The Protected

by Shiloh Walker

  But all he did was trail his fingers along her spine. Up to her neck, then down. “The next time I take you, I’m going to strip you naked.” He bent down low, pressing his lips to the sensitive, exposed skin of her back. “I’m going to learn your every secret, learn what makes you gasp, what makes you whimper, what makes you moan.”

  That would be you . . .

  If she’d had the breath, she might have said it out loud.

  If she’d had the control, she would have whispered it into his mind.

  As it was, she could only let it echo through her own mind as he gripped her hips.

  He pulled out, slow . . . pushed back in that same fashion. Slow. But there was nothing gentle, nothing seductive or careful about it. It was thorough. A taking. A marking. A claiming.

  Deep inside her, she felt him swell, felt the head of his cock stroking her. She angled her hips and twisted—there, she thought helplessly. Right there—

  And although she hadn’t said anything, he knew. Gus shifted, changed the angle of her hips, and slammed into her. “Like that?” he rasped, his voice just barely above a whisper.

  If she could have answered, she would have.

  But then he did it again. A third time. A fourth.

  And by the fifth, she was already coming and it was sheer self-preservation that had her swallowing the broken, desperate cry.

  * * *

  VAUGHNNE had a lot of practice in knowing when she was the object of scrutiny. A lot. She’d been the freak back home, and word had started getting out about her a month or so before her dad had thrown her out on the streets. Nothing like having the kids at school, church, and even your own cousins staring at you during Sunday get-togethers and whispering about what a weirdo you were to give you that little insight into people.

  Yeah, she knew when she was being stared at behind her back.

  And she knew when she just thought she was.

  This was totally the latter, and she knew it. Nobody was looking at her as they strode down the corridor.

  Now Gus? He was being stared at and not just by the nurse who was scrambling to notify the doctor on call that he was leaving against medical advice. The nurse had tried to enlist Vaughnne to help her out, but Gus didn’t need to be here. The nurse was just doing her job; Vaughnne got that and she understood it, but Gus wasn’t going to hang around to make anybody’s life easier.

  The security guards were the big problem, and she just hoped Gus would keep his cool until they got off hospital property. Especially since she’d had Jones go to the trouble of collecting Gus’s weapons and bringing them to the room before he’d vacated the premises.

  If they caught too much attention, it was just going to attract trouble they didn’t want or need.

  Of course, if they had the trouble on their tail . . .

  An idea settled in the back of her head, but it was one that she’d have to think through before she did anything. She needed to know where they were going first, needed to check in with Taylor and make sure Alex was safe, needed to know if Gus was going to be stupid—

  Casually, he reached over and stroked a hand up her back, rested it on her opposite shoulder as they came to the elevator. When she would have slowed, he kept walking.

  “We’ve got two people trailing us,” he said quietly as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her neck. “Are they yours?”

  Vaughnne blinked.

  That . . . no.

  That didn’t seem possible. She’d know.

  She’d feel it.

  Then she remembered just what they were dealing with. Reevaluating, she shook her head. Focusing her thoughts down into a narrow stream, she whispered them into his mind, No. I would have been told. And don’t say anything else. Avoid thinking about them if you can. Avoid any direct thoughts, period.

  She didn’t know if he’d follow what she was saying or not. Hard to explain psychic shielding to a nonpsychic, although it was entirely possible. Taylor used it all the time. All it took to have a closed mind was to project that mental door. Strong telepaths could and did get around it, but it took more focus, and the typical homegrown psychic wasn’t trained well enough to do it and still trail them. It took more advanced training, and in Vaughnne’s experience, training just wasn’t all that easy to come by outside of units like Jones ran.

  Of course, he didn’t have the monopoly on trained psychics, but she doubted that was what they were dealing with.

  Even if they rattled one of them, that would be good.

  She didn’t like the fact that she hadn’t picked up on their presence. She was good at that. It was why she was here—

  “They are in uniform. A man and a woman,” Gus murmured as they continued to walk. “One is dressed like a doctor. The woman looks to be a nurse.”

  As they rounded the corner at the end of the hall, she fought the urge to look back. Casting Gus a quick look, she lifted a brow.

  He mouthed. Run.

  They ran.

  Bypassing the stairs, dodging through the ebb and flow of people, they left the medical-surgical floor where Alex and Gus had been kept for the past few hours. As they rounded another bend in the hall, Vaughnne felt an odd prickle and she hissed. Instinct had her slamming a hand against a wall just before a shove would have sent her to her knees.

  Now that she felt.

  And when she looked behind her this time, she saw them.

  The fake doctor was the one who’d shoved her. She figured that out from the odd glint in his eyes just before she felt another shove. The woman next to him looked cool, composed. And she watched Vaughnne with absolutely no expression.

  It was when she reached out and touched the doctor that Vaughnne figured out what the bitch was.

  And just why she hadn’t picked up on anything.

  The bitch was one of the subclasses. Jones had spent the past few years working on categorizing and understanding the psychic abilities, and he had taken it to an art. Vaughnne was one of the ones he’d spent a lot of time pairing with others, just to see what would happen when the psychics worked together or tried to merge their abilities.

  There was really only one ability that worked well with Vaughnne’s and it was one of the subability classes. One of the filtering gifts, like this woman had. It was the only reason Vaughnne recognized it, too. Even from this distance, she recognized that odd, muffling sensation of the woman’s mind.

  She’d block shit. She could either silence the gift in Vaughnne’s mind, or she could amp it up.

  The bad thing about the subclasses, while they weren’t necessarily all that much of a danger in the psychic arena on their own, if you paired them with the right partner, they got dangerous.

  Quick.

  And this guy was a telekinetic.

  Paired with that bitch, he might be able to level the whole damned hospital.

  We need to get out of here, she told Gus, shoving off the wall.

  SEVENTEEN

  JONES had told her he’d leave a car in the garage.

  He’d also told her that if she didn’t remove herself from the premises in a very short amount of time, he’d be unleashing holy hell.

  She suspected that meant he’d be putting his people on Gus’s very fine ass in an attempt to bring him in.

  All things that wouldn’t go well. If he’d decided Gus was a person of interest, he’d put his best people on it and it wouldn’t end until there was bloodshed. Probably lots of it. And she didn’t know what it would take to stop Gus.

  It would take a hell of a lot, she thought.

  Or maybe just a bullet. That was one fact she was almost painfully aware of as they moved through the parking garage. She noticed the placement of the cameras, watched as they moved back and forth. They wouldn’t catch everything, she didn’t think. A few blind spots, just at the end of the aisle, and right . . .

  Shit. That spot right ahead of them. Her skin prickled and she tugged on Gus’s arm, bringing him down to a snail’s pace.

 
There was a funny way of talking in a garage. You can say something and the words would go nowhere. And then you could whisper something, and it almost echoed.

  She waited until she heard nothing.

  She didn’t hear the doors close.

  She didn’t hear footsteps.

  But she knew they weren’t alone. It wasn’t even a prickle of awareness on her skin. It was just instinct. And as they walked, she said in a low voice, “We need to hurry. He’s keeping the boy at the safe house, but we’ve only got so much time to get there or he’s just going to take him in. If he goes into custody, it will be hell trying to get him out.”

  “They can’t just take my kid away,” Gus said. He looked over at her and she saw the knowledge glint in his eyes. And she was also painfully aware of something else. As he moved, he shifted his body, placing it behind hers.

  Not cool, that.

  How could he go after his brother-in-law if he was taking a bullet?

  She didn’t know the answer to that. She didn’t care. What she did know was that they needed to be in the car Jones had left. Just around the corner—that next blind spot.

  Both she and Gus hit the ground at the same time and she groaned as her sore muscles screamed out at her. She rolled and jerked her Glock up, aiming it in the face of the man.

  He just smiled and held out a hand to the woman with him.

  The weight that slammed into Vaughnne’s arms was so heavy, she thought an elephant had dropped down on them.

  Gus swung out with his legs and the two psychics went crashing down, but that wasn’t going to last for long.

  Vaughnne rolled to her feet, an order forming in her mouth. But the words died before she could really even give voice to them. Somehow Gus had arrowed in on the one who was the biggest danger. Silver flashed through the air, flying toward the woman. The subclasses were often misjudged by a lot of the psychics Vaughnne had worked with. But anybody who could suppress or boost her gift was a problem in her mind.

  The subclass was no longer a problem. For a moment, she stared at the blade buried in her chest and then looked up, an expression of blank astonishment on her face. Clumsily, she reached for it, but her aim was off and she toppled over to the side before she even made contact. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.

  “Anton,” the woman whispered, and the word was faint, almost like a ghost had whispered it.

  That soft, broken sound shattered the other psychic’s stillness and he turned, lunging himself at Gus.

  Gus shot him between the eyes and the odd, muffled pop of the silencer seemed even more disturbing than the woman’s dying whisper.

  Swallowing the bitter, nasty taste of bile rising up in her throat, Vaughnne looked at the woman. There was a chance she might not die if she got help now. A faint chance.

  Crossing to her, she eyed the woman narrowly. “Do you know it’s an innocent boy you’re trying to kidnap?”

  Lashes flickered over the woman’s eyes. Dull confusion shone back at Vaughnne. “It’s a job. Money . . .” She shuddered.

  Turning her back, she looked at Gus. “Get your knife.”

  As he did that, she checked the cameras again. They should still be in the blind zone, but damn it. This was getting dicey already and they were still in the damned garage. Grabbing the man’s ankles, she hauled him between two of the cars. She hadn’t even straightened from his body when Gus dumped the woman on top of him.

  “You would have tried to help her if she had answered the right way, wouldn’t you?” he asked softly, his pale eyes unreadable.

  She stared at him. “I don’t entirely know what the right way is.” Then she turned her back to him and made her way around the front of the car. He could stand there and glare at her or he could follow.

  Security could show up at any second. So could any number of visitors, and for all she knew, these two had partners somewhere. They needed to get out of the hospital before bystanders got hurt. She had no problem compromising herself or crossing her own lines to go after a monster, but letting innocent people get hurt was a line she couldn’t and wouldn’t cross.

  She didn’t bother to look backward. Gus was behind her before she’d even gone five feet.

  But if she thought the discussion was over, she was so very, very wrong.

  * * *

  BORROWED time. Esteban was now operating on borrowed time and he knew it. The men he’d sent after Alejandro had failed. The first pair . . . well, he’d allow himself the one mistake.

  But then there had been nothing but more mistakes.

  Every which way he turned, he was outsmarted or outmaneuvered and now he had it confirmed that the boy’s uncle was no longer operating alone. A woman had been seen with him.

  He didn’t know who she was, but this changed things.

  Matters were even worse than he liked to think. Too many knew how badly things were going.

  He’d updated the profile on the site with a vague reference that hopefully people would realize was an increase in the reward.

  One of them had outright said, And what good is that if I end up drooling down my hospital gown?

  They knew what had happened in Orlando. Somehow they knew.

  He no longer wondered just how many of them were legit.

  Too many of them were very skilled. Too many knew exactly how badly things were going and it seemed the wiser ones were pulling back.

  Options were becoming too limited for him now.

  The boss had already called him home. He was driving in that direction. Driving. Not flying. Señor Reyes would expect him to fly, but the señor could fuck himself. Of course, he didn’t want to appear like he wasn’t following orders. But he wanted to think his options through. One last time.

  He could run, of course.

  There had always been that option, but if he ran, and if he was caught . . .

  His gut twisted and his bowels felt watery even thinking about it, but he still had to consider running. It wasn’t an option that left him filled with happy, pleasant thoughts.

  The other option . . . just thinking about it made him feel better. Peaceful. That decided him. Mind made up, he turned off the interstate. It only took a few hours to reach the spot he had in mind. He ignored a call from the señor and had a moment of terror when he thought he’d spotted a car that appeared to be following him. But it hadn’t been. Thankfully.

  Up ahead, the road branched and he hit the turn signal, pressing down on the brake as a bunch of guys on motorcycles roared around him. The thick, dark green of the cypress trees seemed to surround him. It was pretty here. So very green. He’d always enjoyed this area. Hot and humid, but that was Louisiana.

  Taking the keys out of the car, he grabbed the computer bag from the seat next to him. Before he climbed out, he wiped it down, careful not to leave any fingerprints. He did the same at the trunk when he pulled his small carry-on from the back.

  Options. He’d spent so much time thinking about his options and so much time living in fear lately. His best bet had been finding the kid, getting back to the boss, but with each passing day . . . no. The odds had gotten slimmer and slimmer, and now, they were just about nonexistent. He’d never thought that Gustavo Morales would cost him this much. He’d always expected it would be the boy he had to worry about.

  After all, Gustavo had been a well-known philanderer. The señor had had him investigated and Esteban had done the same. Nothing in the man’s past led Esteban to think he would have proven to be such a problem. He played at life. He went to parties, even did some modeling. Modeling, of all things. He hadn’t been very successful at it, but the man floated around and didn’t appear to succeed at anything, except sleeping with women.

  Rumor had it that he wasn’t above playing man-whore to some of the more financially well-off women in Mexico.

  He never should have been an issue.

  Yet, Gustavo had been the problem from the beginning.

  Reyes had said that Gustavo w
ouldn’t be a problem. But the man had been wrong. The bastard. Esteban let himself think that way . . . now. As he made his way into the swamp, he decided it was okay to finally think about the señor in whatever way he chose. He’d never thought that Reyes was the one who passed on the . . . weird . . . abilities to his son, but he hadn’t wanted to take the chance and he’d always been careful to monitor even his personal thoughts when it came to one Ignacio Reyes. But no more. There wasn’t any point, not after tonight.

  He reached the rickety old dock and eyed the surrounding area.

  This would do well, he thought. Very well. A mosquito landed on him as he knelt to catch the rope tied to the dock. He caught the rope and untied it, absently humming to himself as he worked. It felt nice, he thought. Having a plan in mind. Taking the stress, the burden off his shoulders. He didn’t have to worry anymore. Not now.

  Once he’d finished untying the boat, he took his personal documents, both the real ones and the fake ones, and put them in his carry-on. Then, with a quick look around, he tossed his computer case into the deep, brackish water. Maybe it would be found. Maybe it wouldn’t. But it wasn’t his concern anymore. Neither was Reyes. Neither was the boy. Neither was that bastard Gustavo Morales.

  If he had been feeling benevolent toward the señor, he could have left his information where the man could put it toward some sort of use, but he wasn’t feeling benevolent. At all. If anything, some part of him almost wished the boy luck. The boy, not that cabrón Morales. Morales could rot in hell, right along with the señor. Right along with Esteban.

  Of course, if he really wanted to wish the boy luck, he could call off the psychic wolves, but there wasn’t time for that. He had to take action before the señor decided to send somebody after him. In all likelihood, there were already people looking for him.

  No. If the boy was going to survive, he’d do it on his own, without any help from Esteban.

  Eyeing the narrow little boat, he climbed in.

  There was just one thing he really needed.

  He pulled it out, stroking the cool metal idly. It would be full night soon. He could hear the odd, eerie music of the night creatures. He rather enjoyed it. He’d go deeper into the swamps before he did anything.