by Susan Laine
The scent of gardenia, jasmine, and waxflower filled the fresh, cool air even with the occasional hotter gust from the outside, and Gabe felt like sneezing. He preferred cold mountain air and the scent of grass, the earth, and pine trees. He’d hated the pungent smells of the Deep South when he’d been here nearly a hundred years ago, and not much had changed since then.
His clothes constricting his movements, Gabe followed Kieran down the hall to the back door, which was, surprisingly, unguarded. Outside, under the shade of massive magnolia trees with moss hanging amid the foliage, there were two parked black SUVs and no one in sight.
“Must be my lucky day…,” Kieran murmured under his breath as he took quick stock of the area before hurrying to the first car with a silent Gabe in tow. The car doors were unlocked, and the keys were in the ignition. Kieran started the car and eased down the driveway. “If and when we make it to the front gates of the estate, keep your head down, but for Christ’s sake, play along if necessary. Can you do that?”
Gabe took a good look at his rescuer and saw how pale his skin was, slick with a light sheen of sweat, how shallow his breathing was, and how his features had hardened into sharp angles and rough lines in anticipation of their escape plan going awry. All Gabe said was, “Yes.”
CAN the fucker sound any calmer?
Kieran gritted his teeth, annoyed at how little emotion Gabriel seemed to display, but he knew this would have been the wrong time for that mess anyway. All he could do at the moment was hope they got out of the compound in one piece.
The driveway was at most three hundred yards in length, but the drive from the back of the mansion to the front gates felt like a hundred miles. Fuck. Cursing inwardly, Kieran was aware that the only reason he felt so nervous now was because he had a charge he needed to protect. If it had been just him, he would have been able to bluff the pants off the president of the United States. As it was, his anxiety was palpable.
Squaring his shoulders and fidgeting in his seat, he searched for a laid-back position, and by the time they reached the gate, he was secure enough to hustle. There was a small booth by the closed gates, with a house security guard inside. The big man in the natural white uniform of the security company exited the booth as they pulled up.
Kieran rolled down the window of the passenger side with a flick of a button, and with a wicked smile, he leaned over Gabriel to speak to the guard—who had a slight paunch and breath that held a hint of bourbon. Easy peasy.
With a courteous nod, Kieran said almost lazily, “Deck and the guys wanted a drink, and your fucker friends in the house wouldn’t let us near the liquor cabinet. So now I gotta haul ass to the closest liquor store after the fucking retrieval’s done just to sate their fucking drinking habit. You believe that?” Shaking his head as if mortally wounded, he ground out a low-pitched curse and huffed indignantly, “But the boss is the boss, you know?”
The guard chuckled. “Yeah, I hear that. Ain’t no ‘no’ when it comes to the boss.” He waved toward the road and said, “Go on through.” Back inside the booth, the guard pushed a button and the front gates opened.
“Hey,” Kieran called out to the guard, recapturing his attention. “Where is the nearest fucking liquor store anyhow?”
Now the guard was really laughing out loud, snidely. “Go south. There’s a gas station a couple of miles away. Behind that there’s a hardware store and a liquor store.” Then he winked more than a little maliciously. “You pussies have fun now.”
Kieran flipped the guard a finger, eliciting a new set of chortles from the man. With as much composure as he could muster, Kieran eased the SUV through the now-open gates and onto the tarmac, heading south just like the guard had suggested.
And just like that their ordeal was over—for the time being anyway.
Kieran was damn near bursting at the seams with all the questions bubbling inside him.
Chapter Two
GABRIEL, however, was all business, Kieran noted. “Where are we?”
For a brief second Kieran was confused. In a car? But understanding soon dawned on him as he observed Gabriel giving the GPS a thorough once-over. “Louisiana.”
“Specifically?”
Kieran was none too happy about the impassive tone Gabriel used, even though in his current maelstrom it should have put him over the moon. “Check the GPS. I’ll make sure it gets erased or destroyed when we ditch the car.” Well aware he had sounded curt and gruff, Kieran tried his best to get his thoughts back on track—on finding a safe place to regroup and decide on the next course of action—but Gabriel’s musky male odor was driving him crazy. Funny. He’d never been attracted to guys before.
“How long do we have?” Gabriel asked.
“Not even half as long as I’d like.”
Watching from the sidelines as Gabriel fiddled with the knobs of the GPS and brought forth a map, Kieran felt like he was sitting on an anthill. He did get a good enough look at the map to get their bearings. He had known in general where they were taking the prisoner, so he wasn’t totally in the dark, but the exact location of the Adler mansion had not been revealed to anyone but Deck—and he didn’t share leadership-level information.
Soon Gabriel stopped his inspection of the map, closed the GPS, and leaned back into the seat, looking remarkably at ease.
Hesitantly, Kieran mumbled, “Hey, those things you spoke of with that woman….” As he stared intently at the road ahead, his gaze unwavering, he still felt a strong compulsion to look at Gabriel and interpret his reactions, maybe even pounce on him. He shook his head, infuriated. “What does it all mean?”
When Gabriel didn’t immediately answer, Kieran couldn’t help himself, and he turned to steal a glance at the man who could kill him with one blow—or blowjob. Finally Gabriel replied, his eyes as glued to the road in front of him as Kieran’s had been a moment ago, “If you feel like that in my presence, exactly as I described to Victoria, then you are my mate.”
Kieran swallowed hard. “Can you make anyone feel… that way?”
Gabriel’s answer was precise and adamant. “No. My pheromones cause a reaction in my mate alone. No one else.”
Growling, angry and helpless and vulnerable and exposed, Kieran hit the steering wheel hard and hissed, “I don’t have a fucking idea what that’s supposed to mean!” Vaguely, he noticed their car passing a gas station, a hardware store, and a liquor store that together constituted a so-called town. Not that that mattered to him in the slightest.
Despite his sensory awareness of their progress, his visceral consciousness was attuned to Gabriel’s presence, and like a tingling caress down his spine, Kieran felt the man’s eyes directed at him, sharp, intelligent, and suspicious. “In that case… why did you save me back there? Were you hoping for a bigger cut if you sold me yourself—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kieran shouted, all riled up by his unwitting partner-on-the-run’s hostile accusation, clenching the steering wheel so tight his knuckles shone white.
Gabriel’s brown eyes flashed as he narrowed them. “You’re the mercenary.”
This was all wrong. Kieran couldn’t have a painfully throbbing hard-on while he was having an argument of mythical proportions with a complete stranger he had just risked his life for. Yet here he was, throwing away all he had worked for and sporting a woody, and it was hard to focus on anything else. Pun intended, he thought dryly. “Look—”
Cutting Kieran off, Gabriel said emphatically, “Later. What do you know about that woman, Victoria Adler?” His tone was not exactly conciliatory, but it was calm enough to ignite Kieran’s temper to wildfire. Gabriel just watched Kieran as if observing his reactions, like a human studying animals at a zoo. Kieran was sure he’d blow a gasket before long at this man who seemed unperturbed by just about anything. “All right. I don’t know you… Kieran… but I admit I don’t seriously think you saved me just to cash in on me.” Swearing his toes curled inside his army boots at the sound of Gabriel saying his n
ame, Kieran fidgeted in his seat to ease the sudden pressure of his erection in his pants. “But I do need to know all you know about Adler.”
Eager to switch to a more neutral topic, Kieran embraced the subject change. “Deck—he’s the commander of our merc unit—doesn’t offer us grunts that kind of information about a job. He just makes sure the client is solvent and less than likely to double cross us along the way.” In frustration, he shook his head vehemently. “I swear I didn’t know that fucking bitch would be a stark raving lunatic!”
Hoping to gain some sympathy, he gave Gabriel a grin intended to bring some levity into the situation, but Gabriel’s stony face fended the gesture off.
“Is she a typical client?” Gabriel asked.
Worrying his lower lip and veering his gaze back onto the road, Kieran struggled to find the right words. “Off her rocker with a crazed bee in her bonnet? No. Rich and powerful with a dubious or illegal interest in the mythical world?” He didn’t finish with the answer and knew that his silence spoke volumes, but he added a terse nod nonetheless, feeling he needed to soften the blow somehow. “Look—”
“You’re a Shadow Chaser.”
Kieran bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. He fought the urge to scream out loud and hit something till his hand grew numb. “No, we’re not affiliated with them. We’re freelance.”
“But you have worked for them in the past, even if not now?”
“Not every mythical creature is as meek as you.”
Kieran’s defensiveness did him no good, and he felt the tension level rise in the car to an almost unbearable high. Yet his statement was true. Not all mythical beings had Gabriel’s cool demeanor and steadfast self-control. In fact, until today Kieran had never met anyone like this unusually peaceful werewolf who kept his inner beast firmly in check.
Without knowing the exact reason, Kieran felt an instinctive need to explain, so abruptly he said, “When the Veil lifted ten years ago, I was in Burma on a mission with Deck and a handful of others. We were in the jungle, had been hiding for three weeks from the military junta, when a Nayar on the hunt came upon us. At first we thought we were so out of it that we were hallucinating the beast. It took out two of us before we knew what the hell was going on. You know what a Nayar is? It’s a fucking huge snake-like animal with four legs and a mouth that could devour a man whole. God, it was so fucking fast….” Licking his dry lips, Kieran readjusted on his seat to drive away some of the tension in his body. “Me and Deck were the only ones who made it out of there alive. And now… now I’ve just risked everything I know and betrayed the man who saved my life that day, and I did that because of you. So don’t you fucking dare get all high and mighty with me!”
The silence that fell in the car was deafening. Gabriel didn’t speak, and Kieran didn’t want to hear anything the man had to say. The guy didn’t and couldn’t understand all that Kieran had done for him, and now it was too late to turn back. He didn’t know which of them he hated more at this point—Gabriel or himself.
“YOU sure do cuss a lot.”
His blue-grey eyes wide with surprise, Kieran turned to look at Gabe, who took this as a good sign that their lines of communication hadn’t totally died down. Blinking hard for a moment, Kieran finally turned away, and Gabe saw a faint pinkish blush creep up over the man’s cheeks.
“Yeah, well, mean streets, you know,” Kieran murmured vaguely.
“My ma would’ve had your hide for that.”
Gabe was glad to hear that comment elicit a half snort, half chuckle from Kieran, who shook his head, looking bemused. The man was very handsome in a withdrawn, militaristic kind of way. Gabe had been with his share of soldiers. After all, he had lived for over three hundred years, and he enjoyed their surrender to pleasure over the harsh realities of their everyday lives.
But Kieran was also a mercenary—a hired gun who hunted mythical creatures.
Kieran was the enemy.
And he was Gabe’s mate.
“You, uh, always call your mother… ma?”
Gabe smiled a little and shrugged. “I suppose I could call her by her given name, Rebecca—if I wanted an ass-whooping, that is.”
Kieran made a disbelieving sound. “You’re making that shit up.”
“No.” The strain eased from Kieran’s features and his back straightened as he relaxed. Gabe considered this mission accomplished. “You have family?”
His smile evaporated. “No.”
That topic was clearly off limits and a source of stress for his mate, so Gabe chose to back off for now. He would get nothing out of Kieran for the time being. “How much do you know about me?”
“You’re a werewolf.”
“A lycan, yes. What else?”
“You’re a cowboy.”
“At the Howling Creek Ranch, yes. Anything else?”
Kieran squirmed with discomfort, either from being cooped up in the car or due to the matter at hand. “Look, you were a target, that’s all. Just a job. All I needed to know was your capabilities and measurements, things like that. Everything else was extraneous information and need-to-know basis anyway.”
And another topic goes down the drain, Gabe thought sullenly. “Speaking of which. Do your friends have the means and the intention to pursue us for the long haul?”
Kieran exhaled a long weary breath. “Yeah. They’re not going to collect on the money unless you’re back behind bars—and I’m dead. We have only a couple things going for us right now. One, they don’t know why I’m doing this. They’re going to assume greed, and I want them to keep believing that. If they figure out about this… this… thing between us, they’ll use it against one or both of us. Understand?”
Gabe nodded. “Understood.” And it was, too. In fact, Kieran would be surprised by all the knowledge and experience Gabe had accumulated over the centuries, and being hunted wasn’t exactly a novelty for him.
“Okay.” Kieran kept nodding, as if affirming the facts for himself. “Second, they don’t know where we’re headed and if we have a plan. For obvious reasons, we can’t go to the ranch. It’ll be the first place they look, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to endanger your family in an attack by a private army.”
“No.” Of that Gabe had zero doubts. “So contacting them to let them know I’m alive and well is out of the question?” It was more a rhetorical question than anything else.
Kieran took a deep breath, clearly about to refuse any chance of that. But then he apparently came to a different decision. “If, and I stress if, we can find a safe way of communicating with them…. Maybe. But don’t go holding your breath just yet. There are exactly three ways out of this. One, they recapture you and kill me as an example and for fun. Two, we run and hide, go so deep underground no one will ever find us, and that means cutting off all ties with your former life.”
“I can’t and won’t do that.” Of that, too, Gabe had no doubts.
Grunting with derision, Kieran said, “Yeah, no big surprise there. Last option is, I take away their motivation to pursue us before they can get to you. They won’t be easily dissuaded, so we’ll have to be extremely persuasive. If the client is dead, the contract will disappear.”
At that Gabe had to pause for serious thought. He had expected that in order to escape they might have to wound or even kill mercenaries or guards in self-defense. But this… this would be premeditated murder. Yes, it was for survival, but was that a justification or an excuse? Even after all these years, Gabe doubted if the ends ever really justified the means.
“It’s either that, or you spend the rest of your fucking life on the run, cut off from your family, friends, and pack, and looking over your shoulder at every shadow.”
Sighing, Gabe rubbed his stubbled jaw and the back of his stout neck, the sweat-damp dark blond curls there, and felt stretched thin, tired and worn. “If… if Victoria Adler was taken out of the picture, would your friends still come after us?”
“They’re soldiers, not my frie
nds. If the mission called for it, they’d abandon me in a heartbeat.” Kieran’s voice was low and surly, and his frown was still firmly in place. “They might leave you be, but they would take me out. If not tomorrow, then next week, next month, a year from now—one day.”
“That is not an option then.”
Kieran shot him a sharp, challenging look. “Don’t be stupid. If you need to leave me behind, you will. Without hesitation or a second thought. Got that?”
Gabe had to dig his fingers into his thighs so he wouldn’t grab a hold of the stubborn soldier and shake him until he came loose of these insane ideas he kept spouting off. His expression, though, remained cool and level as he faced Kieran with his own warrior-like defiance—just of a different brand. “No. I will not leave you under any circumstances. The sooner you accept that, the sooner we will be able to find a commonly agreed-upon solution to our predicament.”
At that, Kieran nearly swerved the car into the bushes on the side of the road, which forced him to fight for control of the vehicle—and himself. “Are you out of your fucking mind, you stupid mutt? Predicament? Jesus fucking Christ, who talks like that?” Letting go of the steering wheel, Kieran seized Gabe’s arm almost savagely with his right hand. “You listen to me—”
“No. Now you listen to me.”
Keeping his tone serene and subdued, Gabriel placed his right palm over Kieran’s strong hand.
Kieran’s breath hitched in his throat, and his grasp tightened. The car jolted as his foot pressed on the gas too hard. Gabe heard the man’s heartbeat speed up, and his own joined in with the same quickened beat.
“W-what…?” Confusion was evident in Kieran’s voice, and his hold was virtually a death grip by now. He was unable to let go. And it had nothing to do with Gabe’s hand over his.
