The Darkling Hunters_Fox Company Alpha

by Rhiannon Ayers

  She grimaced and gave him a sideways look. “Think about it, Sam. What else could he be doing but making himself an army?”

  Silence.

  Sam shifted, leaning forward to balance his elbows on his knees. “How do you know him, Syd? Why are you chasing him?”

  The twisted smile stayed perfectly in place. “Why, the most cliché reason of all. He killed my family.”

  Dex sucked in a shocked breath just as Sam sat straight with alarm. “What?” Sam exclaimed. “When did this happen?”

  Sydney waved a dismissive hand. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now. But Levi is the reason I became a darkling hunter. He’s the one I’ve been tracking, chasing, all this time. Oh, sure, I took down plenty of normal darklings along the way. That guy in Arkansas was particularly satisfying. But Levi has always been my number one target.

  “And this is the first time I’ve been close. I mean, really close. Close enough to take him out, if I can find a way to get past his defenses. That’s what I was working on when you guys showed up.” She smiled a little. “Bad timing.”

  “I say good timing,” Dex said fiercely. “Do you have any idea how long the DEA has been looking for the source of the darkling infestation? We can call Boss right now and—”

  “No.” Her voice went frigid, cold enough to make the hairs on Dex’s neck stand up. “If you try to bring the DEA into this, I will walk away from both of you for good. They can’t be allowed to get within ten feet of Levi.”

  “But why?” Sam demanded. “The DEA has resources—”

  “You tried that line before, and I didn’t buy it. No. Absolutely not. They cannot even be allowed to know Levi exists, do you understand me? I took a risk even telling you two. We cannot risk him falling into their hands.”

  “This is about more than your personal vendetta,” Dex said harshly. “This asshole has been stealing peoples’ souls, for crying out loud. We have to stop him.”

  “No, I have to stop him.” The looks she gave him could have melted iron.

  “Syd—” Dex began.

  “Why don’t you want the DEA involved?” Sam interrupted him. “I know you don’t like government interference, but—”

  “Tell me, Sam. Does the DEA always send you to kill darklings?” She glared at him as she said it, obviously knowing the answer beforehand.

  Sam straightened just a little. “Well…no…”

  “What happens to the ones who aren’t killed outright, Sam Spencer?” Those eyes gleamed with fury. “What happens to the ones who are captured instead of killed?”

  Sam and Dex exchanged a look. Sam swallowed, then grimaced. “They’re taken to Fort Stockton. In Texas.”

  “And what happens to them there?”

  Sam’s nose wrinkled with distaste. “The DEA has been trying to figure out what makes darklings tick for the last fifty years. They get…experimented on. Studied. Dissected.”

  “And what do you think will happen when you tell them you found a darkling-maker, Sam? Do you think they’ll issue a kill order? Or subdue and capture?”

  Both men went quiet.

  Sydney laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “Exactly.”

  Dex cleared his throat. “It’s not exactly paradise, Syd. The things the scientists do to the darklings…” He paused for a shiver. “He’ll definitely suffer if that’s what you’re—”

  “You think I care what will happen to him?” Her voice rose an octave, and she let out a sardonic scoff. “Think, Dex. This guy has the power to drain men’s souls—and the DEA doesn’t know how it works. They won’t be able to stop him from using his power on the very scientists who are trying to study him. What happens after he turns everyone in that lab into a darkling? What happens after he gets loose and starts using his power on the rest of the idiots at the DEA?”

  “They can put him under, or maybe, I don’t know, keep him in a coma, or…” Dex trailed off, frowning as he thought hard.

  But she shook her head. “He doesn’t need to be conscious to use his abilities. Most of what he does is passive—just being near Levi is enough to lose part of your soul. Why do you think I’ve kept my distance? Why do you think I’ve been looking for a way to sneak up on him?”

  “If he’s so dangerous, why hasn’t he attacked us before?” Sam demanded. “With power like that, he could just walk into the White House and drain the fucking president.”

  She gave him a sardonic look. “Because, like most other creatures on this earth, he can be stopped by these little things called bullets. Maybe you’ve heard of them? Levi is powerful, but not invulnerable. He values his petty little life too much to risk his precious person. That’s why he’s building an army. Fodder for the meat-grinder, so he can stay in the background and work his little schemes.”

  Dex snarled, pushed himself off the couch, and started pacing frantically. “There has to be a way. We have to take this guy down, Syd.”

  “And I will,” she said. “As long as you two and your precious DEA don’t interfere.”

  Dex growled with frustration.

  “You said a darkling-maker,” Sam said suddenly, out of nowhere. Dex and Syd both turned to look at him.

  Syd seemed to catch his drift long before Dex would have. “I did.”

  “So…that means there’s more than one of them out there.” His face had lost all color.

  Sydney paused for a heartbeat. Then she nodded.

  Dex started cursing.

  “Levi is the one who matters right now,” Sydney said. “I can, and will, take him out. But I can’t do that if you two threaten to bring in the DEA. I will not let him fall into their hands. So if you feel you have no choice but to report this to your superiors, I will understand.” But then her eyes and her voice hardened. “And I will walk out that door and never look back.”

  Dex stopped pacing and looked toward Sam, but it wasn’t even a question—Sam was nodding even before their eyes met.

  “We’ll have to tell them something,” Sam said after a moment. When Sydney shot him a glare, he held up a hand. “Boss sent us out here to case that roadside bar. Now that the bar is, uh, gone, we’ll have to give him a reason to keep us out here.”

  Sydney went back to picking at the loose thread. “Oh, gee, I never thought of that. Well, if you have to leave…”

  “No fucking way,” Dex snarled. “We’re in it now, Syd, just like you said. We’re here, and we are backing you up.”

  “This isn’t your fight.”

  “Like hell, it isn’t!” Dex marched over to her chair, braced his hands on the armrests, and leaned over her, putting his face right up to hers. “This bastard hurt you. You, Syd. If you think for one second we could leave this place with that fuck-wad still breathing, you have not been paying attention.”

  She stared into his eyes for a long, tense moment. Then she lifted a hand, caressed his cheek, and said with an ironic little smile, “My knights in shining armor.”

  “Damn fucking straight,” Sam said, using the same tone Dex just had. “And don’t you forget it, because we sure as hell won’t.”

  The tableau held like that, with Dex leaning over her, until Sydney’s bravado finally failed her. She patted his cheek and looked aside. “All right. I saw a fast food joint across the street. I’m going to pick up some food. You two figure out what you’re going to say to your boss. After that, we should try and get a little rest. The next phase of the mission won’t come into play until nightfall.”

  “What’s the next phase of the mission?” Dex asked, straightening before giving her a hand up.

  She grabbed her wallet out of her duffle bag and shot him a look. “I’ll tell you when it matters. Don’t push me, Dex. Not now.”

  She left before either man could think of a thing to say.

  Dex stared at the closed door, then turned to his partner and heaved a huge sigh. “What do you make of all that? The stuff she told us about darklings, I mean?”

  “I think there’s a lot Syd k
nows about that she hasn’t told us yet,” Sam said grimly. His silver-gray eyes looked more like pitted iron than cold steel. “For everything she’s told us, there’s a shit-ton more she hasn’t said.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression, too.” Dex settled on the other bed, bracing a hand beside each hip. “I don’t think that was the secret she promised to tell me, either. Our Sydney has a lot of mystery shoved up those little sleeves.”

  “Especially when it comes to that darkling-maker,” Sam said with a nod. “Did you notice the hesitation? Before she told us his name?”

  Dex nodded, chewing his lower lip. “Like there was more she could have said, but stopped herself? Yeah. I think this goes a lot further than a personal vendetta. This guy did something to her. Something bad. Above and beyond killing her family.” He grimaced, running a hand over his face. “Kind of makes me not blame her for wanting to be the one to kill him, even if it does mean we can’t bring in the DEA.”

  But Sam was shaking his head, expression thoughtful. “No, she meant what she said about that—she doesn’t want them involved because they’ll try to capture, not kill. If he’s really as dangerous as she claims, having him loose in the DEA’s labs could be…unpleasant, to say the least.”

  “No kidding.” Dex snorted. Then he frowned. “What I don’t get is, why haven’t we come across this guy before? I mean, he’s a fucking darkling-maker. If he’s so bad-ass, why hasn’t he pinged our radar?”

  “She said it herself,” Sam said with a grim little smile. “He’s a darkling maker—not a darkling.”

  The implications hit Dex like a thunderclap. Not a darkling. Meaning the “no light behind the eyes” test wouldn’t work on him.

  Which meant he still had a soul—and therefore looked like every other fuck-wad on the planet.

  “Holy…shit.”

  “I doubt anything about this is holy,” Sam quipped, but it was half-hearted.

  Dex sighed. “So, what do we do? You were right about Boss—we have to tell him something. No way will he let us stay out here if he thinks the darkling is already dead. And Syd will kill us if we tell him the truth.”

  Sam cocked his head. “Maybe we tell him a version of the truth.”

  “Meaning?”

  One eyebrow went upward. “We came to Boulder because Syd told us about this darkling with the private club, right? So we tell Boss we got wind of another nest before the bar went up in flames. He’ll take our word for it. We don’t need to tell him anything more than that.”

  “What about the cavalry?”

  “We leave them out of it. For now. No sense in bringing the other guys from Fox Company up here until we get a bead on the Big Man. We’ll keep them in reserve, just like always.”

  “And if the Big Man gets a bead on us before we’re ready to confront him?”

  His partner’s expression turned grim. “Then we hope like hell Syd has a contingency plan, because I sure as shit don’t.”

  Chapter 11

  A soft, sensuous groan pulled Sam from a dark, restless sleep.

  He lay on his back, naked but for a pair of boxer shorts, tucked under a pile of all-too-familiar hotel-style blankets. Disorientation confounded his sleep-muddled brain as he tried to remember why he’d been sleeping in the middle of the day—his inner clock said it was just coming up mid-afternoon, and his inner clock was never wrong. A quick glance showed him a room darkened by blackout curtains, but very little else. Befuddled, still not quite awake yet, he tried to remember what led up to his impromptu nap.

  Oh. Right. Sydney had gone to retrieve burgers and fries, so they could recoup some calories, then insisted they should all take a mid-afternoon snooze to make sure they had enough energy to face the busy night she had planned. An hour of chivvying hadn’t produced any more information, so Sam had admitted defeat and took her suggestion to heart. Syd and Dex had snuggled down together on one of the beds, leaving Sam to huddle alone in his own pile of blankets. He’d stripped down this time—a night spent constricted by a tight pair of jeans hadn’t exactly helped his mood today—and settled in, expecting to lay awake while the other two slept.

  Apparently, Syd had been right. He’d needed the rest, and his brain promptly took a stage-left exit. So, what woke him up?

  There it was again. A small, muffled groan, followed by a swish of fabric against fabric. Sam frowned, staring at the ceiling. Coming from outside, maybe? But, no, the sounds were too close, too immediate. He listened harder. A rhythmic shifting. A rumbly sort of mumble. Another rustle, followed by a creaking noise, then what sounded like a sharp intake of breath….

  The realization slammed over him, and Sam’s whole body tightened like an over-coiled spring. Sydney and Dexter had gone to sleep on the bed next to Sam’s, but they weren’t asleep any longer. The soft cries, the muffled groans, and the sound of over-starched sheets sliding against one another all pointed to one thing.

  Sex. They were having sex. Right there, on the bed next to his.

  Sam clamped his teeth against a needy groan. Obviously, they thought he was still safely asleep. No wonder, given how hard he’d been napping just moments ago. Still, it surprised him he’d slept through even this much of it; he normally woke up if so much as a cricket chirped outside his room.

  He was awake now, though. And so was his libido.

  Sam squeezed his eyes shut. He would not look. Couldn’t. They deserved their privacy. He should have made an effort to get a second room just so they could have as much space as possible. But in his rush to confront Syd, and then to hash out a plan to deal with the unexpected discovery of the darkling-maker, he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  And now he was stuck here, listening to the two of them enjoying each other while having to pretend he wasn’t affected.

  Too late. His cock was a throbbing steel bar resting against his belly. Hormones and need ping-ponged through his system like hummingbirds high on Red Bull. He bit his tongue, then his cheeks, then fisted the sheets on either side of himself. He would not look. He could not look. No way was he going to—

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Sydney’s breathless, sensual exclamation sent lightning sizzling through his body. It took everything he had not to convulse with the force of it. His eyes popped open, and before he could stop himself, he looked to his right.

  And had to stifle back a healthy groan.

  Just enough light seeped around the blackout curtains for him to see their silhouettes. Dex lay on top of Sydney, chest to chest, his elbows braced on either side of her head while his face was buried in her hair. She had her arms wrapped around his torso, fingers clutching his shoulder blades, as she pressed her forehead against the crook of his neck. A single, thin sheet covered their lower bodies, outlining Sydney’s bent, splayed knees and Dex’s tight, hard ass. The bed rocked softly as Dex moved his hips in a slow, gentle ride.

  As Sam watched, Dex picked up the pace, lifting himself up just enough to give himself room to maneuver. Sydney wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, holding tight, and bit Dex’s bicep as if to keep from crying out. Dex’s soft grunts, Sydney’s suppressed cries, and the soft rustle of the sheet all blended together to form a sensual symphony that set every part of Sam’s body on fire.

  He couldn’t look away. Didn’t even dare, lest they realize he’d woken and think he’d been spying on them since the beginning. Oh, God, he didn’t want to witness this, and yet he drank in every detail, every moan, every soft sigh. They were beautiful together. Sexual dynamite. So perfect and erotic, it made Sam’s heart ache from the sight of it. Oh, fuck, how he wanted to reach out and touch them, both of them, feel their silky-soft skin, their tensing muscles, their glorious heat…

  Jesus. What the hell am I thinking? Both of them? He never let himself think like that. Not anymore. Dex had never shown any interest in guys. The guy wasn’t homophobic, or completely averse to the idea, but he wasn’t exactly a cheerleader, either. Dex just never seemed to pay attention to his own gend
er, at least not in that way. And Sam had never told anyone, save his high school crush, a guy named Enzio, that he swung both ways. Aside from a drunken night in Chicago, when Sam had confessed his deepest, darkest desire to an equally drunk Sydney, Sam hadn’t even thought about his personal proclivities in that direction in quite some time.

  Right now, though…

  Sam suppressed a shudder. The way their bodies moved together looked so tantalizing. So tempting. He could see himself rising from the bed, padding over to them, and running his palm down Dex’s strong, hard back. An equally sexy caress for Sydney’s thigh would be followed by wrapping his hand around Dex’s throat, turning his head, and…

  Fuck. There wasn’t enough air in the room. Had somebody shut off the vents? It should have been cold, but it was hot, and sticky, and so goddamn erotic…

  Sam sat straight up, heedless of the consequences, and bolted for the bathroom. He heard Dex’s curse and Sydney’s murmur of surprise just before slamming the door shut. Groaning, he sat on the toilet lid, put his head in his hands, and wished himself invisible.

  Too late now. Way, way too late.

  ◆◆◆

  Dex winced as the door slammed. “Damn it. I was trying to be quiet. I didn’t mean to upset him.” Should he go after Sam? No, that would probably be even more awkward…

  Sydney traced her fingertips through the short hair near his temples, drawing his attention. Her ice-blue eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. “Why do you think he’s upset?”

  He snorted. “Wouldn’t you be if you woke up to find two people getting it on in the bed next to yours?”

  “Depends on the people,” Sydney said with a little grin. She flexed her inner muscles, squeezing him, and Dex grunted as pleasure sizzled from his dick to his balls.

  He gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah. Right. Uh, I guess we better…”

  “Have you ever had a threesome with your partner, Dex?”

  He went still. Swallowed. Hard. “Uh…no.”