by Milly Taiden
Life had taught her how to not let her feelings and emotions get involved where logic was needed, but with Josh, the line was getting fuzzy. Josh made her feel things. Things she wasn’t sure she could explain. Things she shouldn’t even be considering. Too long had she lived in a dark corner, and he tempted her to go out into the sun.
Her body responded to him in ways it never had to any other man. She’d never cared much about having sex or how good it could be. Good was never really in the cards. But here she was, really thinking and questioning, hoping and, hell, even daydreaming of what he might do. Of all the ways he could bring pleasure to her and take her over the edge.
The military philosophy was to cut each soldier to the bone in basic training, making them nothing, lower than dog shit. Then build them into the amazing soldiers who protected the liberties this country enjoyed.
Didn’t take her long to get to the building stage since she was already at rock bottom. But once in, she never looked back. The men and women around her were her new family, one she would fight for, die for. Now, for the first time, she was considering what life would be like if she married and had children.
No! She couldn’t think that. She couldn’t let that ever happen. Children were not an option. How did that even slip into her mind? She’d been determined her whole life about that and suddenly she was having visions of kids and by god, they had Tumbel’s eyes and adorable grin. Her heart raced. She was sweating. What was happening to her?
A diversion. She needed to change her thoughts. She didn’t want to go down that lane of memories. Too much hard work had gone into getting past her childhood. Moving on.
She sighed, watching the police swamp the street. She looked around for Dotson in his uniform, saw him heading toward one of the lead cars. He should be able to keep the force in line, doing what they should outwardly, and not planning anything covertly. Later, she’d have to ask how the police had gotten word of the situation. Someone had finally gotten to them.
Her eyes glanced at the image of Yulian and his men to see their reaction. The man snapped his phone closed and looked at his watch again, then walked to the front of the lobby.
“Hey,” she said to Josh, not looking at him pacing behind her, “we have movement.” He stood behind her chair—right behind. Heat poured off his hot skin. She shuddered at remembering how silky and hard his chest was. Oh god, she felt wetness slip from her core. He breathed deeply and she knew he smelled her. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Could she be more embarrassed?
A voice came over the speakers from the mics out front. Yulian stood with the news reporter’s microphone again, talking to the camera. “As a consequence to hurting my family, I demand $100 million to be deposited in de next hour or everyone in here dies.” Yulian threw the mic on the floor by the door.
Behind her, Josh said, “What? That’s it? What the hell?”
Candy was breathless. She knew a lot of the people in that room. And all of them killed? What did Josh mean by “That’s it”? She could only gape at him. “What?” she said.
“He demands money,” Josh said, “but doesn’t give a bank account to put it into? No demands of unmarked bills?”
He had a point. Yulian had set this up to fail. No matter what. He said “deposit” and not “cash”, which was what she’d guess was the preferred way. The terrorist was arguing with one of his guys again. Dammit, she needed Day to translate. He was outside, naked, or in animal form, or whatever.
“I don’t care how fucked-up the scenario is, we have to do something,” she said. “If all the bigwigs here are killed, our intelligence community will be in chaos for months. If our enemies found out about that, all hell would break loose.” She stood and pulled her phone from her pocket. “I need to call the president.”
“You have the president’s personal number?” Josh sounded astonished.
She laughed and replied, “This president is different from any other in history. He knows who he trusts and he likes to work directly with the source, not the ‘in-between’ people. He wants the facts firsthand.”
She dialed, hoping the president was available. It was close to eight o’clock already. She waited for his atypical answer: “Talk.”
“Mr. President, it’s Sergeant Obermier.”
“That’s what my caller ID says.”
Shit, she knew that. The president was a strict no-nonsense kind of guy. His sense of humor lacked, but his negotiating skills and law smarts were top of the line. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. We have a situation in the NIA building needing your attention.”
“Go on,” he said.
“As you know, we are under a hostage situation with the Steganovich brothers from Russia.”
“Yes, I’ve been briefed on that. What’s changed?” he asked.
“The leader has made a demand for $100 million for deposit but left no account numbers or anything. Has information of that type come to you?”
“No, nothing yet but we do not negotiate with terrorists.” The president sounded calm and cool. She had been until this last statement.
“Sir, do you know who all is here? Our intelligence department will be decimated. We’ll be vulnerable.” She couldn’t believe this. The people downstairs were among the top intelligence in the community. Pommer, the NIA Director; Lancaster, FBI Director; Homeland Security, and others were all here to congratulate their highly regarded and most rigidly kept secret, the ALFA team.
“I’ve just been handed the attendee list. Stand by one minute.” The line turned silent. Candy couldn’t sit any longer. Her legs were too anxious, as was her mind. When she paced to the door, she opened it a crack and whispered-yelled for Agent Day.
Josh and all his sexy skin came up behind her. When she turned, he was there, in her face. And she loved it. She took in his smell: woodsy and all male. A growl vibrated from his chest, surprising her. Her eyes snapped up to his. Their golden glow lit a flame in her lower stomach. Another memory wanted to surface. She refused it. Her breath left her. She had to force wind into her lungs. A whine behind her got her moving. Josh pushed the door open for the wolf to enter.
She smirked as she was about to talk directly to the animal. “We need your translation skills. They’re talking a lot.” She tilted her head toward the monitor board. Her eyes glanced at Yulian answering his phone. She turned up the volume knob then went back to pacing. After another minute of phone silence, Candy looked at her phone’s screen to make sure the signal was still intact. It was. What was taking so long? It couldn’t be good. She leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the gun locker.
Finally, noise traveled down the line. Sounded like several voices. “Candy, someone’ll call you back. I’ve got a damn dog sniffing my feet.” Then the president was gone. She looked at her phone and sighed. Her peripheral sight caught the movement of the hidden floor trapdoor leading to the tunnels, that Dotson had left through earlier.
She turned to see a stranger’s face pop up from the stairwell, ASh gun in hand, pointed at her. A shot echoed in the small room.
Chapter Seventeen
As his mate wore a path into the terrazzo floor, Josh let in Byron and grabbed his boxers and shirt on the ground next to the building. Josh was high on pheromones. His mate wanted him, even though she tried to keep her distance. He smelled her want and saw the heat in her eyes when she looked up at him. Now if he could cut through the fear she had, they could move on to mating.
His agent shifted after Candy explained what she needed Day to do, and he slapped the clothes in his hands to Day’s chest. His woman would see only him naked. Day rolled his eyes, but slid on the clothes while staring at the monitor showing the live events in the lobby.
Josh kept his eye on his mate. She was intensely concerned with a bit of trepidation flowing through her. The general rule with terrorists was not to negotiate or fall to their demands. If they caved to one, then every
damn bad guy in the world would copy the first to get whatever he or she wanted. That simply couldn’t be allowed.
If this had happened any other time, any other place, he’d be getting a phone call and assigning one or two of his men to a mission to go in and bring out the hostages alive. ALFA had done so many jobs with SF teams and Navy SEALs in the past that he wondered why his organization was kept separate from the military.
He guessed their time had come, though. Since they weren’t part of the armed forces, his group became expendable when it came to cutting costs and tightening the belt. But that wasn’t his mate’s fault. She was just following orders like any good soldier. She was good at her job and kept a cool head under pressure. He could see why she had been promoted to this leadership position. His mate would make a great mom.
When Candy got close to the locker, he meandered closer to make sure she didn’t decide to pull a Rambo again and go all gung-ho to shoot up the place. He had no doubts she could walk into the lobby and take out a couple of the men before they got her.
With that thought, a pierce to his heart stopped him. The idea of losing her was more than unsettling, it was deadly. If he lost her during this, the world would lose two destined lovers today.
“Josh,” his agent said to him, “who is Mikhail? Wasn’t that the other brother?”
“Yeah. Why?” Josh asked.
“‘Cause the short guy on the phone asked Mikhail, who I’m assuming he’s talking to, if he was ‘done at the house.’”
That was interesting. So Mikhail was around, doing something. He’d have to tell Candy when she got off the phone. Maybe she knew what they were talking about.
A strange smell reached his nose. It grew stronger the closer he came to Candy. The smell was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Then he heard a tap under the floor, and another coming from the secret exit to the tunnels. Had Dotson returned, climbing steps? No, this person smelled different. Smelled like alcohol, vodka to be exact. A lot of vodka.
Josh’s shift started before he realized it. His animal put the answer together and took control. The trapdoor in the floor raised and the nose of a gun slid up in front of a face covered in a knit cap like the terrorist’s out front. How this guy found his way in he’d figure out later. Maybe he’d seen Dotson leave.
Josh lunged forward, diving for the man’s throat at the same time the terrorist’s eyes locked on Candy and his gun took aim. Unfortunately, to get to the terrorist, he had to get past the gun first.
Josh felt the sting, then the burn of the bullet as it entered his body. This wasn’t his first time getting shot, but it was the closest to point-blank he’d ever been. With his jaws open, he crashed into the guy, snapping down on the tender flesh and muscle that tore away as the man fell from the ladder leading to the secret door.
With no control over his body, Josh rolled across the floor and slammed into the wall. A ball of fire rolled through him from tail to ears. The scent of blood, his own, clogged his wolf’s nose. His mate was suddenly there, kneeling beside him. She’d taken off her uniform jacket to reveal a white T-shirt tucked into her pants.
A pressure pushed against his side, right where the fire ate at his fur and skin. He watched his beautiful mate’s lips move, but heard nothing but a continuous buzz in his ears. That was strange. He’d never experienced that sound before, but he’d never been standing next to an assault rifle exploding in a small, metal-lined room.
He felt tired, so tired, like he’d run all day in the woods chasing rabbits and other critters without a break. But that wasn’t right. He’d been with his mate. He’d met her, finally. After all these years. He wondered if he’d ever get to touch her again. Maybe after he rested for a moment, just a quick minute—
Chapter Eighteen
“Josh, don’t you fucking leave me, do you understand that, soldier?” Candy nearly screamed at the wolf lying in blood on the floor in front of her. She pressed her uniform coat to his wound, trying to stanch the red flow. She’d flown enough medevacs in her life to know how to treat battlefield wounds. Funny how she thought that part of her life was over.
She never would’ve anticipated not only meeting, but falling for, a male from another species living side by side with humans. No, she wasn’t falling for him. Dammit, yes she was, ever since she’d walked into his office. How had he gotten through her defenses when no man ever had in her life? And he thought he was going to take a bullet for her and die. Fat fucking chance.
Agent Day knelt beside her and laid his hands on his boss’s pelt. “He needs to shift to heal. Like Frank did. When he does, the body will eject the foreign material and regenerate muscle and lost blood.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me? You’re instantly self-healing?” They were the perfect soldier that science had been trying to create for years.
Day frowned. “Yeah, sort of. But it’s hard to grow a new head once the original is removed and you have to be conscious to shift. Which Tumbel isn’t.”
She looked down at the creature. He looked like he was sleeping, taking a long-deserved nap, and not dying. His fur was gorgeous. She wanted to slide her fingers through it, but her hands were busy trying to keep his blood inside his body.
“So how do you get him to shift?” she asked.
Day’s worried eyes met hers. “You don’t. Pray that either his wolf or the man inside is with it enough to make a shift.” Day glanced away. “There is possibly another way, but if it works, he’ll kick my ass into next month.”
“Who the fuck cares? Let him kick it into next year. As long as he’s alive to do it,” Candy retorted.
He grumbled to himself and ran a hand over his face. “Okay. Long story short. You are very special to him and he will do whatever it takes to make you happy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m so dead when he wakes. But if you demand that he shift, he will.”
If that wasn’t the strangest thing she’d ever heard. Why would she be special to him? How could she make his subconscious mind do what she wanted?
“Oh, shit.” Day jumped to his feet and returned to the monitors.
“What?” she asked. “What’s going on?” She twisted around to see the screens while keeping pressure on the wolf’s injury. Yulian was talking to the NIA director’s wife. Poor thing looked scared to death. Didn’t help that the little prick held a gun to her. “What is he telling her?”
“He’s instructing her to relay a message about using a helicopter,” Day said.
“For what?” she wondered out loud. She and Day watched as the wife stuck her head out the front door and spoke to the female reporter. Yulian stood behind the director, resting a hand on the seated man’s shoulder. The news woman nodded and ran toward the police.
When the director’s wife returned to her husband’s side, Yulian raised his gun and shot her.
Shocked, Candy watched the woman crumble to the floor. Screams erupted in the lobby, echoing in the security room. Agent Day turned down the volume.
Why? Why did the terrorist bastard have to kill an innocent woman? Then a sick thought crossed her brain. Perhaps this was the boys’ way of getting back at Pommer for taking their father. Murder the man’s wife.
Anger and hate swept through her. Burning bloodlust settled in her heart. She wanted to rip the fucker’s balls off and feed them to him. He deserved no mercy in her book.
Director Pommer sprang from his chair, hands tied behind his back, and one of the men hit him over the head with the butt of a gun. He fell to a knee next to his prone wife. Two of the gunmen lifted Pommer to his feet.
“Ve’re almost even, Director,” Yulian said. “Only one last thing and my part is done. And I’ll be rich. Now, ve take your helicopter and escape back to our beloved country.”
“It only holds four people,” she heard the director say. Yulian looked at his four other team members, turned to the
man he’d argued with a couple of times, and shot him in the head.
“Now ve have four. Let us go.”
“The son of a bitch shot his own man,” Day said, his incredulous voice wispy.
That was it, Candy thought. “Day, they are headed to the director’s helo on the roof. You’ve got to get up there and stop them.” The agent was out of his chair in a blink. “Wait,” she said. “Turn off the roof lights.” She nodded to a panel on the wall with labeled switches. He also switched off the heliport lights. “No, leave those on. They’ll light the chopper, luring them so you can take them down.”
Day gave her a weird look. As if the thought of what she said would’ve never crossed his mind. He flipped the switch back on. “Can we get to the roof without the elevator?” he asked.
Shit. With the elevators shut down, the stairwell was the only way to the roof. And they had to go into the lobby to get to the steps. The monitor above the desk showed the group of three gunmen and the director walking toward the elevators. Then it hit her.
“The garage. The upper level has a bridge connecting to this roof so the director can go directly to his car from the helo without having to come inside the building. That’s the only way. Go. All of you.” As Day opened the exterior door, she added, “Agent, grind his nads off with your teeth for me. The director’s wife didn’t deserve that.”
He gave her a sad nod and was gone.
Candy turned her attention back to the wolf in front of her. Her hands were covered in red stain, her coat completely soaked through. How could so much blood be lost and it still be alive? Her heart hurt, which seemed ridiculous for her. But it did. She raised a silent prayer to the One listening. If Josh lived, she’d do anything. Anything.