by A. C. Arthur
Ezra’s cat.
She’d only seen it face-to-face once and then it hadn’t roared. Yet, she knew the sound, had felt it vibrate throughout her body with a stroke of heat to follow. It was as if it called to her, or wanted her to know that it was here. She came to her feet slowly, looking back in the direction of the living room where it was undoubtedly now terrorizing Larry, or better, killing him.
Shaking her head, Jewel turned back toward the room, toward her father. He was her priority, getting him out of here safely had to be her only focus. They could walk back to where her car had been left, it wasn’t that far from the house. If her father couldn’t walk, she’d have to help him. Getting to the car was imperative because that’s where her backpack and the diamonds were. That was the key to her new beginning, the key to saving her and her father’s lives.
When she pushed through the door she was shocked to see her father already standing. The windows shook as she ran to him.
“I’m right here, Daddy,” she told him. “Right here with you.”
“Dawn, baby, you’re safe,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief, patting the hand she’d put on his arm.
“Yes, I’m safe. But we have to go. We have to leave now!” she told him as she started moving toward the door.
There was a back door just off the kitchen, she just had to get out into the hallway, past the powder room, and they’d be home free. Unfortunately, her father wasn’t moving as fast as she needed him to. She tightened her arm around him, trying to force him to lean more of his weight into her so she could drag him along, if need be. But he dug in his heels, stopping completely and she stared at him in question.
“What is it? Are you in pain? Where are your meds?” she asked, her heart no longer hammering, but now beating a steady rhythm that in her mind matched someone else’s—matched Ezra’s. She could hear it so clearly, the sound of his heart beating as she’d heard it when she’d laid in his arms throughout the night. He’d been so warm and so comfortable and a part of her had really wanted to stay.
“You can’t keep running, baby. You gotta stop and stand up and fight your demons.”
His words stilled her and erased all thoughts of lying in bed with that man. She stared at her father, wondering why he’d said those words in particular.
“I’m not running from demons, Daddy. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“You’re trying to take care of an old man that’s lived his life. That man’s no good and you’re afraid of him. You think I can’t feel that? I’ve known something’s been worrying you for a long time now. When you put me in that new home, I thought you might find some peace too, but no, not like this.” He was shaking his head.
From the living room Jewel could hear the growling and felt the floor quaking from whatever was going on out there. She had no idea how Ezra’s cat was handling the situation. All she knew for sure was that Larry wasn’t here in this room to stop her, so she was leaving and that was that.
“Yeah, well, I can tell you all about it once we get out of here.”
When her father still didn’t move, she sighed. “If he comes back in this room he’ll kill us both! Is that what you want, to die in this house in the desert with me lying right beside you?”
She’d hated like hell putting it to him that way, but she’d known instinctively that he would only move if he thought her life was in danger.
His reply was to take a step. She sighed once more, helping him with the next ones and almost smiled when they came a little swifter after that.
Jewel didn’t look back, didn’t want to see what was behind her anymore. She kept going until she and her father were out of the house. The sun pounded down onto their backs, sweat beginning to trickle almost the instant they stepped outside but she didn’t care. Freedom was worth it. Everything she’d had to do had been worth it.
Chapter 21
The sonofabitch had the audacity to be angry with him. Boden almost laughed but this conniving bastard had been a thorn in his side for the past couple of months. If he didn’t need the piece of shit, he would have snapped his neck the moment Bianca pushed him into the back of the Hummer. Or, he could have just left him in that house and let the Shadow that he’d watched jump through the fucking window take care of him once and for all.
He’d done neither of those things because Captain Lawrence Crowe was going to take Boden to just the place he wanted to be, the place he’d planned so perfectly for so long to get to.
“I have to go back there,” Crowe said from where he was steadily bleeding onto Boden’s backseat. “That bitch has my diamonds! I want them back and I want her dead!”
Bianca snickered. Boden frowned.
“You must think I give a damn what you want,” he told him without even turning to face the so-called soldier.
In Boden’s eyes, a true soldier would have never allowed himself to be compromised, and by a female at that. He’d practically given Crowe those diamonds for being studious and bloodthirsty enough to track the rogue named Saylor that Boden had purposely sent to Pakistan. Saylor’s instructions were to get caught, but to not make it easy. He’d done a wonderful job. The next steps had sort of happened, falling unknowingly into a plan that Boden had at that time just begun to devise.
Hardly any time had passed from the time Crowe hit American soil before the Marine had begun examining what he’d caught. Saylor had carried the diamonds. Boden knew Crowe would keep them, no questions asked. Crowe’s ultimate plan for Saylor had been a slight surprise. Once Crowe realized Saylor was no ordinary human, Boden thought the Marine would have simply exposed it to the world, at which time Boden could step in and offer himself as the leader of their kind and act as if he wanted to work peacefully with the human government.
Then Sabar had escaped the jungle. He’d come to the States and begun his own crusade. Sending Bianca to find out what Sabar was up to had been ingenious. Watching the bastards that facilitated Sabar’s death continue to walk around arrogantly and foolishly was a situation he would soon rectify. Finding out he was so close to the brothers that had killed Acacia—the female he’d been denied by her arrogant father—was the icing on the cake, and Boden eventually adjusted his goals to include all of the dumbass Shadow Shifters.
He’d let Crowe continue to study Saylor, to hatch his plan to build a supersoldier, and when the time was perfect, he’d inserted himself into that plan by becoming the highest bidder for the army Crowe proposed to build.
“You’re weak,” Boden said, returning his attention to the human’s boring juvenile rant. “If you had controlled that situation better, your woman and your jewels would be intact. What you may want to be more concerned with is your little research project that’s just been blown to shit.”
Any other man would have second thoughts about talking this way to the highly decorated and reportedly lethal Captain Crowe, especially since his back was facing the man that had been known to kill at the blink of an eye. But Boden was a shifter. He had at least fifty pounds on Crowe on the outside and inside a two-hundred-pound jaguar that would rip the Marine’s face off before he could speak. So, to say Boden wasn’t a bit worried was probably an understatement.
“ADAM will tear that house down,” Crowe insisted. “He has his orders to destroy everything in his sight and he’ll damned well do it!”
“It’s already dead,” Boden told him, looking out the window as if the dirt roads were more important that this conversation. He preferred the lush colors of the jungle, the sounds, the damp air that fortified his body. This city living or whatever they called it was not to his liking at all. So, no, the dirt road wasn’t more interesting, but neither was Crowe, not anymore.
“That beast you created is never going to survive. Your idiot scientists don’t have a clue,” he said in a tone that reflected his boredom.
“What the fuck are you talking about? You know what, don’t answer me. Just let me out here, I’m sick of this bullshit. I don’t need your money o
r your disrespect. I can sell those soldiers to anybody, goddammit!” Crowe roared.
Boden barely blinked. He did, however, look to the backseat where Bianca sat across from Crowe. With a nod of his head he told her, “Make the call. I want this over with quickly.”
Bianca, beautiful, loyal, female rogue that she was, obediently pulled her cell phone from its resting place between her voluptuous breasts and did as he asked. Crowe continued to bitch and whine until Boden finally had to exert a little more effort to reach back and punch the bastard so hard his head slumped to the side, the yapping finally stopped at least for now.
“He’s on the move,” Bianca said, not even bothering to look at Crowe but keeping her gaze focused on Boden. “Everything will be ready by the time we get to D.C.”
Boden flexed the fingers on the hand that had connected with Crowe’s jaw, a smile spreading across his face. “Good. Very good,” he replied.
* * *
Military fatigues and a tan T-shirt that was so tight it threatened to cut off his circulation were not Ezra’s idea of casual wear. But the moment he’d realized Jewel had left that house he knew he had to go after her. The cat’s quick shift having destroyed his clothes once again, he’d had no choice but to check around the place for something to wear. Lucky for him, Crowe liked to keep clothes at all his addresses. Or maybe unlucky, he thought as his running came to a halt, his feet aching in boots that were a size too small.
Every instinct he possessed had been poised and guided him straight to this location, this old car sitting on the side of the road with its windshield bashed in. His body warmed at the sight, a familiar scent filling his nostrils as he inhaled deeply and started across the street.
The sight of her ass, plump and inviting, as she knelt on the backseat of the car, thighs, thick and soft, slightly parted, had his mouth watering. If the time and place were different he could easily imagine slipping his rock-hard cock between the plump globes of her ass, sliding deep into the tight anal entrance, being squeezed and juiced until his body rocked with pleasure.
Desire swirled inside of him like a tumultuous storm but it didn’t muddle all his senses, didn’t cloud his mind with darkness as it had before. Ezra’s jaw clenched at that realization. He took another step until the open car door was on his left. When she backed out he was right there, his arms going around her waist as her ass rubbed against his ever-so-responsive dick.
She turned immediately, hand raised, finger ready to press the power button on the stun gun she held poised at his neck. Ezra quickly grabbed her wrist. “It’s just me,” he told her, loving the sight of her beautiful brown eyes once more, hating the fear etched in their rims, and the tears that dripped down her cheeks.
“What is it?” Ezra asked immediately. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, moving to the side as much as she could with the way he had her blocked against the car. It was enough so that he could see the man’s legs as he lay across the backseat. Ezra’s body tensed for a second or so then he blinked and went into action. With hands as gentle as he could make them, he touched Jewel’s shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “Go around to the passenger side and get in,” he told her.
“He just stopped,” she said, her voice hitching on the last word, her chest heaving as she tried to breathe. “We were walking and we were almost here and he just fell.”
Ezra nodded. “I got it. It’s okay, I just need you to go and get in the car.” He tried to move her, to start the motion toward the other side of the car where he needed her to be, and she flinched.
Hunching her shoulders until his hands slipped away, she tried to reassert herself. “He’s my father. I will take care of him.”
Keeping his hands at his sides was a test in patience that Ezra wasn’t sure he would pass. “I know who he is and I’m going to help you take care of him. Now, get in the car.”
“You don’t own me!” she shouted, tears coming more freely, her right hand lifting to massage her left shoulder.
Either she’d hurt herself trying to carry and lift her father into the car, or that bastard Crowe had gotten his hands on her again. Both scenarios pissed Ezra off to the point his cat grumbled angrily just beneath the surface.
“No I don’t,” he shot back. “But the longer you stand here and argue about who owns who, the less time we have to save your father’s life. Now, I’d prefer to get on the road and on our way to medical help, but if you’d rather we discuss why you, in fact, do feel like I may own some part of you, then I’m all ears.” He’d yelled at her, hadn’t been able to hold that bit of rage—or was it emotional upheaval?—at bay. At this very moment Ezra was feeling a lot of things. His cat was beyond the point of claiming her and more than ready for the man to take that claiming to its primal limits. The man knew what needed to be done but was still vying for the right time to actually make that leap. What he knew with absolute certainty was that her father needed medical attention and he needed it now.
Jewel obviously came to that conclusion at the same second he did because with her lips drawn tightly, probably straining to hold back more curses and words claiming her independence, she turned on her heel, almost running to the other side of the car. She yanked the door open to her own detriment and gasped at the pain in her shoulder. Ezra opened his mouth to speak but she shot him a heated glance. “Just. Save. My. Father. That’s all I want from you, Mr. Preston!”
With that statement she was in the car with the door slamming shut.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Ezra made sure the man’s feet were completely inside the car before closing the door. He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, refusing to curse at the tight fit. His height and width almost precluded him from driving midsize cars. He did grunt as he pulled out onto the road, tapping his ear to activate the com link he’d clicked off the moment he realized ADAM was in that house. He hadn’t wanted backup, hadn’t wanted anyone else to kill ADAM and/or Crowe. That little act of selfishness probably cost him Crowe, but that was just a temporary setback. He was going to find that bastard and he was going to enjoy snapping his neck in two.
Right now, however, he needed to save Jewel’s father.
“I’m on my way to Rendezvous,” he said as soon as the clicking indicating the link was live sounded in his ear. “Need doctors on hand. Two injured, one unconscious, possibly some type of coronary attack.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” Jewel said the moment he’d stopped talking.
“I know,” Ezra said, nodding. “What you need is to find another shirt to put on.” He was trying like hell to keep his eyes on the road and off her exposed bra-clad breasts, resisting the urge to pull her into his arms to assure she was safe and alive and breathing and … his.
“But you’re right, you don’t need a doctor and I don’t own you. Feel free to stop with the declarations at any point. I’m not really considering them anyway.”
“You’re a controlling and arrogant ass,” she shot back.
He nodded. “And I love you too.”
* * *
Twenty miles around the base of Oak Creek Canyon, where a thick copse of trees blended seamlessly with the still water of the lake, was a latch. With her father’s unconscious body draped over his shoulder, Ezra led Jewel down the hidden path, reaching his hand up beneath a jagged arm of the mountain to pull said latch.
“Step back,” he told her.
With the fresh shirt she’d thankfully donned after his remark and her backpack on her shoulders, her face grim with fatigue and worry, dusty and streaked with her dried tears, she did as he said, without argument. The mountain opened like a mouth, slow and yawning, a seven-foot-high and wide opening that would allow them to slip inside.
“Hurry, it’s wired to stay open in sixty-second intervals,” he told her over his shoulder. “Stay right behind me.”
They were shaded by the trees, the sound of hawks squawking above noted their presence so Ezra wanted to get them inside as q
uickly as possible. They had no idea how many men Crowe actually had working for him and how many eyes that were now on what was left of Perryville and the people that worked there. Getting them inside as quickly as possible was imperative.
Again, she obeyed him, moving so close that he could hear her breathing right behind him. He could scent, not her fear or weariness, but the sweet scent of … he gritted his teeth. As if what he’d said to her in the car wasn’t bad enough. Some higher entity had been smiling down on him because she’d acted as if she hadn’t heard what he’d said, looking either out the window or back to her father, without speaking another word to him during the three-hour drive. So he’d been alone with the words, “I love you too.” He’d let them play over and over in his head while he tried to figure out where they’d come from and why they’d slipped from his lips without any contemplation. At the same time he ignored the cat chuffing inside as if to say, “I told you so.”
And now he pushed all that foolishness out of his mind, focusing on following the instructions Syfon had given him.
It was dark inside the cave, this part of the entryway left purposely empty so that anyone who didn’t have the specific instructions would think it simply a cave and soon turn around to retreat. There were a certain amount of steps to be taken, a right turn and then a left, more steps and then another latch. Before pulling this one he reached for her, wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her close.
“No,” she began to protest.
“I’m not feeling you up, I’m holding you so you don’t fall,” he told her when she was fitted firmly against his chest. Moving the hand he had wrapped around her father’s legs, he grabbed the latch that only he could see with his nocturnal vision and pulled.
“I’m not going to fall,” she was saying. “I know how to wal—”
