by Amelia Jade
“Let her go,” Justin said, his low, threatening voice easily carrying across the distance.
He recognized the man now. The gray suit had thrown him off, but now that he was close enough to see details, the bald head, bright blue eyes, and big scar revealed to him the man who had knocked him off his bike. It had been only a handful of days earlier, but it felt like a lifetime ago now.
Justin laughed as he realized something about that day.
“You laugh?” the bald man said with a sneer.
“Yes,” he replied. “Because despite the fact that you’re a despicable excuse for a human being, I actually owe you a thank you.”
The scar tightened across his head as the man’s eyes narrowed. “You do?”
Justin nodded, trying to act more relaxed than he felt. “Sure. If it weren’t for you knocking me off my bike, I would never have met her.”
The man laughed, releasing his hold momentarily on Shay’s neck to clap mockingly.
Justin looked at Shay, their eyes meeting for the first time in far too long. He nodded, telling her it was time to make her move.
She brought her hand up to her chest, and then drove it down and back behind her hip, not stopping until it impacted in her captor’s groin. She then turned and ran toward the shipping containers.
Baldy grunted in pain, but his reflexes were good. His backhand caught her in the shoulder, and Justin watched in horror as Shay went flying through the air before tumbling across the ground, where she slammed into one of the containers with a cry.
Justin saw red.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place in his brain. He knew then why he did what he did. Why he would kill. The reasoning was suddenly as clear as day to him as he looked at Shay’s crumpled body.
He would do so, because it was the right thing to do. Because people like Shay, who were strong in personality, were not blessed with the physical skills and abilities that he was. When she could no longer hold up the light to ward off the darkness, it would be Justin who stood next to her, burning bright enough for the both of them. He would shield her in any way that was necessary.
Killing was never something he would enjoy. But right then, he knew that Baldy would die by his hand, and he wouldn’t regret it. Not because Justin wanted to do so, but because he was given no choice. Because people like Shay deserved a champion who could do what they could not.
And more importantly, because Baldy had struck his woman.
Justin’s lips pulled back in a wordless snarl, and he launched himself forward. Behind him he heard his friends, his family, shout their defiance as they charged a split second later.
The men surrounding their leader reacted just as swiftly. Justin immediately noted there were two different groups. Half a dozen normal Extremis Agents were augmented by four others who stood slightly aloof.
Enhanced.
This was going to be a tough fight, but Justin was in full battle mode, and he didn’t care. He collided with the first Agent and drove his head into the man’s nose. Blood exploded everywhere, but he ignored it. His fingers found the man’s eyes and he drove them forward until his target screamed in agony. He was past the man by then, so he reached back over his right shoulder, wrapping his hands around the man’s jaw.
With a grunt he dropped to one knee and pulled, his arms flexing. The Agent resisted, but Justin was too strong. Something tore, then bone snapped and the Agent was suddenly no more than a limp corpse. Justin dropped it and stood as another Agent darted in at him.
He saw the fist coming at him and flung up an arm to block it. It wasn’t until the blow drove him to his knees with its power that he realized it had been thrown by one of the Enhanced, not the standard Extremis Agent.
“Ow,” he grunted, pain reverberating up his arm.
The blow had twisted him as well, until his back was to the water. The end result was to ensure he was facing Shay. Fire stirred within him as he saw her trying to sit up. It burst into an inferno as he saw blood dripping from below her eye.
An inarticulate howl of rage ripped from his throat as he saw the woman he loved in pain.
The Agent threw another blow, but Justin darted aside. He would have to use his superior speed to finish this one. The Agent would overpower him in strength every time, but the Sentinels had discovered early on that the Enhanced versions sacrificed much of their other abilities to have the enhancements.
He slammed the palm of his fist into the Agent’s nose, breaking it as he spun away, avoiding the return blow from his opponent. Justin smiled to himself as he danced back, putting a bit of distance between them.
Around them, he saw his team and the others from the Underground fighting hard. These men were obviously Baldy’s personal guards, and they fought like it. He saw Jared and one of the Enhanced locked in a death grip, each trying to find a fault in the other. The first one to make a mistake would die.
Elsewhere, Ajax and Arianna worked in tandem against a pair of Extremis Agents. The effects of their partnership were clear to see, and he marveled at how well they worked together after such a short period of time. Ajax grabbed an arm of one foe after dodging the punch and threw him to the ground. The Agent focused on Ajax, entirely missing as Arianna darted in from behind and rained blows on his head until the Agent collapsed.
Justin’s attention swiftly refocused on his opponent as he took a grazing blow to the face. He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the Enhanced Agent, using his weight to unbalance the man.
Then he called his bear and the pair fell over. The Enhanced hit him hard in the side, but it was too late. Two tons of fury appeared over him and Justin’s strong jaw closed around the man’s head, pulling the flesh off it as he yanked. The Agent screamed in pain for several seconds until he ripped out his throat, the metallic tang of blood flooding his senses.
“He’s getting away!” Justin’s bear snapped to see Shay pointing down the pier.
He followed her arm. Baldy had dashed down the pier toward a pair of fast, modern-looking speedboats and was hurriedly undoing one.
Justin roared loudly, making one pass through the brawl. His claws tore huge chunks of flesh as he maimed legs and in one case actually full-on ripped one of the Agent’s arms off. His path of destruction allowed his team to gain the upper hand.
Turning, he raced down the pier after Shay, who was headed for the other speedboat.
“You stay,” he said as he shifted back, leaping down into the other boat. The craft rocked under the impact as he slipped into the driver’s seat.
“Justin Renne, like the damn pasta!” she shouted. “You move your ass over, and you move it over now. I’m bleeding, and I hurt all over. But I’m not dead yet.”
He snarled, turning to face her, but the blazing determination in her eyes actually sent him back a step.
“Better,” she said, jabbing a finger into his sternum.
Without thinking, he swept her up in a kiss. She groaned slightly in pain, but when he tried to back away she pulled him tight.
The other speedboat roared away from the pier, bringing them both back to reality.
Shay slid into the driver’s seat as he sputtered his objection.
“Shut up and sit down, shifter boy,” she said with a smirk. “It’s time you saw how a real professional drives.”
Chapter Seventeen
Shay
“Cut us loose,” she ordered, and Justin leapt to obey, ripping the ropes apart instead of taking the time to untie them. In a second they were free and she fired up the quad-linked engines.
The noise was loud, but the power that thrummed through the cockpit where she sat brought a grin to her face. It had been too damn long since she went fast.
“Sit down. Here we go!” she crowed and gunned the engine.
Water spewed out in a fifty-foot-long tail behind them as the rear of the boat dipped into the water, the bow rising high above them. Seconds later they were whipping across the harbor in pursuit of the other
speedboat.
Shay didn’t have much training with speedboats, but her pursuit of going fast had taken her onto the water several times before. The huge engines on the back had to be putting out four hundred or more horsepower a piece, judging by how fast the forty-foot-long craft sped ahead. It was a monster, and she howled in delight as the wind whipped her burgundy hair free of its pony tail, flicking it out behind her sharply.
“You’re crazy!” Justin shouted from his seat.
She turned to look at him and laughed. He was hunched over in his seat, bracing his arms against the body of the boat as it thudded across the small waves in the harbor, his knuckles white from gripping tightly.
The exhilaration was the only thing keeping her going just then, and she knew it. That blow from Cronin had hurt, and all she had wanted to do before the engines sprang to life was lie down and go to sleep. Now though, she was back in her element, and she used her skills ruthlessly to close the gap between them and Cronin’s craft.
It was obvious he wasn’t as comfortable at these speeds as she was. His boat was going slower than hers, and he wasn’t able to get it skipping across the tops of the waves the way she was.
“Get ready!” she yelled as they began to pull alongside him.
“Ready for what?” Justin yelped back.
“Well, one of us has to go over there and kill that sonofabitch,” she said over the wind. “And that’s not my specialty. I got you here. Now get over there and kick his damn ass!” she ordered.
Justin gave her a strange look, his head tilted slightly to the side.
“I think I’m in love with you,” he shouted, standing unsteadily as the nose of their boat caught the rear of Cronin’s.
Shay’s jaw dropped, and she almost fell behind Cronin as he pushed his throttle down some more after noticing how quickly they were gaining.
Her eyes narrowed at the challenge and she pushed them closer and closer.
“I love you too,” she said, relief blossoming inside of her at finally being able to speak the words, to sum up everything that she felt between them into one sentence. It may have been too soon for many, but for Shay, it felt like she should have said it days ago.
Justin grinned, making her heart do a double-beat, and then he crawled over the glass and onto the bow of the boat. Unlike smaller boats, the top of this one was covered, providing him with no easy way to get up there. But Shay knew what she was doing, feathering the throttle up and down slightly as they bounced along, keeping it as steady as possible between waves until the nose of her boat was halfway up alongside Cronin’s.
She watched as Justin blew her a kiss and then launched himself across the distance. The other man was sharp though, and Shay gasped as he killed the throttle almost instantly in response. Instead of Justin landing in the cockpit with him, he hit the windshield glass and tumbled along the front of the boat, almost ending up in the water before he found a grip and slowed his slide.
Cronin grinned and then gunned the boat.
Justin flew down the length of it toward the rear this time, still unbalanced.
That was Cronin’s first mistake, however. Justin grabbed him as he went by, stopping his motion. The pair went down, fighting as the boat continued to surge through the harbor. Shay watched—having kept pace as best she could—as the boat surged forward without a pilot, currently aimed at the opposite shore.
Hurry up, Justin. Finish him and stop the boat, or get clear!
The two battled each other, opening cuts with practically every blow. Her heart raced as she watched them go at it. Gray was obviously some sort of superhuman as well. She wondered if he was a shifter like Justin, or just one of the ones who had taken the serum that he had told her about.
Justin landed a solid blow, spinning Cronin around, though he took a vicious shot to the ribs in return.
Shay shouted in terror as Cronin landed on the controls. The boat spun away from her far too quickly.
The hard spin at such a high speed caused the boat to flutter. Then abruptly it upended itself, flinging both men free as massive propellers emerged and spewed a haze of water everywhere as they spun freely, unencumbered by the denser water.
She watched as the pair went skidding over the water before settling into it. Although she was in a fast-moving boat, Cronin was now between her and Justin. Cronin was swimming for him quickly, intent on finishing the dazed shifter off.
Shay growled. “Oh no, you don’t,” she raged and slammed the throttle down.
Cronin looked over his shoulder as she approached. He must have known that she would reach Justin first, because he broke off and began to head for shore.
Shay spun the wheel and followed him, the nose of her boat pointed right at him. There was just enough time for her to see the shocked realization cross his face, and then she ran him over. The boat thudded as he was run under the hull, and she whirled in time to see the wake turn dark red as blood discolored it.
“That’ll teach you to hit a woman,” she spat and hauled back on the throttle, easing the boat into a slow turn that put her on a course to Justin, who was looking at her wide-eyed.
“Little faster please,” he said, looking warily at the water around him as she putted over to him.
“Why?” she asked as she came alongside and he hauled himself in, rocking the boat as he went.
He hesitated.
“Are you afraid of water?” she asked with a frown, killing the throttle entirely. The boat slid to a halt, rocking gently with the waves.
“No,” he replied quickly. Too quickly. “Just sharks,” he added in a smaller voice.
Shay laughed loudly and threw herself into his arms. Behind them, the other boat slid beneath the waves, the propellers still spinning, sending it speeding into the depths in some sort of odd Viking funeral.
Before she realized it, she was crying, huge sobs racking her body as Justin held her tight.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, his fingers caressing her cheek softly as he kissed the top of her head. “It’s over now. It’s okay.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. J is still out there.”
She felt him tense under her. “How do you know J?”
“He was in the yacht that left at the start of the fight,” she said, resting her head on Justin’s chest.
“Damn,” the big shifter whispered, but he didn’t get up. Instead, he just held her tight.
“Justin,” she said, relishing the way his name rolled off her tongue.
“Yes?” he answered, his voice happy but tired.
“He’s not human.”
“Who isn’t?”
“J,” she replied “He’s something unlike you, or the Agents, even Cronin, the man you just killed. He’s... more powerful. There’s something about him, it’s scary. More so than anything I’ve seen yet.”
She could feel him frown.
“Justin?” she said again.
“Yes my love?”
“I think I’m going to pass out now,” she wearily as the last of the adrenaline fled from her body.
A second later, she followed through with her last comment as blackness washed over her.
Chapter Eighteen
Justin
Two Days Later
The only command from Madison following the desperate fight at the pier had been to take some time off and recharge. She had set a date and time for a command meeting, and told everyone to make themselves scarce until then. They had all needed the time off after the events of the previous days, and he had been glad for that. It had given him and Shay a lot of time to spend together, which he had used to help her heal, both physically and mentally, from what she had gone through.
He regretted that it had delayed this particular meeting, but his mate was in a much better state of mind now than she had been after first waking up after fainting.
A mental roar of delight came with the fact that he had acknowledged that she was his mate. Justin knew many of the legends of his
people spoke of them having to bite the woman to make her his mate, but it just didn’t work that way. It was his bear that would—and had—chosen a mate for him. His human side took longer to realize it, but once his bear saw “the one,” that was it. He would never be with another. For him, that was Shay.
“There’s someone you need to say hi to,” he said as she slid off the back of his bike.
“Oh, and who is that?” she asked, doffing her helmet and looking around the cavernous garage of the warehouse. They had converted it into the new base of operations for the Underground after their previous one had been exposed. Justin liked it better than the club anyway. It was much more private here.
“I think that he means me,” a voice said, emerging from behind one of the trucks.
Shay spun, the helmet falling from her hands as she made eye contact with the newcomer.
Justin smiled, snagging it out of mid-air and placing it on the seat next to his own.
“Father?” she asked in an unsteady voice.
“Hi,” he said lamely.
“Father!” she shouted, and flung her arms around him as Justin watched.
He saw the older man’s eyes water, and he turned away to give the pair their privacy, even if he could still overhear what they were saying.
“You’re alive!” she said excitedly. “I was so worried about you. Then when I found out...” her voice died there, the excitement suddenly gone.
“I know,” he replied, and Justin heard the disappointment with himself in those two words. “I made a bad decision, and I’m sorry. To both of you.”
The Sentinel turned as Charles raised his voice slightly, not realizing that Justin would have heard him anyway.
“You are forgiven,” he said solemnly. “Whatever happened was in the past. When confronted with the reality of what you were doing, you did the right thing. To me and my team, that shows great conviction within you. Everyone makes bad decisions sometimes. It’s what makes us good that allows us to forgive that.” He smiled. “Just don’t do it again,” he said in a lighter tone.
