I nodded. “Watch your backs,” I said.
“We'll pick you up on the way back,” Mariana grinned.
The doors opened and I stepped out into a long, empty hallway. The doors slid shut behind me and I took off at a run. The corridor was blank – no windows and no doors. But at the end, it turned to the right – and that's where I ran into problems of my own.
Six armed soldiers stood at the end of the corridor. And when they saw me, they turned as one and opened fire. I quickly ducked back down the hallway I'd just ran down and tried to figure out how to play it. Looking down at the clothes I was wearing, I saw that I didn't have a whole lot in the way of weaponry. Except – I did have something.
I quickly stripped out of the stolen uniform and tossed it aside. I was still wearing my own clothes beneath the uniform and in my pocket, I had two flash-bangs left from the raid on the bus. It wasn't much, but it was going to have to do.
The soldiers in the hallway weren't advancing. They knew they had the advantage – if I wanted to save Olivia, I was going to have to come to them. All they had to do was wait me out. With time ticking away though, I couldn't afford to keep waiting.
Pulling the pins on the two flash-bangs, I stepped into the hallway and threw my best fastball.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Olivia
There was gunfire in the hallway along with muffled shouting. And then silence. For what seemed like a long time. I knew when Luca didn't find me waiting for them at the elevators that he'd come searching for me.
“It's over, John,” I said. “Just give it up already.”
I sat in the chair as he paced behind me, muttering to himself. The noose was tightening around his neck and he knew it. It was arrogance to believe his little fortress was impregnable. Arrogance to believe that the shifters were nothing more than animals, incapable of mounting an intelligent strategy designed to take his facility down. Arrogance, plain and simple.
When I spoke though, he pressed the barrel of the gun against my head.
“Just shut your mouth, traitor,” he said.
I wanted to say he wouldn't kill me. That my resemblance to his daughter would protect me. But knowing that he'd killed his own daughter, it didn't inspire much confidence.
“Why would you do this?” he asked. “To your own people?”
“Emily,” I said, flatly. “Everything I've done is for my sister.”
He growled and resumed pacing the office behind me. He was angry. Tense. He knew what was happening upstairs, knew his private little army was being wiped out. Knew that his little kingdom here in the Pacific Northwest was falling and that he'd lost his war. And he wasn't taking it well.
“John,” I said. “Get out of here. Run. I can promise you they won't chase you. They won't hunt you. They just want to be left alone. If you do that, if you leave them alone, they're going to leave you alone. I can give you my word on that.”
“Your word means about shit right now, traitor,” he sneered. “And I don't run. Not from anything. I never have and I never will.”
“If you don't, you're going to die, John.”
He aimed his weapon at my face and I flinched, making him chuckle. “Maybe I'll take you out with me,” he said.
There were screams in the hallway followed by the sound of two muffled explosions. The screaming in the hallway changed and it sounded like the men posted outside were in pain. I heard the sound of footsteps running up the hall and then heard six muffled gunshots. Suddenly, the moans of pain in the hallway ceased.
A moment later, the office door swung open. My heart jumped into my throat when I saw Luca standing there. He looked at me and then turned his eyes to John, absolute fury in his face. John put the barrel of his pistol against my head again and looked at Luca.
“I assume this belongs to you?” he spat.
“You hurt a hair on her head and I will tear you limb from limb,” Luca replied. “You will be begging for death long before I'm done with you.”
“Maybe,” John said. “But at least I'll die knowing I killed your little pet. The traitorous bitch.”
Luca took a step into the office and stopped, filling the doorway. He looked at John, and I could tell he was calculating his next move, trying to figure out how to get me out of there without getting hurt. Honestly, having the barrel of a gun pressed to my head, I wasn't sure there was a way.
Unless --
“Hey Luca,” I said, “Do you know the reason John here took up this insane little crusade was because she was a shifter?”
John looked at me, his eyes filled with rage. “Don't you dare speak about my daughter,” he hissed.
“And because he couldn't deal with the fact that she was a shifter, he killed her,” I taunted him. “Father of the year, right?”
“Shut up.”
“His little girl thought being a shifter was a better life than living with her half-crazed old man, can you believe it?” I pressed. “Let me correct that, totally crazed old man.”
“Bitch,” he said, his voice a menacing whisper.
I saw tears well in John's eyes and his face harden with rage. He looked into my face and I knew he was going to pull the trigger – I just hoped he was so focused on me that he wasn't paying attention to Luca.
The answer to that question came in the form of a small dagger hurling across the room. The blade bit deep into John's arm, the momentum carrying his gun hand away from my head. Warm, tacky blood from the wound dotted my face and the gun went off, the bullet harmlessly lodging in the wall, as John growled in pain.
I looked to Luca, knowing he had but a moment to act. He stepped into the room and screamed. I watched as his body started to change. His fingers elongated and sprouted thick, wicked looking claws. His head began to change, his beautiful face changing as it stretched, becoming a muzzle of razor sharp teeth. Thick, dark fur sprung up over his body and in a matter of just moments, Luca had disappeared – replaced by a large, thick, powerful looking bear.
Luca lunged forward, clamping his powerful jaws around John's gun hand. John cried out in agony as Luca buried his fangs deep into the man's flesh. The gun clattered to the ground. Jumping out of my seat, I grabbed the weapon and pressed myself against the wall, trying to stay out of the way.
Luca howled in pain as, using his other hand, John buried a silver dagger into the bear's shoulder. Luca rose up on his hind legs, the sound of his roar reverberating around the room, vibrating my entire body and sending a chill through me. He stepped forward, the dagger still in his shoulder he swiped at it and the blade was sent spinning off to a corner of the office. Luca turned, growling, and used his powerful front legs like pistons, hitting John square in the chest.
I heard bones breaking when he hit the wall even from where I stood. John gasped and wheezed, moaning in pain as he lay on the ground, his body broken, his soul defeated. Luca looked back at me and motioned with his head, almost asking me to step out of the room. I shook my head. I wanted to see the man who'd tortured, tormented, and ultimately killed my sister pay the ultimate price.
“No,” I said. “I want to see him die. He killed Emily. I deserve to see him die.”
Luca looked at me, his dark eyes glittering. John raised his head and stared at me as well – seeming to be begging me to show him mercy. To not let Luca kill him. Luca roared again and clamped his jaws down on John's neck. I heard the wet sound of tearing flesh as Luca buried his fangs deep into his neck. John gasped, a wet, gurgling sound, and then was silent and still. Dead.
Tears streamed down my face as I stared at the lifeless body of the man, my only wish being that I could kill him again. Make him feel fear and pain to the extreme that he made Emily feel it. I rubbed my eyes, trying to scrub away the tears when I felt Luca standing before me.
Naked and with blood all over his face and body, he was ghastly to look at, but I didn't care. I clung to him and sobbed, letting my grief come pouring out in a torrent. He held me for a moment, stroking my hai
r.
“We have to go, Olivia,” he said. “The demo team is already upstairs and we're running out of time.”
I nodded and scrubbed away the tears again. “Let's go.”
I let Luca take my hand and lead me back down the hallway to the elevator. When the door opened, my heart nearly burst in my chest. Standing between Asher and Mariana was my sister – very much alive. She was out of it and looked at me like she didn't know me – and maybe, in that moment she didn't – but John had lied. She was alive.
I rushed in and wrapped her in a tight embrace, pulling her to me, and crushing her against me. Tears – this time of happiness – flooded my eyes and poured down my face. She was non-responsive and hung limply in my arms, but I didn't care. All I cared about was the fact that she was alive. I stroked her hair and said her name over and over again, as if reaffirming that she was alive and was standing there with me.
I looked at Asher, Mariana, and Luca, who were watching us with smiles on their faces.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you all so much.”
Asher smiled and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “We must go.”
Luca pressed a button and the doors slid shut, the elevator ferrying us upward, out of the depths of the hell my little sister had lived through for so long.
Epilogue
“Can you believe this garbage?” Luca said.
We were sitting in the living room of Luca's place, sipping our first coffee of the morning, watching the news together. On the television was what looked to me to be stock footage of a large military cargo plane that had crashed somewhere in a dense forest. The ground around it was scorched, a few small fires still burned, and there was debris everywhere.
The plane had supposedly crashed just outside of Black Salmon Falls.
Government and military officials are mum on the exact contents of the cargo plane that went down, the newscaster said, but anonymous sources have indicated that it was carrying biological, possible even chemical weapons, which is why that section in the northwest corner of Washington state has been sealed to the public.
“Nice cover story,” I commented, shaking my head.
“It's a government black site,” he said. “I'm not surprised they came up with a cover story.”
I shrugged. “Neither am I, really.”
“Worst of all,” Luca said, “is that this is only one battle we won, but I don't think the war is over.”
I shook my head. “Probably not,” I said. “Not as long as there are zealots like John out there, they'll keep coming. But still, this was a big win. Something to be celebrated. They won't be able to operate here again for a long, long time.”
“Here's hoping.”
The demo team had done a real number on the facility. The crater it had left after their explosion had been enormous. Asher thought they liked blowing things up a little too much and had gone maybe a little bit overboard – and given the wreckage, not to mention the hole in the ground, left behind, I tended to agree.
A lot of John's team had perished in our assault on the facility. A fair number of the shifters had as well. I knew Asher had wanted to keep it bloodless, but it wasn't a possibility from the outset. John and his unit were trained to kill – that's all they did. Which made a bloodbath in the facility an inevitability.
Still, some had managed to escape and our team, full of bumps and bruises, had made it home. For the most part. There would be ceremonies for the half dozen who'd been killed in the assault.
We freed the prisoners who were still alive, destroyed a black site facility, and dealt a solid blow to a secret military program aimed at carrying out a genocide. All in all, I had to call that a win.
And perhaps, most importantly to me, Emily was alive. And we'd rescued her. We'd taken her to a clinic that was run by Asher's clan, staffed with those loyal to him, so I had no doubt that she was in good hands. They said that it was going to take some time to unravel exactly what John's scientists had done to her. What they'd infected her with – and to formulate a treatment plan.
But they believed that given the healing powers shifters had, and the fact that she remained strong and vital despite what she'd been exposed to, that she would make a full recovery. In time. It was all going to take some time.
As would unraveling the darkness in her head. She still didn't recognize me and was barely responsive to anybody. The doctors said it was likely a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Which, given what she'd obviously gone through, was entirely believable.
Time. Everything would take time. I wasn't going anywhere without her again, so I had more than enough time. Which, of course, meant I had more time to spend with Luca. And the idea of that almost made me as happy as the chance of spending time with my sister. Almost, of course.
I looked into his eyes and realized that he was a man I could easily fall for. That maybe, I had already fallen for. All I knew was that when I looked at him – or he looked at me – my heart filled to the point it felt like it would burst.
It was crazy, but in a short span of time, Luca had left an indelible impression on my heart.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked me.
I gave him a small grin and grabbed the TV remote. Shutting it off, I opened up my computer and then opened the program of my streaming music service. He cocked his head and looked at me curiously, an amused expression on his face.
A moment later, the song began to play. Luca covered his face with his hands and groaned.
“Come on, Olivia,” he laughed. “Not this song again.”
I shrugged. “Like it or not, this is our song,” I said. “This is the song we met to.”
“Don't remind me.”
I laughed and began to sing along with the song, making him groan and shake his head. Taking the computer off my lap, he set it on the coffee table and planted a kiss on me. Putting his hand behind my neck, he pulled me even closer, our kiss growing even more intense and passionate.
Not that it took much with Luca, but as our tongues swirled and danced together, I felt myself growing hotter and wetter, the fires of my passion burning bright. I climbed into his lap, pressing his back against the couch and kissed his neck, sliding my hand down and rubbing his cock through his boxers.
I raised my arms and let him slip the nightshirt I'd been wearing over my head. He tossed it to the side and leaned forward, taking my breast into his mouth. He cupped and squeezed one while he licked, sucked, and nibbled on the nipple of the other. I gasped as he nipped me with his teeth and squeezed his cock even harder in response.
I ground my hips against him, rubbing his swollen shaft against the warm, wet center of me. Luca stood me up and slipped his boxers off, quickly tossing them to the side. He turned me around so my back was to him and he sat me back down on his lap. I took his cock in my hand and stroked him, squeezed him, and guided him to my opening. Rubbing the head of his cock against me made him moan.
I lifted myself up a bit and then slipped him inside of me. Luca kissed my shoulders and my neck as he grabbed hold of my hips to steady me. He began to move his own hips, driving his cock deep within me. I moaned softly and leaned back against him as he moved within me, driving me crazy.
Turning my head to the side, I kissed him deeply. Passionately. Gasping as he thrust himself even deeper into me. Luca slid his hand down, rubbing my clit at the same time he pumped himself into me. The sensations that flooded my body were overwhelming and I cried out his name.
What he did to me felt so good, so amazing, it didn't take long for my orgasm, strong and powerful, to tear through my body. I shuddered and screamed, leaning forward as the spasms racked my body. The flood of feeling washing through me was unbelievable. Intense.
And I wanted more.
I stood up and took his hand. I sat on the arm of the couch and pulled him toward me. Spreading my thighs, I wrapped them around his body as he reached down, cupping my ass to keep me in place and drove his cock into me again. I moa
ned as he filled me up completely, relishing the feel of every amazing inch of him inside of me.
He moved his hips, driving himself inside of me in a hard, steady rhythm. Pulling me closer to him, Luca looked into my eyes before kissing me with all of the passion he felt for me. It was more than a kiss – it was more than sex – with the way our bodies moved and melded together, it was a statement. A declaration of our feelings for one another.
My breath was shallow and ragged, but I looked into his eyes. “I – I think I love you, Luca,” I gasped.
A small smile played upon his lips. “Yeah well, I know I love you.”
The way he looked at me. The way he savored me. Craved me. Devoured me with his eyes – it all combined to make those fires inside of me burn brighter than they ever had before in my life. He kissed me again and I felt myself toppling over the brink again.
I cried out and dug my nails into his shoulders as my body exploded in wave after wave of sensation. My orgasm tore through me with the force of a hurricane, leaving me trembling and gasping for breath. I clung to Luca, every inch of my skin feeling like it was on fire.
I looked into his eyes and saw the raw, naked hunger he had for me. Felt it melt my heart. I grabbed him by the ass and pulled him to me, a salacious little smile upon my lips. Luca moved his hips, moved himself within me. I arched my back and thrust my hips forward, squeezing him with the muscles inside of me.
He groaned and softly spoke my name, his fingers digging into my ass. His rhythm grew more frantic, more urgent, and I felt his cock swelling up inside of me. I kissed his neck, nipped at it. Luca threw his head back and cried out as he exploded within me. I relished the feeling of his hot, sticky seed filling me up.
He looked down at me as his breathing returned to normal and smiled. He leaned forward and kissed me, softer and gentler than before, but with no less intensity or passion. I had no idea what the future held in store, but what I did know was that I wanted that future to include having Luca by my side.
Saved by a Bear (Legends of Black Salmon Falls Book 2) Page 13
