Matt smiled over her head. His woman didn’t bluff—a fact he’d learned early and the hard way. “We’ll be careful, and I’ll check in.” Reaching down, he lifted her chin and slid his lips against hers. “You’re my everything, Laney.”
She returned his kiss, leaning back to stare into his eyes. “Right back at you. Be careful, and bring Nathan home.”
“I will.” As a vow, it was absolute. Matt only hoped his brother would be in one piece when he brought him home. He’d already lost Jory; he couldn’t take losing Nate, too. As Laney relinquished her hold to go find him some fresh laundry, he allowed all semblance of humanity to release him.
It was time the commander came face-to-face with the killers he’d created.
* * *
Audrey snuggled into the sheets as the storm raged outside. Hopefully the men watching her apartment got nice and wet… and ended up with pneumonia. Unlikely, though. Tough was the kindest word to describe anybody trained by the commander.
Her stomach growled again. Interesting. All the nausea lately… all the exhaustion—turned out it wasn’t stress. Neither was the five pounds she’d put on.
A part of her, the rebel deep inside, wanted to strike out at being violated in such a way. Her doctor, the one she’d trusted, had impregnated her against her will. Without her consent.
Fury threatened to choke her. They’d taken control of her body to impregnate her, and they could’ve chosen anybody’s sperm. She could be pregnant with a complete stranger’s kid right now—even one of the commander’s psychopathic soldiers who enjoyed the killing. Who lived for it.
The only reason they’d chosen Nate’s specimen was because he’d impregnated her before, so they had at least a little success to draw on and try to copy. Thank goodness it was Nate’s kid.
A baby. A real baby, inside her. Even more so—Nate’s baby.
The miracle of that curbed Audrey’s anger while also filling her with a determination only a mother trying to protect her child would understand. Sharp and fierce, the feeling grounded her like never before.
For now, she needed rest. Nathan Dean patrolled the apartment like a Doberman looking for dinner, and at least for the night, she felt safe. He wouldn’t let anything or anybody come near her.
She’d offered him half of the bed, but one look at the war raging in his eyes had sent her to bed alone. There was no way that man would be sleeping any time soon.
But she had the baby to think of, and babies needed sleep. Probably. She should get ahold of some of those baby books. At that thought, she slid into a sleep punctuated by moments from the past.
Her dream was more of a memory of when she’d sat on an examination table in the main lab, her mind calculating the different ways of navigating the compound to get to Nathan. She’d been exiled from the facility since the breakup, and only the current medical issue had forced Audrey’s mother to bring her to the facility.
She was bleeding.
Fear for the baby welled up in Audrey as she waited for the results of the internal ultrasound.
She had to find Nathan and had been trying to reach him from the second she’d discovered the pregnancy. He deserved to know, and he’d figure out what to do. Once she made sure everything was all right.
Pregnant women spotted. She’d read it in a book, so this was okay. Everything was going to be okay.
Isobel Madison’s high heels clicked into the room, her gaze on a series of printouts. “We lost the fetus. Fetal development ended a week ago.” She pursed her lips, her thoughtful gaze now on Audrey. “We’ll need to do a D and C so we can examine the tissue.”
Audrey swayed, catching herself on the wrinkly paper. “Wh-what?” That couldn’t be right. Her mother was wrong.
Isobel frowned. “Get ahold of yourself. The pregnancy was unheard of, so we can’t be too shocked. Start thinking like a scientist, would you?” She turned for the phone, ordering a medical team to perform the D and C.
So much pain welled up in Audrey that her eyes stung. Her entire body ached. She watched, almost in a daze, as the woman who was supposed to love and protect her calmly proceeded to make plans.
This was wrong. So damn wrong.
Audrey shoved off the table and drew her dress over her head. She’d get to Nathan. He’d figure everything out. They could save the baby.
Deep in her heart, she knew it was too late. The tests didn’t lie.
But she needed to find Nate anyway.
With a rough shove, she pushed past her mother and ran into the narrow hallway.
“Audrey—” her mother called out, pure exasperation in her tone.
Audrey didn’t look back—just kept going. Then running. Running toward the exit to find the barracks.
A crack of thunder ripped through the day. Then another.
The ground shifted. Tiles slammed up into the air. Audrey cried out, hands protecting her face.
What was happening?
A wall collapsed in front of her.
She fell, tiles cutting into her knees.
Fire.
Booming, angry, licking… fire suddenly surrounded her. A beam fell, and agony ripped up her leg. She cried out, her vision graying.
Another beam fell, hitting her shoulder. Smoke filled her lungs. As she fell back, hurt and helpless, she screamed one more time, “Nathan!”
A hand shook her shoulder, and there he was.
“Nate.” She launched into his arms, her heart beating enough to hurt. “Blood. I’m bleeding.”
He quickly carried her through the bedroom and deposited her in the bathroom. “Bleeding?”
“Yes.” She gulped down air, trying to differentiate from the past and the present. Panic and fear fuzzed her vision. “Give me a second.” She gestured him out and shut the door. Her stomach hurt. She’d been through this before.
Not again.
How could this happen again?
Sitting down, she used the toilet and then looked. The breath swooshed from her lungs. No blood. None.
Oh. She dropped her head into her hands. It was just a dream. This was different, and this baby would live. “Everything is fine,” she whispered in case she’d scared the baby.
The door flew open. “I can’t wait outside,” Nate said.
Audrey slowly lifted her head and shut her knees. She was on the toilet, for goodness’ sake. Her face heated. “I’m fine.”
Nate dropped to the ground and leaned against the counter. His normally tanned face had gone white. “You’re not bleeding?”
“No.” She wanted to reach out and reassure him, but right now, her body remained in a curled-up position. “I had a bad dream. About last time.”
Nate scrubbed shaking hands down his face. “You screamed out my name.”
“Um, yeah.” She sat up and nonchalantly pulled up her panties without standing. Her knees trembled. Sitting seemed like a good idea for a few moments.
He lifted his chin, gaze piercing. “Did you yell my name that day? When the world blew up?”
Her mouth opened, but no sound emerged. Sometimes the truth should remain in the past. But there were some people on earth you couldn’t lie to, and the father of her child, even without his amazing gifts at finding the truth, deserved honesty. “Yes.”
His deadly eyes closed.
Seconds passed. Nate didn’t move, and Audrey slowly hugged herself. No aches—no pains. Good. She shivered in the cool morning air.
Nate’s head jerked up. In a smooth motion, he stood and lifted her right off the toilet to place back into the bed. Without a word, he stalked from the room and reappeared a few seconds later with a glass of milk. “Drink.”
Audrey sat up, eyeing the thick white liquid. “Ugh.”
“Calcium.”
Okay. One of them had to speak in a complete sentence. “I’m not sure cow’s milk is so good for you anymore. Last week at the coffee shop, the barista and a customer got in a huge discussion about cow’s milk versus almond or soy milk, and th
e barista said that we’re the only species on earth that drinks another species’s milk, and now there’s a bunch of added hormones in it.” Besides, she really didn’t like the taste of milk. Never had.
Nate scratched his head. “Almond milk?”
Audrey lifted a shoulder. “We should get some books.”
“Yeah.” He reached for the e-reader on her small desk. “I’ll start downloading.”
Audrey yawned. “What time is it?”
“Almost dawn.” Nate pressed several buttons and nodded to himself. “You should get more sleep.”
She blinked, her heart rate finally slowing down. Nausea swirled around her stomach. “Nah. I’ll get up and maybe stretch a little bit.”
Nate set down the tablet and tugged his gun from his waist to place next to it. A deadly weapon near the tablet downloading information about babies. The paradox wasn’t lost on Audrey.
“These will take time to download.” His gaze remaining on her, he tugged his shirt over his head and kicked off his jeans. “Scoot over.”
Her heart fluttered. “Um, I’m not sure—”
One muscled knee pressed down on the mattress before he nudged her to the other side. He lay down, turned, and pressed her back against his front. “Just to sleep.”
Instant warmth, safe and male, surrounded her. She wiggled a little to get comfortable, her butt caressing his erection. She froze.
“Relax,” he whispered, heated breath warming her ear.
Desire uncoiled throughout her neck to her sex. “I am,” she breathed. “Maybe we could—”
“No. Not until we read the books and know it’s okay.” Nate flattened his palm across her abdomen.
The gentle touch contrasted so completely with the hard-muscled body cradling her that emotion sparked alive in her. He filled her so completely just by being near. The idea that he might be taken away in a second by the deadly chip plagued her until she could barely breathe.
Fear had a weight, and she needed to fight that. So she cleared her throat. “We should come up with a plan we can all three live with.” How odd to say “three” like they were a real family.
“I know.” Nate kissed her gently on the ear. “Now sleep.”
Chapter 21
Nate awoke quickly, immediately reaching for his gun and sliding from the bed. Somebody was in the apartment.
Somebody good enough to get inside without alerting him.
He left Audrey sleeping and crossed the room, gun low and ready to fire.
At the doorway he paused, listened, and stepped into the hallway to shut her door. They’d have to go through him to get to her.
Two guns cocked simultaneously, one at his left ear, and one at his right.
He froze and his shoulders relaxed. “Damn it,” he muttered.
Ignoring the weapons, he moved forward and into the living room, pivoting around to glare. “What the holy fuck are you two doing here?”
Matt grinned and slipped his gun into his waist. “I love such a heartwarming welcome, don’t you, Shane?”
Shane rolled his eyes, eyeing the antique rug covering some of the wood floor. “I think my boots were dirty. Sorry.”
Nate shook his head, his carefully laid plans dissolving on the dirty rug. “I told you to stay in Montana, and I’d bring Audrey to you.” What the hell were his brothers thinking? They couldn’t be this close to the commander—not all three of them at once. It was too risky.
Matt shook out his wet black hair. “Oh. Is that what you meant by telling us to stay the fuck out of DC?”
“Yes.” Exasperation filled Nate’s head with static.
“Humph.” Shane gingerly stepped back onto the rug. “We must’ve got that wrong. We thought you were in trouble and needed help.” His lip lifted in a smart-ass grin. “Oops.”
Nate stilled and tried to remain cold. He studied his brothers. Both stood well over six feet and had taken natural, muscular builds and honed them to deadly efficiency. Matt’s black hair curled over his collar, while Shane’s shaggy brown hair almost reached his shoulders. A fuck you to their military upbringing.
Both men returned his stare with identical gray gazes—full of understanding.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, close to breaking, as rain slashed against the windows.
“Never alone,” Matt whispered.
The mantra they’d coined as scared children—a promise to each other. A vow.
Nate shook his head, his heart pumping hard. “You have more important things to think about than me.” Josie and Laney for a start.
“No.” Shane stood even taller. “We don’t.”
“Shane—”
“No.” Shane lowered his chin. “Do you think we don’t know you? Know what you’ve done to protect me and Jory? How you sacrificed yourself to give us a childhood?”
“Or fought to keep me from going insane?” Matt asked. “Why would you expect us to be any different than you? If you’re in trouble, we’re here. Period.”
Nate swallowed. Those were not tears pricking the backs of his eyes. He didn’t cry.
Two of the deadliest men in the world stood across from him, offering help. Offering themselves. His brothers. He blinked and nodded, both humbled and taken aback. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” Shane shrugged and strode toward the kitchen. “I’m starving. Any good food here?”
“Leftover sandwiches,” Nate said, his gaze remaining on Mattie. “The ranch is secured?”
“Yes.”
“You engaged the outside tracking field?”
“Of course.” Matt sat on the couch. “Is your head on straight?”
Nate sat on a chair, curling his bare toes into the rug. “I don’t know.”
“Well, why don’t we start there?” Matt leaned his massive forearms on his knees. “A baby. You’re having a baby.”
Warmth that might be joy welled up through Nathan. Followed by terror. The bittersweet moment caught him hard in the chest. He wanted to be ecstatic, but the kill chip in his spine counted down the end of his days too quickly. “Yes. I’m going to be a father.” Putting aside the fear that he didn’t know how to be a father seemed appropriate since he needed to find a way to stay alive first. One challenge at a time.
“Congrats, bro.” Mattie smiled, delight in those deadly eyes. Hardness and determination filtered through. “So. I guess we’d better start planning how to survive.”
* * *
Audrey shook sleep from her eyes and wandered through the apartment to the living room, where she stopped short.
“Hi, Audrey,” Matt said gently.
Shane waved, his mouth full of food.
Nate smiled.
She gulped. The Gray brothers. In her living room—three of them. And here she stood in tiny shorts and a see-through shirt. Slowly, she slid a foot backward. “I, ah, need to get dressed.”
Matt surveyed her. “You’re supposed to wear loose clothing during the second trimester. It helps with circulation and nausea.”
Shane swallowed and nodded. “And nonslip socks. You could easily fall on that wood floor.”
Nate leaned forward. “You read up on pregnancies?”
“Yep,” the other two Gray—make that Dean—brothers said in unison.
“What did you read about cow’s milk?” Nate asked, reaching for a pen and notepad.
Twilight Zone. Crazy Town. Alternate universe. There was no way Audrey stood, half dressed in her own living room where the Dean brothers currently discussed cow’s milk, magnesium, and something called a breast pump. No freakin’ way.
She turned. “I need a shower.”
“Make it under a hundred degrees,” Matt called after her.
Where had reality escaped to?
She nodded and kept walking, her mind fuzzing. Under a hundred degrees? Mathew Dean, the deadly soldier who’d furiously and sometimes cruelly trained his brothers to kill, to survive, under impossible odds, was giving her pregnancy advice? In a cheerful v
oice?
No, no, no. She shook her head, trudging into the bathroom to drop her clothing as she made her way to the shower to turn the knob to warm. This had to be another dream. No way were three Dean brothers, the commander’s most wanted on earth, hanging out researching pregnancy in her living room. Impossible. It was more likely she’d been transported to an alternate universe. One where up was down and grass was pink. Or purple.
Warm spray cascaded over her as she stepped inside the roomy shower, allowing the heat to soothe her tight shoulders.
One tiny groan escaped her when she pressed a palm against the dark tile to lean into the water, inviting warmth to wash down her back. Heaven—and possibly a bit more than a hundred degrees.
Apparently she’d need to get caught up on pregnancy before Nate knew more than she did. The man would be a steamroller at that point—making sure she followed all the rules.
She took her time shampooing her hair, breathing in steam and calming her lungs. Finally, the water began to cool as she finished shaving her legs. She lifted her head… and the world spun.
Crazy, wild, and hazy, the tiles spun around her. She pushed out of the shower and cried out, going down. A thick rug cushioned her fall.
Boot steps echoed, and the door flew wide open.
“Aud?” Nate skidded to his knees in front of her.
“Is she breathing?” Matt asked, grunting as he was pushed aside.
“Make sure she’s breathing,” Shane said urgently, dropping to his haunches.
Audrey blinked, trying to clear her head. She was buck-ass naked. “G-get out,” she croaked.
Matt knelt down, his eyes dark with concern. “What did she say?”
Nate ran a hand down her arms, obviously looking for broken bones. He quickly moved on to her legs. Her very bare legs.
Audrey sucked in air. “Get the fuck out—now!”
Shane chuckled. “Honey, it’s not like we haven’t seen—” He lurched back, alarm on his face, as she lunged at him.
She could kill them all. Scrambling on the carpet, she sprung, only to have Nate catch her and take her back down.
“Towel,” he ordered, holding out a hand.
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