by Billi Jean
“Giving our wild ride second thoughts?” he asked with a long stare at her breasts. “I think once you give it a go, it’s going to be seconds and thirds before we’re through so calling it a quickie might be misleading.”
“Kincaid,” she snapped, only because each time he talked like that she felt her body grow wetter and wetter. Her pussy was so hot it would probably scald his Little Rickie at this rate.
She blew out a breath and shook her head. “Try and focus on the situation here, please.”
“All right. I thought I was, but okay,” he said and eased that much closer.
She focused on the computer in front of her and not the spicy smell of him. He hadn’t smelled bad at her house. He’d smelled incredible. Sexy. For some insane reason she’d wanted to hug him tightly and open her thighs in invitation to what he had going on against her hip.
Not thinking on that. Not thinking on that.
Rick grunted. “This place looks like shit.”
She agreed. She’d destroyed everything in here, but she’d brought her own laptop and hooked it up, hardwiring into the only computer system that she hadn’t burnt out. How she’d missed it, she wasn’t certain—maybe the eminent death threat she’d been under, or maybe she’d just been sloppy.
“So, what do you got, Sparky, to take my mind off other things we could be doing?”
“Kincaid,” she grumbled, but indicated the computer screen without glancing at him. “That one is connected directly—or was—to the computers in a compound we know is in Russia.”
“Or more precisely Siberia,” he corrected.
“Right. I thought they were part of Russia, so whatever.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he teased then got serious, studying the specs on the other lab. “Impressive, since it’s the only system in here not destroyed.” His comment was under his breath, but it reminded her that he was also a tech guy for his team. “How do you know this is the feed from the other lab?”
“I was there. It was where Jaxon and Joey ended up, remember? When we freed you guys and he got sucked into the black hole?”
“Right,” he muttered, busy examining the footage. “Along with my men.”
“Yes, prior to the compound exploding and destroying anything it might have had to help us figure out what they were doing, this place was directly linked to that. So at least we know the two were connected.”
“True, but maybe not run by the same guy, right?”
“Yeah, probably not,” she agreed. “Gerald is back in hell—or wherever he was dragged. Also, as far as I know, they didn’t experiment on changelings here, but we know they did there,” she said, pointing to the computer. “The changelings took off too, all but the two who offered to go with us to the Immortal Council. How is that working out?”
“I’m not in the know. I did hear the wolf—the werewolf stuck in his wolf form, not Viktor—is helping with hunting the changelings from that point, maybe to here. Grayson is supposed to let us know.”
“He might come here?” she asked. “Grayson?”
“No, he’s on something else,” Kincaid said, not really paying much attention to the conversation. He was scanning all the feed from the old compound, though, she realized.
“This is where they were experimenting, huh?” he asked, frowning at the computer screen. “Can we tell what they were doing and why?”
He really had a great face. Kind of that Robert Redford thing going on with that guy who played Thor in The Avengers thrown in.
“What?” he asked.
She shrugged and tapped her pencil on her knee. She was curious about him. Was he for real on thinking she was still pretty? Maybe, but more than that, why was he here, with her? Was he really so intent on finding his men that he’d come alone with an obvious traitor?
“What?” he repeated, sitting back in his chair, thighs spread wide, completely relaxed to the point of lazy. The bulge under his jeans was so intriguing she had to concentrate on not looking there.
“Nothing, just you kinda look like a young Robert Redford playing at being a soldier. Why are you mixed up in this?”
He leaned forward, snagged her hand and squeezed. “Are you losing focus? Trying to distract me from something? Changing your mind on the quickie? We can make it a full-court press if you want.”
“No?” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
He didn’t let go of her hand, even when she pulled a bit harder. His blue eyes seemed to grow clearer as he scanned her face. She wanted to drop her gaze, but knew better. He’d harass her to no end if she did, so she met his eyes straight on—even if she couldn’t see out of one of hers—and waited. It wasn’t as if she could change her face now. He knew what she looked like. She didn’t—not really, not yet. It’d all happened so fast. Waking up, coming here… She had a feeling soon enough she’d have plenty of time to cry over her face—alone with nothing else to do with her time. Then she’d be able to see exactly how bad it was.
“You don’t look like anyone—just you, Hunter,” he finally said. For a second she thought he’d read her mind. “Famous all by yourself, without having to be some Aussie cowboy mess.”
She laughed, but cut the sound off quickly to shake her head at him. She couldn’t imagine what her face was like when she smiled. In fact, she didn’t want to know.
“Redford was a stud for his time, and I’m sure Hemsworth has women at his beck and call,” she said, her attention back on the computers.
“I never wanted women at my beck and call, so there’s your problem. Sissy boys, both of ’em.”
“Redford is a cowboy!” she cried indignantly. “You just can’t take a compliment. Now here… See this.” She focused on the Russian-Siberian compound. “This is where the explosion occurred and we lost Vik and the changelings. But here,” she brought his attention—she hoped—back to the computer screen. “This here”—she pointed to the map—“is where we last saw the changelings. They were in a cave system. Rumor is there are a lot of those caves, but I didn’t get a chance to check it out. Things work fast in the immortal world, so quick you can’t catch your breath.”
“It’s like that with life sometimes. It’s a struggle and you barely survive, then you’re bored out of your mind until the next mad adventure.”
He got it. That was it exactly, but not so much for her. There had always been—and still was—the ax hanging over her head, waiting to drop when she least expected it.
“My men were among them, right?” he clarified.
He sounded excited, so she tried to explain. “Yes,” she said, then winced. “Or maybe. At least, I think so,” she offered.
“That’s clear as mud after a hurricane.”
She ignored that and tried again. “What I mean is…they could have been. We think at least two of your men were taken from the warehouse, when Jax and Joey were flung in that hole, do you remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“That means they could have been in the caves—or not. It was a rough exit. Jaxon and Joey both reported that they found more changelings. You read this report, I guess?”
From the set of his square jaw and intensity of his eyes, he wasn’t happy.
She didn’t want to dash his hopes, but she also didn’t want to say something she simply didn’t know for fact either.
“They could have been there. But if so, we have no idea where they went after that place blew to smithereens. So, we start here, I guess, and see if we can find a link—something to go on. That’s why I said we should come here and check this out and leave the rest of the compound for later.”
“We aren’t bunking here without giving the whole compound a detailed search, Hunter. It’s not done. We don’t know what’s here. There could be anything.”
“Or nothing—”
The sound of her phone ringing cut through the next few words. Trouble’s ringtone— Eminem, Slim Shady —jerked every ounce of breath from her body.
She squ
inted at her bag, then over at Kincaid. He sat back in his chair, legs spread wide, arms crossed, showing off his biceps under his olive green sweater. His eyebrows cocked up at the ringtone, or her not reaching for the phone.
“Getting that?” he asked. “Maybe you should breathe, too, even if you are all immortal and shit.”
She exhaled and grabbed her bag, found the phone and answered. “Yeah?”
“Hey, chica, how’s the winter wonderland of Alaska?”
Not how was she, or how had it been to be stabbed and dragged down to hell, or what was it like now she was immortal with half a face missing. Not did she remember anything and a suggestion for how to figure out what to do if she didn’t—nothing—just how was Alaska.
For some reason that hurt. It hurt worse than being stabbed, minus the gross factor. Hunter swung her chair around so her audience of one wouldn’t get to psychoanalyze her any more than he was already, and tried to get past the lump slicing her throat to pieces.
“Great.”
“Ah, good to hear,” Trouble said after a loaded pause.
Hunter heard papers shuffle and something like a crashing sound, as if Trouble had dumped half the shit she piled on the desk on the floor, then a sigh.
“Great. So lookit. You get yourself better, come to some kind of arrangement with that human, find his friends and all and see if you can’t dig up Vik while you’re at it. Finding those human boys turned changelings is important. By the time you do all that, I hope I can have all this cleared up for you.”
All this.
So there were councils demanding her head—or her. Trouble was keeping it all away.
“Okay,” she managed, and wiped a tear off her cheek angrily. She had no reason to cry. She’d done this, brought this all on herself.
“You take care, okay?” Trouble said quickly.
“Sure thing,” she said, brushing at more nonsense tears. “I’ll do that.”
“Fantastic! I’ll talk to you soon,” Trouble added, as if that was all she needed to hear—that she’d take care.
Maybe it was. Maybe that was all everyone wanted. Maybe that was why Aubrey left too, because who wanted to chance being friends with a loser who had hurt and spied on people who’d trusted her?
“Okay.”
“Right, okay. Well, I’ll call soon. Until then, just keep that guy out of my hair, okay? Hard enough dealing with Grayson without that one bugging the shit out of me, too.”
Dealing with Grayson?
The call ended but she didn’t move. More tears seemed to think now was a perfect time to crash the party. She brushed them back roughly and tried hard not to sniff as she wiped her nose, too. Kincaid would hear that for—
“So? What’d she have to say? All good?”
“Who?” she muttered and rubbed her eyes. Her left was blind now, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if anyone would feel sorry for her, would it? She certainly didn’t. She’d get good and all that. Take care.
Then…then what? They’d all trust me again? All realize I’d been spying on them, but forgive me?
“I’m guessing that was Trouble. Not good news?” Kincaid offered and kicked her chair.
“Stop it. I’m thinking.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” he said and swung her chair around so quickly and roughly that she gasped like a girl. He towered over her and brought both big hands down on her chair arms. He used his grip to pull her in closer until his handsome face was inches from hers. “Too much thinking. It’s not good for you. So stop. Now, what is that blue dot, blinking on the screen?”
She was just about to give him hell, when his words registered. Shoving him aside, she sniffed back her tears and focused on the screen, standing slowly as what she saw settled over her.
“That’s… That’s…”
“Yeah, spit it out, girl. I promise it’s not as good as swallowing it, but go ahead.”
“Jerk!” she said, but didn’t glance at him.
The blips were downstairs. The area they needed to check, but they’d gotten caught up here in the computer room. Kincaid was right. Worse, she’d have to tell him that.
She switched to camera view and scanned through the darkened hallways of the clinic floor where Balrick had been tortured.
“Motion detectors. We’re not alone,” she warned. At the same time, Kincaid’s grip on her chair tightened so badly she heard the plastic protest.
“Shit, that’s a changeling! Go back, back,” he yelled.
She scanned the computer screen and spotted what he was shouting about. Only, she moved closer, not sure it was changelings. These were as big as tigers, but with thick, dense coats like wolves and huge jaws more like a bear’s, she thought, than a tiger’s. They were digging through a pile of trash, shaking their heads from side to side.
“They don’t seem right,” she said before she could stop herself.
“Yeah, the head thing, like an angry bear,” Kincaid agreed. “Can you bring the creatures in closer?”
“Let me see.” She worked on enhancing the area. “How did they get here? And inside the compound?” she whispered. “Or were they here before and we missed this?”
“You wouldn’t have missed this.” Kincaid pointed to the screen. “Is there a door to the outside, over there?”
“Maybe.” She considered the layout of the lab level and switched the camera to a different view of the room where he was pointing. Sure enough, there was snow, and more, a broken door and more changelings.
“So better question is, how did they get in here? Or were they always here?” he demanded, moving in closer. “They’re just like the ones in Washington, not like the others.”
“No, look.” She pointed to one that lifted its head to face the camera. “It’s the eyes…they’re red.”
Kincaid blew out an explosive breath. “Move to the others, see if they have the same thing.”
She did, and waited until one moved away from the trash. Red reflected back at them as it did.
“Right,” Kincaid muttered. “How many we dealing with, Hunter? Six, eight?”
She scanned the cameras and counted six, plus two more by the door. All big, all with red eyes.
“Maybe it’s something we missed in the others,” she suggested, but didn’t buy it. “Maybe they’re not wrong, just…not the same as what we’ve seen before. The various sizes seem to suggest a different species,” she offered. “Joey thought the sizes indicated immortals or mortals, you know?”
Kincaid exhaled, but even as he appeared to agree, they heard one of the beasts growl.
She watched as one of the bigger ones attacked a smaller one. The two fought hard, a snarling, vicious thing to see. The bigger one got the smaller under it. It tore the other creature’s throat out. Two others joined in. What was left was grisly and gross. She gagged a little and ducked, trying to keep from vomiting. Sweat trickled over her nape and shoulders.
“Steady, just breathe,” Kincaid said. He squeezed her shoulder, and when she could stand to face the computer, he’d switched the camera to a different angle in the room. “It’s not looking good. We came to find a cure, not more issues to battle.”
She didn’t say anything. What could she say? At least she’d not helped with any of this—the changeling horror.
“They all took off back outside. So that means what? They’re out there roaming around?” he asked, more to himself, she thought, than to her.
“That can’t be good,” she said anyway. “I mean, we can’t let them reach the town, right? It’s not far.”
“Slow down,” he cautioned, gripping her shoulder again. “If they’d hit a town, we’d know, believe me.”
“True,” she agreed, but couldn’t help the worry.
“Right now we focus on the compound and see what else is here. Cover all your bases before you rush out, guns blazing.”
She shook her head and half smiled. “I don’t carry a gun.”
“See, that’s a problem,”
he said, but dropped his hand. “Let’s go through all the rooms on this level.”
“Okay, but if those run into people… We have to do something, guns blazing or not, before it’s too late.”
“Right,” he muttered, clearly agreeing, but hesitant for some reason. “We’ll get on that, but first, let’s make sure we aren’t leaving any behind.”
She did as he said, and they scrolled through every camera she could find. “There are no other exits. So if we go and shut that door…” She glanced at him and waited. This was his gig. She was along for the ride, she assumed. Keep him out of my hair. “And for the record, you were right.”
“It’s not about being right.” His focus remained on the computer screens as he spoke, highlighting his strong profile. “Here’s what we do.” He suddenly stood and crossed his arms so his biceps bulged. “We go after the bigger ones. No way can they reach that town.” He gestured behind her where a map of the area hung on the wall. “We take the tranq guns and hope they hold them long enough for us to call in assistance.”
“Tranq guns?” she repeated, feeling as if he’d just pulled a rug out from under her feet.
“Tranquilizer gun.” He patted his sidearm and she scanned it, then him.
“And that will take down a monster like that?” she asked.
“Baby, this will take down a rhino, let alone an immortal.”
“How about a beast that size with teeth as big as my arm?”
He shook his head. “One step at a time. We go after these guys, see what we can find out. Where are they going, for one? And come back and check this place out. I have a feeling we’re not seeing all there is to see.”
She frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”
