by Paige Tyler
Thank God she was okay. He opened his mouth to ask her, just to make sure, but she gently shushed him.
“You’ve been out of it for a while,” she said. “Take your time.”
As long as he could do it while gazing at her, he was okay with that. He only hoped some doctor or nurse didn’t interrupt them.
Now that he thought about it, the room didn’t feel like a hospital. Or smell like one either. He was in a hospital bed with an IV tube stuck in one arm and a bunch of wires running from under his blanket to a monitor somewhere behind him. But everything else seemed…off.
The walls weren’t the usual depressing institutional beige. The comfy chair by the window was real leather. And the partially drawn curtains looked expensive even to him, and he didn’t know a damn thing about curtains.
He looked at Khaki. “Where am I?”
“You’re in a private recovery center that Sergeant Dixon arranged for you,” she said.
Xander’s mouth fell open in shock, and Khaki laughed. While it was good to hear her laugh, Xander was having a hard time with the bombshell she’d dropped about being in a private recovery center.
“Gage already had this place set up for us?” he asked.
She reached out to gently brush his hair back from his forehead. “I don’t know who he is, or how the boss knows him, but Sergeant Dixon got a doctor into the operating room before they started surgery. The guy’s not a werewolf, but he knows what we are. He had you moved here two nights ago, so no one could see how fast you’re healing but him.”
Xander knew Gage had set up contingency plans over the years for almost everything imaginable, but this was amazing. How the hell had he found a human doctor willing to cover for a pack of werewolves?
“Two nights ago?” he asked.
Khaki nodded. “You were in surgery for five hours and you’ve been out of it ever since.”
He was still processing that when tears brimmed in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Sergeant Dixon knows about us,” she said. “He figured it out the moment he walked into the hospital and saw me in the waiting area. He hasn’t said it yet, but I know he’s going to move me to Mike’s squad.”
Tears overflowed her beautiful eyes and ran down her cheeks. Xander was torn between the overwhelming desire to pull her into his arms and kiss the tears away, and finding whoever had made his woman cry and tearing that person to pieces.
He took her hand and tugged Khaki to his chest. She snuggled against him, resting her head on his shoulder. He squeezed her tightly, kissing the top of her head and wishing he could comfort her. But he didn’t know how to comfort a woman. He was an idiot when it came to things like that. But he had to try. He’d rather get shot a hundred times than hear Khaki cry.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay. We’re not going to let Gage split us up.”
Khaki pushed away from his chest, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “And how do we stop him from doing that, kidnap him?”
He chuckled, partly because Khaki could still joke at a time like this, and because the answer to their problem was so simple it was funny.
“No,” he said. “We tell him the truth, that we’ll both quit the team before we let him split us up.”
Khaki’s face softened like she was looking at a really cute puppy. But then she frowned. “Xander, that’s absolutely the sweetest thing any man has ever said to me, but I can’t let you do that. You wouldn’t just be quitting the team; you’d be leaving your pack, a pack you’ve been part of for a long time. I’ll put in for a transfer to somewhere else in the DPD.”
He reached up and traced the outline of her jaw with his fingers. She was so beautiful. And he never wanted to be without her.
“Yes, they’re my pack, but you’re my mate,” he said. “Being with you is more important to me. Either we both stay in the Pack, or neither of us does.”
She looked at him as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to smack him or kiss him. She chose the latter, leaning over to cup his face in her hand and kiss him in a way no other woman ever had.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“I’m sure.” Xander grinned. “I’d go back to working patrol if I could come home to you every night. Besides, it’s not exactly like I’m making a big sacrifice. If it comes down to being with the woman I love or a bunch of sweaty, testosterone-laden werewolves who get in fights all the time, the decision is easy.”
Khaki’s mouth curved. “The woman you love, huh? That’s not just the bullet wounds talking, is it?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry I made you wait until now to hear me say it, but I really do love you more than anything else in my life, including the Pack.”
“I love you too,” she whispered. “So much.”
Tears formed again in her eyes, one glistening drop rolling down her perfect cheek and falling gently to his lips. The feel of it was shockingly powerful, like an earthquake he could only feel in his soul. He swore that he’d do anything to make sure he was worthy of Khaki’s tears.
Xander opened his mouth to tell her that, but she silenced him with another kiss. “Not another word,” she whispered. “You’ve said everything that needs to be said.”
They sat there in silence, holding each other for a long time. Xander was content to stay just like that for the rest of the night, and probably would have if Khaki hadn’t let out the cutest yawn he’d ever heard. He’d been so relieved to see that she was okay, he hadn’t thought about how exhausting the past couple days must have been on her.
“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” he asked softly.
She shrugged. “I’ve napped a little here and there.”
He tilted her chin up so he could see her face. “Define a little.”
“Three nights ago, when we were together at your place.”
No wonder she looked so tired. “I understand why you stayed, because I wouldn’t have been able to leave your side either. But now that you know I’m going to be okay, I think you should go home and get some sleep.”
She opened her mouth to complain, but he put a finger on her lips to shush her. “You’ll need to be fresh when we face Gage, and now that I’m awake, that’s probably going to be sooner than later.”
“Okay,” she said. “But only because I know you’re going to be okay. And because your bed will remind me of you.”
Khaki gave him another kiss that made him consider asking her to stay and jump in the hospital bed with him, but he caught himself. Khaki needed to get some sleep. And to be truthful, he did too. He was getting stronger by the minute, but when Gage showed up, Xander wanted to face him on his feet, not lying in this bed.
* * *
Khaki found Mac and the guys from her squad, along with Mike and a good portion of his guys waiting in the outer lobby. Thankfully, Sergeant Dixon wasn’t with them. Xander needed rest and he wasn’t going to get it with their boss around.
“How is he?” Mac asked.
Mac had been a rock for her over the last two days. Not only had she gone to Khaki’s apartment and gotten clean clothes for her, but she’d brought her something to eat and big cups of coffee around the clock. Mac had also been keeping Gage away from her, something Khaki was extremely grateful for.
Khaki smiled. “He’s awake, and he’s going to be fine.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Khaki could feel the tension drain from the room. The guys had said all the right things, that Xander was a werewolf and that werewolves could recover from any injury that didn’t kill them. But none of them had ever heard of a werewolf going in for open-heart surgery and being unconscious for two days either.
Mac pulled her in for a hug. “Thank God. I’ve been so worried.”
“Me too,” Khaki admitted. “But he’s okay. He sent me home to get some sleep.”
“Did you tell him that Gage knows about the two of you?” Cooper asked. “And that he probably isn’t going to let you stay on
the squad?”
Khaki nodded. “He knows, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Mike echoed. “I don’t have a problem with you on my squad, but I find it hard to believe Xander is going to be okay with that.”
Khaki almost laughed. No, Xander definitely wasn’t okay with that. “I appreciate the offer, Mike, but Xander wouldn’t be able to handle it, and honestly, I doubt I would be able to either. We’ve decided the best thing would be for both of us to transfer out of SWAT.”
While it was painful as hell to say the words, she knew it was the right thing to do.
“But you’re not leaving the Pack, right?” Alex asked.
“I can’t see how we have a choice,” she said. “How can we be part of the Pack, but not in SWAT when they’re one and the same? Even if we could, it would be too hard for everyone involved.”
The mood in the waiting room, which had been so high just a few moments ago, turned dismal. Mac was on the verge of tears while Mike and some of the other guys stared down at the floor. The others just look pissed. Especially Cooper.
Khaki didn’t want that. She and Xander had known what they were getting into when they started sleeping with each other. It wasn’t Sergeant Dixon’s fault, and she didn’t want the guys trying to take this out on him. It wouldn’t solve anything and would likely only make matters worse.
She cleared her throat. “So, Mike, did you and your squad find out anything on the shooter?”
Mike looked surprised by her question. She didn’t blame him. How could he know how many hours over the last couple of days she’d spent imagining all the things she was going to do to the person who’d shot Xander? And now that Xander was out of the woods, those thoughts were back. She wasn’t the kind of person who believed in retribution, but that was before she’d held Xander in her arms while he’d fought for his life. Maybe it was her werewolf nature, but she wanted the person who’d hurt him to pay.
“Not much, I’m afraid,” Mike admitted. “We’ve been working on the theory that the sniper was backup for the bank crew, but we’ve found absolutely nothing to support that. Most of the crew have lawyered up and the ones that haven’t claim they don’t know anything about the sniper. Even the girlfriend, Shelly, swears we have all of them accounted for. Diego and Zane are down in lockup trying to get anything they can from the guys we arrested, but I don’t think they’re going to. Gage has the DA’s office going through their old cases to see if someone Xander put away has recently gotten out of prison. But that’s going to be a long list. He’s responsible for locking up a lot of criminals.”
“Crap,” Khaki muttered. If anyone could get anything out of the guys they arrested, it would be SWAT’s two hostage negotiators, Diego Martinez and Zane Kendrick, but like Mike, she didn’t hold out much hope. Maybe the DA’s office would have better luck.
Khaki ran her hand through her hair. She didn’t want to go back to Xander’s apartment for a nap. She wanted to track down the shooter and tear him to shreds. Even standing here in the waiting room, she could feel the tingles at the tips of her fingers that meant her claws wanted to come out. She tried to use the calming techniques that Xander had taught her. Having her claws make an appearance in front of the guys probably wasn’t a good idea, not if she hoped to have a chance to go after the shooter, whoever he was.
“What about the crime scene? Did you find anything there that might give us a clue who this sniper is?” she asked.
Mike shook his head. “We found which building the guy was on when he shot Xander, and while he left a good scent trail behind, that was all he left. No shell casings, no DNA, no fingerprints on the doors, nothing. The guy is a pro.”
“You didn’t recognize his scent?” she asked.
“No.” Mike smiled wryly. “Maybe if any of us had your memory for scents it’d be possible. But to all of us, he just smelled like a guy.”
She smiled back at Mike. He gave her an idea. “Maybe I should run out there and sniff around a little, see if I recognize the scent?”
“I thought you were going home to get some sleep?” Mac reminded her with a frown.
She was, but the chance to get a sniff of the guy who’d shot Xander before the scent faded away completely was too good to pass up. “I’ll just run over and take a quick look around. I promise I’ll take a nap after that.”
Mike scowled at her. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be running around the crime scene on your own. We assume Xander was the sniper’s target, but the guy was shooting at you too.”
“How about a couple of us go with her?” Becker suggested. “That way she can get a sniff of the suspect; then we can make sure she goes home for some rest.”
Khaki wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of having company, but she knew if she made a fuss, it was likely to make Mac and Mike so suspicious they would probably insist on going with her, so she nodded. She probably wasn’t going to learn much at the crime scene that the others hadn’t anyway.
* * *
It was dark by the time she parked her Mini beside Max’s Camaro. In silence, he and Becker led her to the building where the shooter had been.
The building was an eight-story office complex with more than twenty businesses, including a lawyer, a few investment firms, and a real estate company.
“And no one saw a damn thing,” Max grumbled as he held open the door for her.
Khaki followed Max and Becker up the stairs, relieved the two younger guys had been the only ones who’d come with her. For a moment back in the recovery center, she’d thought Xander’s whole squad was going to accompany her. But then Cooper said something about wanting to be there when Sergeant Dixon showed up so he could tell their boss what a dick he was being. The rest of the guys had wanted to stay too. Some to give Gage a piece of their mind, some to keep Cooper from saying something that would get him in trouble too.
“The shooter slipped out the building through a fire exit without tripping the alarm,” Becker told her as they stepped onto the roof.
Khaki was so caught up in the memories of Xander getting shot that she almost missed the faint but familiar scent clinging to the rooftop. When she finally realized what it was, she nearly stumbled over her own feet.
Jeremy.
“No way,” she whispered, feeling the color draining from her face.
She shouldn’t be surprised her asshole ex-boyfriend was the one who’d tried to kill Xander and her. It should have been obvious.
“Everything okay?” Max asked. “You smell something you recognize?”
Khaki hesitated. If she told Becker and Max the shooter had been her stalker ex-boyfriend, they’d almost certainly try and keep her from tracking him down and killing him. She shouldn’t have had thoughts like that considering she was a cop, but ripping Jeremy to shreds was exactly what she wanted to do. Jeremy had followed her here from Washington, stalked her, harassed her, then shot the man she loved. Tearing him to pieces seemed the most rational thing in the world to her at that moment.
Her cell phone rang, making her jump. “It might be Xander,” she mumbled as she pulled it out of her purse.
She glanced at the call display, expecting to see Xander’s name, but all she saw was a phone number.
She thumbed the green button and turned away from the guys. “Calling to gloat?”
There was a snort of amusement on the other end of the line that made Khaki bite back a growl. “Not much to gloat about since it seems I didn’t succeed in killing that caveman you call a boyfriend,” Jeremy said. “I have to admit, he’s one tough bastard. Although considering he’s been unconscious for almost three days, it makes me wonder if it’s just a matter of time.”
She growled this time.
“Everything okay?” Becker asked from over by the edge of the roof.
She turned to tell him everything was fine, but Jeremy’s voice interrupted. “I wouldn’t say anything to those two cops with you. I’d hate to have to shoot them like I did yo
ur boyfriend. I don’t think they’d survive a shot to the head at this distance.”
Khaki tightened her grip on the phone, darting a quick look around at the nearby buildings. Jeremy might have been lying about being out there somewhere with a rifle, but she doubted it. He was obviously close enough to see she was with Becker and Max, which meant he was probably close enough to shoot them. And if he hit them in the head, they’d be dead.
She forced herself to smile and nod at Becker and Max, then turned her back on them, moving a little farther away. “If you didn’t call to gloat, why did you call?”
“Because we need to talk,” Jeremy said. “You haven’t been answering your phone for the last few days.”
She wanted to shout at him that she’d been too busy worrying about Xander, but she bit her tongue. She needed Jeremy to give her a clue where he was.
“So talk,” she said.
“Not over the phone. This is a conversation we need to have in person.”
Khaki laughed. She doubted they’d be doing a lot of talking. Jeremy intended to kill her. Then again, if he wanted her dead, he could have shot her with the rifle he was pointing in her direction. But no, a quick kill like that wouldn’t be satisfying enough for him. Jeremy was the kind of sadistic bastard who’d want Khaki to see her death coming in slow motion.
And by meeting with him, she’d give him exactly what he wanted. But she was okay with that because she was going to get exactly what she wanted, too. A chance to punish the man who had tried to kill her mate.
The anger that rose up inside her was like nothing she’d ever experienced. She felt her fingertips burn and her jaws ache as her out-of-control claws and fangs extended fully. She had to struggle to control her voice as she answered Jeremy.
“Where do you want to meet?”
* * *
Xander didn’t realize he’d dozed until movement beside his bed woke him. He opened his eyes, expecting to see Khaki, and was disappointed to find Gage standing there. Was it too much to hope he was dreaming? But then his team leader’s scent finally filtered through his fuzzy head, confirming he wasn’t.
