The helicopter jerked and shuddered, then lifted a few inches from the ground before rotating swiftly. For a moment Owen was afraid his final shot hadn’t sealed the deal; then the front of the bird dipped abruptly, nose digging into the ground. Angled away from him, the blades impacted yards ahead of the falling helicopter, their whipping motion tossing sod and debris through the air as the blades dug into a holding pen. The resistance was enough to cause the helo to twist to the side, slamming onto the pilot’s side as the blades quickly tore themselves apart, now throwing dirt, grass, and bones in a broad circle around the dying aircraft.
The engine whined loudly, and then something gave way inside, because the blade assembly separated from the cabin, flinging to one side. In the sudden silence, Owen realized Nyla was now quiet. He looked to see her barely upright, body slumped to one side, her arms having fallen lax at her sides.
“No, no, no. Dammit.” Threat management first, triage second. As much as it killed him to leave her as she’d fallen, he didn’t hesitate. Couldn’t, there wasn’t enough time. Sprinting to the helicopter, he swung around the front to come face-to-face with what was left of the man’s head, pressed against the only surviving piece of windscreen. No movement and no breathing confirmed the unknown man’s change in status, and Owen turned to retrace his steps at a dead run, sliding to a stop on his knees next to the woman.
She’d been hit in the back by a bullet, and the exit wound was gory but placed in such a way he held out hope nothing vital had been hit. Blood pooled in Nyla’s lap and was slowly soaking the earth around her as Owen carefully stretched her out flat on the ground.
“How long until the real bird gets here?” His ears were still ringing from the gunshots and the noise from the wreck, so the incoming helicopter might already be within hearing distance but would be undetectable for some time. “You seein’ this, boss lady?” Owen stripped his backpack off and dug into it, pulling out a T-shirt that he efficiently cut into strips, using them to quickly bind Nyla’s torso. “This is literally an Old Yeller bandage, dammit.”
“It’ll hold her together. See if you can get a pulse and respiration. The helicopter should already be there based on their last coordinates. I’ll encourage them to unass and push things.”
Owen gripped the woman’s wrist in his hand, finger to the pulse point. “Slow, but steady. Respiration is way slow. If they know what they’re coming into, it would help.”
“I’m on it.”
Silence battered at his nerves, and he found himself taking Nyla’s pulse again, reciting the numbers to Alace. “That was a DNR-logoed helo. How the hell would the killer have access to a service bird?”
Her voice was calm, soothing as she helped piece the puzzle together. “Remember Nyla talking about the ground shaking? I bet that was how he transported them. It makes sense in all the worst ways. Remember we talked about how hard it would be to get all the shit we found actually through the forest and into the clearings?”
“He didn’t go through; he went over. In and out, easy peasy.” Owen sat back on his heels. “But what about the Temple chick? Why was she in the woods?”
“Remember how records showed Maddy had been volunteering for the forestry service for several years? Maybe her being on the trail was just a coincidence?” Even as she said the words, Alace laughed. “No, I don’t believe in those kinds of coincidences. Or any.”
“The setup at their house and these clearings—way too similar to be chance, either.”
“Agreed.” She cursed abruptly and fluently, and he grimaced at the sound, because Alace ruffled was a novelty he could have done without. “The idiots transposed two segments of the coordinates. They’re within three minutes, though, so you’ll have help soon.”
“I killed the ranger.”
“You saved Nyla.” Alace huffed. “Self-defense all the way.”
He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice when he told her, “I’m not going to be running out of here today.”
“Nope. But I’ve already got things rolling for you. I know where they’ll take you, and in this case, it’s actually good that the deputies are along for the ride. We’ll set the tone we want from the beginning this way.”
“You’ve got my back, right, boss lady?”
“I will always have your back, Owen Marcus. I will never, ever bail on you. It’s you and me, and we’re a team.” Low and intense, Alace’s voice soothed him, leaving behind a sense of belonging he hadn’t felt since leaving the military. “Lose the tech. I’ve got their phones and radios. You are not alone. I’ve got you.”
Before removing and hiding the rig, he responded in the only way that seemed appropriate, knowing she’d still hear him over the rotor wash from the approaching helicopter.
“Besties.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alace
Alace leaned away from her computer, arching and stretching the aching muscles in her back. Her palm found the upper curve of her stomach, fingers running along the outline of a foot pressed there. “Are you absolutely certain you have to do that?” As if in response, the foot flexed and pushed harder; then the shape of her belly changed, shifting, and now it was the larger bulge of a butt that pressed against her hand. “Okay, clearly you know what you’re doing.”
It had taken two different ultrasounds until her obstetrician was confident they had a good idea of when the baby would be born. Of course, it had taken three obstetricians before Alace was confident she had a doctor she could trust. Fortunately for everyone, this guy seemed to have staying power, because Eric had threatened to pick a doctor for her if she hadn’t settled finally.
For dating the pregnancy, Alace’s irregular cycles hadn’t helped, but after the last test when the doc had finally announced she was eighteen weeks pregnant, the panic had set Alace’s heart racing. Nearly halfway through a pregnancy without knowing about it didn’t make it sound like she was as aware of everything as she wanted to be.
In the three months since finding out she was pregnant, Alace had experienced a continuing assault from a wide and confusing array of emotions. She pressed two fingers against each tear duct, holding back the stinging sensation that started whenever the baby interacted with her this way.
A glance at the clock in the corner of the monitor had her leaning forwards, hands extended, only to sit back abruptly when the baby shifted again, making her displeasure known. Her. Alace drifted her palms down both sides of her abdomen, fingers caressing the slope of her belly. Their daughter was only weeks away from making her entrance into the world, and that knowledge made Alace simultaneously ecstatic and terrified.
Instead of leaning, Alace grabbed the edge of the desk and tugged her chair close enough to reach the keyboard more easily. If her daughter wanted a little extra room in her belly while Mommy backed out of the servers and darknet, then her little girl could have it. She had timed her shut-down routine perfectly, it seemed, when she heard the downstairs door open and close. The monitors showed Eric, chin angled to the camera, flashing her a wide grin he knew she’d see.
She’d removed the battery and stowed it and the laptop in the safe inside the locking drawer by the time he walked through the door. Alace was on her feet and moving—well, waddling—in his direction so they met in the middle of the room, just beside the foot of the bed.
After the doctor lifted the bedrest restriction, it hadn’t seemed worth the effort of moving her office again, so for the duration of the pregnancy, she had accepted Eric’s proclamation that it remain where it was. Mostly because sharing the bedroom made it easy to nap between bouts of work. So much of what she did was during nighttime that it also made it simple for Eric to keep watch over her.
The final benefit was it made it easier to go from being Alace Sweets, criminal mastermind with one main hunter, to simply Eric’s sweet Alace.
Lifting on her toes, she reached up and threaded her fingers through the hair on the back of his head, tugging him down until he covere
d her mouth with his. Heat coiled in her belly, and she moaned softly, knowing how much he liked to hear how he affected her.
“My baby need me?” His murmured question against her mouth had been a constant refrain over the past month or so. Once she’d settled into the pregnancy and her body had become accustomed to the hormones and physical changes, Alace found her internal engines were revved up. Not just in terms of heat, although Eric claimed she was now a furnace at night—but she was horny all the freaking time. “Baby.”
That word. That fucking, fucking word, when spoken in that specific softly guttural tone, tore her breath from her throat.
Eric never feared showing her how he felt, what he wanted, how much she pleased him. The entire relationship thing had come so much easier to him than she could understand. Where she still fumbled and tried to interpret actions and words, he reacted immediately, seeming to simply know what came next. She fought against it, but at times, her terror over getting it wrong would freeze her in place. If he said this, does he mean that and expect some other thing?
Unlike her, Eric had patience in spades, and he never seemed flustered at having to help her along. Like a baby deer on a frozen pond, her efforts at moving them forwards sometimes sent her spinning out of control, and Eric was always there with a hand, ready to steady her. Alace thanked God every day that they had somehow beaten the odds, coming together in unforgettable ways.
“Yes.” Her eventual response was breathless and needy, and Eric swept his arms around and under her, lifting and carrying her to the bed. He made it seem effortless, as if she drifted to land lightly on the center of the mattress, his long body stretched out beside her. One hand underneath her to unfasten her bra, his other shoved her shirt up and out of the way. Alace took over removing it completely as Eric’s attention fastened to what had become arguably some of the more sensitive areas on her body.
His lips ghosted across one plump nipple, the edge of his teeth grazing the hardening nub. Palming her opposite breast, kneading it gently, he continued to tease the one with mouth, tongue, and teeth until she arched up against him. Eric responded by latching on and sucking, drawing her deep into his mouth, his tongue lashing across the nipple with each cheek-hollowing pull. Magical strings connected her breasts to her core, sparks erupting between her legs, and she pressed her thighs together.
“Eric.” He read the urgency in her tone and shifted, changing sides to mouth at her other breast. One hand slipped down, and she felt the corners of her mouth curl up when his palm stopped on her rounded belly. While still worshiping her breasts, he drew his hand and fingers over the swell that marked where she sheltered their child. He hooked a finger in the waistband of her pants and stretched the elastic out, pulling it down to expose her stomach. Protruding bellybutton, dark line extending down around the bottom half of the beachball-sized bulge, silver and purple stretchmarks—none of that mattered to Eric. She didn’t have to hear him say it to know, either. He made it clear by how he turned what she’d originally seen as negatives into things he cherished. Evidence of our love, he’d said the one time she’d asked about his reaction.
Alace wiggled her hips and shoved at her remaining clothes, slipping them down her legs. She turned on her side, facing away from Eric as she gripped his hand and pulled it to cover the breast he’d been playing with. Face-to-face sex had become uncomfortable for her a couple of weeks ago, and he hadn’t skipped a beat, switching to various positions until they found one she liked almost as well. Nothing matched having the chance to watch Eric’s face as he fell apart, but she’d take the closeness of having him inside her any way she could.
His hand slipped between her legs and he groaned. “Always so wet for me, beloved. Always what I need.”
With her heel curled around the back of his leg, the brush of skin against skin was drugging as he nestled himself closer and gave a lazy push of his hips. The heat from his hard cock branded her skin as it glided along her soaked entrance. “Don’t tease.”
“I’d never dare.” The laughter rumbling through his words made her grin, face turned so she could see his expression. “My baby gets what she wants.” Eric’s blunt fingers dipped inside, and he thrust shallowly as Alace’s breathing quickened. She’d been aching for his touch, and this was stoking the fire inside her. “And if my baby wants me.” He held her open and she arched her back, ass eagerly angled for what was coming next. “Then my baby gets all of me.” He filled her on a slow, controlled push, not stopping until he was buried deep inside her. His fingers retreated to nestle alongside her clit, trapping it with a firm twist, the pressure making Alace’s hips writhe uncontrollably underneath his touch.
Eric eased into a gentle, deliberate tempo, his deep groans carried on the breaths gusting past her ear. His features carried a tension as his gaze stayed centered on her. The intent scrutiny would have bothered her a year ago, but now knowing she was his sole focus was a turn-on.
Everything’s a turn-on.
“What’s funny, baby?”
Alace didn’t answer as she twisted her neck and rolled her shoulder against his chest in a silent demand. He captured her mouth with a hard kiss, one that ramped up immediately and bordered on inferno. She lost his hand between her legs, but the attentive tweaks and twists his fingers gave her nipples were entirely worth it.
“Alace.” Eric’s mouth pressed against her ear, her name followed by a reverberating groan. “You shouldn’t laugh at a man—” Eric pushed deep inside and held there, muscles of the arm underneath her touch strained and shaking. “—when he’s about to lose himself to you.” Muscles in his abdomen jerked and jumped behind her, and his hips shuddered forwards and back. “Jesus, baby.”
When she nipped his bottom lip, his hips faltered with lost rhythm; then he redoubled his pace, the slapping of flesh against flesh now echoing around the room. His caresses changed, grew rougher, fingers teasing the nipples in between plumping strokes of her breasts.
The telltale uterine contractions started, and Alace huffed out a moan when the baby flipped and rolled inside her, glad the sensation didn’t slow the rush of her body to orgasm. Alace gripped Eric’s wrist and forearm, holding tight. The sensation built, pleasure stacking up in a towering structure that needed only the touch of Eric’s mouth to the side of her face to topple it. Her body tensed and released, tensed and released as the sensation crashed over her, the wash of feelings and emotion burying her control and she wailed out Eric’s name.
When she surfaced, it was to the indescribably beautiful sensation being tucked against his side, head on his shoulder as his hands glided across every inch of her flesh he could reach. Including the mound of her stomach. As his touch slowed, his hands returned to the baby belly repeatedly, until they came to rest protectively folded over her stomach.
“I luuuv you. Moar than ican explain.” Her slurred words were hilarious, and one corner of Alace’s mouth crooked up. She laughed and then complained, “I soun funny.”
“Love drunk.” Eric’s quiet description was a chuckling murmur against the top of her head. She shivered and he shifted underneath her until she made a complaining noise, menacing his pec with the edge of her teeth. “Hey now, none of that. You’re cold.” A blanket drifted into place over her, edge drawn up to her shoulder. “I was getting my woman some covers.” His hands returned to their previous position, cradling their baby. “I luuuv you, too.”
Alace’s eyes were closed and the covers cocooned her warmly where she lay pressed against his side. She turned her head again, but instead of threatening a bite, this time she pressed a kiss to his chest.
“I luuuv you moar.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Owen
Hunkered over his camp stove, Owen found himself humming a classic arena anthem from one of his favorite bands. He glanced around the campsite. A thick screen of closely growing trees, ferns, and other undergrowth was doing a great job of blocking the wind, but unfortunately for his nerves, it was also cuttin
g off any possible sightlines.
Nothing evil waited for him in these woods, though. He’d hiked them often enough to be able to say that with confidence.
Unlike what had happened out west.
Suppressing a shudder, he forced the image of a dead man from his mind. It had been three months since the serial killer no one had expected set his helicopter down only yards away from where Owen had stood, desperately signaling for rescue.
Holding Nyla together with what amounted to rope and hope wasn’t something he’d soon forget. Her piteous cries, terror escalating when the second helicopter had swung in a tight circle over the clearing, wouldn’t be easily forgotten, either. Owen had played the shell-shocked innocent well enough the deputies took his rendition of the events at face value. The ranger had been outed to the world as the Deep Woods Killer, as the tabloids had decided to call him. Owen and Alace thought his kill count was higher than the authorities would ever attribute to him, and the motives were murky as hell.
Or had been until Alace got Owen into the hospital to interview Mackie, posing as the research assistant to a well-known author.
Maddy had met Leon Bellowship first, and after a few coy encounters with the ranger, had shared about her activities during her previous year at camp, anger and pain over her mother’s death expressed in a bloody fashion. Bellowship had already been angling down the same path, his kills restricted to more remote locations, targeting only isolated hikers, where the risk was minimal. Maddy had cultivated him as a partner, showing him the ins-and-outs of long-term imprisonment and how satisfying it could be to feed the brutal perversion in their souls.
Then she’d introduced Mackie to him, and her sister’s self-destructive nature aligned even more perfectly with Bellowship’s sadistic one.
When their original killing fields farther north had been discovered, suddenly the little trio of darkness had found themselves needing to relocate their activities. Mackie’s supposed boyfriend in Utah had been a distraction, a way to throw any suspicion off the trail. The girls’ public falling-out had been staged, all part of the overall plan to have better access. Alace groused about that information until Owen had finally dragged it out of her that she’d thought differently.
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