Storm Warning

by Sydney Somers

  Blair turned her body, shielding Molly from seeing Drew sever the storm demon’s head with a final blow. Its body burst into blue flames.

  His expression grim, Drew turned his full attention on Holson.

  Another gunshot cracked through the air, and Drew went down hard.

  Heart in her throat, Blair spun around to see Whitney with the gun clenched tight in her hand. Her cruel smile froze on her lips, and then she dropped where she stood, Braxton standing next to her.

  “Daddy!” Molly screamed.

  Blair pivoted, saw Holson loom over Drew, his sword clenched in his fist. He jerked his arm overhead to bring it down in a hard arc.

  A perfect quiet settled inside Blair. In her mind no thunder boomed, no rain beat at the ground, no lightning flashed in the sky. Utter stillness.

  And then everything converged inside her—her blood pounding warm and hot, the icy snap of a phantom energy running over her skin, the fierce wildness she’d been terrified to completely embrace—until now.

  A bolt of lightning ripped downward and struck the tip of Drew’s sword, the electrical charge shooting down the length of the blade and right into Holson’s body. The man arched, jerking from the force of the current. The whites of his eyes flickered, his limbs twitching as the streak of lightning hung almost suspended from the center of the storm.

  “Blair?”

  The faint voice penetrated her mind, and she moved her gaze to where Drew limped toward her.

  And then it was over, her legs dumping her to the ground, shapes and colors blurring in front of her eyes. Drew’s unfocused face was the last thing she saw before the riptide wrenched her under.

  “She’s gonna wake up,” Braxton said quietly.

  Drew held Blair against him in the backseat of Parker’s rented SUV. Molly sat next to him, looking better—way better—than him or even Braxton.

  Rae and Parker had arrived moments before the sirens that promised a sticky situation, and hustled them into the SUV. With Holson dead, they hadn’t stuck around to worry about his followers. That would mean answering way too many questions and more damage control than the network would have wanted to deal with.

  Drew ran the back of his fingers down Blair’s cheek. They’d been through too much for her to stop fighting now. He’d been so stupid in the beginning, thinking it would have been easier to let her go, easier to get his life back on track without the added complication she made.

  It really sucked that it had taken so much for him to see she’d been the one to show him how to put the pieces back together again. It wasn’t even anything she’d done or said, just the way she’d slipped so unexpectedly into his life at the worst possible time, and somehow made it all better.

  He bent his head. “If you’re playing opossum on me, there is going to be hell to pay,” he vowed.

  Blair stirred in his arms, and his pulsed kicked up.

  “Blair?”

  Her lashes fluttered and her brows gathered before she finally opened her eyes. Her gorgeous blue eyes.

  He burrowed his face in her hair, relief moving so fast and hard through his system, it was all he could do just hold it in…hold onto her. The woman had been tearing up his insides and he’d come too close to losing her more times than he wanted to count.

  “Is Holson dead?”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly, watching her expression run the gamut from relief to a resigned satisfaction that brought the Destroyer out in her.

  She tried to sit up. “Where’s Molly?”

  His daughter perked up at the mention of her name, scrambling as much into Drew’s lap as she could with Blair draped across most of him. “Can you do that trick with your eyes again?”

  Braxton laughed, and the tension drained from Drew’s body.

  “A little later, okay?” Blair promised and relaxed against him, softly dragging her palm back and forth across his chest. “How long was I out this time?”

  “Too long.”

  Blair rolled her eyes.

  “Just a few minutes,” he admitted.

  She tried for a smile. “Maybe next time I won’t pass out at all.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” he vowed.

  She shook her head. “We’re not like other people, Drew. We don’t get to walk away from this, even if we think we aren’t ready for it.” She smiled at Molly, her gaze far too perceptive as she quickly returned it to Drew. “No matter how much we’re scared of screwing up, it’s never about being ready, but finding the strength to face whatever it is even when you know you aren’t.”

  He tightened his hold on her, part of him wanting to deny the truth of his own words. But denying them meant walking away from his life, from Blair and Molly, and if anything, he’d learned he’d do whatever it took to keep them safe and with him. There were no guarantees in life. Not for Destroyers or lovers or even parents. There would always be risks whether he stayed with the network or not, but by staying he knew he’d always have his team backing him up.

  He’d always have Blair and Molly backing him up. And if that wasn’t the biggest reason to hold onto them both for as long as he could…

  Molly turned her face up to his. “Did you catch the duck, Daddy?”

  He pulled her close. “Yeah, baby.”

  “Good. But could you stick to monsters from now on? I’d never be scared if there was just a duck under my bed.”

  Drew closed his eyes, unsure of what to say to that. Not that she gave him a second to before leaning up over the seat.

  “Uncle Braxton,” she began, her angelic tone one hundred percent heart-attack-in-the-making, “can I see your sword?”

  Blair, Drew and Braxton answered in perfect unison. “No!”

  “What if all of this becomes too much for her someday?” he asked softly when he heard movement in the door behind him. Despite the gnawing pain in his leg from the gunshot wound, he hadn’t moved in nearly twenty minutes, his gaze never leaving Molly’s sleeping face.

  Quinn stepped up beside him. “She’s tougher than she looks.”

  He let out the breath his lungs had been holding hostage ever since he’d spotted Molly fashioning a paper sword for her Barbie to use when she got home. “After all that happened tonight she asked Brax to see his sword. She should have been shell shocked.”

  He was shell shocked.

  “She knew her daddy was going to save her.”

  “I wish I had half the faith in myself that she does.”

  Quinn bumped him with her arm. “Give it long enough and maybe some of it will rub off.”

  “If she doesn’t come to hate me first.” And tonight was not the time to let himself start worrying about that again.

  “At one time or another, every kid finds a reason to hate their parents for something, Drew. It’s practically a rite of passage.”

  “Comforting.”

  Quinn laughed softly. “When I found out why my dad missed those birthdays and those school performances, it became impossible to hold any of that against him. And no matter how often he got called away, when he was home, I never had a doubt in my mind how much he loved me.” She held Drew’s gaze. “Not one.”

  “So how do I deal with knowing that every day I walk out the door is one more I might not be there when she needs me?”

  She paused in the doorway. “If my dad had walked away from this life to shelter me, I don’t know that I could live with myself knowing that decision may have cost innocent people their lives.” She nodded to the chair next to the bed where Blair had crashed almost an hour ago. “Besides, I don’t think you have to worry about figuring out all the details on your own.”

  One month later

  “Don’t you think this is going a bit overboard?”Blair wiped her hand across her forehead. She finished sliding the huge mat into the middle of the room, and stood back to make sure she had it centered.

  “When you mentioned renovating the basement,” Drew continued, “I thought you were talking about putting in a
home office, not a training room.”

  She moved to the center of the mat, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I have space to work at the field office. This is strictly for personal use.” Even after weeks of working with the others, she was nowhere close to their skill level, and doubted she would be for a long time—if ever.

  “Non-field agents aren’t required to train.”

  She shrugged. “You’ll sleep better when you’re gone on assignment knowing that should I cross paths with another war demon any time soon, and busted beer bottles are in short supply, that I’ll be able to hold my own—”

  “—long enough to get the hell out of there.”

  She grinned. “Right.”

  He never had to admit he still worried that something might happen to her or Molly when he wasn’t there. The fact that he hugged them to the point of suffocation whenever he left the house on assignment drove that point home each and every time.

  Training at home was just as much for his benefit as for hers. He got to see her continue to improve and know that she took Molly’s safety just as seriously as he did. Plus there was the added benefit of what sparring with him usually led to.

  He frowned, clearly not on the same wavelength as she was. Yet.

  “Does that mean you’re making your leave of absence from the paper permanent?”

  She’d actually made that call within a week of packing up her desk at work. She wasn’t ready to walk away from the field altogether, more of a change in focus. Someday the world might need to learn the truth about Shadow Demons, but now wasn’t the time. Not when people would have to live in fear, both of the evil lurking in the shadows and of the inexperienced people who would take it upon themselves to hunt down Shadow Demons. The Shadow Destroyer network had a hard enough time doing their job without the added complication of government agencies rushing in to save the day if the truth were to get out.

  So for now, she was content to keep an ear to the ground, using both hers and the network’s resources to stay apprised of what prominent or otherwise influential people might be aware of the existence of Shadow Demons. Especially if those people, like Holson and Whitney—who hadn’t stopped talking about ascending since being committed for a full psychiatric evaluation last Blair heard—might exploit that knowledge for their own end.

  And if she happened to learn more about the actual Shadow Destroyer network and what went on behind the curtain, as Drew called it, all the better.

  “I know that look.”

  She planted her feet, grinning at him. “Come on, tough guy. Give me your best shot. I’ve been working hard.”

  His best shot landed her on her back in under three seconds flat.

  The man didn’t budge from where he had her pinned to the mat, his downright lethal mouth working her over in ways that had nothing to do with self defense. “Kissing me is not a tactical maneuver,” she breathed, looping her arms around his neck.

  His lips slid over hers, softer…slower, and she melted a little more against the mat.

  “I disagree.” He moved down her throat, driving her even crazier.

  “Oh, yeah?” she asked slipping her hand between them.

  He groaned as her hand snaked lower, and borrowing Jordan’s technique, she jammed her leg between them, using his surprise to her advantage and jostling him off of her.

  She straddled him the second he landed on his back.

  “You’re getting good at that.”

  “I know,” she murmured against his mouth.

  He locked his arms around her. “I don’t know that I can keep up with you at this rate.”

  “I’ve only got three words for you then,” she whispered, her eyes transitioning as she fell fast and hard into the desire that he never let stray far from the surface. “Ready or not.”

  About the Author

  To learn more about Sydney Somers, please visit www.sydneysomers.com. You can also reach her by email sydney@sydneysomers.com or join her monthly newsletter at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flirtingwithpassionnewsletter to keep up to date on Sydney’s upcoming releases and works in progress.

  Look for these titles by Sydney Somers

  Now Available:

  Shadow Destroyers:

  Unbreakable

  Stripped Away

  Spellbound:

  Say You’re Mine

  Don’t Let Go

  Waitin’ on a Hero

  Call Me Cupid

  Talons: Caged Desire

  Coming Soon:

  Enslaved

  Getting the girl might not be as hard as keeping her alive.

  Waitin’ on a Hero

  © 2008 Sydney Somers

  Finley Gallagher is hot and tired. Tired of the endless heat wave. Tired of pretending she isn’t interested in her sexy next-door neighbor. And really tired of everyone’s endless talk about the city’s mysterious vigilante who puts criminals in their place.But when Finley is attacked and her apartment vandalized, she’s forced to rely on the two men she’d rather not have anything to do with. One hides who he is, unleashing her deepest fantasies from the shadows; the other proves how wrong she was about him with one devastating smile after another.

  Plagued by visions that let him glimpse the future, Trace Fairbanks is determined to do whatever it takes to keep the streets safe, even if it means leading a double life. He’s also determined to prove to Finley that he’s not the playboy she thinks he is.

  Too bad Finley is completely turned off by his alter ego…or is she?

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Waitin’ on a Hero:

  No matter how hard she strained to really see him, the shadows swallowed him up. “I won’t tell anyone who you are.”“I am making you nervous.”

  “No.” Okay, maybe a little and only because her commonsense demanded to know what sane woman would linger in the dark with a man she knew nothing about—one with violent tendencies, if the stories circulating in the media from the criminals he’d taken down were to be believed.

  “But you’d be more comfortable talking to me with the light on.”

  “I don’t know you. I don’t even know why you’re here.” Didn’t know why she wanted him to be there except that he made her feel safe. Not since her mother died had it felt like there was anyone else watching out for her.

  “Neither do I,” he confessed. “Don’t worry, I’m not stalking you.”

  “Just happened to be in the area?”

  “Something like that.”

  It seemed a bit coincidental that he just happened to be in the neighborhood. Then again, had anyone predicted she would be saved from assault by the Night Watcher, she would have laughed and walked the other way. He’d likely come across her name and address somehow and was checking up on her. Actually, that seemed just as unlikely since she couldn’t imagine why he would bother.

  “Make house calls often?” she guessed, a part of her foolishly wishing he was as curious about her as she was about him.

  “Not a habit of mine.”

  His answer startled her, but more startling was the way she found herself leaning towards him. “Is this how you always talk?”

  He inched closer in response. “Does my voice bother you too?”

  “No. I just wonder why you’re trying so hard to hide who you are.”

  “Am I?”

  She arched her brow, then, remembering the gesture was lost in the dark, scoffed in disbelief.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “We just met,” she answered matter-of-factly, telling herself that reason alone should have her backing up, not yearning to feel the press of his hard body against hers.

  He made a sound that was almost disagreement. “It would be foolish of me to trust anyone I don’t know with my secrets then, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not unless you’re worried I’d recognize you.”

  His silence kicked her brain into overdrive.

  “Would I?” She straightened, her hand relaxing on the railing. She didn’t l
et go completely, not when the dark made it impossible to predict his next move. A fact that made her both cautious and breathless with anticipation.

  She wet her lips, the silence stretching between them until she couldn’t think beyond the pounding of her own heart in her head.

  His thigh brushed hers, and the simple touch unleashed a rush of excitement and desire that pooled low in her belly.

  “I expected you to be more wary of me.”

  “Pleased or disappointed?” Finley felt the need to stay on her toes with him, otherwise she really would be wary of a man who used the dark to cloak his intentions as much as his identity.

  He angled his body towards hers, his quiet laugh whispering across her cheek. “Do I seem the type that gets off on making other people nervous?”

  “You wear a trench coat when it’s one-hundred-and-fifteen degrees outside. You carry some kind of tranquilizer gun that would make a zookeeper envious. Clearly the hero complex does something for you.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded.

  His fingers caught the ends of her hair and she sensed his mouth close to her face. The slow hum of anticipation burrowed through her bloodstream. Instead of feeling panicked by his proximity, she ached to get closer.

  And she blamed it entirely on her conversation with Avery.

  His fingertips threaded the long strands and her stomach flipped backwards. She bit down on her bottom lip to trap the sigh that threatened to break past. What was it about him that made her forget how dangerous he could be? Was it because he’d saved her? Or was it something else? Something beyond the mystery surrounding him?

  She fiddled with the empty water bottle she still carried. “Why do you do it?”

  “Because I can help people.”

  “Have you ever gotten hurt?”

  “A couple times.”

  The admission made her insides draw up tight. “Who looks after you when you are?”

  “Is that your way of asking if I have a girlfriend?” She heard the smile in his voice.