Zarina frowned. “I’d feel a whole lot better if I could give Kendra a checkup myself. She’s a week past her due date already. I should be with her.”
Tanner sighed. Zarina still wasn’t thrilled that he was the only person in the DCO to know where Landon, Ivy, and the rest of the fugitives were hiding. Or that he was the only one who’d gone to see them. She knew they were somewhere close by, figuring out the amount of time Tanner had been gone the last time he’d taken Kendra something to help her deal with muscle spasms related to her overdue pregnancy.
“You know that isn’t possible,” Tanner said as gently as he could. “They’re watching you too closely. While you’re an amazing woman, you’re not a covert agent. Thorn’s people would find you.”
It was Zarina’s turn to sigh. “I know. It’s just hard thinking about Kendra and the others being out there on their own. I hate that Thorn’s goons are always following me.”
Zarina wasn’t the only one being watched. Thorn had people following some of the other DCO employees as well, including Trevor. The coyote shifter was under almost constant surveillance.
Fortunately, Dick and Thorn ignored Tanner. For whatever reason, they considered him nothing more than a dumb animal, too out of control to be trusted to do anything covert or complicated. That was fine with him, since being invisible made it easy to slip away and get messages to his friends whenever Dick was closing in on them. It also made it simple to snoop around Dick’s office, talk to his secretary, and listen in on private conversations that people had no idea he could hear so he could figure out what the hell Dick and Thorn were up to. With John out of the way, Thorn would be making his big move, but no one had a clue what it was.
“Can you at least tell me if Ivy is with Kendra?” Zarina asked. “If Kendra goes into labor without a doctor there, I’d feel a lot better if Ivy were around to help.”
Tanner shook his head. “You know I can’t tell you anything. It’s safer for everyone if you don’t know.”
She made a face at him, sticking out her tongue. He chuckled, unable to help himself. Clearly, living in the United States was having a profound effect on her. She would never have done anything like that when she’d first arrived here.
“Why?” she demanded, her blue eyes flashing. “Because Adam says it is? What do we even know about this guy? Hell, he doesn’t even have a last name! He popped up as a voice on the end of the phone a couple of days after John died, and we all did exactly what he told us to do. How do we know we can trust him?”
Zarina was only echoing what Tanner had thought the first time the mysterious shifter named Adam had called. He’d given Landon, Ivy, and the others places to hide, new identities, money, and even burner phones Tanner used to keep in contact with them.
“We know we can trust him because Landon and Ivy trust him,” Tanner said. “According to them, Adam had been working behind the scenes with John for years trying to find something to pin on Thorn. Adam hasn’t done anything to steer us wrong yet.”
Zarina’s mouth tightened. “So Ivy and Kendra aren’t together?”
Tanner lifted a brow but didn’t answer. Zarina rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the obstacle course again.
The funny thing was that Zarina was right. The DCO agents had split into three groups and were hiding out at separate locations. Ivy and Landon weren’t with Kendra and Declan.
“Are you going to tell me what happened in there?” Zarina asked after a moment. “I haven’t seen you lose it like that in a long time.”
That was only because she hadn’t been in Costa Rica when he’d completely gone animal during a rescue mission and had run off into the forest like a lunatic. When his team found him, they’d had to tackle him, then practically sit on him for thirty minutes until his rage subsided.
Since then, Tanner had thought he had his inner animal well in hand. Now, he realized any semblance of control he’d been experiencing was nothing more than an illusion. The moment he’d thought Zarina was in danger, he’d completely lost it. Even now, he could feel the beast in the back of his mind, prowling around, looking for a way to slip out again. It was like the thing had been encouraged by that minor bout of freedom.
“Sometimes I imagine this is what an alcoholic or drug addict must feel like,” he said softly, staring down at the grass in front of their bench. “Knowing that there’s this monster inside you, ready to slip out and attack the second you give it a chance.”
“You’re not an alcoholic or an addict,” Zarina said firmly. “You were given a serum that made drastic changes to your DNA and your hindbrain, which is the part that controls our most primitive functions, including survival instincts, aggression, and your fight-or-flight response. That’s why you sometimes lose control in stressful situations.”
He appreciated how Zarina always tried to make it seem as if all his issues were related to the hybrid serum he’d been given, but they both knew it was more than that. He’d already been a basket case long before he’d been given those drugs. The rage issues, memory blackouts, and panic attacks had started somewhere between his fourth and fifth deployment in the army and had only gotten worse once he was out of the Rangers. That was why he’d been living alone in the woods of Washington State to begin with. So he wouldn’t lose it and hurt someone.
When he didn’t say anything, Zarina reached out and rested her hand on his jaw, turning him to look at her.
“Tanner, the things that are happening to you aren’t your fault. But you’re dealing with them. We’re dealing with them.”
The touch of her hand on his face was enough to warm his whole body, and it was all he could do not to turn ever so slightly and press a kiss to her palm.
He wished he could tell Zarina exactly how he felt about her, because right now, he was happier than he’d ever been in his life. But it would have been unfair to tell her that he loved her, then in the next breath admit he was almost going to have to walk away from her.
“Sometimes I think it would be better if I went back to the forests where you found me,” he said quietly. “So I could get away from all of it.”
Zarina looked confused at first, but then an expression of overwhelming pain filled her eyes. “Away from me?”
Seeing the sorrow on her face hurt him worse than anything he’d ever experienced, even the searing agony he’d felt as the hybrid drug had first burned through his bloodstream all those months ago, tearing his DNA apart from the inside out.
He loved her more than his own life. Which was why what he was doing felt so completely right.
He gently trailed his hand over her cheek. This was the first time he’d touched Zarina like this, and it almost took his breath away.
