My Next Breath

by Shannon McKenna

  “I’m a danger magnet for you, and I can’t even protect you from those bastards when they show up. I can’t fight back when they code me. That drives me fucking crazy.”

  “But you did fight back,” she said fiercely. “You turned your stun code into a weapon and killed Phillip Holt with it. That’s an incredible accomplishment.”

  He dismissed it with an impatient shrug. “Nah. I just got lucky.” She laughed and instantly regretted it. Her ribs didn’t think it was funny.

  “That is some freaky luck,” she said.

  A smile flashed across his somber face. “True enough,” he agreed. “But I’ve been thinking while you were asleep. About what you did for Brenner. That thing you said to me the other day. About how what’s done can be undone.”

  “You mean your control codes? Working on them like I did with Brenner? I have no idea if it’s actually possible to change anything for you, Zade. And it would be incredibly dangerous.”

  “But you can try, right?”

  “And risk hurting you? Fuck that,” she said forcefully. “No way.”

  Zade kissed her hand again, his eyes intent upon hers. “It’s worth it to me,” he said. “To be free. To be able to protect you. I’d risk it.”

  Simone wound her fingers into his sweater and yanked, ignoring the pain it caused. She jerked him down closer to her, on his elbows. “Let me tell you what I think about that, Zade Ryan.”

  His eyes widened. “Uh, please do.”

  “This is an argument for us to have when you get back,” she told him sternly. “I don’t have the breath for it right now. And you don’t have the time. So save it.”

  “But you could start working on strategies for it while we’re out there in the mountains,” he suggested. “You could plan the—”

  “Like I said. Not enough breath. Go get into that damned helicopter and look for Luke. The sooner you get to work, the sooner you get back.”

  His eyes had that hot glow she loved. “Get better quick,” he told her.

  “I intend to,” she said. “And you know what? Apart from the evil overlords and the mortal danger and all that inconvenient crap, I’m still having a hell of a lot more fun now that you’re around. I’m not inclined to put that at risk.”

  “You call what just happened to us fun?” His stern look turned to an unexpected wink. “Are you fucking with me again?”

  Her laugh quickly turned to a cough. More bad news for her ribs. “I have not even begun to fuck with you,” she said breathlessly. “But I want you for my man. So go figure your shit out. And find your brother. Fast.”

  A huge, delighted grin blazed over Zade’s face, and as pain-racked as she was, her whole body responded with a hot glow of concentrated joy.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “On the double.”

  “You don’t have time for the kind of kiss that you owe me right now,” she said. “So take exactly fifteen seconds to make a down payment. You’d better make every second count.”

  He murmured something as his lips covered hers. She didn’t quite catch it.

  She turned her head. “Louder,” she said.

  His lips moved to her ear. “How’s this?” he whispered.

  “Still not loud enough.”

  Zade pulled back and brushed her hair tenderly away from her face. “I’ll shout it from the rooftops when I get my voice back. I love you, Simone.”

  She tried to sit up, and bit back a howl of pain. “I love you too,” she said. “Always will. Now go. You have work to do. Leave me alone.”

  He lifted the covers and crawled underneath to lie beside her. Fully dressed. Shoes on. Her big hot man. “I never do as I’m told,” he murmured. “Got that?”

  “Yes! Ouch!”

  Epilogue

  Zade’s eyes opened after Simone concluded the preparatory examination with the neuroscanner. A rustle of movement in the room had made him suspicious.

  He looked around. His worst suspicions were confirmed. The room was full of people. All the Midlanders were there for the big moment. The fuck?

  So this was why they’d all hung around after the great search for Luke. Which had come to nothing, despite their best efforts. The only thing they’d concluded for sure was that there was no sign of Luke’s body in those mountains.

  It didn’t mean he was dead. Nor did it mean that he wasn’t. All it meant was that the agony of not knowing was destined to go on.

  But instead of going back to their lives, the out-of-towners just hung around in Seattle afterwards, twiddling their thumbs. Giving no reasons why.

  Simone’s doing. She’d invited them there to support him. And they all wanted to say goodbye in case he dropped dead. Who knew they were all so sentimental.

  Okay, so it was nice of them, but this was way too many solemn faces for a guy to tolerate at one time.

  “Dude. Your flowing locks. So sad. Was that necessary?” Asa stood next to Brenner, frowning with stark disapproval at Zade’s freshly shaven head.

  Zade put up his hand to his smooth scalp defensively. “I kind of like it.”

  “It’ll grow back,” Brenner said philosophically, rubbing his hand through his own short, stubbly brush.

  Zoe, Hannah, Devon, and Caro were hovering by his cot, pale and red-eyed. Sisko gazed out the window with a muscle twitching in his clenched jaw. Noah was there with his arms folded, looking stoic and miserable. And all the rest of them, too, milling around the room. Looking tense.

  Making him tense. Damn.

  “You just had to tell everyone,” Zade complained to Simone. “Make it into a great big deal.”

  “It is, though,” she replied. “I can’t do this alone, Zade.”

  “You’re not the one doing it. I’m doing it. This is my responsibility. Get that straight.”

  She just looked at him. “Right, Zade. So. Are you ready?”

  He nodded. Simone put the scalp sleeve over his head and took fucking forever to adjust the thing. Once she got the interface humming and the 3-D image of his brain floating in the air, she put on the gloves she’d designed specifically for this treatment. Multiple fingertip freq wands.

  Simone looked scared half to death. Him, not so much. He’d been best buds with death for many long years, having long ago concluded that dying beat the hell out of being a slave robot. But he hated to see her suffer.

  One encouraging fact: Simone had successfully unraveled his stun code, at least. It still made his muscles contract, but only momentarily. A few sharp pains and he could move again.

  She’d done the same work on his kill code. Working with each word out of sequence. Then working with two out of three. Fiddling in the interface with her freq wands for hours on end as he lay there on the bed, muscles clenched.

  They’d been at it for a couple months now. It was nerve-wracking. He was ready to be done. One way or another.

  Today was the moment of truth. Three little words. Live or die.

  “If I die, it’s not your fault,” he said. “You’re not allowed to feel bad.”

  Simone shook her head. “Dream on, big guy. You can’t tell me how to feel. I can’t even tell me how to feel.”

  Zade looked around at the others. “Listen up,” he said more loudly. “Two things. This goes sideways, everyone keeps looking for Luke.”

  “Of course,” Noah said.

  “Don’t insult us,” Sisko said.

  Zade grinned at him. “Be insulted if it makes you feel better. Thing two. I’m on the record as saying that this was my bad idea from the start. Simone takes no responsibility. Ever. No matter how this turns out. You all with me?”

  Tears stood in Hannah’s eyes. “We’re with you. Always.”

  Zoe took his hand. “Same here. We promise.”

  He sighed and shut his eyes. “Okay. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it. And now everybody get out. What happens next is between me and Simone.”

  But what really happened next was that all of them had to file by the cot to squeeze h
is hand or kiss him or mutter something in his ear, or whatever the fuck they had to do.

  Getting all choked up and suspiciously bright-eyed was a stressor he hadn’t reckoned with.

  Whatever. Nobody told those hard-ass Midlanders what to do. But this goddamn improvised goodbye ceremony was excruciating.

  He gritted his teeth and endured it.

  Finally it was just the two of them in the quiet room. Just the small, muted sounds of Simone making her final adjustments to the coding. But it took so long, he suspected she was fiddling with the software to buy a little extra time.

  He used that time to gaze at her averted face. He never got tired of it.

  There was nothing left to say. It had all been said and re-said. She turned to him with her heart in her eyes, then leaned down and kissed him. Forehead, cheekbone, lips. A long, lingering kiss.

  Then she straightened up and positioned herself with the wands. Ready to intervene as much as she possibly could if things went bad.

  It was time. He looked into her eyes. “Do it.”

  “Mustang. Cameo. Stamen,” she said.

  The room was silent. Like the pause between two breaths.

  Zade opened his eyes. He smiled. The smile turned into a grin.

  “I love you too, babe,” he said. “You ready for forever?”

  Her face lit up with joy. “Yes. Oh yes.”

  And then she kissed him.

  THE END

  Meet Shannon McKenna

  Shannon McKenna is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sixteen action packed, turbocharged romantic thrillers, among which are the stories of the wildly popular McClouds & Friends series. Her newest series, the Obsidian Files, are hot romantic suspense with a paranormal twist. She loves tough and heroic alpha males, heroines with the brains and guts to match them, villains who challenge them to their utmost, adventure, scorching sensuality, and most of all, the redemptive power of true love. Since she was small, she has loved abandoning herself to the magic of a good book, and her fond childhood fantasy was that writing would be just like that but with the added benefit of being able to take credit for the story at the end. Alas, the alchemy of writing turned out to be messier than she’d ever dreamed, but what the hell, she loves it anyway and hopes that readers enjoy the results of her alchemical experiments.

  She loves to hear from readers. Contact her at her website, http://shannonmckenna.com, keep up with her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorShannonMckenna/ or join the newsletter by signing up here: http://shannonmckenna.com/connect.php.

  Right Through Me

  Don’t miss Noah and Caro’s story . . . the scorching first installment in the exciting new paranormal series, The Obsidian Files!

  Stranger, speak softly . . .

  Biotech tycoon Noah Gallagher has a deadly secret: his clandestine training as a super-soldier gives him abilities that go far beyond human. Yet he’s very much a man. When Caro Bishop shows up at his Seattle headquarters with a dangerous secret agenda, his ordered life is thrown into chaos. Caro is a woman like no other—and her luminously sensual beauty cloaks a mystery he must solve.

  Caro’s lying low, evading a false charge of murder. She means to clear her name, and she’ll do whatever it takes to survive—but seducing a man like Noah is more than she bargained for. His amber eyes have the strangest glow when he looks at her—she could swear he sees the secrets of her heart. The desire smoldering in Noah’s eyes awakens her own secret hunger, but Caro has to resist his magnetic pull. Anyone close to her becomes a target. The only right thing to do is run, far and fast, but Caro can’t outrun Noah’s ferocious intensity—or deny the searing passion that explodes between them.

  Nothing else matters—until a vicious enemy bent on the ultimate revenge puts his murderous plan into play. Noah and Caro must battle for their lives . . .and their love . . .

  Chapter 1

  Someone just cut the lights. What the hell?

  Noah Gallagher put down his pen and looked around, startled, as drums began to thump from the hidden sound system of the penthouse conference room. Some exotic instrument joined in, throbbing and wailing.

  The door to the conference room opened to a shimmery jingling sound, then a flash of fluttering purple. Everyone at the table was staring and murmuring.

  Oh, Christ. Not possible. Noah rose to his feet, but the belly dancer was already halfway through the door, her hands weaving in a hypnotic pattern. Wide, light-catching green eyes laughed at him brazenly as she shimmied straight toward him, leading with one pulsing hip.

  Her eyes caught him . . . and held him.

  The world narrowed down. Whatever he was going to say or do stopped. Words were gone. Air was gone. Air didn’t matter. Nothing moved while she moved.

  She had commandeered all movement. With that smile. Those eyes.

  He was sitting again, with no memory of deciding to do so. His mind had gone blank. The woman was like a walking, breathing stun code, personally keyed to him. He’d always wondered how it would feel to be one of the unlucky chosen few at Midlands who’d gotten stun and kill codes embedded in their minds. His own brain implants had been bad enough. Stun and kill codes were worse.

  But this dancer wasn’t a goddamn stun code. She was just a random woman, shaking her stuff. When her act was done, he’d pull it together. Exert the fucking authority he was entitled to as the CEO of Angel Enterprises.

  He had exactly until the music stopped to get control of himself.

  Simple enough to figure out who’d dreamed up this unwanted birthday present. His younger sister Hannah lurked by the door. The wide-angle enhancement of his sight made it possible to see the gleam in Hannah’s eyes without looking away from the belly dancer for a single second.

  Not that he could have looked away.

  He saw his fiancée Simone’s face with his peripheral vision. She’d chosen to sit at his side for this important meeting. It was painfully obvious from her tight, expectant smile that she was waiting for him to turn to her, to smile and laugh and make light of this stupid situation. Not just for her. For everyone in the room.

  He couldn’t do it.

  Try. Do an analog dive. Grab a hook. Concentrate.

  A spotlight from somewhere gilded the dancer’s body, highlighting every perfect detail. Silver anklets that jingled over her small, bare feet. Golden toenails. Shapely legs flashed between purple veils that floated from a low-slung, glittering belt. The belt and top were swagged with shining chains and dangling beadwork. Still more chains, draped from an ornate headdress, dangled over her forehead and under her chin, creating a constant soft shimmer of sound.

  High, full breasts quivered, lovingly presented in the spangle-studded velvet bra. She arched back, floating a purple veil edged with spangles high in the air above herself and swishing her thick fall of of glossy black hair around. Had to be fake hair, falling to well below her ass. It brushed the curve of her hips. Fanned out as she twirled.

  Everything he’d monitored in his peripheral vision was gone now. He no longer saw Hannah, or Simone, or anything else. His inner vision was too busy with the vivid fantasy of that woman straddling him. Imagining her bold, sensual smile as she swayed over him, teased him. Running her fingers through her hair, lifting it, tossing it. Coiling it around her waist like a slave rope.

  He wanted to rip away all the filmy veils and all the goddamn beads and chains. See her bare-assed. Bare-breasted. Yeah.

  The deep curve of her waist was perfectly shaped for his fingers to grip. The curves and hollows of her belly and her hips looked so soft. Touchable.

  His hands shook with the urge to reach, stroke. Seize.

  The rush of erotic images ramped up his advanced visual processor into screaming overdrive. Even with eyes shielded from eighty percent of the ambient light, even using a double layer of custom-designed shield specs, his AVP combat program was off and running, scrolling a thick column of data analysis past his inner eye.

  An
d even that couldn’t distract him from her show. Not for one instant.

  His heightened senses reached out, so greedy for more that he found himself actually taking off the back-up shield specs. He’d have popped out the contacts, too, but his AVP was already going nuts at the lower protection level. Combine that with adrenaline, and a huge blast of sexual arousal—fuck.

  The light level in this room could zap him into a stress flashback if he didn’t protect his eyes. Not only that. The dark shield strength contact lenses hid the animal flash of amber luminosity caused by his visual implants. Outsiders couldn’t be allowed to see that. The room was packed with outsiders. He wanted them gone.

  Especially Simone. Which made him a total asshole. He tried hard, really hard, to feel guilty. Not so much as a twinge. His conscious mind had been almost totally hijacked by the dancer.

  He wanted to throw everyone else out and lock the door. Study that woman with his naked eyes, dancing under the spotlight. But only for him. He wanted to gulp in the whole data flow. It was being filtered out in real time and lost to him forever, and it drove him . . . fucking . . . nuts.

  And he couldn’t do a thing. Not with an audience. His fists clenched in fury.

  Heart racing, temperature spiking. Sweating profusely. No way to hide it. It was an AVP stress dump. A massive dose of fight-and-conquer energy, channeling straight into his dick, which strained desperately against his pants.

  He struggled to grab onto the analog hooks that he’d established. His hooks were emergency mental shortcuts, activating an instant, deep withdrawal into the ice caves of his subconscious mind when the AVP got out of control. Best way he could devise to calm his stress reactions and stay on top of himself.

  Not a hook to be had. Couldn’t find them, couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t use his highly developed power of visualization at all, after years of grueling practice. All gone.

  He was fully occupied imagining that woman naked and writhing beneath him.

  His intense reaction to this spectacle made no sense. He’d seen belly dancing before and been unmoved. He did not have complicated fantasies or fetishes. He didn’t even get the fun factor. He wasn’t known for his sense of humor. In fact, he had no imagination at all, unless you counted biotech engineering designs, or plotting ways to grow his business, or scheming to keep his chosen family alive, secret, and safe.