by Lara Adrian
For now, unless she could find a way to draw his attention, she was on her own.
Lifting her eyelids another small degree, she saw that her two captors were both seated up front—Cho behind the wheel of the federal fleet Crown Victoria, Green on the passenger side, the business end of his FBI standard-issue Glock 23 pointing over the seat in line with her chest.
“Yes, Master. We have the woman in the vehicle now,” Cho said, speaking into a hands-free phone. “No, there were no complications. Of course, Master. I understand, you want her kept alive. I will contact you as soon as we have her secured in the warehouse to await your arrival this evening.”
Master? What the hell?
Dread trickled along Jenna’s spine as she listened to the robotic obedience in Cho’s odd tone of voice. Even without the strangely subservient exchange, she knew that if she permitted these men to take her to another location, she was as good as dead. Maybe worse, if they served the dangerous individual her instincts told her they did.
Cho ended the call and put the car into reverse.
This was her chance—she had to make her move right now.
Jenna shifted carefully on the seat, soundlessly bringing her knees up toward her chest. Ignoring the slight twinge of her healing thigh, she kept coiling her legs by fractions, until her feet were in position near the middle of the split bench seat in front. Once aligned, she didn’t hesitate to strike.
She kicked out with both feet, her right slamming into the side of Green’s head, her left catching him in the elbow of his weapon arm. Green roared, his chin snapping up as the hand holding the Glock jerked toward the roof of the sedan. Gunfire cracked loudly in the car as a bullet shot through the upholstery and steel above his head.
Amid the chaos of the surprise attack, Cho’s foot came down heavy on the gas. The sedan clipped the side of a thick concrete pillar in the row behind them, but Cho recovered quickly. He threw the vehicle into drive and stomped on the pedal again. Rubber squealed as the car lurched into acceleration.
Where the hell was Brock?
Jenna grabbed for the door handle in the backseat. Locked. She kicked at the door on the opposite side, driving her boot heel through the window. Pebbles of safety glass rained down onto her legs and the leather seat. Cold air rushed inside, carrying with it the stench of motor oil and fried food from the deli just around the corner.
Jenna scrambled for the gaping window, but came up short when Green pivoted around and shoved the muzzle of his gun against the side of her head.
“Sit the fuck back and behave, Ms. Darrow,” he said pleasantly. “You’re not going anywhere until Master says so.”
Jenna slowly eased away from the loaded Glock, her gaze rooted on the chilling, emotionally vacant eyes of Special Agent Green.
There was no doubt in her mind now at all. These FBI agents—these beings who looked and acted like men, but somehow weren’t—were part of Dragos’s organization. Good God, just how far did his reach extend?
The question put a cold knot of fear in her stomach as Cho floored the sedan and sent it peeling out of the garage, then into the busy afternoon traffic outside.
Brock had crossed the sunlit street in mere seconds, using the speed of his Breed genetics to carry him through the afternoon daylight, to the door of the tall federal building. He was just about to enter and make another swift dash, past security, when his keen hearing picked up the muffled pop of a gunshot some distance behind.
The parking garage.
He knew it even before he heard the crunch of shredding metal and the shrill squeal of tires spinning on pavement.
Jenna.
Although he had no blood bond with her to alert him that she was in danger, he felt the certainty of it clawing at his gut. She was no longer in the federal building but back in the garage, across the sunlit street.
Something had gone terribly wrong, and it had everything to do with TerraGlobal—with Dragos.
No sooner had the thought formed, when an unmarked gray Crown Vic burst from the garage exit. As the sedan roared away, he saw two men in the front seat. The passenger was pivoted around to face a single occupant in back.
No, not men—Minions.
And Jenna in the backseat, sitting stock-still, held at gunpoint.
Fury rolled through him like a tidal wave. His sights locked onto the car that held Jenna, he tore past crowds of milling humans on the walkway below the building, moving faster than anyone could track him.
He leapt across the hood of a standing taxi at the curb, then dodged a delivery truck that came up out of nowhere and would have run him down if he hadn’t been propelled by his Breed ability and fear for what might happen to Jenna if he didn’t reach her in time.
Heart hammering, he raced into the parking garage and jumped into the Rover.
Two seconds later, he was rocketing out into the street, defying the blaze of ultraviolet rays that poured in through the windshield as he sped off in Jenna’s direction, praying like hell that he could reach her before Dragos’s evil—or the baking afternoon sun—cost him the woman whose life was his to protect.
His woman, he thought fiercely, as he dropped his boot on the gas pedal and took off in pursuit.
CHAPTER
Twenty
Special Agent Green—or whoever, whatever, he really was—kept the Glock trained on her with a steady hand as the sedan weaved and lurched through the clotted New York City traffic. Jenna had no idea where they were taking her. She could only guess it was somewhere out of the city as they left the labyrinth of tall skyscrapers behind and headed onto a gothic-looking suspension bridge that spanned the width of a broad river.
Jenna sat back against the seat, jostling back and forth with each bump and acceleration. As the sedan leapt forward to pass a slower-moving vehicle, she was thrown off balance—enough so that she glanced up and caught an unexpected glimpse in the Crown Vic’s side mirror.
A black Range Rover was keeping pace with them, just a few cars back.
Jenna’s heart squeezed.
Brock. It had to be him.
But at the same moment, she hoped like hell it wasn’t. It couldn’t be—he would be foolish to risk it. The sun was still a giant ball of fire in the cold westerly sky, at least two hours from setting. Driving in full daylight would be suicide for one of Brock’s kind.
And yet, it was him.
When the sedan made another sidelong shift in the lane, Jenna checked the mirror again and saw the rigid set of his jaw across the traffic and distance that separated them. Although he wore dark wraparound sunglasses to protect his eyes, the opaque lenses weren’t dense enough to mask the ember-bright glow of his eyes.
Brock was behind them, and he was deadly furious.
“Son of a bitch,” Green muttered, peering over her head to look through the rear window of the vehicle. “We’ve got a tail.”
“You sure?” Cho asked, taking the opportunity to pass another car as they neared the other end of the bridge.
“I’m sure,” Green replied. A note of unease had crept into his otherwise unreadable face. “It’s a vampire. One of the warriors.”
Cho gunned the vehicle now. “Inform Master that we’re almost to the location. Ask him how we should proceed.”
Green nodded, and, still holding Jenna under the threat of his Glock, he retrieved a cell phone from his pocket and pressed a single digit. The call rang once over the speaker, then Dragos’s voice came on the line.
“Status?”
“We’re nearing the Brooklyn cargo docks, Master, as you instructed. But we’re not alone.” Green spoke in a rush of words, as though he sensed the displeasure that would follow. “There’s someone following us on the bridge. He is Breed. A warrior from the Order.”
Jenna took no small amount of satisfaction at the violent curse that exploded over the cell phone speaker. As chilled as she was to hear the voice of the Order’s hated enemy, it was gratifying to know that he feared the warriors. As well he
should.
“Lose him,” Dragos growled, pure venom.
“He’s right behind us,” Cho said, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror as they sped along a road that followed the waterfront toward an industrial area. “He’s only one car behind us now and gaining. I don’t think we can shake him at this point.”
Another snarled oath from Dragos, more savage than before. “All right,” he said in a low, even tone. “Then abort. Kill the bitch and get out of there. Dump her corpse off the docks or into the street, I could give a fuck. But don’t let that goddamn vampire get near either one of you. Understood?”
Green and Cho exchanged a brief look of acknowledgment. “Yes, Master,” Green replied, ending the call.
Cho steered into a sharp left turn off the road and into a parking lot at the water. Large freight trailers and assorted box trucks dotted the ice-spotted, cracked pavement. And nearer to the river’s edge were several warehouse buildings, which is where Cho seemed to be heading at breakneck speed.
Green leveled the gun on her, until she was staring down the barrel at the chambered bullet that would soon be unloaded into her head. She felt a surge of power flow into her veins—something far more intense than adrenaline—as the moment began to play out in slow motion.
Green’s finger tightened on the trigger. There was a soft scrape of responding steel, mechanisms in the firearm clicking into action as though in the thick fog of a dream.
Jenna heard the bullet begin to explode from the chamber. She smelled the sharp tang of gunpowder and smoke. And she saw the quiver of energy rippling in the air as the weapon fired on her.
She ducked out of its way. She didn’t know how she managed it, nor how it was possible for her to know just how to dodge the bullet as Green sent it blasting toward her. She knew only to listen to her instincts, preternatural as they seemed.
She came up behind Green’s seat and wrenched his arm, snapping the bone in her bare hands. He screamed in agony. The gun went off again, this time a flailing, wild shot.
It struck Cho in the side of his skull, killing him instantly.
The sedan veered and rocked, accelerating with the dead weight of Cho’s foot resting on the gas. They hit the corner of a rusted freight container, knocking the Crown Vic into a vicious sideways roll across the snow and ice.
Jenna hit the roof of the car as it flipped ass over teakettle, windows shattering, airbags deploying. Her whole world tumbled violently, over and over, before finally coming to a jarring halt upside down on the pavement.
Holy bloody hell.
Brock pulled in to the industrial lot and slammed on the brakes, watching with a mix of horror and rage as the Crown Victoria hit the side of a cargo trailer and pitched into a steel-crushing roll on the frozen pavement.
“Jenna!” he shouted, throwing the Rover into park and vaulting out the door.
The daylight had been a bitch to deal with inside the vehicle; outside it was beyond hellish. He could hardly see through the haze of blinding white light as he raced across ice and cracked asphalt to the overturned sedan. The car’s wheels were still spinning, the engine whining, spewing smoke and steam into the frigid air.
As he neared, he heard Jenna grunting, struggling inside. Brock’s first instinct was to grab hold of the vehicle and right it, but he couldn’t be sure if flipping the car would cause more harm to her, and it was a chance he wasn’t willing to take.
“Jenna, I’m here,” he said, then reached out and tore the upside-down driver’s-side door clean off its hinges. He tossed it to the ground and dropped to his haunches to look into the crushed interior.
Ah, Christ.
Blood and gore were everywhere, the stench of dead red cells combining with the sharp fumes of leaking oil and gasoline to pierce through the sun-scorched fog of his senses. He looked past the corpse of the driver, whose head was blown open by a close-range gunshot wound. All of Brock’s focus was trained on Jenna.
The roof of the sedan was buckled and smashed, creating only a small amount of room for her and the other human male, who was struggling to get a grip on her legs. She was fighting him off with one foot while attempting to claw her way out of the nearest window. The human gave up as soon as his flat gaze slid to Brock. Releasing Jenna’s ankle, he ducked back to scramble ass-first through the gaping windshield.
“Minion,” Brock snarled, hatred for the soulless mind slave making his blood boil even hotter with fury.
These two men were definitely Dragos’s loyal hounds. Bled by him to within an inch of their lives, they would serve Dragos in whatever capacity he required, obedient to their dying breath. Brock wanted to speed the escaping human to that final moment personally. Kill him with his bare hands.
He damn well would, but not until he made sure Jenna was safe.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, stripping off his leather gloves with his teeth and tossing them aside so he could touch her. He smoothed his fingers over her pale, pretty face, then reached down to catch her under the arms. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
She shook her head vigorously. “I’m fine, but my leg is pinned between the seats. Go after him, Brock. That man is working with Dragos!”
“I know,” he said. “He’s a Minion, and he doesn’t matter. But you do. Hold on to me, baby. I’m gonna get you free now.”
Something metallic popped outside the car. The loud ping echoed sharply, then another one sounded, and still another.
Bullets.
Jenna’s eyes found his through the thin smoke and fumes that were closing in on them inside the wrecked vehicle. “He must have another gun on him. He’s shooting at us.”
Brock didn’t answer. He knew the Minion wasn’t trying to hit them through all that metal and machinery. He was firing on the car itself.
Trying to create the spark that would ignite the exposed gas tank.
“Hold on to me,” he told her, bracing one hand against her spine as he reached with the other for the crushed seats that had Jenna trapped. With a low growl, he ripped them loose.
“I’m out,” she said, already scrabbling free.
Another bullet struck the car. Brock heard an unnatural gasp from outside—a rush of air that preceded the sudden, swelling stench of thick black smoke and the gust of heat that said the Minion had finally hit his mark.
“Come on!” he said, grabbing Jenna’s hand.
He pulled her clear of the vehicle, both of them tumbling out to the pavement. A plume of fire erupted from the overturned car as the gas tank exploded, shaking the earth beneath them. The Minion kept firing, bullets zinging dangerously close.
Brock covered Jenna’s body with his own as he grabbed for one of the semiautos holstered on his gun belt. He came up onto his knees, ready to shoot—only to realize that his sunglasses had come off in the tumble from the car. Between the wall of heat and roiling smoke, and the searing light of day, his vision was virtually nil.
“Shit,” he hissed, wiping a hand across his eyes, straining to see through the agony of his scorched vision. Jenna was moving beneath him now, scrambling out of the shelter of his body. He reached for her, his hand casting out blindly, coming back empty. “Jenna, damn it. Stay down!”
But she didn’t stay down. She took the pistol out of his hand and opened fire, a rapid hail of bullets that cracked loudly over the roar of flames and heated metal beside them. Across the lot, the Minion cried out sharply, then went utterly silent.
“Gotcha, you son of a bitch,” Jenna said. An instant later, Brock felt her fingers wrap around his. “He’s dead. And you’re burning up out here. Come on, let’s get the hell out of this place.”
Brock ran with her, hand in hand across the open lot, toward the Rover. As much as his pride wanted him to argue that he was good to drive, he knew he was too cooked to even attempt it. Jenna didn’t give him a chance to protest. She shoved him into the back of the vehicle, then jumped behind the wheel. In the distance, the howl of police sirens sounded, human a
uthorities no doubt responding to the apparent accident near the docks.
“Hang on,” Jenna said, throwing the Rover into gear.
She seemed unfazed by the whole thing, cool and collected, the total professional. And damn if he’d ever seen anything so hot in all his years. Brock lay back against the cool leather of the seat, grateful as hell to have her on his side as she stomped on the gas pedal and floored it away from the scene.
CHAPTER
Twenty-one
The drive back to Boston had taken the better part of four hours, but Jenna’s heart was still racing—her concern for Brock still fresh and unrelenting—as she swung the Rover through the iron gates of the compound and headed around to the fleet hangar in back of the Order’s private estate.
“We’re here,” she said, parking the vehicle inside the large garage and cutting the engine.
She glanced in the rearview mirror, checking on him for about the thousandth time since they’d set out from New York. He’d been quiet in the backseat of the SUV for most of the trip, despite shifting around in obvious agony as he’d tried to sleep off the effects of his ultraviolet exposure.
She pivoted around in her seat to have a closer look at him. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll live.” His eyes met hers through the darkness, his broad mouth quirking into more of a grimace than a smile. He tried to sit up, groaning with the effort.
“Stay there. Let me help you.”
She crawled into the back with him before he could tell her that he could manage on his own. He looked up at her in a long, meaningful silence, their eyes connecting, holding. All of the air seemed to abandon the space around them. It seemed to leave her lungs, as well, relief and worry colliding inside her as she stared down into Brock’s handsome face. The burns that had been livid a few hours ago across his forehead, cheeks, and nose were all but gone now. His dark eyes were still moist and leaking wetness from their edges but no longer bloodshot and swollen.
