by Paige Tyler
Dreya opened her mouth to tell him she’d think about it when the doorbell chimed, letting them know a customer had come into the shop.
“Duty calls,” Rory said. “I’ll be right back.”
Dreya stared at the diamond and the funny-looking black box that might be worth even more—or could be a piece of junk. Should she take Rory’s advice and toss them? She didn’t care about the black box, but the diamond was too beautiful to throw away. Hell, she’d rather take it and put it back in Thorn’s safe.
She was just wondering how long Rory was going to be when a familiar voice drifted her way from the front of the shop. Oh yeah, she recognized those deep, sexy tones all right. Detective Braden Hayes, Metro PD. Unfortunately, she’d heard it too many times, most of them in an interrogation room down at the police department.
Dreya had never been arrested for any of her crimes because she was too good to ever leave any evidence, but Hayes had brought her in for questioning several times. That cop somehow knew she was a thief. He just couldn’t get anyone else to believe him. That didn’t keep him from trying though.
She stood and walked out of the office, heading down the hall until she could peek into the front of the shop. Rory and Hayes were standing in the center of the room, talking like they were old friends. As the two men chatted about stolen diamonds, Dreya leaned her shoulder against the wall and pondered the general unfairness of the world. Hayes was a handsome guy, with an athletic build, eyes the color of her favorite espresso, a strong jaw, and hair that just made you want to run your fingers through it. Why did he have to be a cop, and one who worked robbery at that?
Then again, maybe she was only attracted to him because he represented something dangerous and thrilling. Something told her that her other half—the one that liked heights and growling—would love to play games with him. She ignored the purr her freaky side let out and dismissed that thought immediately, having no desire to see where it led.
Since it seemed like Hayes wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon, she decided to go. She definitely didn’t want to be in Rory’s office with Thorn’s crap in the event the detective decided he wanted to see what was back there.
Hurrying into Rory’s office, Dreya scribbled a quick note, then slipped the diamond and the black box into her pack, grabbed her helmet, and headed for the back door. For now at least, she’d keep them. There was always the possibility that Rory would change his mind and help her find a place to unload the stuff. Maybe she just needed to give him a little time to think about it.
Chapter 6
The butterflies that had been fluttering in Layla’s stomach since she’d left DC only got worse as she worked her way west across Ukraine in the back of the military vehicle that Kendra had arranged. By the time she reached the outskirts of Donetsk, they’d turned into angry birds.
She kept telling herself that Jayson was fine, that he wasn’t going to have a bad reaction to the hybrid serum, and that his Special Forces training would keep him safe. But every time she thought she had her fears under control, she had visions of Jayson getting a delayed reaction to the hybrid serum and convulsing in pain, or his back giving out completely, or Powell abandoning him in the middle of a fight. They scared her so much, she found herself shaking in terror, her claws and fangs fully extended.
It hadn’t helped when Kendra called on the satellite phone and told her that both the intelligence communities and the Internet were alive with the news that a good portion of the Donetsk militia forces had gone on high alert over an insurgent attack in the same area where Jayson and Powell had been heading. Kendra didn’t know anything more than that, but she warned Layla to be careful. If the militias were looking for outsiders, it was going to make her task even harder. To make matters worse, Kendra hadn’t heard from Clayne and Danica yet, so she didn’t know if they’d gotten the message to head to Donetsk.
Layla forced herself to take a deep breath. Kendra’s news didn’t mean Jayson was hurt—or worse. Since he and Powell had been there to rescue a diplomat’s kid, it wasn’t surprising that they’d probably gotten into it with the locals. If either of them had been captured or killed though, the chatter on the Internet would have included that.
Her plan to find Jayson went out the window the moment she hopped off the military vehicle and slipped across the border into the DPR region. The whole area was crawling with militia soldiers. Most of them were patrolling the streets, but some were going from house to house, knocking on doors. Layla’s grasp of Russian wasn’t great compared to a native speaker, but she’d learned enough during her training to get by. The soldiers were looking for someone. It wasn’t hard to figure out whom.
As she moved through the nighttime streets, she could hear explosions in the distance followed by the distinct sound of artillery fire. She expected it to send the civilians around her running for cover, but no one paid any attention to it. With all the fighting in Ukraine lately, she supposed they were used to it.
She kept her head down and walked faster to catch up with the group of people ahead of her so she could ask if they knew whom the soldiers were looking for. They were already talking about it among themselves, and fifteen minutes later, she had not only learned what happened to put the militia on alert, but, more importantly, that it had also happened in a Russian Orthodox Church down the street where a priest had been “harboring spies.” While no one said they were Americans, her kitty-cat instincts told her they had to be talking about the diplomat’s kid.
Her instincts were right. Layla was so grateful she almost fell to her knees and gave thanks right on the spot when she picked up Jayson’s scent outside the church. She followed his trail, picking up Powell’s as well as three other people’s along the way. Their combined scents led her on a roundabout path through the outskirts of the city and into an industrial section, then down to an aqueduct near a river. The scents got muddied a bit there because three of the people had ducked into a tunnel that led under the river while Jayson and Powell had gone back toward the warehouses.
Her stomach lurched as she followed the trail up to the roof of the building. She didn’t even want to imagine how bad the situation must have been for Jayson to willingly head up there. Her dread only increased when she found all the spent cartridges scattered around the rooftop.
She balled her hands into fists, ignoring the claws digging into her palms as his scent led her to a shattered chimney in the center of the roof. Jayson and Powell must have tried to take cover behind it—and it must not have worked because she saw blood to one side of it. One sniff told her it was Powell’s. The DCO agent was nowhere in sight though. There were scuff marks on the roof where it looked like someone had dragged him away.
She ignored them and focused on Jayson. His scent led away from the chimney, toward the side of the building closer to the river, but disappeared at the edge of the roof. She frowned and leaned over the edge. There was no way he could have jumped from all the way up here unless…
Suddenly, her nose picked up a trace of his scent coming from the roof of the other building. Her frown deepened. Jayson couldn’t possibly have jumped to the far roof. It had to be at least thirty feet.
Then she saw the steel pipe sticking out from the building. That was where his scent was coming from. She gauged the distance to the pipe. While it wasn’t quite thirty feet, it was still far. But Jayson had been trapped on the roof with people shooting at him and nowhere else to go—jumping had probably been the only option.
Layla threw a quick glance around, making sure no one had snuck up on her, then took a running jump and leaped over to the pipe, landing as quietly as she could. While she didn’t have a problem traversing the slick pipe as she followed his trail, the fact that Jayson had been able to do it—under the stress of combat, no less—was impressive as hell.
She’d almost reached the end of it when she picked up the tangy scent of Jayson’s blood. She stu
mbled, almost falling.
Oh God.
Fear gripped her. Jayson had been shot, and she had no way of knowing how badly he’d been hurt because his scent trail ended here. She stared down at the river. Had he jumped or fallen? Had he survived the impact with the water? Had he been able to swim all the way to shore? If so, where had he gone?
Spinning around, she raced back along the pipe until she came to support bars attaching it to the building, then climbed onto the roof and practically flew down the stairs to the first floor.
It took two hours to scour the shore closest to the warehouses, and she still came up empty. Then it took her another hour to backtrack through the city and find a way across the river. She’d been tempted to take the tunnel she’d seen earlier but decided against it. There was too much chance of soldiers guarding it.
When she got to the other side of the river, she discovered she was right about the militia standing guard at the tunnel. Careful to stay out of sight, she sniffed around. She quickly picked up the scent of the three people who’d been with Jayson when they left the church, then his scent a little while after that. Layla leaned against a tree for support, dizzy with relief. Jayson had made it across the river. That had to mean the gunshot wound wasn’t too bad.
Pushing away from the tree, she tracked his scent to an abandoned building three blocks from the river. Even in the darkness, Layla could see that the building had been heavily damaged by the fighting in the area. Part of the roof had collapsed and one of the walls was completely caved in. She skirted the worst of the damage and followed Jayson’s scent to a stairwell. It was stronger in there, but so was the smell of blood, and Layla had to force herself not to run down the debris-cluttered steps.
She was so focused on finding Jayson that she completely shut out everything else. Movement off to the right caught her attention as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she only had a split second to see a curly-haired teenage boy rushing her in the darkness before he swung a piece of metal rebar at her head.
Instinct honed by hours of martial arts training with Ivy and Landon immediately took over, and she grabbed the bar, jerking it savagely away from her attacker and tossing it across the room. Then she kicked out, catching the kid in the stomach and sending him flying backward.
Another teen immediately stepped out from behind a bookcase, wielding more rebar. With a growl, Layla spun in a tight circle and put her heel into his chest, slamming him back into the shelf and sending the books on it crashing to the floor.
She was bracing herself in case either of them came at her again when a familiar scent filled the room, immediately followed by the glow of a flashlight.
“Layla?” Jayson’s voice was full of disbelief. “What the hell are you doing here?”
All thoughts of the two teens she’d put on the floor disappearing, Layla ran across the room. A third teen stepped out from behind Jayson and tried to get in her way, but she shoved the tall, lanky blond aside so hard he fell; then she slammed into the man she loved so hard they both almost went down. She didn’t think but simply wrapped her arms around him tightly and buried her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in.
Her whole body shook—with relief, pleasure, satisfaction, need, and, yes, hunger—as she realized he was safe and that they were together. The sensations were nearly impossible to describe, but she knew she’d never felt anything better in her life.
Layla had realized she was in love with Jayson before tonight, but the emotions she’d experienced before were pale compared to what she was feeling now. She would have happily stayed like this for the rest of the night, but a noise behind her made her stiffen.
She lifted her head to look over her shoulder. The teen she’d kicked in the stomach earlier had climbed to his feet and was glaring at her.
“Who the hell are you, and how did you find us?” he demanded in heavily accented English.
She growled as he took a step toward her and Jayson. Not because she felt threatened by him, but because he was getting too close to Jayson.
The big teen stopped short, a shocked look on his face. “Um…okay, I’m going to stop right here. Who are you?”
“This is Layla. She’s a friend,” Jayson answered for her. “She works for the same people I do. She’s here to help, Mikhail.”
Mikhail eyed her suspiciously, then glanced at Jayson. “How did she find us?”
“She’s good at tracking people,” Jayson said simply. “Why don’t you, Dylan, and Olek take a look around outside to make sure all that noise didn’t attract attention?”
Dylan and Olek looked as leery as Mikhail, but after a few moments, all three teens headed for the stairs. When they’d disappeared from view, Jayson placed the big flashlight on top of the bookshelf, then turned toward her. Layla braced herself for his anger, but instead, he gently took her face in his big, warm hands and kissed her.
The move was so unexpected she didn’t respond right away. Jayson must have thought she was rebuffing him because he started to pull away. She grabbed the front of his shirt, tugging him close and kissing him back, trying to tell him with her actions what she’d never been able to tell him with words.
Jayson’s arms went around her, his tongue slipping into her mouth to seek out hers. She shivered as his taste filled her, burying her fingers in his hair and urging him on. Jayson let out a groan and slid a hand down to her jean-clad ass, squeezing her bottom and fitting her more tightly against him.
Layla growled in approval as she felt his hard-on press against her stomach. She was wondering just how far they might take things when she heard movement in the collapsed building above them.
She and Jayson broke apart, pulling their handguns. He moved over to cover the stairwell, while she kept her attention focused on the ceiling, her ears attuned to any further noise coming from upstairs. A moment later, she heard Mikhail ask Olek if he was okay. Olek muttered something about falling over a pile of rubble in the dark. She let out the breath she’d been holding and shoved her gun back in its holster.
“It’s okay. Olek fell,” she said softly to Jayson.
Her lips were still tingling from his kiss, and all she wanted was for him to walk back over to her and pick up where they’d left off, but he stayed where he was and slowly eased his pistol into the holster behind his back. His heart was beating hard though, and that—along with the scent of his arousal—told her he was still hungry for her.
Layla smiled, about to ask why he was standing all the way over there with a hard-on in his jeans, when another scent caught her attention—blood. Then she saw the big stain on the upper right side of his pants. Her heart seized in her chest.
She was across the room and on her knees in front of him so fast that he actually took a step back.
“Whoa,” he laughed. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but is now seriously the time for this?”
Layla rolled her eyes. Men. She gave him a look and pointed at the dark stain on his jeans. “You’re bleeding.”
“Oh.”
Layla almost laughed at the blatant disappointment on his face. A rain check was definitely in order for this particular position as soon as they got back to DC.
“Yeah, I got shot. The wound isn’t infected though,” he added. “The hybrid serum must have taken care of that for me. It’s not healing up like I heard it does for shifters, but it stopped bleeding almost right away. I think it’ll be fine.”
She bit her lip. How the hell could she just come out and say Zarina had given him a drug that had stopped most, if not all, of the hybrid changes he’d probably been expecting?
“Do you mind if I take a look anyway?” she asked.
“Go ahead.”
She extended her claws and reached for his jeans, but he grabbed her hands.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to tear open your
jeans so I can check the wound.”
His mouth curved into a smile. “You don’t have to rip them. It’s not like I brought extra clothes with me, and I’m pretty sure I’d attract a lot of attention walking around flashing bare leg and a bloody bandage.”
He had a point.
When she reached for his belt, she thought he might stop her again and insist that he could do it. But he didn’t complain as she undid the buckle, then the buttons on his jeans. While easing his pants down his hips was certainly fun, it would have been a lot more pleasurable if not for the present circumstances.
She only pushed them down to mid-thigh, just enough to bare the bandage-wrapped wound. He’d done a good job, which wasn’t surprising since all Special Forces guys had combat medic skills, but blood still seeped through the material.
“Do you have any more cloth so I can put on a fresh bandage?” she asked as she untied the knot and slowly unwrapped it.
Motioning behind her with his head, he said, “Yeah, there’s some in the back room. I was trying to catch a few hours of sleep when you ran in and scared the hell out of me.”
She winced. “Sorry about that.”
Layla swallowed hard as she unwrapped the last of the material to expose the ragged bullet wound in his upper thigh. She wasn’t usually the squeamish type, but seeing Jayson’s blood made her feel queasy. She could clearly see the entrance and exit wounds, and while the edges were red and angry, they didn’t look infected. Jayson was right. Most of the bleeding had stopped, though she doubted it had anything to do with the hybrid serum. Most likely, the constriction of the capillaries due to swelling was responsible for that. She didn’t point that out to him, though.
“I’ll be right back,” she said as she straightened up.
She went into the back room to get more material only to stop midstep when she saw the folded piece of carpet Jayson had been using as a bed. Sleeping on that would have been murder on her back. She couldn’t imagine what it was doing to his.
