Jared (River Pack Wolves 3) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (20 page)

A small laugh bubbled up, a crazy one, so he kept it inside. “Yes, I’m rescuing you.” He looked her up and down again, disbelieving, but it seemed just as she said. She had scars—so many scars,
God
—but no open wounds. Bloody clothes but no bleeding cuts. “Are you really okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”

She smiled. “I am now.” She looked to Agent Smith’s body on the floor behind him. “Please tell me he’s really dead.”

Jared dropped his hands from her shoulders and clenched them tight at his sides. “I want to kill him again. About ten more times for what he did to you.”

Grace narrowed her eyes at the body. “I would have done it myself if you hadn’t.” She looked back at him, her gaze roaming over his naked, blood-covered body. Some of the blood was hers, some Agent Smith’s, but some was definitely leaking out of him. “He shot you, didn’t he? I heard the gun go off, but I couldn’t see—”

“I’m fine, Grace.” And he was, even though the pain was throbbing through his mental haze and making him dizzy. But there must not be anything major hit—he wasn’t crashing like he had when Agent Smith shot him the
first
three times.

She frowned. “We need to get you out of here.
Soon.
But first…” She gestured around the lab. “The serums are here. All his research is here. We have to destroy everything before we leave.”

His head was buzzing with relief, but she was right—they had to think through what to do next. Agent Smith was dead. More than one shot had been fired; Jared couldn’t even remember how many at this point.

“Someone will be here any second,” he said. “They will have heard the gunfire.”

Grace shook her head. “Maybe not. I’ve been screaming… well, for a long time. But this place is soundproofed. I think he brought a lot of people here.”

That wrenching feeling wanted to turn him inside out again. Smith had
tortured
her.
Fuck.
He pulled her into his arms again, holding her tight. “Grace, I’m dying inside that you suffered through all this. All because of me.” He was choking up again as he held her.

She pulled back and peered into his eyes. “Jared River, the only thing that got me through was the hope that I would live to find
you.
And here you are, rescuing me! You’re literally the answer to all my prayers.” Her eyes were shining, and her words crashed into him and stirred things around. Just like they always did.

He allowed himself a small smile. “I could say the same thing about you.”

Her beautiful eyes glittered with something like hope, and it made his heart soar.

She smiled up at him. “We
definitely
need to discuss this further. Later. But right now…”

“No, you’re right.” He sucked in a breath—she really was all right. And they needed to focus on getting out. “Show me what we need to destroy. Then we’re getting the hell out of here.”

Jared scrambled to get his clothes back on, his two gunshot wounds making a mess of everything. He fumbled to make sure the microphone was still sewn into his collar, but he couldn’t find the earbud.

They had to be panicking outside, so he just spoke into the mic. “I’ve found Grace. Agent Smith is dead. We’re destroying his research. Lost audio. Will be leaving the building when we're done.” Turning to Grace he said, “My brothers and the pack are waiting for us outside. They’re probably losing their minds.” Jared hoped they could hear that, and it would calm down whatever chaos was going on in the van.

He and Grace quickly searched the cabinets, finding hundreds of refrigerated vials. They poured out what they could into the sink and smashed the rest. But the most important research data was almost certain to be stored electronically on the computers scattered around the lab.

“Were going to have a hard time destroying all this,” Jared said. There were three laptops and two desktop computers.

“That’s okay,” Grace said. “We’re taking it with us.” She snagged the laptops and handed them to Jared, then went at the desktops until she had the covers off and could dig inside. She quickly pulled out two hard drives, straggling wires behind.

Jared nodded, impressed. “Our tech guy can erase all this stuff once we’re out.”

“No,” Grace said, firmly. “We need to preserve it. I’m going public with all this. Not the data itself, but the evidence of it. We need to show people what was going on here, Jared.” She strode toward the door of the lab like she was ready to burst out into the world
right now
with all of it.

He understood the burning need to do that… but it shot a gut-twisting worry through him. He didn’t want her to get hurt.
Again.

He caught up with her at the door. “Are you sure? Grace, your father will find a way to—”

“My father…”
Grace hissed. “My father is the source of all of this. He sent his own daughter here to be a lab rat, tortured by a crazed anti-shifter agent of the federal government. If you don’t think I’m going to let the world know about
that,
Jared River, then you don’t know me as well as you think.” The fire in her voice, the passion of it, her determination to right all of these wrongs—if he hadn’t already fallen in love with her, he could point to this moment and say,
this is it.
This was the moment when he knew Grace Krepky was everything he wanted in a mate.

He smiled a little. “I should’ve known.”

She frowned, and that moment of confusion held a touch of innocence again. The fiery girl ready to take on the world was replace by the pure, good-hearted girl he had seen through his scope, the very first time, when he had decided not to kill her father—she was all those things. And goddammit, he was so in love with her.

“You should’ve known what?” she asked.

“That there really was a tiger underneath that kitten exterior of yours.” He smiled broadly and hoped like hell she would say
yes
when he asked. Because he was definitely asking. Not now, but soon.

She grinned. “You haven’t seen anything yet, Jared River. And I know
exactly
what we need to do next.”

He had no doubt.

Jared River was a damn liar—he had
two
gunshot wounds that his brother, Jace, had to sew up. That was not Grace’s idea of “fine.”

Regardless, once he was stitched up, he seemed to heal fast enough that she didn’t need to worry about him. Too much. Her clothes were a wreck, Jared looked exhausted, and his brothers, along with the rest of the pack who had come to rescue her, all seemed completely on edge. The tension in the van was crazy high. But she knew they had no time to waste—they needed to head straight to the Senator’s campaign office downtown.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jared asked for the fourth time, eyeing her. She really looked a fright—with her white blouse bright with blood, and a black skirt that hid it a little better—but that was the point.

Grace could tell Jared was just voicing the other’s thoughts, the ones rumbling through all the hulking, good-looking shifter men who packed the van.
Damn.
They were all extremely hot. How did female shifters get anything done with this much drool-worthy, man flesh around all the time? Even so, Jared was the largest and hottest among them. And her wolf only had eyes for him—she’d already given him her virginity, along with her heart. Now that he had saved her life, she owed even that to him. But the thing she was about to do… well, it was a bit crazy.

She hoped he would understand.

Grace gave him a nod she hoped was reassuring. “Yes, I am sure this is a good idea,” she said, not just to him, but to all of them. “You want to stop the Senator, right?” She waited for the nods to grudgingly come out. “Well, I know how to do that. What’s on these hard drives is all the evidence you need, but I’m uniquely suited to deliver the missile straight to the target.” She held Jared’s gaze. The rest of them, with all their eyes on her, faded into the background. “This isn’t just for me—this for every shifter who was captured, or went under the blade, or was injected with experimental medicines. This is something I can do for all of them.”

Jared just nodded. She wasn’t sure if he was agreeing, or just didn’t want to argue anymore, but the tension in the van dropped a couple levels. Lots of looks were exchanged, but no words during the rest of the trip back to her father’s campaign office.

She insisted that only Jared accompany her. He insisted that the rest of them stay on standby outside the high-rise building. She didn’t object—in fact, it was comforting to know she wasn’t on her own with this. Not anymore. And looking at Jared, she hoped never again.

It was late—past ten o’clock—but she knew Kylie and Nolan and her father would still be in the office, preparing for the next day’s campaign activities. They were still in ramp-up mode to the launch in a few days—everyone would be pulling late nights, under normal conditions.

Things were about to get very
not
normal.

She shoved open the door to the office and strode in. Her father, Nolan, and Kylie were all gathered in the center of the office, in the bullpen. They were huddled over Kylie’s desk, examining a map of the districts, no doubt planning out a strategy to hit every precinct during the official launch—
which speeches Nolan would write, which messages Kylie would tailor for the residents of each district. Her father was always intimately involved, but Grace had to wonder what he told them about his campaign manager suddenly going missing. They certainly seemed to be carrying on like nothing was wrong.

She walked up to them, Jared at her back, and stood a dozen feet away, hands on her hips, bloodstained shirt making her look like something out of a nightmare.

Kylie was the first to look up. She shrieked, and her hands flew to her face, covering her horror. Nolan and her father were next. Her father’s face turned three shades more pale, and Nolan’s mouth dropped open.

Nolan was the first to recover, his face flushing red as he tore around Kylie’s desk.
“My God,
Grace, what happened to you?” Then he threw a glare at Jared behind her. “What the hell kind of bodyguard are you?”

“Nolan, I’m fine,” Grace said, putting a hand on his shoulder, then gently shoving him back. “Jared saved my life. He’s also my boyfriend.” Although
boyfriend
seemed like a pretty inadequate term for their situation. He was her lover—once—and soon to be mate. At least, she hoped. She threw a bashful look to Jared, hoping he didn’t mind, but he was watching her father carefully, like he expected the Senator to pull a gun at any moment.

Which, if she was honest, was a possibility.

Nolan had a dazed look on his face. Kylie had recovered and hurried up to them.
“Jesus Christ,
Grace, why are you covered in blood?”

Grace looked away from her best friend’s pained expression and stared hard at her father, who had backed away two steps, looking like he wanted to run.
Coward.
“I was tortured at the hands of a man working for the government with the blessing of my father,” she declared, throwing the words at her father like knives.

He had the decency to flinch under the assault. But he didn’t say anything.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nolan was looking back and forth rapidly between her and her father.

Grace turned to face Nolan and Kylie. “My father already knows this, but it’s time you did. I’ve been keeping a secret from you for a long time.” She took a breath. “I’m a shifter.”

If the shock of her in a blood-soaked shirt sent a tremor through the office, being a shifter was a 10.0 on the Richter scale. Kylie’s face was blank with surprise–she stood motionless, staring at Grace with an almost comical expression on her face. Nolan looked slightly disgusted at first, but that was quickly chased away by a dawning understanding.

His gaze flitted back to her father. “Your father
knew?”
She could hear the trace of bitterness, and she couldn’t blame him—after all, she had kept the secret from him even though they had supposedly dated. Nearly had sex. Had worked together intimately for years.

“He only found out today,” Grace said, returning her steady drilling glare to her father. “And once he knew I wasn’t his biological daughter, he packed me off into a secret program. One he had authorized to torment shifters, perform medical experiments on them, and develop serums for a shifter-based super soldier.”

“
Holy fuck—”
Nolan whispered.

“Those are damn lies!” her father said, finally coming to life. “I don’t know what you thought you saw—”

Grace thrust her hands into the air, one hard drive in each, ribbon wires dangling down her arms. “It’s not just what I saw,
Daddy.
” The venom from hours of torture leaked into her voice. “It’s not just the blade that
cut me,
time and again. Or the cage I was stuffed in. I have all the evidence I need, right here—the reams of digital data that will make your secret program not so secret anymore.” Her chest was heaving. Jared’s warm hand landed at the small of her back, and that affirming touch bolstered her. She kept her glare trained on her father across the room.

The Senator scowled at the hard drives in her hands. “I don’t know what the hell those are—”