Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5)

by Paige Tyler

  Beside the carpet, there was a half-filled bottle of water, a stack of candy bars, and some torn strips of material from what looked like a T-shirt. She grabbed the water and material and walked back into the main room. Kneeling down in front of Jayson again, she gently began to clean the wounds. Looking at them still made her feel a little ill, and she forced herself to focus on something else. Like Jayson’s legs. Even as crazy as the situation was, there was still something sexy about being so close to all that muscle. Other than when he wore shorts, she’d never really gotten a very good look at his legs. He had some seriously sexy thighs, wounded or not.

  She did her best to keep her eyes averted from his underwear—and everything in there that seemed to be working hard to get out. Yet something else she hadn’t seen much of lately. Oh, if this had been another place, another time.

  “How did you find me anyway?” he said as she wiped away the crusted blood that had dried on his leg. “And what are you doing in Donetsk by yourself?”

  Layla had been wondering when they’d have to talk about this stuff. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that this time, at least, neither one of them would be able to walk out on the other.

  “Finding you was the easy part,” she said. “The whole town is buzzing with stories about the gunfight you and Powell got into with the militia soldiers. I eavesdropped enough to figure out where it started, then followed your scent from there. I lost it for a while on the building where you and Powell split up.”

  “We didn’t exactly split up.” Jayson let out a harsh laugh. “The asshole thought we were about to be captured and decided he should kill me before that happened since I’m a shifter now.”

  She stopped working and looked up at him in shock. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  He snorted. “I wish I could. Son of a bitch tried to shoot me. I kicked him in the chest, then took off.”

  Layla felt her claws and fangs extend as the urge to track Powell down and tear him to shreds almost overwhelmed her. The only thing that kept her from standing up and leaving the dark basement right then was the fact that she was still bandaging Jayson’s leg.

  She took a deep breath, retracting her claws and focusing on Jayson’s warm skin under her fingers as she tended to his wound. It took a while before she was finally able to look at Jayson without her fangs protruding past her lower lip.

  “I guess I don’t have to be concerned about your feelings when I tell you that I’m pretty sure Powell is dead,” Layla said. “There was a lot of his blood on the roof as well as scuff marks where they dragged him away.”

  Jayson’s jaw tightened. “I’m just sorry I didn’t kill him myself. That guy was the biggest douchebag I’ve ever met—and I’ve met a lot.”

  She ran the cloth tenderly over the ragged part of the exit wound. “I just about freaked out when I realized you’d been shot.”

  He grimaced. “Getting shot wasn’t exactly part of the plan, but at least I was over the river when I fell. If I’d slipped off that pipe two or three steps earlier… I don’t like to think how bad it would have been.”

  Layla didn’t like thinking about it either. “I’m just amazed you were able to swim all the way across that river. It must have been hard as hell.”

  She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, worried he’d think she was implying he was too injured to handle a physically demanding task like swimming. But instead he nodded and casually reached down to caress her hair.

  “It was an ass kicker,” he admitted. “But it wasn’t like I had a lot of options. If I stayed on the other side of the river, the militia would have caught me at some point. Besides, the kids were on this side, so I had to make it.”

  The image of Jayson struggling to swim across the river in the dark, fighting to keep his head above water, made it hard to breathe. Tears filled her eyes and she was glad it was too dark for Jayson to see her face completely.

  She finished wrapping the bandage around his leg in silence, then got to her feet. “There. I snugged it a little tighter to keep it from sliding down when you move, but you should stay off it for a while longer.”

  “I can do that. We’ve been waiting for it to calm down a little out there anyway.” He frowned as he pulled up his jeans. “By the way, I didn’t miss the fact that you never answered the second part of my question.”

  She’d hoped that with all the talk about Powell and the swim across that river, Jayson had forgotten that. Guess she wasn’t that lucky. She busied herself with folding up the old bandage. “There was a second part?”

  He bent his head so he could catch her eyes in the dim light from the flashlight. “Uh-huh. The part about what you’re doing in Donetsk by yourself.”

  Oh yeah, that had been the question she’d been ducking. She didn’t know how to answer it without starting another argument. How could she tell him she’d been terrified he’d have some kind of horrible reaction to the hybrid serum or get hurt over here without him thinking she was questioning his abilities…or thought of him as nothing more than a cripple? God, she hated that word.

  She tossed the strips of cloth in the corner and turned to meet his gaze. “I tried to call you a couple times when I was coming back from my mission, and when you didn’t answer, I got worried. All I could think about was that fight we’d had and the things we had said to each other—and you saying you were seriously considering taking Dick’s hybrid serum.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said, his voice heavy with regret. “I never meant for any of that stuff to come out the way it did. Especially not right before you had to leave on your mission.”

  Layla nodded, believing that he really was sorry.

  “I was worried when I got back to the complex and Kendra told me you’d taken the hybrid serum, then headed straight out the door on a mission with Powell,” she continued. “I got this horrible feeling that something bad was going to happen and knew I had to come find you.”

  And now he’d think she believed he’d been duped into taking the drug. Or that he was too handicapped to take care of himself. Great.

  But he surprised her. “I can’t really say you were wrong, can I? Powell tried to kill me, I got shot and chased over half the city, and this is anything but the simple mission Dick said it was. So I’d have to say that your instincts were right. Though I am a little amazed John sent you over here by yourself. Your mission must have gone really well.”

  She couldn’t keep from wincing. Unfortunately, Jayson saw.

  “What happened?” he asked, concern in his blue eyes. “Did something go wrong in Glasgow?”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “The mission went okay. I mean, the arms dealer, Kojot, got away, but that was only because he’s a shifter and knew we were there before we even got close to him. I stopped some bad guys from getting away with a shipment of surface-to-air missiles. That felt good.”

  Jayson lifted an eyebrow. “But?”

  She bit her lip. “When I told John that Dick sent you and Powell over here on a shoestring mission and that I wanted to come over to help, he said no. He said he’d reroute Clayne and Danica here instead. I tried to tell him that they’d probably be completely off the grid trying to catch up to Kojot, but he said it didn’t matter, that I wasn’t ready for a solo mission.”

  The expression on his face told her Jayson already knew where this was going. “But you came anyway?”

  “Yeah. Kendra got me on the next plane out.”

  Jayson shook his head. “You’re insane. Why would you do something like this?”

  “Because you’re the most important person in the world to me,” she said. “I couldn’t just wait around the DCO complex to see if you we’re going to make it back okay. I had to do something.”

  She hadn’t meant it to come out so sharply, but Jayson only smiled and pulled her into his arms. Not that she m
inded being there again, but she couldn’t help being confused. A few days ago, he would have flipped out.

  “You had to do something because you were worried about me and couldn’t stand the idea of waiting around, hoping for the best, huh? Feeling powerless to protect the person you care about?”

  Layla wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but he was right. Powerless was exactly how she’d felt. “I know it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, but I had to come after you, no matter how insane it might seem.”

  Jayson pulled back a little and gently lifted her chin with his fingers. “Actually, it makes a lot of sense. I understand doing something totally insane—like taking an untested drug on the off chance it might heal your back. At least enough to get you back into the field again so you can be partners with the most important woman in your life.”

  Everything stopped then—except for her heart. It started thumping harder and harder until she was sure even Jayson could hear it.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Are you saying that you took the hybrid serum because Dick told you we could be partners?”

  “If I proved myself in the field—yes.” He must have seen the dubious look on her face because he shook his head. “I’m not stupid, Layla. I know you think he’s manipulating me to get what he wants. Maybe he is. But that’s okay because I’m using him to get what I want, too. I want to be healthy enough to go out and watch your back in the field.”

  She couldn’t believe they were talking about this so calmly. Jayson had taken a drug that could have killed him just so he could be her partner? That was beyond insane. “How do you even know Dick will keep his word?”

  “I don’t, but I had to believe in something.” Jayson cupped her face. “You remember how you felt when you found out that I had gone out with Powell? Well, I’ve been having those same feelings every minute of the day since you first told me that you were going to start field training. I laid awake at night thinking of you getting teamed up with a jackass who wouldn’t even treat you like a human, much less a partner. That someone like Powell or Moore would shoot you in the back because the DCO has that stupid policy about not letting shifters get exposed.”

  She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I never knew you were worried about who my partner would be. Why didn’t you ever talk to me about it?”

  “What would we have talked about? You probably don’t get a lot of say in who your partner is, and I get none at all. And until Dick offered me the hybrid serum, the idea of me being your partner was ludicrous.”

  Jayson slipped his hand into her hair and tilted her head back. In the dim light of the flashlight, she knew her irises were probably glowing green, but he didn’t look away. Her eyes had never made him nervous, no more than her fangs and claws ever did.

  “When Dick offered me the serum, I knew I had to risk it,” he said. “For a chance to be strong enough to be your partner, to be at your side, to protect you and be with you—really be with you. That’s more than I ever dreamed possible.”

  Layla cupped her scruffy jaw in her hand. “But you could have died, Jayson. When they initially gave you the serum or the first time your adrenaline started surging. That’s part of the reason I felt I had to get here as fast as I could. I need to get you back to Zarina before it’s too late.”

  He rested his forehead against hers, his scent washing over her and pushing every other smell far into the background. For a moment, it seemed almost possible to forget where there were and what they doing. All she wanted to do was breathe him in and let the rest of the world worry about itself for a while.

  “I know I scared you, Layla, and I’m sorry about that,” he whispered. “But I didn’t die. The serum worked. My back isn’t healed—not all the way—but the pain is bearable. I know I’ll never have claws and fangs or be able to throw people around like Clayne or Declan or Tanner can do. I won’t be able to jump off a three-story building or jump twenty feet, or sniff out a bad guy hidden in a closet, like you or Ivy, either. But I’m upright and mobile. I ran for a couple miles yesterday and leaped ten feet onto a small pipe, keeping my balance as I ran across it. Then I fell into the water from three stories up and swam for half a mile or more in a strong current. I could never have done any of those things before. The serum worked, at least well enough for me to be your partner and stand at your side.”

  They were too close for her to hide her tears. Layla tried to blink them away, but more took their place. In her heart, she knew Jayson wasn’t simply talking about being her DCO partner or him physically standing at her side. He was saying he finally felt worthy of being with her. It made her furious knowing he’d thought that he wasn’t before, but then she remembered what Danica had said about him needing purpose, a reason to keep going through all the crap he had to live with.

  Tears ran down Layla’s cheeks as she realized that Jayson had finally found his purpose—to be her partner and watch her back. Now she was the one who didn’t feel worthy. Jayson had been willing to die for a chance to have this with her. What had she ever done to deserve that kind of devotion? Jayson might not have said the words, and maybe he wouldn’t be able to for a long time to come, but he loved her. She knew it in her heart.

  As amazing as the moment was, there was a little voice in the back of her mind urging her to tell Jayson about the antidote Zarina had given him. What if he went charging into a situation thinking his newfound hybrid abilities would save him? What if he found out that he was still an amazing former Special Forces soldier with a back that had been shredded by shrapnel? Didn’t she have an obligation to tell him the truth?

  As she stood there in his arms, breathing in his scent, his lips only inches from hers, she knew she couldn’t do it. She could never destroy the slender poles of hope he’d used to prop up his life again.

  In reality, she had no way of knowing if the serum helped. Even though she couldn’t smell even a tiny trace of shifter or hybrid scent on him, there could be something buried way down deep. What if it had healed his back or taken away a part of his pain? Heck, what if the only thing the serum had done was make him believe in himself? Did she have a right to take any of those things away from him? Did she even want to?

  She couldn’t risk putting him into a tailspin, not when he’d just started to believe in himself. And not while they were all alone in the middle of a war-torn city with soldiers all around who would gladly kill them on sight if they caught them.

  “We’ve both been running around worrying about the other person all along, risking our lives for each other,” he said softly, as if he were hesitant to speak for fear of ruining the mood, “when what we should have been doing is talking.”

  Layla smiled through her tears. “If I’d known that all it would take to get us talking is a romantic getaway to a bombed-out part of Eastern Europe, I would have gotten Kendra to set it up a long time ago.”

  “Romantic, huh?” He smiled. “I like romantic.”

  Jayson bent his head and kissed her, his mouth moving over hers sweetly as his hands tightened in her hair. Layla moaned, her hand going to his belt. She was ready to strip off his clothes and make love to him right there in the middle of the devastated library when the sound of multiple feet coming their way caught her attention. Seconds later, footsteps descended the stairs. She and Jayson reluctantly pulled away from each other.

  “So, when do you think you’ll be strong enough to walk out of here?” she asked Jayson as the three teens came into the basement.

  Two more flashlights turned on, illuminating the room better. Layla blinked. She’d been able to see in the dark for so long that she sometimes forgot what it was like to need lights to see.

  “I could probably make it out of here by morning,” Jayson said. “But we can’t leave until we find Dylan’s girlfriend.”

  She did a double take. “Girlfriend?”

  “You didn’t tell her about
Anya?” Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell were you two talking about all this time if it wasn’t Anya?”

  Layla had to resist the urge to flash her eyes at him. “Other things,” she said. “Now, tell me about Anya and how she ended up missing.”

  Chapter 7

  “Layla’s going to be okay.”

  Ivy wished she could be as sure of that as Landon. Despite how good her sister had looked in training, Layla wasn’t ready to be in the field alone. Now, thanks to Jayson’s selfish and irresponsible decision, she was in the middle of a war-torn country. If Jayson were there right then, Ivy would have decked him.

  Okay, maybe not. But she was still mad as hell at him. If something happened to Layla…

  “Come on,” Landon said, interrupting her thoughts. Turning off the engine, he reached over to take her hand. “The faster we wrap this thing up with Thorn, the faster we can get over to Ukraine.”

  Fat chance of that, Ivy thought. Even if she hadn’t smelled the unmistakable stench of death the moment she and Landon got out of the black SUV, all they had to do was follow the crime tape to the group of detectives and crime scene techs clustered together on the shore of the Potomac to know things with this investigation were only going to get messier. Braden Hayes was standing off to one side talking on his cell phone.

  “Is it the shifter?” Landon asked as he fell into step beside her.

  If they’d been anywhere else but at a crime scene, Ivy might have smiled. She’d had partners before Landon, and none of them would ever have considered asking that. Because no one before Landon had taken the time to learn and understand what she or any other shifter was capable of. It was one of the many reasons she loved him so much.

  “No,” she said softly. “The victim isn’t female either.”

  She and Landon made their way through the crowd of onlookers there to gawk and flashed their Homeland Security badges at the uniformed officer guarding the crime scene. He glanced at the badges, then held up the tape so they could duck underneath.