Chapter 17

Jude locked the house and made his way north of the cabin. He was going to start in the quadrant where the tree had fallen and work back from there. It was about a half mile from the house, right at the edge of where he’d placed sensors. He’d just checked the alarms the night before last. His gut told him there was no way that alarm hadn’t been tripped. And with the information that Dresden was in the States, well, it wasn’t looking good.

If the alarm hadn’t been tripped by nature, he was left with one answer: it had been deliberately tampered with. Losing that tree left a perfect line of sight to the cabin.

His skin prickled with more than the cold surrounding him. He had no way of knowing how anyone could have found them. But logic never played well with others. He’d have a look himself and determine any potential threats.

He stayed in the trees, the white of his outer clothing giving him perfect cover in the snow. Jude forced his mind away from thoughts of Ella. This was all about protecting her, but he couldn’t carry her with him right now. He’d promised her she was completely safe, and he’d give his own life to ensure that.

The wind continued to blow ruthlessly, but the snow had stopped falling. The storm was passing, leaving a blanket more than five feet thick on the ground. To his left, a twig snapped. Jude stilled behind a massive cedar and waited.

His senses screamed at him. Someone was in the woods with him. How many?

He eased from behind the tree and made his way on his stomach to a slight depression about three hundred yards from the tree. Nothing moved except the canopy swaying in the wind.

A shrill blip sounded to his right. It cut off almost immediately, but it wasn’t his alarm and it didn’t belong in these woods.

He flipped his mic on. “Ella?”

“Here.”

“There are two go bags under the bed. Grab them both and stay in the comm room. Hit the code on the panel by the door on the inside, and head to the back of the room. Wait for me there.”

“Ten-four,” she responded, a slight tremor in her voice.

“I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. Safe, Ella,” he whispered.

“Ten-four,” she responded again, the tremor gone.

Good girl, he thought. He had to get to the trees again. His clothing had been made with a two-fold purpose—camouflage in the snow and to eliminate any heat signature he may give off. The light was low now, and thermal imaging couldn’t spot him. The only thing that could give him away was his movement, so he had to proceed slowly and carefully.

It took him twenty minutes to move three hundred yards. There were no more sounds, and nothing disturbed the falling evening. But Jude’s neck told the story. Someone was there.

An enemy.

He’d made it to the tree line and turned over to sit up when two shadows fell from the trees above. He got to his feet and turned, meeting the first fist with a quick deflection and a punch of his own to the man’s ribs. The first man fell. The second one had a gun to Jude’s head in less time than it took to blink.

“Put your hands behind your back,” he ordered.

Jude had two options—fight or accept the restraints. His entire world was in the cabin below them. Fight it would be.

He was faster than either man who’d jumped him, and he attacked with a ferocity born of fear for Ella. He switched his mind down and let his instincts guide him. His KA-BAR knife was in his hand before he drew a breath, and he stroked it across the throat of the man holding the gun. That took two seconds. The man fell as the other one came up firing his weapon. Jude threw the knife, and it embedded in the other man’s eye.

Jude pulled it out, wiped it on the man’s clothing, and sank down beside them. Searching the woods around him, he didn’t notice anything out of place. He grabbed the walkie-talkie one of the men had and listened.

“Do you have him?” a voice asked excitedly.

The men he’d just taken out were scouts. “Yes,” Jude answered.

“Dresden is coming up the pass now. Hold him until the boss gets there,” the man said.

Goddamn! Dresden had found him.

Jude got up, ran back toward the house, and hurried inside, the cat following him, meowing like the end of the world was upon them. Jude opened the door to the comm room, and the cat flew in behind him.

“Ella!” he called out.

“I’m here,” she said, rushing to his side.

“Get dressed. The smaller bag is yours. I’m going back out. Dresden is coming up the pass, and I’ve got to prepare the traps. I need you to stay here. See that door right there?” He pointed behind her.

She turned, saw it, and nodded.

“I’ll be coming through that when I come back. Nobody can get in here except you and me. I’m letting King know what’s happening. They won’t make it to us in time to help, but if I go down, you stay here until King calls you. Do you understand me, Ella?”

“No, Jude! I can help you out there,” she pleaded.

He grabbed her face between his hands. “You can’t. I’ll be pulled in two different directions. You’re a hell of an operative, Ella, but Endgame needs you alive. The world needs the information you have. And I need you safe.”

“I need you, Jude,” she responded.

“I’m right here. I’ll always be right here,” he promised, holding his hand over her heart. “I’m not planning on dying today, but you need to be prepared, Ella.”

She nodded. She’d become a better soldier while she’d been away from him, but she was still soft.

He had about fifteen minutes before Dresden topped the pass and was at the house. He led Ella to the console in front of the computers. “See that button right there?”

She nodded.

“See that monitor?”

She nodded again.

“When you see me hold up my fist, press that button and then take cover. I had the cave surveyed. It should hold up, but I don’t know what Dresden is packing, and I’ll never take chances with you.”

He sidestepped her and began walking to his armory.

“Uh, Jude?”

“Yeah?”

She didn’t say anything, and he turned around. She was holding his Knight’s Armament Mk11 SWS. Best sniper weapon in the game. SEALs always used the best. “Hooyah!” he said with a smile. “Loaded?”

She rolled her eyes and handed him three ammo packs. “You need more than that, you gotta hit me up. It’s all I had time to load while you were gone.”

“Load more. There’s an H&K in there for you. Load up, and then settle down,” he said as he slung his weapon over his back.

“Jude, come back to me,” she demanded.

“No other place I’d rather be, baby,” he said with a grin, then headed to the door. “Lock this after me.” He had about twelve minutes now.

“Oh, one more thing,” she called before he walked out. “There’s another front rolling in bringing even more snow. It’s on us now.”

He nodded. That would be to his benefit. These were his mountains, and he knew them sun or snow. “Safe,” he said, his voice deep and dark.

She held up six fingers, and he walked away, out of the comm room—listening for the snick of the electronic bolts that locked the door into the stone surrounding them—and then out of the house.

He made it up to the north quadrant and began loading his traps. He’d built them in the first two months after Ella died. He’d never stayed in the house, but he’d come here and prepared for any war anyone wanted to bring to him.

War was now. If Dresden was coming, he wanted Ella alive. Jude was going to make sure he didn’t make it to her at all.

He worked fast. Realizing he didn’t have time to set the traps on the southern side of the property, he began stringing wire across the road that led to the cabin. He was only able to set two incendiary bombs along the road that he would remotely detonate before he heard the sound of vehicles heading up the pass.

He hightailed it back to the fallen tree and settled into the snow beside it, lying on his stomach and prepping his rifle. Once he had his sight trained on the road, he waited.

He hit the ear mic. “Ella?”

“Here.”

“There are two vehicles coming up the pass. Both of them SUVs. I’m going to guess that between the two of them, there are six, maybe seven men including Dresden. More will be coming though. Once he has confirmation we’re here, he’ll call in a strike team. I’ve got to take them out. If he calls back to a strike team, we could be in trouble. You’re going to hear the explosions, and I’ll be out of contact. Stay in the room, baby.”

“Ten-four.”

She was a great partner—a great operative, he thought again. And she was going to let him do his thing, trusting he’d keep her safe. He pulled his satellite phone from his pocket and hit 1.

“Talk,” King McNally said by way of greeting.

“I just sent you coordinates to my cabin in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I also forwarded satellite images of the cave system I built the house over. I’ll be coming out on the north end of the property. There’s an entrance to the caves hidden in the side of the mountain. I’ve got Ella, and Dresden is moving on us. She’s in the comm room, if I don’t make it. I don’t think he can get her as long as she stays there. I need you, Your Highness.”

“I’m coming, Keeper,” King said and disconnected.

He’d done everything he could. There should have been no way Dresden could have found him. Unless…

“Ella?”

“Here.”

“Go to the armory. There’s a small handheld scanner in the second drawer of the tool cabinet. It detects the presence of embedded tracking devices. I need you to scan yourself.”

“Oh no…”

“Do it, Ella.”

“On it.”

The SUVs made the last hill on the pass, moving at a rapid clip and getting harder to see amid the switchbacks up the mountain. The wind had died down a bit, which could be good and bad.

“A little closer,” Jude whispered.

The first SUV topped the hill and started back down as Jude blew the first device. It exploded, toppling the vehicle and sending fire shooting into the sky. The other SUV sped around the first one.

“Come on, motherfuckers, I’ve got something for you too.”

He peered through his scope and waited until they’d come close to his second device. He pushed the charge on the second device, but nothing happened. No boom. No explosion. The SUV continued to thunder up the pass. A couple of men made it out of the wreckage of the first vehicle and scattered.

Through his scope, Jude located the driver of the second SUV. He lined up his shot and took it. The driver’s head exploded, and the SUV rolled to a stop about eight hundred yards from Jude’s location. Three men in black poured out.

Jude fired relentlessly just to keep them guessing. He managed to line up another shot and once again pulled the trigger.

He dropped one man. The others dispersed, taking cover and waiting. Four men were trying to take a shot at Jude, but no sign of Dresden yet.

Wishes were for fools, but damn if he didn’t take a second to regret that he hadn’t had time to set more devices.

Bullets began to pepper his location, his own rifle fire having given him away. They were about to rain hellfire on his location. He had to move.

“Jude?” Ella called over the mic.

“Yeah?”

“There’s a tracker in my hip,” she told him. She was calm.

“Hold the scanner over the tracker, baby, and press the blue button on the top. It will disable the device.”

“Ten-four.”

One of Dresden’s men stuck his head and shoulder out from behind a tree a little too long, and Jude took his shot. A scream rent the air. Not a kill shot though. The others were quick, moving like they’d been trained, and Jude wondered who the hell had signed on to work with that bastard. Hell, they moved like trained spec ops—SEALs, Rangers, Force Recon.

Taking out a fellow soldier would be a bitch, he thought.

Then again, if they’d signed on with Dresden, they were no longer his fellow soldiers. They were the enemy.

Dresden finally made an appearance, easing quickly out of the SUV before glancing toward where he had to know Jude was. Then he smiled, and the hate in Jude’s heart for the man ramped up to unforeseen levels. Jude aimed but lost his shot because the bastard ducked back behind the door. Jude fired a shot anyway and then froze when he saw what Dresden pulled out behind him.

“Goddamn it,” Jude bit out. “Ella, he’s going to hit the cabin hard. Take cover.”

“I’m settled, Jude. Now go to work and get that bastard,” she demanded.

He smiled. “Ten-four.”

He fired until his ammo packs were empty, and then he blew the last two incendiary devices. That didn’t stop Dresden.

He lifted the enormous launcher, and as Jude watched, Horace Dresden fired the RPG, a white, foggy trail in the air highlighting its path directly into his home. The home his woman was holed up beneath.

The RPG struck, and the cabin shuddered as a hole ripped through Jude’s bedroom. Glass exploded outward, and the subsequent explosion rocked Jude. Fire raced up and out of the hole. Jude wasn’t worried about Ella. There were three feet of steel and another five feet of rock between her and any threat. She had a separate ventilation system that wound into the caves below the room. Jude had strategically placed the cabin in this area because of those caves.

It was imperative always to have an escape plan. Ella was right. Nowhere was completely safe, but Jude had been determined to keep his family as close to that state as humanly possible.

Now his home was gone.

He lowered his eye to his scope and cataloged Dresden’s face as the man watched what he’d wrought. His eyes were blank, but a smile played about his lips. Jude still didn’t have a shot, but he fired a warning that skated close to Dresden. One of his men who’d taken position beside his boss fell, and Dresden dove back into the SUV.

Then they opened fired on Jude’s location, spraying the area with automatic and semiautomatic rounds. One of the men loaded the launcher with another RPG.

From the communication unit he’d stolen from the first two dudes he’d taken out, Jude could hear Dresden calling in his strike team. They were at least an hour out. Soon Jude would be outnumbered and outgunned. He picked up his rifle and made haste down the tree line until he came to where the monitor he’d shown Ella was. He held up his fist and then fled the scene, heading toward the southern quadrant. An RPG landed and took out trees and earth, rocking Jude. Trees fell, and somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. The silence left by an RPG explosion was eerie. Jude took off again, and it took little to no time for the ground behind him to explode. He rolled with the pitch of the earth and came up with a smile. They shouldn’t have screwed with him. Sure, they had RPGs. Jude had C-4 and claymores.

He began his trek to the east side of the property and headed north again.

Along the way, he stopped and set as many traps as he could, but that wasn’t many. He heard one of his claymores trip.

Bastards, he thought. Come for my woman? Oh, hell no.

He doubled back and had just begun heading north when a figure stepped in front of him from the darkness. Another scout—had to be. Jude didn’t have time to reach for his weapon. He just dropped low and swung wide with his leg, taking the man off his feet. He followed the man down and delivered a punch to his throat that missed, grazing instead of hitting full force. The man coughed and rolled, shaking Jude off.

Jude reached behind him for his handgun as the man came up faster than Jude had expected delivering a blow that sank into Jude’s side.

Knife.

Not very deep, but it stung. Jude channeled that pain and focused. He stepped to the side of the next blow, lifted his gun, and fired a single shot to the man’s forehead. He fell. Jude started running.

He was bleeding, but the wound didn’t seem that bad. In his periphery, he could see his cabin burning.

Anger simmered in his gut.

As he crested the rise that would lead him to where he needed to be, he had a decision to make. Fight Dresden here and now, or get to Ella. Choice made, he glanced in front of him. It was a long way down, and he’d have to scale the rock wall with nothing more than his hands.

“Dagan!”

Dresden.

Jude turned and saw Dresden with one other man coming up behind him. That man bled from the shoulder wound Jude had given him moments before. It was Jude smiling then.

Jude clicked his mic on so Ella could hear.

“Where is she?” Dresden called out.

Jude cocked his head. He only had his handgun. They’d cut him down before he fired a single shot. He had to get back to Ella. He took a step back, and a shot fired at his feet. “King always said you were a pussy and a bad shot,” Jude said.

“But I’m the pussy with the upper hand, Dagan. Now where is Ella?”

“Somewhere you won’t find her,” Jude called out, and then he stepped off the rise.

Jude fell about ten feet before he was able to grab a small outcropping of boulders. It stopped him and nearly wrenched his shoulder out of its socket, but he held on, using his feet to draw himself up and over the boulders. He tucked himself into a nook against the rocks. “I’m good, Ella. Stay where you are.” She didn’t respond, but he hadn’t expected her to. She was a good soldier. Soft in the heart, but a great warrior.

Bullets rained down on his location, but Dresden and his man couldn’t see Jude, so he was safe for now.

“He’s gone,” Dresden bit out.

“Long way down,” the other man said, and there was a smile on his voice.

“I’m going to find her, Dagan,” Dresden called out anyway. “I never took the time to taste her when I had her last. I’ll make sure to correct that this go-round. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. I doubt she will.”

Jude bit his tongue and kept his mouth closed.

“Enjoy the weather, Dagan. I hope you freeze to death.”

Jude waited for two hours, sure that someone had been left to watch for him. He shed his white outerwear and threw it off the side of the rise. At some point, he’d lost the radio that gave him insight into Dresden’s next moves. Probably dropped it in the fall. No shots came his way, but he could hear Dresden and the other man scouring the remains of his cabin.

Steel and stone, that’s what remained between Dresden and Ella.

Jude’s muscles tightened with the need to move. He’d waited as long as he could. He shimmied down the rise to a small hollow, thanking his Creator that the moon was hiding behind the clouds. He pulled a packet of QuikClot out of one of his pockets and coated the rip in his side with it. It wasn’t bad. The knife hadn’t gone deep before he’d wrenched the other man’s arm so hard his elbow had popped. Jude drew in a deep breath and eyed the night around him. A creek ran the length of his northern property, and he followed it up, farther into the mountains. He walked for an hour before he found the entrance to the cave system.

Pulling out his flashlight, he peered into the opening. It was winter, and there were bears in these mountains.

He hit his ear mic. “Ella?”

“Talk to me, Jude.”

“I’m here. I’m coming to you. You okay?”

“I can hear the earth shifting above me. I heard the cabin go. I also heard gunfire. You okay?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. It’ll take me about an hour to get to you. Hold on, baby.”

“I’m here,” she said.

He entered the caves cautiously but swiftly. He needed to see her. Touch her. Just be with her.

He didn’t encounter any bears, thank God, but it took a little longer than an hour to make it to the comm room. There’d been a rockslide inside the natural tunnels, and he’d had to clear it enough so he could get through.

He made it to the room, hit the code on the pad on his side, and sighed in relief as it opened.

She was on him right then.

“God, Jude! You’re bleeding,” she cried.

“Just a surface wound. Come here,” he ordered as he closed the door and hit the code again. They were as safe as he could make them until the cavalry arrived. He dropped his weapons and held out his arms.

Ella jumped into them, and all he knew was her.

He took her mouth, probably too roughly, but he had to have her. Right. Now. And she responded so beautifully.

Jude pulled her shirt up, going for her skin even as she went for the buttons on his pants and he went for the buttons on hers. Then his cock was out and she was bared to him and he lifted her, sliding into her heat and feeling her body take him deep, so deep.

“Love you,” he said as he sank until he couldn’t sink anymore.

She moved her hips, clasping him tight with her inner muscles.

“It never stops,” she whispered as her tongue licked up his neck and into his mouth. “Love me, Jude. I need it.”

He took them both to the floor, not caring that it was cold, only knowing that he needed to be inside her, moving, making her cry out for him—pleasuring her, loving her.

He pulled out and sank back inside her heat. She lifted to him, pulling him flush on top of her so that no part of them was separated. He thrust up into her and stilled, fighting off the call of orgasm, wanting it to last and last.

“Need you,” he bit out.

“I know,” she said softly.

Their breaths mingled, and his skin prickled where her breasts pressed against his chest. His heart thudded, and he thought hers did too. He moved faster inside her. In and out, over and over, ecstasy building in waves that promised to drown them. Heat and wetness coating them both, sweat melding their bodies together, and still they moved as one, reaching for the finale.

His spine tingled, and her pussy clamped down on him. He was done, exploding inside her, feeling her internal muscles pull everything from him. He rolled over and pulled her on top of him. Better he had the cold floor than her.

“The floor’s cold,” she mumbled against his neck.

He chuckled. “I think you killed me, and all you can talk about is how cold the floor is?”

“If I’d known you were going to jump me as soon as you walked in, I’d have set up a pallet,” she argued.

“There’s a bed over there.” He pointed somewhere behind him.

Her head came up at that. “Seriously?”

He nodded as a smile split his face. “Would I lie about a bed?”

She bit his pec through his shirt. He laughed.

Then he cradled her head and forced her to look at him. “A truth?”

“I’m game.”

“I’m going to keep you safe.”

She stared at him, her big, gray eyes warm and accepting his promise. “Is that right?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to keep you safe too.”

His cock stirred again, but an alarm began to sound and Ella moved off him. “I’ve got to clean this and get it bandaged.”

He started to open his mouth, and she shot him a glare. “Do your worst.”

It took her about five minutes to clean the shallow cut and Steri-Strip it. Then she put gauze and tape over it and lowered his shirt.

He kissed the top of her head. She burrowed into his neck. They stood that way for a few precious seconds. The need to move pressed on him then, and he obeyed it.

Jude moved to the monitors and cursed. The cameras in the trees surrounding the cabin showed Dresden’s current plan of action clearly. “Ella, put on the outerwear in your go bag. Right now.”

She did as he bade. Dresden was about to use explosives to get in. Jude knew the man had a larger contingent of men winging their way toward the cabin’s location. They had to move. There was no way Dresden could penetrate the steel, but maybe he was hoping he could tunnel under. What Dresden didn’t know was that there wasn’t soil underneath the comm room. There was a massive cavern. In theory, he could hit the structure hard enough to force the cavern beneath to crumble. As with the rockslide Jude had encountered earlier, it could happen here.

Jude didn’t think it would happen. After all, the room had been built to survive a nuclear holocaust. A little overboard, but Jude knew what the world was running toward, and he’d wanted a way to protect his family. But he wasn’t God to know if the cave system would hold up to that much of an explosion.

So they’d have to run.

“What about the cat?” Ella asked as Jude changed his clothing into warmer wear. He shoved new outerwear into his go bag and moved to the armory.

“What about it?” he asked absently.

“Chica goes with us,” she said firmly.

He stopped loading ammo into another knapsack long enough to check the monitor and throw Ella a look of disbelief. “You named it?”

The cat meowed.

“I named her, and she goes.”

His woman was worried about a stray cat? When Dresden was about to try to blow them sky high? Damn.

“Shove her in your go bag, zip it up, and she can go,” Jude told her, grabbing the last bit of ammo he could stuff into his knapsack before he zipped it shut.

“Chica?” Ella called, and damn if the cat didn’t immediately go to her.

Jude watched in bemusement as she put the cat gently into the sack, talking to it like it was a child and could actually understand.

“Do we have a couple of cans of Vienna sausages down here?” she asked him, her gray eyes pleading.

He thought his eyes were going to bug out of his head. But he threw a thumb over his shoulder and said only, “Check under the sink over there.”

She did and made a triumphant sound as she shoved two cans into the sack with the cat.

Jude gave one last look to his comm room.

“You can rebuild,” she offered.

He nodded in affirmation. Maybe he would, but only with her.

Jude reached for her hand and tugged her to the door. “Got your weapon?” he asked.

“Yeah. Holster at my back,” she answered. “And I’ve got one in my boot. Oh, and I stole a KA-BAR from your armory.”

“I approve.” He held out a rifle to her. “Put your go bag on first, then strap that over your back.”

She did as he told her. No questions. Not even the cat complained.

“We’ve got about an hour hike out of these caves. It’ll still be dark when we exit. I go first, and if there’s any sign of danger, you tuck in and wait for my orders. We clear, Ella? I need your cooperation here.”

“I’m clear,” she said in exasperation. “How the hell did I manage to survive a whole year without you?”

Oh, her sarcasm. He’d missed the hell out of that. He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. I’m sure it was touch and go.”

She threw back her head and laughed. Loud. It was beautiful. “And that’s a truth you can take right to the bank. Cash that shit out and run for Mexico.”

He grinned at her, checked the monitor again, and punched in the code. “I’m first. Always.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied smartly.

“Smart-ass.”

She turned her head and tried to look over her shoulder at her butt. “You think?”

He shook his head as the door swished open. He stepped into the tunnel and checked for any disturbance. “We’re clear. We’ve got to move fast. I don’t know how the cave will hold up when those explosives he’s almost finished setting go.”

“Let’s move then,” she said. “I’ve got you, Chica. Hold on for the ride.”

His lips curved again, and he swore he hadn’t smiled so much in a year. “Let’s do it.”

They moved quickly. They’d made it about a quarter of a mile through the tunnels when the first explosion rocked the system. The way the walls and ceiling of the cave’s tunnels shook didn’t bode well for them.

“Run,” Jude said, turning around to get behind her. “Run fast,” he urged as he took off his headlamp and put it on her head.

The concussion of another blast nearly took them off their feet. He refused the fear that climbed up his throat. He wouldn’t lose her here. The earth rumbled as it absorbed the impact and sought to hold. Wind rushed by him, the wind of the approaching dust headed their way.

“Run, Ella!” he yelled, and she did just that.

He tore after her, but they weren’t fast enough. “Duck down, and cover your face,” he called as the dust caught up to them.

Jude covered her body with his as yet another rumble rocked the walls around them. The fear knocked on his mind again, and he again refused it entry. Instead, he held her close, making sure she kept the cloth in place over her mouth and nose. He shoved her face into his chest and bowed low over her, breathing through her hair and letting the silk of her tresses filter his air.

Another boom, and her body shook. His world was about to collapse around him. Horror choked his throat, and his hands clenched tighter around his woman.

He was scared he’d found her only to lose her again. And in the midst of one of the greatest terrors of his life, Jude was smiling because all he could hear was Ella talking softly to the damn cat.