Chapter Twenty-Four
WOLF ADDED ANOTHER bundle of chokecherry branches to the fire and sat back on his blanket, listening to Neniiseti’s prayers. The old man’s voice was weak and tattered, ravaged by the hours of chanting. Breathing deeply and rhythmically, Wolf tried not to think. When attending a vision quest, one sought to quiet one’s thoughts, lest they draw the attention of the spirits that are being sought.
There was too much at stake to chance wicking the spirits away from Neniiseti’. They needed the information the old man sought. They needed a location for this upcoming meeting.
Suddenly Neniiseti’ stopped rocking. The elder’s muffled, frayed voice stopped midchant, and he collapsed onto the dirt. The spirits had released him.
Wolf climbed to his feet. His aching muscles punishing him with each step, he hauled the elder up and helped him out of the chamber. He didn’t ask what the spirits had revealed. Such questions could wait until the beesnenitee had replenished his body and rested his mind.
Upon driving Neniiseti’ to his quarters and half carrying him to the narrow cot he called a bed, Wolf made himself at home on the floor. Vision quests took monitoring—both before and after the spirits released the seeker.
By the time Wolf awoke, hunger coiled in his belly, vibrating like a rattlesnake. He called the cafeteria and ordered two breakfast specials. Neniiseti’ stumbled into the bathroom as the food arrived. Upon his return, the spirit walker’s eyes were red-rimmed and vague, filled with dreams and visions.
“Were the spirits forthcoming, Grandfather?” Wolf finally asked, rising from the table to retrieve the coffeepot. He filled both their cups.
“As much as spirits are wont to be,” Neniiseti’ murmured, staring into the cup Wolf had just poured.
Wolf simply nodded. The beesnenitee was still processing the visions. He would share only when what the spirits had revealed was understood.
As it turned out, the spirit walker’s sharing came early. “The spirits showed me a white mansion floating on a sea of blue, the word Princess on her creamy flesh.”
Judging by Link’s list of earlier meeting locations, the NRO utilized boats quite often.
But Princess?
Wolf cleansed any indication of frustration from his face and eyes. A yacht called Princess? Yeah, that wouldn’t be hard to locate at all. The spirits could have been a little more forthcoming. Like giving an identification number.
As he rose to his feet to begin the impossible task of locating this yacht on a sea of blue, Neniiseti’s scratchy voice stopped him.
“Hooxei, send the healers to Black Cloud. He must be ready.”
Ready?
A terrible premonition struck. He turned stiffly to face the elder. “For what, Grandfather?”
“Black Cloud and his beniiinenno will fight beside you.” The beesnenitee must have seen the resistance on Wolf’s face, because his red-rimmed eyes narrowed and finality rang in his voice. “The spirits have spoken. It will be so.”
Without a word Wolf stalked from the room to arrange the healing as he’d been directed. But the thought of working with Mackenzie on another mission had turned the promise of the new day sour.
During the last quarter mile of his workout with Rawls, Mac kicked his legs into high gear. He still didn’t overtake his lieutenant. But, hell—he’d managed to keep up with the bastard without hacking up a lung, which was good enough for Mac considering the circumstances.
Rawls jogged back to him. “Not bad, Commander. Not bad at all.”
Mac slowed to a jog and then a walk. “Beats the hell out of a hospital bed.”
It was almost impossible to believe that he’d been camped out in said hospital bed less than twenty-four hours earlier. There was sure as hell some nuclear power in Kait Winchester’s hands.
“How’s Brendan doing?” Rawls fell into step beside him.
“So far, so good.” Mac frowned uneasily. Christ, the kid had about given Amy a heart attack. Hell, his own heart might have stuttered there for a moment or two as well. “He hasn’t gotten sick, anyway. Embray says it will take a few days before we’ll know if the reversal drug is working.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Rawls shook his head. “That kid’s got some balls on him. Glad to hear that little stunt didn’t do him any extra harm.” He shot Mac a sideways glance. “Cos talking to you yet?”
Mac’s jaw clenched. “Not yet.”
Frowning, Rawls rubbed a palm down his face. “Give him time. He’ll come around.”
Yeah. Mac swallowed a curse. He probably shouldn’t have gone off on the poor bastard like that. “Got plenty of that.”
Silence fell between them for a moment, and then Rawls gave Mac a light shoulder shove.
“I’ve been meaning to ask.” Rawls paused. The faux innocence glittering in his baby-blue eyes held no innocence whatsoever. “Any particular reason you’re suddenly so determined to turn that flabby desk-jockey body of yours into six-pack abs and steel thighs?”
Flabby?
Mac instinctively looked down. Fuck . . . he’d never gotten that bad. He gave his corpsman the middle finger. Rawls laughed and laid into his shoulder with a couple of quick jabs. Mac fought back a wince. No way was he giving the asshole another opening to denigrate his desk-jockey body.
After a few minutes of cooling down and getting their breathing under control, Rawls turned the conversation to Kait’s unexpected healing.
“Did the big bad Wolf ever get around to telling you why he sent Kait to heal you?”
“Hell, no.” Mac suspected Wolf had done it for the sheer joy of fucking with Mac’s mind.
Wolf must have known that Mac would refuse the healing. Why else send Kait to heal him while he was out like a light thanks to too many pain pills and too much exertion? The struggle to the lab when Brendan held the whole clinic hostage had been bad enough. But that solo return trip had damn near killed him. By the time the heat from Kait’s hands had penetrated enough to wake him from his stupor, she was done, and he’d been miraculously healed.
A fact he should have shown some gratitude for, according to Cosky and Zane and . . . hell, pretty much fucking everybody. Okay, maybe he’d bellowed like an enraged buffalo, as Amy put it. But he hadn’t needed the healing. He’d been healing just fine on his own. True, he’d been in pain and slow to get around—but he had been healing. They would have been better served to conserve Kait’s strength in case Benji took a turn for the worse or Brendan crashed.
Something he’d almost pointed out to Amy when she’d lit into him for his volcanic reaction. But Amy had looked so exhausted and drained he hadn’t wanted to remind her of the danger her boys were in.
She needed some sleep and a real meal, and now was the time for both. Benji’s condition hadn’t changed. Neither had Brendan’s, for that matter—although adverse effects wouldn’t show up for another day or so. Which meant this might be the only time Amy had available to catch up on her sleep.
Kidnapping the woman and forcing her to bed—only to sleep—was the top ticket on his mind when he walked into the clinic an hour later.
Embray pounced on him before he made it to Benji’s cubicle. “The script’s finished. We have a list of possible locations.”
The news stopped Mac cold. He hadn’t expected the computer program to produce results so quickly, but the accelerated timetable was a godsend. The quarterly meeting Link had mentioned was only three days away.
“How many locations did it give us?”
“Too many.” Embray’s voice was grim. “We need to narrow it down.”
Mac took the printout Embray handed him, scanned it, and scowled. Too many didn’t come close to describing the sheer volume of properties listed. The computer had split the list into planes, yachts, and estates, but there were dozens listed in each category.
“Can you program the computer to narrow this down any further?” Mac asked, although with only three days to work with, they didn’t have much time for another script run.
“Not without stronger data.”
Which they didn’t have. Link had given them all the information he’d been aware of. Maybe seeing the list would remind Link of something he’d forgotten.
“I’ll get hold of Wolf and ask to see Link, see if he can identify a best option from the list,” Mac said.
Shadow Command had Link under twenty-four-hour security and locked away somewhere in the bowels of the mountain. So far they’d been good about letting Mac and his team have access to him whenever they needed.
Since Mac didn’t have Wolf’s phone or pager number—or whatever the fuck people used around here—he borrowed the clinic’s phone to contact base headquarters.
The plebe who answered the phone promised to relay the request to Wolf. Mac hung up. He’d give the guy thirty minutes to make good on his promise, and then he’d head over to headquarters in person. Sometimes in-your-face cage rattling produced quicker results. Not in this case, however. With fifteen minutes to spare on Mac’s self-imposed timetable, Wolf walked into the clinic.
“Where’s the printout?” Wolf asked, stopping in front of Mac.
Mac passed the sheets over. “Where’s Link?”
“I’ll take it to him,” Wolf said, bending his head and scanning the sheet. Suddenly he froze. With a slow shake of his head, he tapped one of the line items with his finger. “This one. Princess.”
Mac leaned closer, peering at the listing Wolf indicated. It was a yacht owned by Coulson’s wife’s family. “What makes you think it’s gonna be held there?”
“We received intel recently from . . . a trusted source. They said the meeting would be held on a boat called Princess,” Wolf said in a flat, don’t-ask-me-too-many-questions tone of voice.
“You don’t say.” Mac eyed the big bastard suspiciously. “I don’t suppose you’re gonna share this source with us?”
His question was ignored. No surprise there.
“So why the hell didn’t you tell me this earlier, like when I gave you the damn list?”
Wolf shrugged. “All we were given was a boat named Princess. No identification numbers. No owner. I asked Link. He wasn’t aware of any council member with a boat by that name. Your computer list provided the rest of the identification.”
Wasn’t that just handy as fucking hell?
“Assuming this is the same damn boat and not a fucking coincidence,” Mac said.
“There is only one Princess on your list,” Wolf reminded him.
True enough.
Hell, Mac wasn’t even sure he wanted to know who Wolf’s source was. Last time it had been a fucking ghost. Besides, they didn’t have all that many options anyway. And so far Shadow Mountain’s intel had been right on target.
He’d just pretend that Wolf’s current sources were human rather than wisps of ether.
“We still need to find this boat,” Mac mused, but that was a minor detail and easily accomplished. With the resources Wolf and his buddies had, they should be able to acquire that information in no time.
Wolf was already heading for the clinic door. “Be ready to bug out. We’ll go wheels up as soon as we have the location.”
Rocking back on his heels, Mac raised his eyes in exaggerated surprise. “No shit? You’re allowing us to join the party.”
Without constant badgering. That had to be a first.
Another shrug lifted the enormous shoulders. “Be ready.”
Mac snapped him a mock salute and, “Yes, sir.” But Wolf was already gone, which made the sarcasm much less effective.
After calling Zane, filling him in on the upcoming mission, and telling him to pass the word to Cos and Rawls, Mac headed for Benji’s room. Brendan looked up from the game he was playing on Amy’s laptop, but Amy didn’t budge from her slouched position in the chair opposite the bed.
Sleeping? Brendan mouthed the word and nodded at his mother.
Yeah. Mac frowned as he stepped into the room. Her position in that chair looked as uncomfortable as hell. Time to whisk the lady off to bed where she could rack up the zzzs without crippling herself in the process . . . assuming he could get her to cooperate without pitching a fit about staying with her kids.
“How are you feeling?” he asked Brendan. The kid didn’t look any different. No obvious signs of a fever or pain. He even looked rested and fed. Amy had made sure the boy got enough sleep and meals. Too bad she wasn’t doing the same for herself.
Brendan cocked his head and paused, as though he were monitoring his body. “I don’t feel any different.”
“That was a pretty brave thing you did yesterday,” Mac told him quietly. “Stupid. But brave.”
Brendan shrugged and looked away. “Not really. I had to do it. It was the only thing that made sense.”
“That doesn’t make it any less brave.”
“I guess.”
“Your mom needs some real sleep, in her bed instead of this chair,” Mac told Brendan as he walked around to the front of Amy’s chair. “I’ll take her back to your rooms if you’ll keep an eye on your brother.”
“I’ll stay and keep him company. But Mom won’t go with you.”
The boy was probably right. Amy had proved repeatedly what a devoted mother she was. So damn devoted she was determined to run herself into the ground. The contrast between her behavior and his mother’s was so stark it was almost comical. Here Amy would barely take a break from her sentinel duty, as though leaving Benji’s side left him open to illness or injury. As opposed to his own mother, who’d been too busy fucking every sailor in port and crashing every party to remember she had kids . . . let alone feed and bathe and tend to them.
Or make sure they were at least locked in her car while she was getting her weekly fuck on so they wouldn’t get hit by a Goddamn car.
He wrestled his mind from that direction before Davey’s face could bloom in his mind, and he refocused his attention where it was needed—on the woman sprawled out before him.
She had to start taking better care of herself. He bent to slip one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back. He held his breath as he lifted her. She was heavier than she looked. Heavy enough he started rethinking the whole carrying-her-to-her-quarters thing. But then she sighed, cuddled into his chest, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
You can do this. Just dig in, ignore the discomfort, and get her home.
Besides, it felt so good to have her in his arms again . . . without her panicking and pulling away. Everything fit perfectly. Her ass against his left arm, her back against his right side, her breasts against his chest. Even her head snuggled perfectly into the hollow of his throat.
And then she sighed again and her warm breath caressed his bare throat.
The sound and sensation lurched through him like a shot of Jack Daniel’s. A burning rush that adrenaline-bombed his veins and jump-started his heart, lungs, and cock.
Oh yeah, standing in front of Brendan with the boy’s mother in his arms and a full-blown erection filling the crotch of his loose sweats was not one of his finer moments. He turned a little too hastily and stumbled, caught himself, and froze. But she didn’t awaken. If anything, her breathing seemed deeper and more even.
“The door code is one-five-three-five,” Brendan called out softly from behind him.
Jesus, he hadn’t even thought about how he was supposed to access her apartment. Hell, maybe subconsciously he intended to take her to his quarters. His bed.
By the time he walked through the clinic’s sliding doors, his arms were cramping. There was no way he’d make it all the way to her quarters without dropping her. Luck was on his side, though. A motorized cart was parked to the right of the door. He carried her to it and carefully settled her into the passenger seat, then propped her against the backrest. She stayed there until Mac climbed behind the wheel and backed up the cart, at which point she slid down the cushion and plopped her head in Mac’s lap.
He caught his breath.
Son of a bitch.
Her mouth was so fucking close to his swollen cock, he could swear he felt her warm breath caressing the sensitive skin down there. Which was impossible considering the heavy fabric separating the two . . .
With his heart beating way too fast and his palms sweating, he backed the transport out of its parking slot. Turning the wheel hard to the right, he sent the cart into a tight U-turn.
Holy fucking Christ.
The momentum rubbed her cheek against his crotch. His cock twitched, elongating, apparently trying to reach her mouth.
By the time he reached her quarters, the lower quadrant of his body felt flushed and heavy and ached like a motherfucker—with no end in sight.
Jesus—he was too fucking old for blue balls.
He pulled the golf cart into the wall at an angle beside her door. Got out, punched in the code, and yanked off his shirt to shove it under the doorframe so the door would stay open. This time when he eased Amy into his arms, she cuddled up against his chest—his bare chest. It shouldn’t have made any difference. She was still clothed, for Christ’s sake. There was no reason for the heightened sensuality or the damn chills tickling his spine. They weren’t even touching bare skin to bare skin.
But possibly, just possibly, removing his shirt had been another subconscious move toward getting himself naked . . . and in her bed.
He seriously needed to rein in his damn libido.
Trying to ignore the way her warmth was heating his naked chest, he carried her into the first bedroom and found two narrow beds. He carried her back out. The second bedroom had a bigger bed. He eyed it as he laid her down in its middle. Might not be big enough for both of them, not for what he had in mind . . .
When her back hit the mattress, she uttered another of those delicious soft sighs and rolled over to hug her pillow. His cock, the bastard, urged him to climb in there beside her . . . give her something else to sigh about, give her something else to hold on to, give himself a chance to rock her world—as he’d promised.
Of course, she wouldn’t get the sleep then.
With a frustrated groan, he removed her sneakers, backtracked to the first bedroom, and dragged a blanket off one of the beds, then returned to Amy’s side to spread the blanket over her.
And then he fled.
Because that’s sure as hell what it felt like. Fleeing the room for fear he’d give in to his primal impulses and climb into that bed with her, only sure as hell not to sleep.