Reid

The hotel parking lot was less than half-full when I got there. It didn’t take me long to find the vehicle I was looking for. Black. Classy. Tinted windows.

Alyx’s scent was very strong around the car. So was her abductor’s, a.k.a. Dead Man Walking. There was a third scent, too. One that reeked of expensive cologne, Italian leather, and Armani. I was willing to bet my left paw that scent belonged to none other than Roger Chamberlain himself.

A grim smile pulled at my lips. That was good. This way, I didn’t have to waste time tracking the fucker down.

I moved toward the building with purpose. As I might have mentioned, I was essentially a single-minded individual when I was on a mission, and my current task had one hundred percent of my focus. My objectives were simple. One, find Alyx; and two, kill everyone who had touched her.

“What took you so long?”

I pulled up short, claws pushing through my fingertips, ready to rip out the throat of anyone who got in my way.

It took only half a second for me to recognize the voice coming seemingly out of nowhere. There was a reason Jason Bradley’s call sign was Ghost. My teammate wasn’t seen unless he wanted to be.

Mine was Reaper, for obvious reasons.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

Ghost stepped from the shadows enough for me to see the huge shit-eating grin on his face. “Nice to see you too, Reap. Cap filled us in. He wants Chamberlain and whatever lackeys he has hanging around taken alive. Thought that might not happen with you flying solo. Congrats on the mating, by the way. Lucky fucker.”

I grunted an acknowledgment. If Ghost was here on Cap’s orders, then the others probably were, too.

Right on cue, I felt the sights of Hawkeye’s sniper rifle settle on the back of my neck for a few seconds before moving away. It was his fucked-up way of saying hello. Hawkeye was the best of the best. We were all excellent shots, but Hawkeye never missed.

Bear, Boomer, Dex, and Psych couldn’t be far behind.

“How did you—”

“Get here so fast?” Psych finished, suddenly appearing on the right. Finishing other people’s sentences was one of his more annoying habits, which was exactly why he did it. “Isn’t it enough that we did?”

Not answering direct questions was another.

Dex, aptly named for both his Poindexter-like brain and his penchant for dismembering people, gave a short whistle.

I looked up, catching a glimpse of his snow-white hair disappearing around the corner.

I didn’t doubt my ability to get in and get Alyx out, but there would be damage. The probability of taking Chamberlain alive soared to ninety-nine point nine percent with their presence.

Knowing I wouldn’t be getting the chance to kill Chamberlain did kind of put a damper on things, but my team’s arrival reminded me that there was more at stake here and I needed to look at the bigger picture.

I took some small comfort in the fact that the man would be thoroughly, and painfully, interrogated. If he was still breathing when we got done with him, there would no doubt be others lined up, chomping at the bit to get their crack at him. News of the lab we had taken down had spread like wildfire through the shifter community.

We jogged over to where Dex was holding open one of the side doors, then silently followed him up the stairwell to a suite on the sixth floor. As we walked in, I saw Cap, our CO; Boomer, who liked to blow things up; and Bear, who was huge, hairy, and mean, looking at a 3-D hologram of the building’s inner structure.

Tony Stark had nothing on our special ops squad when it came to toys, I thought with a surge of pride.

“Reap, glad you could make it to the party.”

In the time it took me to drive from the hospital to my place, get Grace situated in my safe room, gear up, and get here, my entire team had secured the hotel and had set up a command center in the room adjoining Chamberlain’s. We were good, but we weren’t that good, which meant something else was going on that I didn’t yet know about. I didn’t like being out of the loop, not at all, but before I could open my mouth, a warning look and a slight shake of Cap’s head told me those answers would have to wait.

Dex tapped a few keys on his portable tablet. “Hawk, you still with us, man?”

“Roger that. The dumb fuck left the drapes open. Like ducks in a barrel.”

The team chuckled. Hawk’s superior skill with a rifle didn’t extend to his use of common phrases. “That’s fish, fidiot. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Huh. Whatever.”

A picture formed on Dex’s screen from Hawk’s bird’s-eye view. Above his scope was a telescopic digital recording device, useful in situations like this. We could see what he saw in real time.

My eyes instinctively sought out Alyx. She was sitting on the couch, looking weary and pissed off, but otherwise unharmed. Chamberlain was standing off to the side, his back to the window. One guy stood in the background, another at the door.

“Patching in to audio now ...”

* * *

Alyx

It had been a few hours since we had left the hospital. Surely someone would have noticed I was gone by now. In a classic moment of hindsight, I wished I had taken Reid up on his offer to help and told him everything. If nothing else, at least someone would have a name to start with.

And maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone now.

I had no one to blame but myself. I had been too stubborn, too proud, and now I was getting exactly what I had asked for—the opportunity to fight my own battles. No one knew where I was, nor my captor’s name. I was going to have to figure a way out of this on my own.

However, there was Gram to think about. It had been stupid of me to put her in harm’s way, foolishly underestimating the lengths Roger was willing to go to get what he wanted. To know that someone had been able to get into her house and take those pictures, that shook me. Was there someone watching her even now? If I didn’t play into Roger’s sick game, would he pick up the phone and make good on his implied threat to hurt her?

My stomach rumbled loudly, reminding me that I had never made it down to the cafeteria. I was ashamed of myself. How could I possibly be hungry at a time like this? Yet, I was. I was starving as if I hadn’t eaten in days instead of hours, and so tired I could have curled up and fallen asleep right then and there.

“Eat something, Alyxandra,” Roger coaxed.

I looked at the table full of room service that had been delivered shortly before. Smells of buttery rolls, roasted chicken, and garlicky mashed potatoes made my mouth water, but I dared not eat any of it. If Roger could have one of his minions put a gun to my side and threaten my grandmother, drugging the food certainly wasn’t out of the question. No, I had to remain clear-headed if I had a chance in hell of getting myself out of this mess.

I clamped my lips together and shook my head.

Roger frowned. “At least have some tea.”

Again, I declined.

“Don’t be difficult. I’m trying to be civil about this.”

“Trying to be civil?” I laughed in disbelief. “I’m here because you had one of your goons put a gun to my back and threatened my grandmother! What’s civil about that?”

His lips thinned. “You gave me no choice. Just as you leave me none now.”

That sounded ominous. Before I could speculate on what he meant, Roger picked up a gun from the table, aimed it at the guy who had driven us here, and pulled the trigger.

The guy seemed every bit as surprised as I was. His eyes grew wide, and his mouth gaped as he looked down at the brilliant red stain blossoming on his white shirt.

I tried to scream, but my throat had closed. I couldn’t even breathe.

The man went down to his knees.

“A gunshot to the stomach is an extremely painful, prolonged death,” Roger said calmly, as if he was talking about the weather instead of the fact that he had just shot a man in cold blood. “An awful way to go, isn’t it, William?”

I was horrified.

“Why?” I asked, finding my voice. “Why would you do that?”

Roger turned his gaze my way. “Why? Because I grow tired of this game. I’m a patient man, but I have my limits. No more stalling.” He waved the gun toward the man now lying in a pool of his own blood. “If you don’t save him, he will die.”

William looked at me, gasping for breath. I saw regret in his eyes. Regret and disbelief. Until that point, I didn’t think he realized what his boss was capable of. I couldn’t fault him for that. I hadn’t seen it, either, not until it was too late.

In the span of a few milliseconds, I considered my options. Roger believed I had the ability to heal, but he had no proof. That was what he wanted, what he was willing to let a man die for.

The third guy in the room, the one who had abducted me and had been standing silent guard by the door, now held an iPhone pointed my way, no doubt recording the moment.

It was a no-brainer. Roger might be willing to gamble with a man’s life, but I wasn’t. I ran over and knelt down beside the bleeding man. I couldn’t let a man die, not even one who had been involved in my kidnapping, to prove a point. It went against everything I believed in. Healing was in my DNA. I would just have to deal with the consequences later.

“You are an evil bastard,” I hissed at Roger. “Is this how you reward those loyal to you? To those who do your bidding?”

Roger said nothing. His mouth was set in a grim line, but his eyes shone with triumph.

“Don’t,” William said when I ripped his shirt open and laid my hands on his bloody abdomen.

I gave him a small smile. “You made some bad choices, William, and put your trust in the wrong person, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you die. Try to relax, okay?”

I closed my eyes and tuned out everything else, seeking that well of healing energy deep inside. Under normal circumstances, it was as natural as breathing, but these weren’t normal circumstances. It took extra effort to harness that energy and pull it forth.

Beads of perspiration formed on my forehead before I felt the familiar warmth begin to flow through my hands and into him.

William was losing blood at an alarming rate. Roger’s shot had nicked the celiac artery. I concentrated on patching that first, then widened my focus to the surrounding organs, and finally, the skin. By the time I was finished, I was feeling faint and little white dots danced in front of my eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I heard William say, but I was already falling toward the ground.