Cash: NAC & The Holly Group (Alpha Team Book 6)

by Chelsea Handcock

  The warmth surrounded him again; emerald eyes flashed in his head right before unimaginable pain racked his body. He felt everything—his lungs burning, the water expelling from his lungs, the fire lacing his chest. It was like a live wire had attached itself to him, and he wanted to scream. Then he felt a faint whisper of his beast. The rage coming from it was immense and blinding.

  He struggled to connect to his beast, to find out what was going on, but he was still lost to Cash. He could feel the bond, but it was like it was frayed or something like only a small tendril even existed whereas before it had been as strong as steel. He looked up, still amazed at the battle going on before his eyes. He had never seen his beast before only imagined it.

  The woman stood at her full height, and Cash couldn’t even figure out what that was, but she looked small. His beast, on the other hand, was massive. It had to lower its head just to meet the woman’s eyes. His coat was standing on end, and Cash could see the razor-sharp claws protruding from his paws. He wanted to scream at the woman to stand back to move away or hell just run, but every time he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

  It didn’t make any sense, but he was seeing it or imagining it. His beast looked feral, snarling and swiping at the small woman he had seen before in the field. She pleaded with the beast to calm, but he was out of control. Cash wanted to beg as well, but he couldn’t do anything but watch.

  Cash was an observer in his own mind, and it was fucking disconcerting, but he couldn’t seem to look away. The small woman stood in front of his beast, hands splayed like she wasn’t afraid. He could feel more warmth enter his body as he watched golden streams erupt from her hands, targeting his bear. At first, he tensed, not knowing what was going to happen. He didn’t feel threatened, but then again, he wasn’t feeling anything right now except for warmth, and it sure as fuck didn’t make any sense to him.

  He was an outsider, watching a movie, and he wanted to turn it the fuck off. But he was stuck. The small woman he had seen earlier pleaded with the beast and tried to wrap those streams around him. Every single time one got close, his bear would bat it away. He wanted to tell her to stop, he could see the toll it was taking on her, but he was helpless to do anything.

  More warmth, another slap, then pain. Cash looked down at his ethereal body; talk about a mind fuck. He looked back up, just in time to see the woman running towards him screaming, but he couldn’t make out the words she was saying. Cash lifted his hand and watched as it slowly started to disappear. He wanted to stay, he wanted to wait until the woman came to him, but his mind shifted, and the scene from all those years ago flashed in his mind again, Jessie saying, I hate you Cash Warren!

  Cash was so confused. What the hell was going on? Jessie was standing there now, pissed, tears in her eyes, shaking her head. He looked down at his body again, and it was like looking at a shadow. He wanted the small woman back, he didn’t want to see this shit again. He wanted to see those emerald eyes which confused him even more. Why would he want to see a woman he didn’t even know, instead of Jessie, the woman he was supposed to be bound to?

  Jessie the girl he was supposed to love and cherish above all others. He let her name slip through his lips in a whisper, Jessie? Her name becoming a question for the first time in his life.

  Chapter Four

  Jenna ran back the cabin. Well, more like fast walked, her clothes and weakness preventing her from doing much more. She was still shaking her head in stunned disbelief every few seconds, refusing to believe the man she just saved was Cash Warren. Damn it, not him of all the people she could have found in that river. Why did it have to be him?

  Jenna had never met the man personally, hadn’t even seen a picture of him, but she had heard all about him for years. It was like a one in a million possibility, but Jenna was starting to think she had hit the proverbial jackpot, only she didn’t want it. Her family had done this man so wrong, and Jenna had wanted to smack them for it. But it wasn’t her place, she was still an outsider, at least, she felt that way, regardless of what they said. Everyone made choices, all of them affecting other people, and it sucked.

  She tried to hold herself up higher, do better things, not play the games that seemed to go on around her all the time, but somehow, she always got sucked in. This time wouldn’t be any different. She had been stupid to think she could ignore her destiny by staying out in the middle of nowhere because fate was a bitch who would not be overlooked.

  Seeing her cabin, she gritted her teeth and tried to move faster. She needed to get back to the poor man whoever he was. If he was Cash, then she would try to right some wrongs in her own way. If it wasn’t, shaking her head, Jenna thought, it didn’t matter, she would have helped anyone in that situation. She might want to be isolated and on her own, but she still had the urge and needed to help people. It just didn’t always work out that well for her, and she didn’t think this time would be any different. But damn it, she had to try.

  Pounding up the stairs, Jenna slammed open the door, not bothering to shut it before she started stripping off her soaking wet boots and socks. Her clothes were another matter, the wet fabric sticking to her body like glue and not coming loose fast enough. When she finally managed to push her jeans past her hips, Jenna almost cheered.

  Jenna looked up at the clock on the mantel and noticed it was just before four in the afternoon. She needed to hurry the hell up because it was already dark, and with the storm coming in, the conditions outside would only get worse. Quickly getting rid of the rest of her wet clothes, Jenna left them in a soggy mess of a pile. She would deal with that later and kicked them further to the side, so they were away from the door.

  She shivered, the wind from the open door hitting her naked body like a tsunami now that she wasn’t running on straight adrenaline. Shit, she pushed the door closed and went to her dresser, not caring what she put on as long as it was dry and warm. Jenna briefly looked around for something, anything that would fit the man outside. Jenna smiled and ran to the small closet in the kitchen, thankful her uncle had no boundaries. She would never tell him that personally, but right now, the fact she had clothes that would help the stranger, she was ecstatic.

  Her Uncle wasn’t a small man, and neither was the stranger by the river which worked in her favor. Once she got his body temperature up and cleaned and dressed his wounds, she would be able to offer him more than a blanket to cover himself. Placing the bag on her bed, Jenna’s mind flashed to the man, and the shiver she got this time had nothing to do with the cold. He was gorgeous even in his shape, he had to have one the of the best bodies she had ever seen on a man, and she was going to have to strip him bare.

  Fuck, she was a professional, had seen hundreds of people naked, but damn it, there was something different about this man and the way he made her feel. She definitely didn’t think of him as just a patient. There wasn’t a part of him not covered in muscle, and that face, damn. His lips alone could keep her dreams filled with erotic thoughts for the rest of her life.

  She wondered what his eyes looked like if they had the glow she had seen in other shifters. Would they be blue or dark and stormy? For some reason, she thought they would be dark. A deep chocolate brown that would turn golden when his animal was near the surface. With his tanned complexion and dark facial hair, those eyes would be like a magnet. Feeling like a total creeper, Jenna tried to convince herself she could be and would be professional. She would get him back to her cottage, tend to him until the storm passed, then call in the Calvary. Nodding her head, she started to gather other things she would need, adding a couple of more logs to her fireplace to warm the place up. She knew she needed to warm him slowly, but with his shifter metabolism and the gift she already gave him, it wouldn’t be as important. Having the cottage warmer would be good for both of them.

  Just thinking about the call she would have to make soon brought other thoughts barreling through her head. She had known Shifters existed in the world from the time she was a little girl
. Her Uncle didn’t believe in hiding things from her, telling her often she always needed to be aware of the things in the world. To never take anything at face value, to open her mind to other possibilities. She had no choice as her own life and abilities resembled that of a horror novel, at least to her. Others would think they were cool, and she should be happy, but Jenna had never been happy with them. Every gift had a price, and she had learned that, all too well.

  Sometimes, she thought it would be better if he had kept that part of her life secret. Jenna often wondered what her life would have been like if she didn’t know about shifters, her purpose with them, and the grand plans fate had for her life. But as he always said, knowledge was power, and some of the people she held closest to her were Shifters. She loved them and wouldn’t trade them for the world.

  The truth was, he had been right to tell her, to let her know exactly how she came to be the way she was. If she were oblivious, if she had never met any of them her life would be so different, and she wasn’t sure if it would have been better. She would have either ended up like Ryleigh Quinn, a possession, abused and experimented on or worse, somewhere chained to a bed in some psyche unit. Her progression into the woman she was today hadn’t been an easy one. Without the tools her Uncle had given her, she would have gone mad.

  The pain she had felt learning how she came to be, how she wasn’t wanted by the people who were supposed to have wanted her the most always hurt. Created in a lab, implanted, then discarded because she was deemed less than, still rubbed her the wrong way. Given gifts from a heritage that would have been utterly foreign to her had her Uncle not come into her life. The real bitch was if it weren’t for her Uncle’s intervention, Jenna would have been kept in the dark while others played their games and lined up their chess pieces, waiting for the day to call them out, just like Cash Warren. Damn it, that little thought took her breath away.

  If that man on the river bank was Cash Warren, she needed to make all of this right. She just didn’t know how. She had been trained for what was supposed to come, but he hadn’t. She resented the powers that be for that fact alone. Whether that man turned out to be Cash or not, she would go against orders and find him, anyway. Tell him what she knew and let him decide his own fate. It was the right thing to do. A small part of her wished she had come to this conclusion sooner.

  A whisper rushed through her mind, Come back to me, and Jenna froze for a second before she jumped into action, shoving her feet into her boots and grabbing her coat. The last thing she took on the way out of her cottage were the keys to her Jeep. Slamming the door and jumping down from the porch, she quickly realized she had a significant problem. There was no way in hell her Jeep would make it to the river. The snow was too deep. The vehicle had four-wheel drive, but even with it, she doubted it would remain unstuck, and she didn’t have the time or the energy to even worry about that right now.

  Turning, she forced her legs through the now knee-deep snow. Shit, how long had she been in the cottage? The snow was coming down in earnest, covering everything with a thick layer. So thick, she could barely see her hand in front of her face, but she had lived out here for a while now, this wasn’t her first blizzard. Trudging to the end of the porch, she found the rope that ran from the cottage to the garage; the simple tool had saved her more than once.

  Using the rope as it was meant to be used for just this purpose, Jenna held on with one hand and let it guide her to where she needed to be. She pulled herself with one hand, holding the other one out in front of her for balance when her gloved hand hit the side of the garage. Jenna knew all she had to do was step over one step, and the door would be right in front of her. When her hand found the doorknob, she wanted to cry. Opening it and hitting the switch to turn on the light, she immediately hit the button to open the big garage door. The snow quickly started to blow inside. Shit, this was going to be bad.

  Walking over to her snowmobile, she prayed it had enough power for what she planned. Grabbing a tarp and more rope, she emptied out a bag of other camping supplies and shoved them inside, fastening it to the snowmobile. Getting on, she turned the key and prayed that this would work.

  Revving the engine, she shot out of the garage, quickly realizing she was going to have to rely on her senses to get to the river. There was a whiteout going on in front of her face. Turning the machine toward where she hoped the river laid, she was kicking herself for not leaving her scarf or something as a marker. With the snow falling as fast as it was, she had no idea how she was going to find the man.

  The voice came again, and Jenna knew that wouldn’t be a problem. That voice guided her like no light ever could. Panicked, she jumped off the snowmobile. Skidding on her knees, she started to dig until she felt the hardness of his body, chanting, thank the lord over and over again. Jenna didn’t even try to look for his vitals this time, she didn’t need to. The thump of his heart was echoing in her own.

  Giving the man an apology, Jenna started the arduous task of getting him onto the tarp. There wasn’t any way she could lift him, so she used the skills she had learned as a nurse. Rolling up the tarp on one side, she used her body to pull the man, so he was slightly on his side. He was just too big to pull all the way. Draping herself over him, she shoved the rolled-up side of the tarp under him as far as she could, cursing several times when the snow got in the way and made it harder. Once she had it under him as well as it was going to get, she rolled him back and pushed him the other way until she was able to pull the tarp, so he would be laying on it when she pushed him back.

  Getting up, panting from her efforts, she realized a huge problem. His feet weren’t on the tarp, and there was no way they would ever be. He was just too tall. Sighing, she looked up into the sky praying for some help, but she knew none was coming. Fastening the tarp to the snowmobile, she sent up a silent prayer this would work. Getting on, she revved the engine and put it into gear. The snowmobile struggled to move, but she finally got some momentum. Following her tracks back, she made her way to the cottage and quickly realized there was no way in hell she was going to get this man into her cottage. The porch wasn’t high, but there were three steps, and she didn’t have the strength or energy to get him up there. Without any choice left, Jenna drove the snowmobile and her patient into the garage.

  The garage was heated, but it wasn’t hooked up to a generator although it did have a wood burner she hoped would keep the heat inside. Damn, she wanted to kick herself for refusing her uncle’s demands on getting that done, but there was nothing she could do about it now. One thing she was glad she had listened to him about was the size of the garage. She hadn’t thought she needed it, but her Uncle had insisted, and right now, that was a bonus because at least the man and the snowmobile had made it all the way inside.

  Getting off the snowmobile, she instantly went to the button on the wall and shut the door, leaving the billowing snow outside. She laughed. Small victories, that was what was going to get them through the next couple of hours. Seeing the stuff she had dumped out of the bag earlier, Jenna gathered up the sleeping bags and started to make a pallet. For the next hour, she pushed and pulled with everything she had until the man was finally situated on top of them. She had also managed to remove his clothes and get a better look at his injuries. She needed to get those bullets out of him. The camping equipment had a small first aid kit, but it wasn’t anywhere close to what he needed. Plus, she still needed to start the wood burner and gather as much stuff as she could from the cottage. Using her gift, she pushed a small amount of energy into the man. She couldn’t afford to give anymore, but it would sustain him until she got everything she needed together.

  It took forever and multiple trips to her cottage, but Jenna finally had what she needed. The more significant problem was she was so tired, her body was shaking with exhaustion. Thankfully, the electricity was still on though she wondered how long that would last. Setting up a few camping lanterns around the man, Jenna loaded the wood burner up and started
it, kicking herself for not thinking of it sooner. The garage would lose heat quickly once the electricity did go out.

  Jenna cringed every time she had to delve her tools further into the poor man. He hadn’t moved so much as an inch, but she knew this had to hurt like hell and prayed he wasn’t feeling anything. By the time she got the last bullet out and the wounds dressed, Jenna couldn’t hold her body up anymore. Slumping into the man, she fell asleep, hoping she had done enough.

  Chapter Five

  Cash felt as though he was floating, but it was different this time, not like before. There wasn’t any water, and his body felt normal, warm even. His first instinct was to search for the beast, but just like before, he wasn’t with him. He opened his eyes, a little shocked to see the shining sun, moving his hand up to block the sun rays from burning his eyes. Sitting up, he looked around at the place he was laying. It seemed to be a field filled with wildflowers he remembered well. Standing, he looked around and knew just to the west of him would be a giant oak tree and to the south, a river.

  How had he gotten home? Placing his hands on his hips, he tried to figure out what had happened. He remembered everything—the plane crashing, him getting out, and members of the Affiliation attacking, shooting, and throwing him in the river to die; the helplessness he felt when he couldn’t move and the vulnerability from being totally alone. Those thoughts were causing a growl to escape from his throat. Some things stayed the same. He might not be able to reach his bear, but he was still part animal.

  Looking around, he searched his mind and still couldn’t figure out how he had gotten to this place. It was special to him, he hadn’t shared its location with anyone. He only came here when things got too hard to handle, when life and losses weighed too heavily on his mind. It usually soothed him, but today, he was just confused.