Sebastian: NAC & The Holly Group (Alpha Team Book 4)

by Chelsea Handcock

  Bas saw the fear in her eyes, but also resolve too. He was going to leave her. She knew it and so did he.

  “Babe, you need to trust me. This is the best way,” he said pulling her into his chest for a hug.

  Sky nodded her acceptance, and Bas pulled back, kissing her quickly. He couldn’t resist just one last kiss because it would have to hold him for a very long time. Bas would follow Sky to safety and call in the guys. He would make sure she was safe and then call Senior. No way was he going to put his death on Jacks or Cash. But he knew now that he would never be able to leave Sky alone, and the risk wasn’t worth the reward.

  That man was full of mixed signals, Sky thought. But Sebastian Frost had another thing coming to him if he thought Sky would quietly accept what he said and moved on. She knew he was planning on leaving; she felt it through the bond. Sky figured he would stay close but out of sight. This whole thing with him seemed too important, and she had never been a quitter. She wasn’t about to start now.

  Sky noticed that he had left the duffle, so she put it on. They might need it after this. Going to the window that Bas had been standing at just a few moments before, Sky cracked the drapes and waited for Bas’ distraction. She noticed that there were three cars like Bas had said, all sedans in standard colors, nothing to bring a person's attention to. There were millions of these types of cars on the road today. One of the cars, a blue Corolla, seemed to be her best bet for a getaway car. It looked like it was in better shape than the others, and it was newish. It didn’t take long to hear glass breaking and loud cursing coming from the back of the motel. The six men took the bait, running past the room that Sky was hiding in and around the corner.

  With trembling hands, Sky opened the door and ran to the closest vehicle in the lot. Deciding to adjust Bas’ original plan, she made sure to disable two of the cars. She laid down next to the tire and sliced the break-line with the small knife she had found in the duffle bag. At least this way they had a fighting chance of getting away. Then again, if those guys could Shift it probably wouldn’t matter all that much. Bas had been super-fast in his bear form, and Sky could only assume other animals might be quicker.

  Jumping into the third car, it turned out she didn’t need her hot wire skills. The keys were already in the ignition and the car was even running. Just when she went to back out of the parking spot, a large man appeared from one of the hotel rooms. He didn’t make any move towards her, but she saw his intent. The asshole raised a gun and pointed it right at her. Sky didn’t need any more encouragement. She gunned the car and sped out of the parking lot like the hounds of hell were on her heels. Now she just had to hope that Bas made it out as safely as she had.

  Sky waited well past the time she knew it would take a man as physically fit as Bas to make it the mile. She was determined to continue to wait until he showed up. Thankfully that was only about 15 minutes longer. Bas jogged up to the driver side of the car.

  "Move over, babe, we need to get out of here."

  Throwing the duffle bag to the floorboards, Sky climbed over the console to get into the passenger seat. It wasn’t until she settled into the passenger seat that she noticed the blood covering Bas’ arm.

  "Holy shit, you’re hurt," Sky gasped.

  Fumbling for something to staunch the blood flow, Sky opened the duffle bag. She had already looked inside of it early to find the knife, so the contents didn’t surprise her. There was cash, weapons, clothing, and a first aid kit. That was what she needed.

  Bas tried to make light of the situation. “Every good soldier has a go bag, babe.”

  She was not amused. He had attempted to leave her. Bas just wasn’t admitting to it, but she knew. Getting the first aid kit out, she made quick work of what she was assumed was a graze from a bullet on Bas’ upper arm. She might have pressed a little too hard and used a bit more alcohol than necessary to clean the wound, but he deserved the pain.

  “Bas, what happened, why did it take you so long to get to the car?” Sky probed.

  “Well babe, one against seven is pretty bad odds. Not to mention, I thought I told you to take off and not wait. So imagine my surprise when I found your ass waiting right out in the open. But next time I will be sure to hurry my ass up,” he said sarcastically. “We need to get going. They aren’t going to be that far behind us.”

  Putting the car in drive, Bas moved down the country road quickly but not fast enough. The two vehicles from the parking lot approached at backbreaking speeds. Sky knew Bas was going to order her down to the floorboards. Before he could issue the command, she had one of her own to relay.

  “Bas, if it looks like they are going to try and come up on either side of the car, let them. Then hit the brakes and start going the other way.”

  Bas tried to placate her. “Babe, that isn’t going to help. We need to get to the interstate, and this is the fastest way.”

  “Bas I know what I am talking about. Please do what I say.”

  Bas reluctantly executed the plan she laid forth. When the two cars sped past them, Bas reversed their direction and watched in the rear-view mirror as the cars came closer and continued to keep going until the driver lost control and they crashed into one another. Shocked, he looked over at Sky and asked, “How did you know?”

  Sky shrugged her shoulders. "I cut their break lines back at the motel. I figured we might need a little extra time to get away," she said like it wasn’t a big deal.

  What surprised her was Bas wasn’t happy; he was pissed. I should turn you over my knee and spank you till you can’t sit down for a week. When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it. You put yourself in an even more dangerous situation by improvising.

  Now Sky was getting furious. Her improvising helped them. She decided pretty darn quickly not to tell him about the guy that spotted her, or about the gun he aimed right at her. She wasn’t stupid.

  “Bas, I don’t mind taking direction, but you have to realize my need to protect you is just as strong as your need to protect me. I took a chance and nothing happened, and it has given us a bit of a reprieve. I will gladly take the spanking if you think my actions caused you or me any harm. But if after you have thought about it for a while, you see that it did neither, then I will expect an apology.”

  Sky continued, “I also want a fucking apology for the fact that you were going to leave me back there. You and I both know it’s true. I felt your resolve before you left that room. Know one thing, Sebastian; I don’t let go of the thing I love. I hold on tight with both hands until it proves to be a useless situation, and then I still hang tight just a little longer hoping it with change. If that makes me stupid, then it is my burden to bear."

  She had said her peace, now the ball was in his court. Sky wasn’t anyone’s puppet; she had a mind of her own and she planned on using it. Wanting him, no needing him, did not mean she would roll over and let him make every decision. Decisions about her health and wellbeing in this situation or damn, maybe even in life, yeah. The bedroom, hell yeah, he could have that. She kind of liked those demands. That was, if he ever decided he wanted it. But if she could use her skills and abilities to make their lives better, she would, whether the big, doofus alpha male liked it or not.

  Bas was seething. How could she have put herself in further danger like that? This mating shit wasn’t going to work if she couldn’t give him the control he needed, and that was that. Shit, now he was even thinking about a future that didn’t exist. What the fuck?

  Chapter 20

  After about a half hour, cooler minds prevailed. Sky had given them the chance they needed to lose the people currently tracking them. He just didn’t like the fact that Sky put herself at even more risk by disabling the other cars. He also didn’t like that she disobeyed him and waited instead of moving on.

  If they stuck it out together much longer, he didn’t think he would able to hold himself back from her. Tasting her, kissing her, and holding her, having her taste him, made him want things he ju
st could not have. Fuck, he was trying to do the right thing. Why couldn't she just give in and let him? His bigger problem was that he didn't know if he wanted her to.

  No, he wanted what was best for her, and that wasn’t him; a broken Shifter with a limited future. Even if she was his mate, it wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. That had to mean something, right? Sure, he wanted her, even needed her, but would the results of them sticking it out end up hurting her? Until he had the answers to that question, he couldn’t go any further with any of this.

  "Babe, I’m sorry. I just can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt," Bas said, finally breaking the silence in the car.

  "Thank you, Bas, but how about we drop all the ‘babe’ shit. You made your intentions quite clear. Now, how about we focus on more important things like, how do these people keep on finding us?"

  “That’s an excellent question ba…Sky, and one we need to find out pretty quick. Your work on their cars helped for now, but I have a feeling our luck won’t last. And we still have quite a long way to go until we can meet up with my team. Dig around in that bag and find a gray box looking thing. It will have two buttons on it, one that you press and one with a red light.”

  Sky did as he asked and found the box thing.

  “I need you to press the button and run it over your body and then over the bag,” Bas instructed.

  Sky did it, and the thing didn’t do anything. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but nothing happened.

  “Okay, Sky, I need to you to jump in the back and start doing the same thing with the car. Run it over every surface.”

  Sky did, acting like a monkey and climbing all over the place. When the box still did nothing, Bas said, "Shit, it has to be somewhere. Come back up front and run it over me."

  Sky did and the thing lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “Son of a Bitch! Sky, you need to drive. Scoot over here and take the wheel. I’m not going to stop because I don’t want to lose the lead we have."

  Sky did that and after a few awkward movements she was now driving the car, and Bas was in the passenger seat, stripping out of his clothes. Sky almost ran off the road when he took off his shirt. Then he went for his boots, and then the snap of his pants caught her attention. The last thing on her mind was paying attention to the road. She had yet to see Bas completely naked, and she couldn’t resist taking a peek.

  "Eyes on the road, Sky. I don’t want you crashing this car so that you can watch me."

  Asshole, she thought. Sky diverted her eyes to the road, but she still got a pretty good look at all that was Sebastian Frost. To say that he was yummy was and understatement. The man's body was to die for; chiseled chest, eight-pack abs, arms to die for, and one hell of a cock. Even flaccid, the appendage was larger than Sky’s battery operated boyfriend. Licking her lips, Sky remembered how that his silky length felt in her mouth. She wanted that taste and feel again, but Bas had once again turned on a dime. There wouldn’t be sex anytime soon.

  Bas ran the box over his clothes and the bug detector pinged a couple of times. He threw his clothes into the floorboards. He would throw them out the window as soon as he found all the bugs. Grabbing his boots, the device lit up again. Running over more slowly, he discovered the tracker in the heel of the boot. Fuck, he had had these for years, and ever since Peyton and Senior’s trip they all had been doing sweeps regularly. How the hell did this get missed?

  He hadn’t taken his boots off for days. There wasn’t a time in the recent past that they were ever left where someone could have gotten their hands on them. None of this made sense. Bas found three more trackers in his clothing; one under his belt and two sewn into his jeans. None of this made any fucking sense. Bas took the knife and cut out all the trackers, placing them in the cup holder as he went. He then threw his clothes out the window.

  He couldn’t dispose of his boots the same way because he needed them. Link had packed some clothes so he had a something to change into, but he couldn’t go around barefoot for the rest of this trip. Just to be safe, he ran the box over the clothes that Link had packed for him. When the bug detector didn’t lite up, he got dressed. Fuck, none of this was good for them. Those fuckers were tracking him, not Sky.

  Damn it, so The Association was after Sky, but it looked like Pandora had him in their sights. Not good.

  “Okay, Sky, we need to make a call. There is a burner in the bag, but the battery is low. I want you to head to the interstate and find the first town, city, or whatever you can find so that we can make a call. It’s time for Alpha to get involved in all of this going on around us.”

  Bas made a quick call and hoped the battery held out. At the same time, he searched the bag and the car hoping to find a power cord so he could plug in the cell phone. No luck. Jacks picked up on the first ring with a simple, “Go.”

  “Evac compromised, need a pickup,” Bas instructed. “Have Wyatt initialize the tracker for our location. Both Pandora and The Association are on our tails. Can’t shake them. Airlift needed. One bar left on battery and an unknown amount of time until complete radio silence.”

  “Roger that, get some place safe and plug in,” Jacks advised. “Wyatt will have your twenty, and we will send reinforcements.”

  “Roger and out.”

  Bas hung up the phone and hoped that the battery held out long enough for them to either get somewhere or get instructions where they would be picked up. Almost all gas stations or truck stops had power cords for cell phones nowadays. Looking around he tried to orient himself on exactly where they were. The trip through the woods last night and the chase had knocked him off kilter. Before crashing the SUV, they were just inside of Illinois. And since they had been heading north ever since, they had to be making their way towards Wisconsin. It only took a couple of more miles to confirm his assumption.

  “Sky, take the next road and head for that town,” Bas said pointing to the road sign.

  It promised food, gas, and lodging. He didn’t need two of those things, but he could at least get rid of two of his current problems. Find the first gas station with truckers and pull in was what they needed to do. Sky just looked at him with a confused look on her face, but didn’t question him.

  “Sky, we need to send these guys away from us. I’m thinking that if we slip these babies,” he said palming the trackers, “-on the biggest, baddest looking trucker we can find, it might buy us the time we need to get to the evacuation location.”

  Sky acknowledged Bas’ statement with a nod of her head.

  “Bas, what are those and why were they in your clothes?”

  “Shit, babe, I really can’t answer that because I don’t know how they got in my clothes. What I can tell you is that they are trackers. Someone has known my location since I left Alpha’s base.”

  “So, what you are telling me is, those guys back there were after you not me?” Sky asked.

  “Looks that way, but Sky, don’t let that fool you, babe. If those guys are part of Pandora, you would be just as much as a target as I am.”

  "How can you know that, Bas? I mean you told me about Pandora, and from the way it sounds, I’m not even on their radar. I don’t have the right blood type, I was also never in foster care, and I have no association to that Franklin guy. Why would they even consider me a target?"

  "Guilt by association? I don’t fucking know, but they would try to figure it out. We are traveling together, and even though you don't fit the profile, they would still try to understand our connection. Both Pandora and Davis are looking for Franklin’s creations, along with NAC and The Association. If they get me, they would take you in and run tests. Plus, there is no way you can be sure that you aren’t part of all of this."

  “Touché,” Sky thought to herself. She did as he instructed and found a truck stop just off the highway. The place was teeming with cars and semis, probably because of its location. According to the sign she read, it was also the last place for gas for a hundred miles. Pulling
over, Sky parked the car just out of the way of oncoming traffic, but also in a place allowing them a view of the gas pumps so they could find their target. Bas was quiet, just taking in their surroundings.

  "Okay, that looks like our man," Bas finally said breaking the silence.

  Sky looked over to the diesel pumps and saw a big, burly man, the kind you would think twice about messing with, pumping gas.

  She felt kind of guilty and had to ask Bas, "Are we putting him in danger by planting those things on him?"

  "No Sky, once he has led the people following us away and they catch up, they will instantly realize that he doesn’t have anything to do with this and that we more than likely planted the bug on him. They might pull him over and search just to make sure, but I doubt they would do more than that. That guy has Illinois plates, and the truck looks as if has been on the road for a while, so he must be heading home. That will hopefully lead those guys in the opposite direction of where we are going to head and buy us some much-needed headway."

  "Okay," she replied. Sky didn’t know what else to say.

  "I need you to distract him when he goes in to pay for his fuel,” Bas instructed. “Talk to him so he isn't paying attention. While you are doing that, I will plant the trackers on his rig. Then I will meet you inside and we can get some food and a charger for the phone. We will hang back and make sure he heads south. Then we will get out of here and wait to hear back from Jacks. Sound like a plan?"

  "Yep, let’s do this."

  Sky watched the trucker as he made his way away from the pumps. She walked up slowly and tripped over her feet right when she was within a foot of the man. He caught her, thankfully. She didn’t need any more bruises on her body right now. The trucker was big and greasy looking, like he had been on the road for a long time without a shower, but he had kind eyes.