a hand?”
“Baby, thirty minutes.”
“Giving who a hand?” she pressed, her senses beginning to torque. Thane wasn’t the only one with ESP. He sounded…wrong.
The wind from the ocean whistled through the phone. “I’m helping someone with a flat. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”
“Who?” She knew the damn answer already.
“Miss Watson has a flat. I’ll be done here—”
The burn of jealousy in her belly flared to ignition like the hot flash on a fighter jet. She slammed the disconnect button, and smashed the phone on the dashboard.
“Hey, stand down girlfriend, that’s government property, ya know.” Mace snatched it away from her. “What the hell is the matter with you these days? You’re like a harpy from hell.”
Her gaze whipped to the window. Tears welled, and her guts squeezed so tight she felt like throwing up. The woman probably let the air out of her own tire. “I want to go home, Mace. Now!”
Mace’s phone rang. “Commander…sorry, Captain, Kayla wants to go home.” He paused. “Don’t think that’s going to happen, sir.” Mace paused again, chancing a careful look at her. “Because she’s crying.”
She didn’t even think before giving Mace a hard whack. Not that it would hurt him with muscles rolling off his broad shoulders like Popeye. Swiping a tear away, she grilled him with a look for squealing.
“She’s causing me bodily harm,” he added. “Yes, sir. We’re going to Old Town,” which earned him another glare. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”
Mace said it four more times, and she knew he was getting a mouthful of instructions about how to situate. How to make safe. How to strategize. Mace had been a SEAL for ten years, with a million dollars of training invested in him, along with specializing as a Sniper. He didn’t need a preschooler’s version of taking care of a prisoner, which is what she was these days. Mace rolled his eyes and said, “Yes, sir,” a final time then hung up. “Kayla, come on, he just wants you to be safe.” Mace squeezed her shoulder, then swiped a finger against her cheek.
“I am safe. You’ve all been treating me like some precious artifact. I hate it.”
Mace caught a break coming off the bridge, and changed lanes, overtaking several cars trudging their way home. “The Shark still has you in his line of sight. If he finds a breach in the fence, he’s going to go for it. Until we find him, you’re under lockdown, Snow White. So give the Captain a break—Shit!”
Mace’s hand shot out, grabbed the back of her neck, and yanked her toward him. The horrific sound of glass, metal and good luck, shattered, as a truck smashed into the passenger side of his car. She heard herself scream, a ripping pain tore down her side, and darkness enveloped her as fate stepped in to make a decision.
* * *
*
Waking up was hard to do, but she pulled herself from the plane of gray hearing Mace call her name.
“Don’t move, Kayla.”
Before opening her eyes, she shifted, waiting for any extreme damage to make itself known. Reaching to her left, she found Mace’s arm, and slid down to his wrist, stopping on his pulse.
“Stay still for a second. I’ll get you out of here,” Mace ordered, sounding like a SEAL instead of her best friend.
She opened her eyes and blinked. What a mess! Glass and twisted bits of metal sat on her lap, and across the crumpled dash. Her door bowed inward, leaving zero room. Mace gently swept the glass from her legs. She turned her head, and poked herself on a sharp piece of metal only inches from her temple.
“Whoa, close one.”
People gathered around the car, and a guy stuck his head in her window.
“Back off,” Mace growled, leveling his sig only inches from the guy’s face.
“Hey, man, I’m just trying to help,” the young guy said. “Easy.”
He looked like he’d just come from the beach, and he went cross-eyed looking into the end of the barrel. Mace kept the weapon steady until the guy backed off. “Put that away, Mace.”
“Kayla, are you all right?” he asked, stashing the weapon in his waistband.
“Think so. What the hell hit us?”
“Truck.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone,” he unsnapped her seatbelt, and then eased out of the car, swiping away the debris. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Code Name: Kayla's Fire Page 1