Guardian Angel
Callaghan Brothers, Volume 5
Abbie Zanders
Published by Abbie Zanders, 2015.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
GUARDIAN ANGEL
First edition. February 25, 2015.
Copyright © 2015 Abbie Zanders.
Written by Abbie Zanders.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Guardian Angel
Before You Begin
Important Note
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Thanks for reading Kane and Rebecca’s story
About the Author
Also by Abbie Zanders
Guardian Angel
Callaghan Brothers, Book 5
Before You Begin
WARNING: Due to frequent strong language and graphic scenes of a sexual nature, this book is intended for mature (21+) readers only.
If these things offend you, then this book is not for you.
If, however, you like your alphas a little rough around the edges and some serious heat in your romance, then by all means, read on...
Important Note
The initial release of this book included mention of a specific location for the first scene. A reader very kindly informed me that my description of the area and the people was not accurate.
This is a revised version. All references to that location have been removed.
My sincere apologies to anyone I might have unwittingly offended, and my thanks to that reader for bringing it to my attention.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Aubrey Rose Cover Designs for this amazing cover!
Special thanks also go to some very special ladies – Deb, Anjee, Shelly, Carol, and Carla (and a few of you who prefer to remain unnamed – you know who you are) - for reading the first draft and making invaluable suggestions. This is a better story because of them.
Chapter One
What a bitch. The thought settled in Kane’s mind, though he was completely focused, unnaturally still as he took in the scene around him, ignoring the cloying, moist heat that soaked through his clothes and made both hair and cloth stick to him like glue. A variety of creepy crawlers worked their way over his prone figure, but he ignored those as well. He’d endured far worse. But it sure made him long for the cool, clean air of his mountain cabin, where the only sounds were those of nature; the only violence a result of the natural laws of the food chain, of which Kane counted himself at the very top. That was where he found his peace when the rest of the world was exploding around him.
Insurgents were in the process of decimating the small village, sending the inhabitants scurrying off into the jungle with nothing but the small rags on their backs. Not that their hasty flight meant they were leaving much behind. These people were beyond poor. Economically speaking, on a scale of one to ten, they rated about a minus fifty.
But those people melting into the jungle – the ones losing the little bit they had by running away - they were the lucky ones. They might just live to see the dawn.
It wasn’t the villagers he and his brothers were here to protect. Not directly, anyway. No, their target was the pain-in-the-ass malcontent who had made it his personal mission to rid the world of forward-thinking, democratic visionaries rising among the starving lower castes. This small nothing village held no political or financial gain for him. This was just for fun. An opportunity for his men – and Kane used the term loosely, for he had encountered animals with more sentient thought than these bastards – to let off some steam. To take what little food they had. To rape their women. To kill and torture the men simply because they got off on pain and suffering until they made their way to the next political hotbed of unrest on which to capitalize.
For as vicious as the self-appointed leader was, he was cunning. He’d managed to avoid capture among the larger, more populated regions where he usually wreaked his particular brand of havoc, blending into the background like some sort of human chameleon. But Ian had found the pattern, connected the dots, and had tied the rotten slime bag to a string of seemingly unrelated incidents. In moving from place to place, small villages like this one had a nasty habit of simply ceasing to exist.
These people were so poor, so far removed from everyone else, no one really noticed. Or, sadly, cared. It was a form of poetic justice that this negligible little nothing of a village would result in the asshole’s past-due downfall.
The nearest straw and thatch hut was consumed by flames. They lit up the night within the small clearing, sending what looked like burning confetti up into the air. Women screamed, men yelled, babies cried. Kane watched it all with cold detachment as his mind worked out the best scenarios for getting in and out with minimal collateral damage. If he let himself feel for these people, the mission would be jeopardized. He was a good man, but if it came down to a choice between his brothers and these natives, he’d pick his brothers every time.
And there was the small matter that if they failed today, the bastard would get away and do the same to whatever small community next had the misfortune to lie in his path. No, Kane would do what he always did: get the job done and worry about the moral backlash later.
With each mission, it seemed, that was becoming harder and harder to do. The screams, the faces, the horror – they haunted what remained of his shredded soul, forcing him to shut down a little more each time, to distance himself from others. Little by little, he was becoming less than human, his ability for compassion fading, a price to be paid for the cold detachment he commanded out of necessity now.
He always reserved the worst parts of the missions for himself to spare his brothers as much of the horror as possible. It would come back to haunt him – that was a certainty. But it would be later, when he was safe in the solitude of his cabin, when his life and the lives of his brothers were not on the line. Only then would he allow it. Until then, to the rest of the world, he would continue to be the Iceman.
Two of his brothers – Kieran and Shane – were in similar positions among the trees just outside the village, awaiting the satellite intel from Ian back at the base. Out here, the three of them formed a deadly triangle. No one would be leaving this party unless they allowed it.
A man ran directly toward him. He wasn’t like the others – i.e., not a native. Instead of the minimal draped cloth most of the men wore around their masculinity, this man wore actual clothes – khaki shorts, button down short-sleeve, sneakers. His hair was shorn close to his head, but not short enough to be military.
The brilliant backlight flared as the nearest hut caught fire, making it impossible to distinguish the man’s features, but he didn’t move like one of the villagers. Kane felt a sinking feeling in his gut. He didn’t have time for an in-depth analysis of the mechanics; he just knew this man was not one of the
locals. That meant he was a fucking relief worker.
Son of a bitch. If there was one, there were probably more, too. No wonder the bastards had picked this village to plunder. With relief efforts there would be more food. More trinkets. More medicine. More drugs. Fuck. He’d bet the other small villages had played hosts to similar do-gooders, too. Irony was such a vicious bitch. Those that had come meaning only to help had ultimately brought about their downfall.
This hadn’t come up in Ian’s intel. Unfortunately, the bad guys rarely left any survivors, which was one of the reasons it took so long to track them down in the first place. By the time anyone realized a small tribe had vanished, the offenders were long gone, and no one was left to tell the tale.
Kane’s belly hugged the damp ground, unseen in the thick undergrowth, his finger poised a hair’s breadth above the trigger. He needed to alert the others that there were more than just indigenous here tonight.
Before he could even whisper the words into the miniscule transmitter, the man went down about twenty feet from cover, the angle and distortion of his features telling Kane that he’d been shot in the back. As the man fell, Kane’s assessment was confirmed. Definitely not a native. A sudden surge in flames to the left illuminated the man’s much lighter skin tone, northern European features, and fine, straight hair. On the ground, blood pumped out of the middle of the man’s back at an alarming rate. He was already gone; it had been a kill shot through the back, right to the heart.
Kane’s cold blue eyes didn’t even blink. At least it had been a quick death. Not like some of the sorry bastards who had been less fortunate. The ones now screaming in agony, begging for help or pleading for death from just outside of his field of vision. Thank God for small miracles.
Those same icy blue eyes widened seconds later when another figure approached the man. It was decidedly smaller, and despite the speed with which it moved, did so smoothly, fluidly, almost as if floating. It was dressed in dark cloth, covered from head to ankle, with only a slit around the eyes and the flash of tiny, delicate feet bare beneath the covering. A woman?
A stupid woman, he quickly surmised. She started with each gunshot like a scared little mouse, but continued her forward progress until she fell to her knees beside the man. The wife, perhaps?
Something twisted in Kane’s gut, some ancient hard-wired male instinct he forced himself to tamp down. Chivalry had no place here, and it would mean little to his family if he and his brothers didn’t make it back home in one piece.
The figure leaned down as if speaking to the man. It took only a few seconds for her to realize he was past saving. Then she did the most unexpected thing of all. She rose up on her knees and bowed her head. Kane swore he saw her make the sign of the cross, then incredibly - heard the low soft murmurs, an angelic voice that had no place here in Hell. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want...
English. American. Jesus Christ. What the fuck was she doing here in the middle of this mess? His cold detachment flickered.
This was not part of the plan. Kane watched, transfixed, his body itching to do something, knowing he could not yet give away their position. He spoke almost silently into his transmitter.
“American female, two o’clock.”
He heard the soft curses through his earpiece. “What the fuck is she doing?” came an angry whisper.
“Looks like last rites.”
“Unconfirmed,” came Ian’s voice several heartbeats later, monitoring communications and keeping them informed from half a world away, sounding distressed. “Sisters of Mercy reported in the vicinity several days ago.”
A nun? Oh, fuck me.
As the woman prayed above the man, she was spotted. Kane groaned inwardly. If these bastards got hold of an American female, it would be a total ass-fuck all around.
Run! He whispered harshly. Run, Goddamnit!
Whether the woman heard him or not he didn’t know, but suddenly her head jerked up and she saw the faces of those approaching. She stood up and began to back away. Even from this distance, Kane could see that her eyes were unusually large, reflecting the golden sparks as the flaming embers floated all around her.
Without warning, another grabbed her from behind and pulled off her head covering. Long, honeyed hair tumbled loose, catching the reflection of the surrounding fires making her look like an avenging angel, hair aflame and wild about her face, eyes glowing amidst her much paler skin. A brief exclamation of surprise was followed by a fanatic gleam in each of their eyes.
Two men smiled cruelly as they approached their unexpected prize. The female struggled – she was a courageous little thing - but the man behind her just laughed, holding her easily. One of them raised a huge curved blade, nearly half the size of her small body, and stroked her face with it, then placed it near her neckline. He spoke to her in guttural tones as the blade pressed into her skin, bringing forth drops of crimson. Whether it was his words or the biting caress of steel at her throat, the woman’s struggles ceased almost immediately.
Rage boiled up inside of Kane as he listened to them speak in their own language, vile comments on what they would do with her. In his other ear, he heard the chatter of his brothers. Shane had the one they had come for; Kieran was covering behind him, taking out as many of these bastards as he could as they made their way to the meet point.
“Target acquired. Fall back, Kane.”
Fuck. Kane looked again at the woman. “We got room for one more?” Not that it mattered. Kane couldn’t leave this woman to those animals, not after he’d seen her eyes. They would haunt him the rest of his life. He’d make sure his brothers got out first, though. No sense forcing them back into this suck-fest.
In the short hesitation that followed, Kane already had his feet beneath him and had moved to a better angle. “Affirmative.”
That was all he needed.
Kane took the two in front out easily before they even knew what hit them. The other one held the female as a shield, ducking behind her. It made no difference to Kane. In a blurring move, he suddenly appeared behind the man and slit his throat, breaking his grip on the girl and forcing him away. The spray of blood coated her robes, but thankfully, she did not panic. If she lost it now, they’d both be fucked.
* * *
She couldn’t breathe. The man had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, smiting her attackers with unbelievable speed and precision. Fire gleamed in hair so black it reflected the flames. Ice blue eyes outlined by thick, black lashes focused on her with the intensity of a laser. He was at once fierce and beautiful and the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen in her life.
His mouth was moving; he was speaking to her. English. Weird, she thought, how subconsciously she’d been half-expecting him to speak in Latin or Greek or some other language of her childhood Orthodox Catholic church. He was an archangel, after all, wasn’t he, raining justice and vengeance upon those that would have hurt her? No human man could move that fast or that silently, or strike deadly blows with such lethal efficiency.
Yes, it was English, but she must have been in a mild state of shock because she couldn’t quite make out the words at first. All she could process was the deep, velvety sound of his voice, as powerful and beautiful and terrible as the rest of him.
He rose to his full height, towering above her as the cadence of his voice grew urgent. As terrifying as he was, he would not hurt her. She knew that to the depths of her soul, and with that realization some of her clarity returned.
* * *
The woman was staring at him with big, golden brown exotic eyes, scared but curious. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to allay her fears. They had to get out of the open and fast. Kane grabbed the woman’s hand and began to run as more shouts echoed around them. As they broke into the underbrush he sensed the shot before he felt it, yanking hard on her arm in an attempt to fling her in front of him, but she was already in the air. He felt the slam of her body against his side about the same time his left hip exploded in ag
ony. Kane stumbled and released her.
“Run,” he commanded through clenched teeth. “Only a mile or so east. My brothers will get you home.”
After only a moment’s hesitation to catch her balance and a decidedly female grunt – probably from the force of the collision against his much larger, much harder body, the woman turned to look at his face, then her eyes dropped down to his hip. Without a word she pulled the semi-automatic from his shoulder and stood in front of him. He didn’t miss the way her arms shook, or the awkward way the gun sat in her hands. Jesus. A nun with a semi. They were totally fucked. She’d never actually –
The sharp staccato rang out, stunning him as she pointed it at the men charging them and took them down.
She looked like she was about ready to throw up; her body was trembling so badly it was a wonder she could stand at all. Jesus. This woman was not a killer.
Then she flipped the gun across to her back and he felt her small hands on his arm, pulling upward. Not having much luck, she crouched down and slung his arm over her shoulder, trying to use her legs to lift him.
“We’ll never make it,” Kane said, the urgency in his deep voice apparent. “You have to go.”
She ignored him and he wondered if she knew English at all outside of the Lord’s prayer. There was something slightly exotic about her features; she might not actually be American.
But apparently, she was obstinate. He let himself become dead weight and dropped to the ground, knowing there was no way her small form could hold up his two-hundred and fifty densely packed pounds.
“Go!” he barked, pushing her away from him roughly to stress the importance of obeisance.
Both slick with blood, he slipped from her grasp. She paused for a moment, regarding him. Despite the situation, despite the fact that her whole body was shaking, her eyes were calm, focused, and he could sense her mind working furiously, deciding what to do next.
Guardian Angel: Callaghan Brothers, Book 5 Page 1
