Retrieval (8 page)

“Shut the back, Bleak.” The rear door began its descent.

She coughed again. It made him sweat to hear it.

“That’s just for starters.” A heavy breath followed by a moan before she continued, “There’s added incentive for you: I cook like freaking Paula Deen—I make it through this you’re getting the long end of the stick.”

Bleak slammed the driver’s side door and gunned the vehicle.

“Charge set. Be ready to move,” Morrissey called over the links.

“So you’d be getting the short end of the stick if you married me?” he asked her with a short bark of laughter.

“Don’t know. Just know your end is super long. Now go away. I’ve been shot, rescued, half proposed to—I’m tired. No time to chitchat even if you are a hottie.” Her voice trailed off, and with her final word, she passed out.

He shook his head, his mouth curving into a small smile. Damn woman was probably always going to want the last word. He didn’t have time to dwell. The entire time he’d been carrying on with her, he’d been ripping the shirt from her abdomen to check the damage.

The bullet was still lodged in her side. He had to get her somewhere safe soon to get it out. The bleeding at the site of the wound had stopped, but her cough worried him, as did the blood dotting her lips. Her pulse was strong, but she had internal damage; he just had no idea how extensive. He heard Morrissey’s diversion, and then the percussion of the blast rocked the SUV. Bits of corn, soil, and other debris rained down on the top of the Tahoe.

“Shit the only other person I’ve seen set a charge like that was Connor Parks. Let’s roll, Sebastian. If we don’t get out of here soon…” Bleak said from the front of the SUV.

“There’s Morrissey. Let’s roll,” Sebastian ordered.

Levering himself inside the Tahoe, Morrissey’s face split into a wide grin like a proud papa showing off his newborn son. Bleak took off the second the door slammed.

“Helluvan’ explosion, huh?” Morrissey asked as he took out field glasses to look and see who, if anybody, was coming at them.

Nobody was.

“Ooh Rah.” Bleak said.

“You had way too much fun with that, Mo,” Sebastian said through a mouth partially closed as he ripped tape to place on a bandage over Sky’s wound.

“How can somebody have too much fun blowing shitheads to smithereens?” Morrissey asked innocently.

“You’ve got a point. All right, I think that’s all I can do for her for now. Get us back to Chicago, Bleak. Fast.” He let his head drop to the seat behind him.

She’d stirred his life into an uproar. With her hair full of dirt, and her normally golden skin alabaster white, she still took his breath away. She was funny as hell, and he had a hard time keeping up with her. Even as he’d been terrified of not getting to her in time, she’d made him laugh.

He was unable to resist the lure of her silky skin, and he let his fingers drift lightly over her face, trace the contours of her brow, down her nose, over her soft, satiny lips. His finger came away bloody. He wiped her face with a wet piece of his shirt. She was hurt, damn it, and he shouldn’t want the things he wanted from her. His body shouldn’t be hard with want, and his heart had no business quickening when he gazed at her.

He couldn’t deny the pull he’d felt toward her from the first moment he’d seen her picture. Hell, before he’d even agreed to take the op, he’d been unable to get her out of his thoughts. His body was fully on board, but his mind wasn’t able to wrap around her existence, and what that meant for him.

It was enough that she was out of immediate danger. He didn’t doubt his ability to keep her safe once he was assured she was going to live through that bullet wound.

He shook his head, dropped his hands into his lap, and prepared to catch a little shut-eye. Bleak was at the wheel, Morrissey was watching out for any and all comers, and Sebastian had done everything he could for the woman in front of him.

He prayed they made it back to Chicago soon.

Chapter 7

Eight hours later, Sebastian came awake suddenly, though his body remained motionless, as his senses flared outward to detect any threat. He noticed a pressure at his temple as the subtle fragrance of honey wafted across his nose.

“I know you’re awake. Leave your hands on the bed, and your brains will stay where they are, which, right now is still inside your skull,” someone said beside him. Tight, but completely feminine, the tone was dead serious.

The scent of gun oil, and the tang of metal drifted in the air. The pressure at his temple was the barrel of a gun. A very large semiautomatic pistol if he had to guess.

“How did you get in here?” Sebastian asked inanely.

And it was inane, because, honestly, what difference did it make how she got in? The question really should have been how was he going to get himself out of the line of fire and in a position to protect Sky? She was still out cold under the blanket he’d put over after they’d cleaned her up.

“That would be a secret, and unless you have the password to our little club, no can do on the answering questions.” Then in a harder, colder tone the woman said, “Leave your hands on top of the bed. Bend your head forward—are you listening to me? Do it, or there will be some serious brain matter scattered on the wall beside you.”

“Is this better?” Sebastian asked bending to do as she asked before things escalated.

He really hated hurting women, but the danger a stray bullet posed for Sky at this point was a very real concern. He’d take this woman out in a heartbeat if she weren’t who he was beginning to suspect she was.

“Good job. Ladies? They can be taught,” the woman said and then laughed huskily.

She sounded a lot like Skylar. But she wasn’t; her smell was different, and the feel of the air she stirred didn’t make his heartbeat kick into a hard gallop.

“So now, since you’re doing so well, put your hands behind your head. Great job.”

The woman was starting to get on his nerves with her sarcasm. She moved at just that moment, and Sebastian struck. He stood swiftly, deflected the pistol. He pulled the woman toward him, turned her, and had her throat under his forearm in less than two seconds.

“Thanks. I appreciate the encouragement. So how about you tell me who the fuck you are, and why the fuck you have a gun pointed at my head.”

Sensing movement from someone else in the room, Sebastian lifted the pistol he’d filched off the woman and pointed it toward the other individual as he cocked the gun and said, “I’m a damn good shot. So if you move, I’ll be saying I told you so to a corpse.”

His voice was hard and cold. It left no doubt that he would shoot first and ask questions later.

“Well I can see why she went willingly then. Body, brains, and courage—quite a potent combination. But you’re missing a little something here, and I don’t think you’ve figured it out yet.”

The woman, whose throat he presently had in a steel grip with his forearm, kept up the taunting.

“I don’t think it matters right now. I just triggered an alarm, and there will be more than just me in here in about—oh look. Now,” Sebastian said as Bleak, Morrissey, and Rover entered the room, all of them loaded for bear and only half dressed.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Morrissey asked grouchily, scratching his bare abdomen with one hand and holding a large pistol in the other.

A swift intake of breath from the individual in the opposite corner of the room had all their heads turning toward the person still cast in shadows.

“Bleak, flip that lamp beside you on, man,” Sebastian said.

The muted lamplight cast eerie shadows in the room, but it served to do one thing; it clearly showed Sky’s sisters, come to the rescue.

Morrissey stiffened, then took a step toward the woman in the corner. Horror ghosted over the woman’s features. She held her hand out. Supplication or invitation, it was anybody’s guess.

“Where the hell have you been?” Morrissey managed to get out.

The woman, clearly affronted by the question, became incensed. Her eyes glittered, and her face tightened. Her look could have smote Morrissey on the spot.

“None of your damn business. Put some freakin’ clothes on, man. My eyes are burning,” the woman nearly shouted, averting her gaze and looking straight into Sebastian’s eyes.

She was beautiful, as beautiful as the rest of them. Her eyes sparked gold in the lamplight, and her hair, black as midnight, seemed to soak up the light and drown it in the ebony locks.

“Let me guess. Aurora?” Sebastian ground out between clenched teeth.

“My name, for your information, is Kinsey, not Aurora. If you ever want me to like you,” she cut her eyes at Morrissey’s rigid frame, “you’ll call me by my true name. Aurora was given to me by a piece of shit I met on previous journey through hell. I didn’t like him very much, and I don’t like anyone who calls me by that name.”

“That explains a lot,” Morrissey drawled snidely from his position, but, like a shot, the man moved and had Kinsey backed into the corner, his body all but obliterating any view of the tiny woman.

“Get off my sister, asshole,” the woman Sebastian held said and then began struggling.

“I remember which one you are now,” Sebastian said lightly, “You’re Piper.”

“Oh fuck off. Let me go,” Piper gritted out.

“Bleak, get me some flex-cuffs. I don’t think these ladies are safe on the loose around us.”

“No cuffs, Bastian; that’s just not nice. Remember, you have to eventually get these women’s blessing,” Skylar chastised from the bed. Her whisper rang with pain.

Then the room seemed to swell with unseen energy, and before anyone could blink, Morrissey was on the floor, writhing in pain but with no obvious wounds.

Sebastian’s attention switched to the bed, and he removed his arm from Piper’s throat. He did not let go of her weapon. The woman ran to the other side of the bed, and before he could blink, Kinsey was there as well.

“No, Skylar, what you just did to Morrissey wasn’t nice. Let him up,” Sebastian said.

Skylar shot him an irritated look and just that quickly he went from relieved to see her awake to brick hard and wanting her. She released whatever hold she had on his man and shot him another mean glance. Lord above, he could grow to love a woman who could dish it out even while she was down.

He quickly lowered himself beside the bed.

“How do you feel?” he asked her quietly, giving the sisters a look that promised retribution if they started back up with their bitching.

“I’m assuming you want honesty here? I feel like complete and total she-ite. Where are we?” Skylar closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose to combat nausea.

“We’re back in Chicago. We had a safe house set up here, and that’s where we brought you. I’m sure your friends in Des Moines are still looking for you in the cornfield Morrissey blew up,” Sebastian informed her.

“That’s nice. Hey, Bastian, can you get me some water or something? Maybe a double scotch on the rocks, a Jack and Coke? Anything to wet my whistle?” she asked, her voice broken by thirst and pain.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” A frown marred his features.

“Noooo, I just want something to drink,” she said with a heavy sigh and grimace.

“Are you hurting? I didn’t want to risk taking you to a hospital because of the men looking for you. The bullet is still in you, and we need to get it out. A friend of ours is on the way here to help us out with that.”

*

The man was too perceptive by half. She had wanted something to drink, but she’d wanted him to leave the room more. She needed to talk to her sisters privately without Sebastian and his men hovering, listening to every word. Of course, she could just throw a shield and do things the hard way.

Except she was exhausted and throwing a shield in her condition would deplete her for days.

She reached under the covers, pulled out an object, and held it up for his perusal.

“That’s not what I think it is, right?” he asked her in stunned disbelief.

He took the bullet from her hand.

“Yeah, it is. Lucky me. I don’t need a hospital or your friend now, huh? So can you please get me something to drink?”

Skylar gave it one more college try before she did something that would put her down for at least another few days.

He gave Bleak, Rover, and the still recovering Morrissey, a nod, and then he followed them out of the room. But before he shut the door he looked pointedly at her sisters and said, “No leaving.”

Piper saluted smartly before she turned back to her sisters and rolled her eyes.

“He’s really getting on my nerves,” she stated with a heavy sigh.

“Yeah, well, good old Mo ain’t a bag of laughs either,” Kinsey relayed with equal angst.

“That’s the one isn’t it?” Skylar asked her sister with a calm look.

“Yeppers, that’s him,” Kinsey replied miserably.

“The one what?” Piper asked clearly out of the loop on this one.

“You know which one, moron,” Skylar stated, then thumped Piper on the forehead.

“Ohhh,” Piper said, a look of understanding coming over her face. Then just as suddenly the look of dawning dissipated, and she shook her head before saying, “Yeah? I still don’t know which one you’re talking about.”

Kinsey and Skylar chuckled, and then a look of intensity passed over Sky’s face.

“You didn’t hurt him did you?” Kinsey asked the question as if it were being forced from her throat.

“Do you care?” Sky asked her in return. Then seeing that Kinsey wasn’t going to answer asked, “Where’s Raina?”

“Said she couldn’t make it. Something about ‘things better left unseen.’ Whatever. After seeing that big behemoth with the black eyes on my own, I personally think she’s running scared. He matches her description perfectly, and if I were her, I’d delay meeting Bleak Moore as long as I possibly could,” Kinsey replied.

“I’ve touched them all. They’re good men, each of them. Even Bleak, Kinsey, so knock it off.” Sky spoke firmly.

“I’m going to ignore you because you’ve been shot, run to ground, kissed senseless by Mr. Hottie McHot Hot out there—yeah, you should watch your bleed over—and well, did I mention you’d been shot? So obviously your brains are screwed, and your judgment is skewed. Good men, my left ass cheek. That’s a complete oxymoron. Good men? Nah, I just don’t see it ever happening,” Piper retorted.