by Carly Fall
His brow furrowed as he thought about his next words.
A large, white vehicle sped down the road with music Annis didn’t recognize blasting
through its speakers. Really, what made them think everyone wanted to hear that noise?
The vehicle slowed for a moment, then continued on its way. Another group of people
flowed past them, and traffic had picked up.
“Here’s the deal, Annis. This stuff isn’t easy for me to say, okay? In fact, it’s fucking
hard.” He looked at her with kind eyes. “I hate you.”
She gasped and stepped back. It shouldn’t have been a surprise with the way he had
treated her, but still the words stung.
“I hate you because you’re . . . you’re everything I’m not. Well, everything I wish I still
was.”
He exhaled loudly and looked down at the ground again. “I guess who I really hate is
myself, but . . . but I’ve been taking it out on you.”
Annis didn’t say anything. She just stood there as groups of people flooded around them.
It was an odd feeling to be around so many people and yet feel so alone. Cohen had been right
that a busy sidewalk could offer so much privacy.
It didn’t surprise her that Cohen had been taking his self-hatred and transferring it to her.
In fact, it made sense now that he had said it. She had done nothing, yet had been the object of
his wrath. A calm overcame her with this understanding. The puzzle pieces were falling into
place, but there were still questions.
“What exactly am I that you are not?” Annis asked.
Cohen met her gaze. “I know what was done to you, Annis, and yet you stand here in
front of me, a female of incredible strength and courage. Your spirit has not been broken. And I-I
can’t say the same thing. My mate was taken from me, and I was a complete asshole while on
this mission. I-I disregarded the vows I made to her and have joined—had sex—whatever you
want to call it. Many times. I’m a cheating piece of shit that is drowning in guilt over what I’ve
done. I’m—”
His sentence was cut off by a shot. Cohen’s eyes grew wide and he stepped toward her.
Annis’s brain was swimming with what Cohen had said to her, but her instincts took over
at the sound of the gunfire. Another shot rang in the air, and the area turned chaotic with people
running and screaming.
She looked around, trying to decipher where the shots were coming from, but the disorder
was too great. Cohen stepped toward her again just as the large, white vehicle that had driven by
before pulled up to the sidewalk.
“Cohen, we must get out of here!” she yelled.
Two things happened at once. Cohen slumped into her, and as she wrapped her arms
around him to hold him up, she felt a sticky wetness on her hands.
Cohen had been shot.
Just as that thought registered, the door to the vehicle flew open, and Annis recognized
the driver.
“Hello, Annis.”
Stunned, she said nothing. It was Micah, the leader of The Platoon. His brown hair was
shorter, but he was still a behemoth of a male. Standing at six foot eight, he was a tower of hard,
raw muscle. Annis looked to him, then to his companion, Jael, who was holding a gun.
“You shot him?” Annis said incredulously, still holding up Cohen.
“Is that Noah?” Micah answered.
“No, you stupid fool!”
“Damn it!” Micah looked around and police sirens wailed in the distance.
“Get in the car, Annis,” he bit out.
“No.” She wasn’t going anywhere with him.
Micah grabbed Cohen by the jacket, and with some effort, threw him in the backseat.
“Get in the car, Annis. Now.”
Annis quickly weighed her options. They were obviously taking Cohen. “Where are you
taking him? And why?” Although, she had a good idea—Micah wanted all the Saviors dead.
Micah grabbed her arm. “He’s my bait. And you don’t have a choice in the matter of
whether you come with me or not, so get in the blasted car.”
He pushed her toward the backdoor, and Annis stumbled in her shoes, catching herself on
the side of the vehicle. Cohen groaned and met her eyes. He was in pain—she could see it on his
face.
“Go if you can,” he whispered, his breath coming in short spurts.
The sirens wailed louder, and she felt the cold barrel of the gun against the side of her
head, then the click of hammer being pulled back.
“Get. In. The. Fucking. Car. Now.”
She lifted her leg to get in, and was pushed again, the door slamming behind her. A
second later the vehicle sped away.
Cohen looked at her. “We’re fucked,” he whispered.
She nodded. “Agreed.”
Chapter 26
Yes, she had to agree with Cohen’s assessment. They were indeed, fucked. They were in
the clutches of The Platoon, and Annis had a feeling their deaths were imminent.
Micah sped down the city streets, but once they hit the freeway, he obeyed the speed
limit.
Annis said nothing, just held Cohen as she brought his head down to her lap and put her
hand over the wound in his back to try to stop the bleeding. She had never given any thought
about what happened to a Healer when injured, but she was thinking the hell out of it at that
moment. Did he need her energy? What did she need to do for him?
“It’s nice to see you again, Annis,” Micah said. “Imagine my surprise when I saw you
standing on the street with a male who had to be a Savior! I should visit a casino tonight, my
luck is so good!”
He barked out a laugh, and Annis stared at the back of his big head without saying a
word.
“I know you missed me as well.”
Yes, like one missed a toothache or a broken bone. She couldn’t believe she held such
contempt for one of her own.
“Have you been whoring yourself out to the Six Saviors, Annis?” Micah asked.
Annis closed her eyes, determined not to let Micah’s words get to her. The male was such
an ass.
“Why didn’t you come with me when we escaped our captors?”
She met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Micah, we did not escape. We were rescued by
the Six Saviors. Please do not rewrite history.”
Micah was quiet for a moment. “You are correct, Annis. We were rescued by them. It
was stupid of them, and they will pay for their treachery and the decimation of our race.”
Annis sighed. Micah wanted Noah’s head on a platter. As for the other Saviors? A bullet
or two would do.
Annis recalled very well Micah’s rantings and ravings on their trip to Earth—how the Six
Saviors were the reason SR44 was gone—and he had talked enough that others began to believe
his nonsense as well.
They rode in silence for a while. Annis felt Cohen’s lungs rise and fall, and she took that
as good news.
Micah veered off the freeway and drove on a windy road that led up to the foothills.
There were very few houses out this way. Finally, he pulled into a driveway, killed the car, and
got out. He opened her door and leveled a gun at her.
“Get out.”
Annis did as she was told, keeping her shoes on despite the fact that she couldn’t walk in
them very well. Perhaps they could be used as a weapon at some point.
&nbs
p; Two other males that she recognized, Simon and Titus, emerged from the house and
stood by Micah waiting for instructions. “We’ll take them both to the room under the earth,”
Micah said.
The room under the earth? Annis shivered, wondering where they were being taken, but
then she remembered that the missile silos were situated hundreds of feet underground. Perhaps
it would be similar.
Micah led the way with Cohen slung over his shoulder, while Titus and Jael followed
behind Annis. Micah led them through the garage and into a laundry room. He turned right,
opened a door, and descended a stairway. As they reached the bottom step, Annis was pleasantly
surprised. The room beneath the earth was fully furnished with two plush, brown sofas and a
small bedroom that housed a double bed and a dresser.
Micah tossed Cohen on the bed. “Stitch him up, Jael,” Micah ordered. “I will kill him,
but not yet. I want Noah first.”
Annis watched as Jael dug into Cohen’s flesh just below his shoulder blade and removed
the bullet, then haphazardly put in the stitches. At least they had given him a shot that rendered
Cohen unconscious, but Annis was worried about infection, as it didn’t seem that anything was
sterilized properly.
When Jael was done, Micah said, “We’ll meet upstairs now and figure out how to
leverage the Savior and Annis.”
Jael nodded, and both he and Titus followed Micah up the stairs. When Annis heard
silence, she kicked off her shoes, hitched her skirt up, and silently bounded up the stairs. She
tried to twist the doorknob, but it was locked. As she turned to go back down to Cohen, the door
flew open and Jael stood in front of her, a gun to her forehead.
“And don’t try anything funny, Annis,” he said. “I’m right here just waiting for an
opportunity to shoot you.”
Annis squared her shoulders, defiant.
“Head back downstairs, Annis,” Jael said, cocking the hammer of the gun.
Weighing her options, Annis decided that not only was she outnumbered, she also didn’t
have a weapon except the heel of those damn shoes. Unless she was going to take someone’s eye
out with them, they were useless. However, if she could disarm Jael, she would have his gun and
then she had a chance. She didn’t know the layout of the house, or what other weapons The
Platoon had. And if she was hurt, or killed, Cohen was a dead man for sure, and she didn’t want
that. Sometimes it was better to wait and get the lay of the land, so to speak, then to act without
knowledge. Humans had a saying of “knowledge is power,” and she believed that
wholeheartedly.
Turning, she made her way down the stairs without another word to Jael. She heard the
click of the door behind her when she reached the bottom of the stairs. She looked around the
windowless basement, then up the stairs, which was the only way out, and knew that the sun
would be rising in a few hours.
She needed to get her bearings. She paced the basement length-wise, counting her steps,
and making a mental map of the room in case she needed to get up when daylight hit.
She thought about the members of The Platoon she had seen.
Micah, Jael, Simon, and Titus had all easily fallen in line behind Micah on their trip to
Earth. However, there was one member of The Platoon that she hadn’t seen yet: Nico. She had
been very surprised when Nico had joined up with The Platoon on their trip to Earth, as she
knew him and trained with him in the SR44 military. The others she hadn’t known until they
began their journey. Nico was a quiet male, who mainly kept to himself, but one of high morals
and intelligence. What had become of him? Where was he?
Sighing, she counted her paces while walking the width of the room and wondered
exactly how she was going to get out of there, and how in the world she was going to do it with
Cohen.
Chapter 27
Blake paced the War Room in Fernley, Nevada. He was so cranked up he felt like putting
his head through the three-inch glass door to take the edge off. Or maybe he would get lucky and
it would just knock him unconscious.
He’d gotten off the phone with Jovan two hours ago and was not happy with the
conversation. Cohen and Annis had disappeared from the shindig last night, and no one knew
where the fuck they were. If that cocksucker laid one hand on her, if he hurt her in any way,
Blake was going to flat-out kill him. He didn’t care if Cohen was a Savior—he was going to
eviscerate him.
No, there might not be a romantic future for Blake and Annis—no matter how badly he
wanted one—but he could sure as shit look out for her. He felt a protectiveness for that woman,
and he could only imagine it resembled the feelings an older brother would have for a younger
sibling. That made him laugh out loud, as Annis was close to three hundred years old, and Blake
was a mere thirty-six.
But whatever.
Cohen was dead if he hurt Annis.
Certainly one of them had to check in at some point. Didn’t they?
It was then he realized he didn’t have his phone.
With a litany of curses, he ran down to the quarters he shared with Talin. The guy was
still lying in bed, except this time he had a laptop with him. He didn’t give Blake a second
glance, and Blake caught a whiff of body odor as he headed for his own bed.
With the Annis situation, his patience had flown the coop. After grabbing his phone, he
turned to Talin and walked over to the bed. He took the laptop from him, and Talin looked up at
him, startled.
“This is the last time I’m saying anything about this,” Blake said in a low tone. “You get
your ass in a shower today, or I’m taking you in. Do you understand me? I will shower with you
and soap you up, and that includes the underside of your balls. So, chew on that, you fucking
genius. Do you want me rubbing soap all over your sack?”
Talin glared at him. “Fuck you, half-breed.”
Blake tossed the laptop on the end of the bed and headed for the door. “My hands, your
balls. You think long and hard about that, Talin.”
As he rode up the elevator, he tried some deep breathing to calm himself. What was he
going to do if Talin didn’t get in the shower? He didn’t think he could follow through on his
threat. The thought made him nauseous.
The elevator came to a stop, and Blake stepped out into the kitchen, almost running into
Hudson while searching for bars on his phone.
“Watch where you’re going,” Hudson said with a gentle push and a half-smile.
“Sorry, Hudson. My bad. I’m a little jacked right now.”
“How come? What’s going on?”
“Cohen and Annis are missing down in Phoenix.”
“No shit?”
“Nope.”
Hudson took a few steps back and leaned against the black marble counter, crossing his
arms over the black silk covering his chest. “When did that happen?”
“Last night.”
Hudson’s brows came together. “Are you sure they’re just not . . . getting acquainted
really well?”
Blake closed his eyes for a second, feeling his temper rise, then met Hudson’s stare.
“They better not be.”
“And why is that?”
“Because Cohen has been n
othing but a Grade-A cocksucker to Annis. He better not lay a
hand on her or—”
“Or what?”
As he stared into Hudson’s dark eyes, he felt a little bit of calm. Here before him seemed
to stand the voice of reason, and he needed that right now.
“He’s not going to physically hurt her,” Hudson said quietly. “He’s not that type of male.
I’d bet money that he’d hurt himself before he laid a hand on her.”
“Sometimes words can hurt worse than bruises, Hudson. And we all know Cohen is
pretty proficient in that area.”
Hudson nodded. “Words can cut deeper than a blade, got it. However, Cohen is a male in
great pain, my friend. He’s bound to lash out. He’s a Healer, which makes him the sensitive type,
and he lost his mate, and he hasn’t been faithful to her. I can’t imagine the ugly he’s got going
on: guilt, sadness, more guilt, probably lust for Annis . . . and then more guilt. You’ve got to cut
the guy some slack, man.”
Blake really wanted to. He wanted to think of Cohen as a good guy, but he wondered if
he was too far-gone into his own oozing caldron of emotions.
His phone beeped, and he held it up so he could read it. Damn it all to hell and back.
He’d missed two calls, but the number came up as private.
“What’s going on?’ Hudson asked.
Blake stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Annis would call, he was certain of it.
He just didn’t know when.
Chapter 28
“Call them.”
Annis stared up a Micah, defiant. She and Cohen had spent the day in the basement, both
of them curled up on the small bed together. Her thoughts had swirled at what he had said earlier,
and her heart swelled. He didn’t hate her; however, it irritated her that he was so hard on himself.
Of course keeping a vow was important, but sometimes circumstance didn’t allow for
vows to be honored. She imagined being in a place for a length of time all alone. If one were
used to having physical companionship, she imagined it would be so difficult to go through day
after day and night after night of loneliness. At some point, something would have to break and
one would reach out for someone to hold on to.
She had thought of her lonely existence. No, she’d never been in love before and ached
