To say Camilla was terrified was an understatement. At first, she had thought the men closing on her were in sick and twisted costumed trickery gone bad, but when she heard the growl, she knew. It had been an honest-to-goodness wolf’s growl.
Then she had been waylaid from behind, just after the head of one of the things exploded in front of her, and she’d screamed. Who wouldn’t? Now, an exceptionally hard—and whoa, hot—man asked her if she was all right? She had to have hit her head in the classroom. Crap like this didn’t happen to people, especially not in this dinky little town. The man had red hair and green eyes. He had tattoos at his neck. She was a sucker for a man with tattoos.
“What in the name of God”—she heaved a breath—“was that?” Okay, so she might have sounded a little hysterical, but the fact that she hadn’t screamed the truck down around their ears was a testament to how tight a hold she had on her emotions.
He sighed and looked toward the front of the vehicle. “Civilian safe and we are en route to rendezvous. Gunner and Dragon, off coms.” Pulling the earpiece from his ear, he sat up and off her. “I’ll answer all your questions, ma’am, but I need to know, are you harmed? And if you say you’re all banged up from that three-point jump I just did into the back of the truck, I may just have to roll my eyes.”
“Two points, tops,” came from the front somewhere.
“Easy three,” the man next to her snapped back, but his attention never wavered off her.
“I almost have my head taken off by that. That. That—what in the name of God was that?” She didn’t want to say what she thought it was, because that was simply not possible. Things like shifters simply did not exist. “And you’re worried about your rescue score?” she asked with incredulity.
“No, ma’am, I’m more worried that there is something wrong with you that I don’t know about. So, again, are you injured?” His expression never once changed, and he never looked away from her.
“No.” She had to be dreaming. There was no other option. “I think I’m okay. Who are you again? And thank you. I think I forgot to say that. Thank you for saving me from … what? What did you save me from?”
“Gareth Gruffyd, ma’am,” he said with a nod. “You’re welcome, and that—” he waved, making a face he settled down into a cross-legged position and tipped his head. “Those were weres. Wolves, in this case. Or, as popular media and movies refer to them, werewolves. They really hate that term, by the way, and it’s a damn good way to piss them the hell off.”
“Right.” Typically, she would have told him to seek medical treatment for mental instability, but she had seen it with her own eyes. “How? Why were you there, and how and why did its head blow up? Are they ill or something, and the illness makes their heads explode?” No one’s head just exploded like a rotten melon.
“No, ma’am, they aren’t ill. Our sniper took the head shot to ensure the target was terminated. Same with the other two sneaking up on us from the south. We were there because we’d had reports of were activity in the area. Normally, they aren’t big on coming into towns and cities, but they were coming for you in particular. And no, we don’t know why. Our orders were to get you out of there, and terminate any were that got between you and us.”
“Me?” Camilla knew her voice squeaked, but she couldn’t help it. “What did I do to those, those…” Holy crap, she wouldn’t call them weres, because that made it far too real. “Oh God.” She felt ill. Why her?
“Unknown at this time, ma’am. All we are certain of is that they were targeting you. We will gain more information when we return, I’m sure. But for the mission, all we needed to know was the location, target, and the enemy combatants. You’re safe, and we’ll get you answers as soon as possible. For now.” He reached over, popped a panel open, and tugged out a bottle. “It’s water.”
“Thank you.” Accepting the water, she looked at Gareth and smiled. “Please, call me Camilla. The kids at school call me ma’am, so I would really appreciate it if you didn’t call me that.” He was far too attractive to call her ma’am and have her ego survive intact.
“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned. “Sorry, reflex. Camilla.” He said her name slowly, seemingly savoring it. “You may want to get comfortable. We’ve got an hour drive to our rendezvous, and then we’ll hop on a plane to our base, where we’ll all be debriefed and, hopefully, get you some more answers.”
“A flight?” What the heck had she gotten into? “Where exactly is your base, by the way? How far away are we going?” It wasn’t like she had a life or anything, but she would like to know where they were going. She had her teaching, but it was winter break and that meant she had time to figure things out.
“Sorry, but that information is classified. I could tell you, but then…” He shrugged and grinned at her. “It’s not that far away. Should take about four hours to debrief. Then we’ll need to do risk assessments and figure out if you can return home safely, or if you’ll need to go into protective custody.”
“No,” she said without hesitation. “I might live in a small town in the middle of Texas, but I love where I live and I refuse to give it up. Besides, if these things found me once, they will find me again, right?"”
“Which is why you’d be going into protective custody. It would be somewhere these beasts couldn’t get to you,” he said. “I can’t say more than that, but trust me, there are places that these things just can’t go.”
“I don’t give a flying Fig Newton if God himself stepped forward and told me where to live, I refuse to give up my life. Those kids depend on me.”
“And if you are in class when one of those show up?” he asked, his voice gentle. “What happens then? How are you going to protect all those kids if it gets through you? I’m not saying this to be cruel, Camilla. But sometimes you have to do the right thing, even if it’s the last thing you want to do. Just think about it. It may be a total non-issue. I can’t honestly say one way or another now. Just think about what I said and try to relax.”
“Crapballs.” She took a swig of the water. Blast the man for making sense. Narrowing her gaze on him, she muttered, “You are seriously hot, but you make sense when I don’t want you to. You took away my only hope of being able to go back to a normal life.” Ass. But that she left unsaid. Now she simply had to figure out why the heck the wolves wanted her, and how long had there been wolves around? What the freak was going on?
“Of course I make sense. Thank you for the compliment as well,” he said with a grin. “I am sorry that this is messing up your plans for your life. But I’m just the messenger here. No shooting the messenger.”
Oh, she wanted to do something to the messenger, if her wet panties had anything to say about it. Why the hell was she reacting this way, now of all times? She should be screaming her head off and demanding to be taken to the police, instead she was in the back of a truck, letting complete strangers take her God only knew where.
Gareth shifted around and then stretched out in the back, his knees bent slightly to allow for his height. He closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and let out a breath. For all intents and purposes, he looked like he was going to sleep.
“You are going to sleep?” she asked with a frown. “Should I climb up in the front with…” She looked to the front. “I’m sorry, what’s your name? Diver McGhee here lost his manners and didn’t introduce anyone. I’m Camilla, and you are?”
Gareth’s hand shot out and caught her wrist. He didn’t even open his eyes, she noticed. “Stay back here. The front window isn’t tinted, and we’re not taking any chances that someone spots you. That’s Wyatt doing the driving,” he said. “D, this is Camilla, Camilla, that’s Wyatt.”
Wyatt lifted a hand and wiggled his fingers but didn’t say anything.
“Right, so just what, sit here on the floor?” she snapped, but then sighed. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve to be treated poorly. I apologize for being mean. It’s just that my whole world has turned on its ear in two seconds flat.”
He cracked open an eye to peer at her. “That was mean?” Snorting, he shook his head and let the eye close again. “Camilla, if that’s mean, you are really going to need to toughen up that hide of yours, or the team will eat you alive. You could lay down. There’s a blanket near your back you can unfold. Always sleep when you can, because you never know when you’ll next get a chance.”
“Right.” Camilla grabbed the blanket. She looked at the floor, then him, then the floor. Shrugging, she decided to hell with it and climbed up on top of him. After covering them both with the blanket, she patted his chest. “Sleep when you can, because you never know when you’ll next get a chance.”