Selena blinked, confused. “No. Most people don’t who aren’t celebrities. Chris’s room was registered under a fake name though.”
“If the Corps already bribed those government people, then they might have your name.” Maximus retrieved his pants and shoved a leg into them. “Which means they can come here after you. And after hearing those guards, I’m certain it’s the Corps.”
Selena sighed and dropped back onto the bed. She’d been convinced that their passion led to a deep connection, but apparently it was one-sided. Maximus wanted to protect her, not for her to be part of his life. Not dying sounded nice, though.
“Where do you want to take me then?” she asked.
“My hotel room.”
“What about the other guy who doesn’t like me?”
“I’m in command,” Maximus growled. He took a deep breath before finishing with his pants and grabbing his boots. “I need all my men for the raid, so I can’t guarantee you any guards, but you’ll be safer there than waiting here for someone to knock down the door and drag you off.”
“And you’re sure about not calling the police?” Selena forced herself out of bed. Whatever was going to happen would require her to be dressed, whether going with Maximus or making sure she wasn’t dragged off and thrown into a cell naked.
“We can’t be sure who to trust, and even if they’re on our side, if we get them involved, they might not let us raid the Corps right away. They could scurry off if we wait too long.” Maximus laced his boots. “This is a hybrid matter, and hybrids should take care of it.”
“Fair enough.” Selena looked around, frowning. She couldn’t find her panties. After half-circling the bed, she found them bunched up on the floor and grabbed them.
“Leave everything here,” Maximus said. “If someone breaks in, we don’t want it to be obvious that you’re hiding out. All it takes are small clues to tip off the enemy.”
Selena laughed and shrugged. “It’ll be an easy night, then. I don’t have to worry about my job anymore, and I can sit in your room watching bad reality TV.”
* * *
Selena stayed close to Maximus as they entered the hotel room. He’d offered a rhythmic knock, and CJ peeked out before ushering them inside and quickly closing the door. She could see why they didn’t want anyone getting a good look. Six hybrids filled the room. Rifles sat on the desks, table, and beds, along with ammo. Tactical vests with an insane number of pockets lay strew over the edge of the beds. Laptops on the desks relayed drone feeds from the forest, some normal, some in the eerie contrast of thermal-viewing modes. These were men getting ready for battle. It looked like an Army command center.
Of the six men in the room, she knew Maximus, CJ, Cornelius, and Tiberius already, or at least their names. The two men she didn’t recognize included a younger man with brown hair and a black man with a shaved head who somehow managed to look even more muscular than Maximus. The first man looked close to CJ’s age, probably in his mid-twenties, but the buff hybrid looked a few years older like the rest.
Cornelius frowned at Selena before turning to Maximus. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”
“No, but it’s better than letting her get picked up by the Group,” Maximus said. With his hand on her shoulder, he gently glided her to the only chair not filled with equipment. “It’s too late now to pretend she isn’t involved.”
Tiberius gave an easy smile and bowed with theatrical flourish. “Welcome, Selena. Sorry you got caught up in all this.”
“It’s not your fault.” Selena offered him a sheepish smile. “This is the result of me being too stubborn.”
“Nothing wrong that,” CJ said, inserting a magazine into his rifle with a loud slap. “Stubborn people change the world.”
The other younger-looking hybrid cleared his throat. “Anyone going to introduce us?”
Maximus gestured to the man. “Selena, this is Decimus. The other guy is Zephyrus.”
Decimus winked. “Nice to meet you.”
Selena almost laughed. There was something about a man that large doing a playful wink that seemed ridiculous. Fortunately, Zephyrus didn’t wink. He offered her a polite nod before returning to stuffing ammo in the pockets of a vest.
Maximus stepped in front of Selena and glared at Decimus. The other hybrid looked away, a chagrined look on his face. She cocked her head confused and then smiled. Warmth spread through her. It was nice to be wanted enough for men to fight over her. She would hang on to that fantasy until someone corrected her otherwise.
“Is this going to be enough guys?” she asked. “I know you’re hybrids and all, but only six people?”
Cornelius snorted. “We’ve got twelve, woman.”
“Be nice, Cornelius,” Decimus said.
Maximus grunted. His stern look made Cornelius turn away. “He’s right, Selena. We’ve got a team of twelve here. The others are in different rooms getting ready.” He inclined his head toward large black garment bags hanging in the closet. “We’ll put our go gear in there, and take it to the cars before finishing up readying on site, but twelve hybrids is more than enough to take down whatever little shithole facility they’ve got hidden in that forest.”
Selena stood and walked closer to one of the laptops. The drone feed didn’t show anything out of the ordinary.
“And you’re sure they’re not going to run? They’ve probably got underground tunnels or something, right?”
CJ cleared his throat. “We’ve swept drones over that place, and there’s no activity, but we also spotted a couple of new-looking cameras. They might have expanded some of the old Army underground tunnels in the area. The question is what they’ve done with those.”
“Not enough,” rumbled Zephyrus with a nod.
Tiberius grinned. “Exactly. No way those Corps bastards are getting away this time.”
“Not that I necessarily approve of the idea,” Selena began, “but have you thought about just dropping a bunch of big bombs on them now that you know where they are?”
Cornelius snickered. “Does it look like we brought a bunch of bombs?”
“Well, no.” Selena ran her tongue inside her cheek. “But don’t you have like grenades or other stuff that blows up?”
Decimus held up what looked like a small gray putty tube. “C-4? Yeah, we’ve got that.”
Maximus gave her a quizzical look. Selena grimaced and went back to her chair. She was an unemployed production assistant, not an expert on forest warfare. The hybrids probably thought she was an idiot for asking.
“It’s a good idea,” Maximus said. “Especially since they aren’t prepping external defenses.”
Cornelius stepped forward. “Wait one—”
Maximus silenced him with a finger before refocusing on Selena. “But we need to be sure, and we don’t want a lot of collateral damage. We can’t guarantee there’s no captive Vestals with them, and we can’t guarantee we won’t start a fire. Sometimes overwhelming force isn’t the solution, even when it seems like the easiest one.”
Selena’s stomach twisted. “Captive Vestals? Of course. I should have thought of that. I read in the news about how those gangsters who were working with the Horatius Group were holding Vestals. It only makes sense the Corps would do the same thing.”
She’d been such an idiot. When Maximus described the Phoenix Corps, she’d let herself believe this was all about revenge, but of course he’d want his chance to find his Vestal. She’d talked him into sex, but that didn’t mean they had a relationship. Just because she loved him didn’t mean he loved her.
Her heart exploded into a gallop. She loved him. It didn’t make sense. She barely knew him. How had she let herself fall in love with him already?
Yes, he was a wonderful, brave man who was passionate about protecting his people and considerate of her. He’d made sure to protect her and respect her opinion, but that couldn’t be enough to fall in love with him. That was insane.
The situation must have overwhe
lmed her. That could be the only explanation. It wasn’t like she was his Vestal. Even if he was different from the Luna hybrids, there would be something. He would have known. She might not understand a lot about how bonding worked, but that much seemed obvious.
Maximus crouched by her. “What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing.” Selena looked down in her hands in her lap. “It’s just overwhelming. Meeting not one hybrid but a bunch. Some evil bad guys hiding in the forest. Losing my job.” She let out a strangled laugh. “And that last one actually seems like it’s not that important.”
“I can imagine.” He looked over his shoulder and nodded to Tiberius. “Make sure all the teams are ready to go. We’ll move out in an hour.”
“I’ll go check on the others now.” Tiberius headed to the door.
Maximus smiled at Selena. “As for you, you’ll stay here and keep safe.” He leaned forward and parted her lips with his tongue.
She gasped into the kiss, though it wasn’t the commanding, passionate overwhelming experience of earlier. It was gentle, sweet, as if he knew what she was thinking and trying to remind her she was important. She dared to hope that was true.
Maximus pulled away and stood, heading over toward one of the vests. Selena sat there, blinking, her breathing shallow, not noticing anything at first but then realizing something was wrong. Every other hybrid in the room was staring at her.
“Get back to work,” Maximus barked. “We don’t have much time until the raid.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sitting in the car next to Tiberius, Maximus stared at the blobs of color in the drone feed on his laptop. An occasional red and orange small shape would move through, an animal, but he was more interested in the slight differentials near the center of the feed, a large rectangular shape that edged toward light orange before bleeding into the more uniform greens and blues of the background. He’d already been convinced the encounter with the guards wasn’t an accident, but this latest intel confirmed it.
He pointed at the monitor. “That’s not changed. It’s got to be an entrance.”
Tiberius nodded his agreement. “But we’ve not seen any movement otherwise. Maybe it’s the back.”
“Does it matter?” Cornelius asked from the backseat. “They’re obviously waiting for us. They know we’re coming. They probably already spotted all our cars. That’s why we’re not seeing any movement.”
“If they had total coverage of this entire forest from every angle, they would have stopped Selena and me a lot earlier,” Maximus said with a shake of his head. “They wouldn’t have let us wander right up to a door, front or back.”
“We saw nothing on the way here, and we’ve had no movement for twenty minutes since arrival.” Cornelius pointed to the screen. “Unless we’re going to run, we might as well make our move.”
“Agreed.” Maximus closed the screen and stuffed a sat phone into a vest pocket. “Let’s arm up and move out. We wouldn’t want Doctor Quinen to have to wait too long for his reunion.”
* * *
The hybrids traveled along on a quick pace, not sprinting, but not doing much to keep the thuds of twelve large men’s boots hitting the ground combined with the jangle of their equipment from not scaring animals or announcing their arrival. The normally placid night forest became as active during the day as small creatures fled the advance of Alpha Squad.
The night’s shadows were deep even before the squad entered the forest proper. Any normal human would have been blind without a flashlight or night-vision goggles, but Alpha Squad continued along without any concern, their hybrid night vision unencumbered. No contacts. No sunglasses. Just their full potential. True darkness might have been enough to stop them, but the thin strands of star- and moonlight making it through the tree canopy was enough to keep the hybrids moving without trouble..
When they were created from genetic tampering of normal embryos, they’d been intended to be the perfect warriors, stronger and faster than normal humans and able to deal with difficulties such as nighttime assaults. Now the hybrids were using those same abilities to hunt the people who had ripped away their freedom and tried to control their destinies. Maximus enjoyed that realization.
The advancing hybrids traveled in three small teams spaced at least ten yards away from one another. Their smaller groups formed a rough triangle, with Maximus at the front leading CJ, Cornelius, and Tiberius. Every man present wore a bulletproof vest with tactical harness overlay, the pouches filled with extra ammo magazines for their rifles, along with flashbangs and grenades. Knives and backup pistols hung in sheaths and holsters in their belts, but for now, everyone had their rifles out. Hybrid strength was always useful, but a good bullet to the brain was as effective a way of killing a man as kicking him into a tree. If they ended up in a major firefight, they weren’t going to lose from traveling light.
“So, we not going to talk about it at all?” Tiberius asked, glancing over at Maximus.
“Talk about what?” Maximus asked.
“I thought you would say something in the car. The elephant in the hotel room.”
Maximus narrowed his eyes, more confused than annoyed. “Again, about what?”
“The woman,” Tiberius said, an amused undertone to his voice. “That kiss was something, and you should have showered before showing up. We can smell what you were up to.”
Maximus wanted to tell him to shut the hell up and concentrate on the mission, but that would be hypocritical. He’d not been concentrating on the mission when he had sex with Selena. Anything he did as their leader might involve them and risk their safety and freedom. There was no such thing as a private personal life for the Alpha Squad hybrids.
“What about her?” Maximus muttered.
“She’s not your Vestal,” Cornelius said. “You shouldn’t be wasting time with non-Vestals, though I guess this proves we can thanks to whatever they did to us.”
“We don’t know that,” CJ said with a shrug. “That she’s not his Vestal.”
Maximus gritted his teeth. They were charging through the forest to deal with the remnants of their creators and potentially capture their top scientist, and they were all dissecting his personal life. It went well beyond absurd.
“She doesn’t smell like a Vestal,” Cornelius said with a scoff.
“Because we can’t smell Vestals anymore,” CJ said with a grunt. “But if they really are meant for us and us for them, why would smelling them make any difference? It’s not like those guys at Luna Lodge went hunting around for any of them until way later. The original Vestals just ended up around them. That’s got to mean something.”
“Give a break.” Cornelius let out a cruel, harsh laugh. “You actually believe that crap about destiny? Vestals are just about genetic compatibility, nothing more.”
None of the other hybrids in the two other groups offered their opinions, but there was a difference between the light murmur the forward group was doing and shouting from ten yards away in terms of the mission. Running didn’t mean they needed to shout and draw attention.
It might have been simpler than that. Maybe no one else wanted to annoy Maximus by asking him about sleeping with Selena. He appreciated their perceived restraint.
Tiberius gave a thoughtful look. “Whether it’s destiny or genetics, the question comes down to if we’re going to wait for women who might never come.”
“Nothing wrong with a little fun in the meantime if that’s the case,” CJ said. “Now that we know it’ll work.”
“Work?” Cornelius shook his head. “It’s not—"
“Enough,” Maximus snapped. “I fucked up, but this isn’t the time to talk about it. We still have the mission.”
“You did some fucking all right,” Tiberius mumbled. He looked away when Maximus glared at him.
Selena his Vestal? The idea was absurd. Maximus enjoyed the sex, more than enjoyed it, in fact, but that wasn’t the same thing as the woman being his soulmate. He wouldn’t deny if pressed at a
more appropriate time that he already missed her and wanted to spend more time with her, but this didn’t feel like the all-encompassing love that accompanied a Vestal-hybrid bonding. That had to be proof they weren’t meant for each other.
Still, something bugged him. He’d gone from attracted to her to sleeping with her at record speed and even now he ached to return and have more fun in the bedroom.
Maximus bit back a growl. He wanted to believe in destiny like CJ, but their destiny thus far had been cruel and unforgiving. Trusting the world to deliver their mates didn’t make sense. They’d been free of the Corps for a while and hadn’t stumbled upon their own Vestals. They’d even participated in rescue missions and only managed to find other hybrids’ Vestals yet not their own. If anything, the universe was mocking their plight.
No. Destiny wasn’t kind. There was no such thing. There was only taking destiny into their own hands like now.
They would find Quinen, and they’d make him fix what he’d done.
* * *
The hybrids surrounded the hidden entrance. Maximus double-checked the drone feed on his sat phone confirming its location. Now that they were close and looking, they could make out the slight disturbances in the soil marking their way in. The door was huge, large enough for vehicles, making Maximus wonder about why it needed to be that large. He’d not been watching the feeds the entire time, but he’d had Decimus and Seneca both keeping an eye on the drone feeds in case their prey decided to not stick around for a group of angry, heavily armed hybrids to show up and deliver the pain.
Maximus slung his rifle over his shoulder, crouched, and felt along the ground until he found a latch. He yanked it up with a grunt before tracing along the cool, wet metal until he found a latch on the other side.
He tilted his head. “Not hearing or feeling anything that might be an alarm.”
Maximus: #1 (Luna Lodge: Alpha Squad) Page 14