Her stomach distended and she swore she could see the outline of two tiny hands trying to take her fingers.
Maddie swallowed back the tears burning in the back of her throat and forced herself to think happy thoughts. To focus on the happily ever after that she craved with every beat of her heart and breath in her body. “He will come for us. He’ll always come for us. No matter what and always. Because what God hath put together—”
“Let no man tear asunder.”
Maddie gasped, looked up then froze like a deer caught in headlights.
“Hello, Maddie.”
Van stood in the bedroom doorway grinning and looking like he’d been to Hell and back. Literally. Dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he’d disappeared. They were ripped and shredded in places. And bloody. Like he’d been wounded.
“Ohmigod. You’re hurt!” Maddie yanked the cover off her, attempted to throw her legs over the side of the bed, missed and then tried to correct for her miscalculation by rocking to build her momentum to get up off the bed and go to him. It wasn’t working and she was making like a turtle stuck on its back. “Oh for crying out loud! Van, stop laughing at me and get over here and help me up!”
Tango couldn’t help it. He laughed. And it hurt. A lot. But he didn’t care. He was home and his mate was… a helluvalot more pregnant now than when he’d figured out that the only way to save this world from complete and utter destruction was to take the fight to the one place he’d never been to but suddenly knew existed and could handle it.
Illyria.
It’d been a rough eight hours. But he’d survived. And made it home.
To his extremely pregnant mate who was definitely working herself up into a state he was looking forward to winding her down from. Later. But right now, she needed help.
He went to her and grabbed her hand, then—
“Don’t!”
Nev’s warning came too late.
Twin bolts of electricity—one gold, the other silver—shot out of Maddie’s stomach and slammed into Tango’s torso. His boots left the ground as he flew backwards, hit the wall, then went through the dry wall and landed on his back in the hall way. Hard.
A pair of boots crunched on drywall and stopped next to him.
Tango blinked, shook his head to clear it then looked up. At a smirking Whiskey.
“Did no one warn him about not riling Maddie up?” Whiskey asked.
“Oops. My bad.” Nev snickered. “Must have slipped my mind.”
“Good man,” Whiskey mumbled as he crouched down next to Tango. “Doesn’t look like anything’s broken. He’ll live.”
“Maybe.” Tango groaned and lifted his head off the ground. Damn. He’d flown a good ten feet. And been knocked on his ass. He’d come straight from the battlefield and not once had he been knocked off his feet. Until now. “What the hell just happened?”
“That,” Whiskey started in a tone that spoke volumes on how much he was enjoying the hell out of this, “is what happens when Maddie gets the slightest bit upset in the presence of a male.”
Shocked, Tango stared through the hole he’d made in the wall and watched Nev carefully, gently, get Maddie on her feet. “Maddie did this?”
“Nah,” Whiskey said as he helped Tango sit up. “That was all your boys. Shock and Awe.”
Nev appeared in the doorway behind a concerned Maddie. “I thought we nixed Shock and Awe and were going with Zap and Pow.”
“Oh yeah, so we did,” Whiskey said. Then chuckled. “Zap and Pow it is.”
“My… sons? There are two of them?”
Whiskey nodded.
Tango felt a stupid grin start to form. “They… knocked me on my ass?”
“Yep,” Whiskey and Nev answered in unison.
Maddie winced. “Sorry about that. They didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just their way of… you know.”
“Guarding the Mama,” Nev said.
Tango swallowed hard against the slow burn of something that felt suspiciously like pride clawing its way up to his brain. “My sons… they inherited my… zap and pow?”
“See, Maddie, I told you he’d like those names.”
Maddie kept her eyes on Tango and smacked her brother in the chest with a move that looked like she’d spent her entire life doing it. “He does not and I heard his head crack against the wall. Carter, are you sure he’s okay? No concussion? Or gaping wounds that explain the amount of blood on his chest?”
“My blood. Wounds healed. And my sons kicked my ass.” Tango snickered. Then chuckled until he couldn’t hold back any longer, then tilted his head back and feeling happier and lighter than he ever had in his entire life… laughed so hard he couldn’t stop.
Maddie watched as her mate succumbed to a case of the giggles. “Something’s wrong.”
Whiskey frowned. “Agreed.” He whipped a pen light out of his pocket then waved it in front of Tango’s eyes. “Nev, help me get him up. He’s exhausted and about to pass out.”
Maddie waddled out of the way and watched Van let them help him to his feet then half carry him into the bedroom and put him on the bed.
“No, I’m good. It’s just… my kids did… what they… couldn’t. Knocked me… god slayer… on my ass. No… telegraph. Zap… Pow… Bam.” At each pause, Van barked with laughter and burbled incoherent fragments of sense and words.
“He’s lost it,” Maddie whispered.
“Happens when severely dehydrated and coming down hard after a fight,” Whiskey said.
Maddie grabbed her cup off the nightstand and offered it to Whiskey. “Here. It’s water. Make him drink it.”
Whiskey shook his head. “He’ll choke on it. Nev, run down to my truck and grab the kit in the backseat. I’ve got two saline bags in it and we’ll get him hooked up.”
“On it.” Nev disappeared.
Van dropped back onto the bed, his head hitting the pillow, and continued to laugh and babble nonsense.
“Carter, please tell me he will be okay.”
Whiskey nodded. “He will. After he’s slept and hydrated, he should be good.”
“He better.” Maddie paused then had to ask, “I… Zap and Pow… we didn’t do this to him, did we?”
“No.” Whiskey turned to her with a half smirk. “But Zap and Pow took care of it.”
Maddie frowned. “Took care of what?”
“Gave him what he needed to knock him out.”
As if to prove Whiskey’s point, Van’s eyes closed and his laughter slowly started to fade as his face began to relax.
“They must have sensed what I couldn’t see until now,” Whiskey explained. “Every muscle in Tango’s body has been hammered and bruised. I can’t even imagine the amount of energy he’s had to absorb to maintain his healing ability while withstanding whatever he’s been through.”
“What has he been through?”
“No clue, but it had to be one hell of a battle. Based on what I’m seeing now and what I think he said about they not being able to knock him on his ass, I’d say he’s been fighting nonstop for… hours.”
“But how can that be? He’s been gone for eight months?”
“I don’t know.”
“And why is he still in the same clothes he left in?”
“Is he,” Whiskey asked.
Maddie nodded. “I’ve watched that video a million times and that is the same outfit. With the same blood stains on his chest from when Colby Jack shot him.”
Whiskey pursed his lips and studied Van like he was a puzzle to be figured out. “Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. It is. And they’re not faded. Not like they would be if he’d been wearing the same shirt for eight months without washing it.”
“True.” Whiskey slowly nodded. “Regardless, until we know more, we keep this quiet. No one but you, me and Nev need to know the god slayer is back.”
“Agreed. But we do tell him everything that’s gone on since he left.”
“Dole it out slowly,
but tell him everything. He needs to know the situation.”
“I will,” Maddie said. “And I’ll see if he knows anything about Dell. Because if Van survived whatever he went through, then maybe Dell did, too.”
“I’m not holding my breath. But, yeah, see what you can find out and we’ll go from there. And knowing your mate the way I do…,” Whiskey trailed off.
“Once he’s read in, he will flip a gourd, rant and rave, drop a litter of F-bombs, then find his happy place, make an idle threat about spanking my bare bottom until he’s convinced I won’t be able to sit for a month, and then—”
“Yank a half-baked, insane Hail Mary plan out of thin air, mutter some jacked rendition of the Serenity Prayer, and then tuck you someplace safe and secure while he—”
“Does what needs to be done,” Maddie finished.
“What we haven’t been able to do,” Whiskey mumbled more to himself than her.
Maddie stepped forward to lay a hand on Van’s forehead, smooth a lock of hair away from his eyes, and reassure herself that her mate and the love of her life was really there. Home. Safe. In one piece. And right where she, their sons, and his teammates needed him to be. “Not for lack of trying, but, yes, he will because that’s what he does.”
“And then Sinclair’s reign of Machiavellian manipulation that puts the mates of all his men in danger…,” Whiskey trailed off.
She heard the thread of uncertainty in Carter’s voice and felt the pull of what she had come to understand as her duty, her calling, and her role in Van-Gabriel’s world. Maddie straightened, then readied herself to deliver what he and all the men associated with Michael Sinclair’s organization needed.
Hope.
Hope for a normal life. Hope that they’d get their happily ever after and be able to keep it. Hope that whatever game Sinclair was playing would end and a new generation would have the chance to be born without fear of immediately becoming a pawn in a game that needed to end.
And it would end.
Because her Van-Gabriel was home and there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind that her mate would make damn sure Michael Sinclair’s days of making others dance to his tune were numbered.
“It ends, Carter. Once and for all.” Maddie looked Whiskey in the eye gave him what he and all the other soldiers out there like him needed. “Michael Sinclair and his devil’s tango… ends.”
About the Author
Claire J. Monroe is a paranormal romance author who tried (and failed) multiple times not to be a writer. Finally, in late 2015, she gave in to the 'Powers that Be's decree that she write and (promptly got out of her own way then) started penning the harmonious-dysfunctional relationships of her Southern Others.
Given her family's strong military roots, it's no surprise that her heroes serve in various branches of the military and are domesticated (not emasculated) by their smart and sassy Southern Belle true mates. Born and raised in Northern Virginia then transplanted (by the grace of God) to North Carolina, Claire currently resides in the suburbs of Nashville, TN.
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading Maddie and Tango’s story! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Before you head off to your next great read I wanted to let you know that this book is but the first in what I hope and plan to be a long running series. If that sounds like something you want to get in on then click the link of your choice after this note and sign up for my newsletter or follow me on social media to get notified on new releases.
Now for some words and thoughts I wanted to share about writing Maddie and Tango’s story…
A few years ago, I hit a rough patch that made writing nearly impossible. Not from a physical perspective, but an emotional one. During that time I sought help from a therapist who suggested that I stop running from writing and instead focus on writing my story.
It took me a while to figure out what she meant by that, but finally it dawned on me that she didn’t just mean the story in my heart, but the one that was mine. Maddie and Tango—or as I call them, Mango—is just that. A work of fiction that reflects some of the trauma I’ve endure thus far in this life of mine. Specifically, I’m referring to Maddie’s feelings of abandonment by Van’s decision to divorce and the miscarriage.
Normally, I wouldn’t admit to having put so much of myself in a book, but it occurred to me after writing Maddie’s description of the miscarriage that “caught it in a cup and handed it to the doctor” sounds… too unbelievable to be true. Except it happened. To me. In the emergency room of Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, NC.
Maddie’s reaction to that event was exactly how it happened for me. To this day, I cannot think back on that moment and not feel a sense of disconnect from reality. Same is true for the other miscarriages I experienced. The last one being the one that messed up my emotional sense of balance the most… but that’s a different kettle of hot mess that I’m not exploring today. Later, maybe. In a different book. Or not.
My main point today is to apologize profusely if you found typos in that section. I’m strong, but apparently not strong enough to do more than skim that section each time I proofed this book.
Second point is to share the mantra that helped pull me out of that dark place and that is… they come back. If it’s meant to be, they come back. Which happened for me less than a year when a happy, healthy baby girl was placed in my arms. She is and will always be my very own miracle that I thank my lucky stars for each and every day.
Lastly is to say… Maddie and Van’s issues are far from being resolved. Yes, they love each other. Yes, they are about to become parents. But how they tackle their future together is and will always be work in progress. One that I hope you will stay with me to explore after I get the books written that happen during the eight months Van’s been missing.
That journey will start with Whiskey, then go to (in no particular order, yet) Sinjun, Ben, Trace, Fox, Rand, Ajax, Rafe, and Bravo. Questions will be answered. Secrets revealed. And missions—plenty of missions—will go sideways.
If that sounds like something you want in on then follow me on social media or signup for my newsletter and get notified on new releases. Or visit my clairejmonroe.com website and get read in on some Sinclair’s organization. And maybe find an excerpt or two from the many works in progress I have for this series.
And that’s it from me. Thanks again for reading Devil’s Tango, hope you enjoyed it, and… if you’re not like me and truly love writing honest book reviews that help other readers find new books to devour, then flip the page and have at it.
Until next time, take care, happy reading, and… Claire Jane—out.
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Devil's Tango (Running with the Devil Book 1) Page 34
