––––––––

“Hey man, this looks like a bad S and M scene. You shouldn’t have any clothes on.”

Cole almost sagged with relief at hearing Justin’s voice, but he caught himself before he ruined a great rescue. “If I move, this setup will rip my arms off.”

A string of cursing came from behind Justin. That would be Rory who then asked, “Think we can cut it with the torch?”

“No. Any movement pulls all the chains another half inch tighter.”

“Another, as in it’s already done it once?”

“Yep,” Cole grunted, all of a sudden tired. His wolf was active, but not acting like the roaring asshole Gray Wolf could be.

Rory said, “I got an idea. Don’t move.”

“Not funny, dickhead,” Cole muttered.

“It will be when I get you out of there.”  Rory stepped up into the cargo bay with a portable torch. He pointed at Cole’s right arm and told Justin, “Grab that chain right where it goes into the tubing and don’t let it move.”

Sweat beaded on Cole’s neck, but he trusted these two with his life.

Justin clamped one hand next to the other at the last links of the chain before they disappeared down the corner tubing. Being a grizzly bear and a Gallize, he was the strongest of the three.

Rory fired up the torch and started cutting.

Cole held both arms dead still, wanting this to work.

When the chain broke, Cole almost fell toward the opposite side, but Rory immediately clamped onto the manacle on his wrist, holding him in place.

Minutes later, Cole walked out of the cargo bay to find the SCIS transport truck inches from the edge of what had to be a five-hundred-foot drop-off.

That would have been a Super Bowl finish of sudden death.

Not the kind he’d have cheered for either.

“Thanks, guys. Why didn’t you call out before cutting through?”

“We didn’t know if this thing was rigged with any kind of transmitter that would pick up voices. Figured we’d wait until we got the door open to confirm there were no bugs inside.”

“Good thinking. I got questions, but they’ll wait until you get this fucking helmet off me.”

“It’s welded on.”

“I know.”  Cole would find Brantley and make him pay for every second of misery he’d been put through. “Cut it off.”

“I’ll end up burning you.”

“Can’t be any worse than what I just went through.”

The usually jovial Justin looked miserable. “We had no idea what had happened to you until we got around the building after the explosion. By the time we figured out who had you, they’d vamoosed. Guardian told us to follow and extract you. That would have been possible if they hadn’t airlifted you.”

Just as Cole had thought. He lifted his hand with the chain still dangling. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters. Let’s cut this thing off me.” 

The back of his head took a beating again. Cole was tired of asking his body to keep taking so much abuse. Water leaked through holes in the helmet as Justin doused the metal, trying to cool it to lessen the burns. When the welds finally loosened, Cole reached up and grasped around the back next to his neck and ripped it apart.

He threw it into the cargo area.

The sound of a helicopter approaching pulled all three heads around to the east. Cole yelled, “We got incoming. Who’s flying our chopper?”

“Hawk,” Rory answered, grabbing the torch and turning toward their bird.

Justin was right behind him, then Cole.

Hawk was indeed a big hawk when he shifted, but he was also a lunatic chopper pilot they’d met in the military. Not a Gallize shifter, but one of the Guardian’s men now.

“Got a bird coming in hot from the east. Those jackals might have had a panic button or your captors had a tracking system on the truck,” Justin was calling back over his shoulder as the rotor blades spun up to full power.

Cole dove in as Hawk lifted off. That pilot would make you hang from a skid if you didn’t get your ass inside when he was ready to go.

Pulling on a set of headphones so he could communicate with everyone, Cole snagged a pair of binoculars to look out the open door. Hawk whipped the craft around in one of his gut churning maneuvers.

Cole shouted, “Are the jackal shifters still alive?”

“No,” Justin and Rory replied as one.

Cole warned, “We shouldn’t leave any trace of you two—”

The business end of an M-32 grenade launcher shoved past Cole’s face.

Rory sighted in on the van and shot two 40mm, high-energy rounds.

The approaching helicopter bore down on the truck just as the armor-piercing grenades blew it to pieces.

Justin shoved over next to Cole. “Damn I love that shit.”

When the smoke cleared, the other helicopter had spun away from the billowing fire. Dialing in the lens of a high-powered spotting scope, Cole caught the gold-and-black SCIS scales-of-justice insignia on the side of the chopper.

Brantley would not be happy about losing his captive.

Cole had no doubt that the Cadell had been behind the detour to this cliff road, but that left a bigger concern. How would Brantley react at losing Cole? Tess had no idea she was working in the middle of a viper nest.

Justin shouted, “The Guardian wants us in for debriefing.”

Cole wanted to head back to SCIS and yank his mate away from danger, but he couldn’t do that without explaining where he’d gone years ago, and how he knew she was in danger.

Mate? What was he thinking?

Gray Wolf vibrated with anger. She is our mate.

Like Cole could tell her that?

Trying to explain to Gray Wolf that she could never be their mate was impossible. The wolf only knew they had to protect her no matter what.

For once, Cole was in complete agreement with his wolf.