Hearing that made Brielle more uncomfortable than she’d been before, but she bit her tongue, telling herself she needed to wait and see where this was going.
“This is going to sound insane,” he said, pausing to fire several more rounds down the tunnel toward the bad guys to keep them from moving any closer. Then she had to wait impatiently as he awkwardly reloaded in the tight space available to them before looking at her again. “But I’m asking for you to listen with an open mind until I get it all out there, okay?”
All Brielle could do was nod, even if she was on the verge of screaming at him to spit it out already. People shooting at them was bad, but this was worse.
“I was drawn to you from the first moment we met,” he said, and even though she knew it was a trick of the mind, the sounds of gunshots and wailing alarms somehow faded away until it was simply the two of them having a quiet, private moment together. “I’ll admit that I tried hard to ignore it. Mostly because I’m stupid, but also because I was scared. I didn’t think someone like me would ever have anything good in my life. Definitely not anything as good as you.”
She gazed at him intently, part of her wanting to think she knew where this was going, especially since her recent conversation with Misty was still fresh in her mind. But she forced herself to wait as patiently as she could for him to continue.
“Based on what you said at the warehouse about me being the man you’re supposed to be with, I want to believe you’re feeling this connection between us, too.” When she nodded, he continued. “So I don’t want you to freak out when I tell you that…well…we’re soul mates.”
Brielle had been sure she was ready to hear this—until Caleb said the actual words. Then the air left her lungs so rapidly she didn’t see it coming.Soul mates.Misty hadn’t been kidding. This was real. She’d met the man that destiny had decided she was supposed to be with for the rest of her life.
Caleb must have taken the expression on her face as one of panic because he took her hand in his free one, pausing a second to shoot at someone trying to sneak up on them.
“I know what you’re probably thinking,” he said urgently, like he was worried she’d jump up and try to run off right in the middle of the firefight. “That being soul mates means we don’t have any say in this and that what we feel for each other isn’t real, that it isn’t love. But you know what I think about all that?”
“What?” Brielle murmured breathlessly, barely able to get the word out.
“I think, who cares?” he said. “All I know is that I love you, and I don’t care how I got here. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me—an omega werewolf who has spent his entire life alone. You’reThe Onefor me, and I hope that, in time, you can come to accept that I’mThe Onefor you. And before you ask, I want you to know that I’m willing to give you all the time you need to figure that out. I won’t push you or anything.”
It took a second for the words to finally filter in. But in the end, there was no denying what she’d heard.
He loves me.
The words created a warmth inside her that she’d never experienced—or expected. It was almost as surprising as the fact that Caleb, a big omega with anger management issues, could be so romantic. She’d certainly never expected that, either.
When she didn’t say anything, alarm clouded Caleb’s handsome features. He opened his mouth—almost certainly to apologize—but Brielle couldn’t have that. Wrapping her hand behind his head, she dragged his mouth to hers. And as bullets ricocheted off the walls and floor around them, she kissed him so hard that he’d never doubt she loved him as much as he loved her.
She pulled back, ready to tell him she loved him, too—as crazy as it was to fall in love with a man this fast, she was still going to tell him—but then the radio chirped, interrupting their perfect moment.
“We’re in position to take out the enemy,” Hudson announced. “Please tell me you two are ready to move or this is going to be the shortest rescue in history. Because if any of them get their weapons turned our way, Genevieve and I are screwed. We’ll have absolutely no cover once we step out into the corridor.”
Caleb’s gaze never left hers. “You get the heat off us for a couple seconds, and we’ll be there when you need us.”
Brielle almost screamed in disappointment at not getting out the words she so desperately wanted to say, but then they heard shooting from the far end of the corridor. Caleb gave her a nod, then he was up and running, shouting at her to stay behind him.
She jumped to her feet and followed right on his heels, refusing to let him run into danger without her, even if this was the most insane thing she’d ever done in her life.
Chapter 20
“We need backup, and we need it now!” Jake shouted over the radio as a deep rumble shook the tunnel around Caleb, dropping dirt and chunks of rock all over him, Brielle, Hudson, and Genevieve. “We’ve gotten to three of the nukes and disarmed them, but Uriel and his people have started blowing the tunnels that lead to the others. If we don’t reach the rest of them in the next fifteen minutes, we aren’t getting there at all.”
Caleb growled and dropped the bad guy he’d just taken out. The distraction Hudson and Genevieve had created worked well, allowing him and Brielle to get close enough to finish the rest of the bad guys. But Caleb had still been hit with bullets three times during the fight, and Brielle now had a ragged crease across the left side of her tactical vest. He didn’t want to think about how bad it would have been if the bullet had hit her a few more inches to the right. Without her having any access to supernatural abilities at the moment, he knew it would have been bad.
“We need to move. Before it’s too late to matter,” Hudson said, looking down at the bodies on the floor, then at Caleb. “Are you okay to keep going? You’re bleeding a lot.”
Caleb looked down to see blood soaking through the dark material of his tactical uniform on the right side of his stomach as well as on his right hip and right above his knee. As scary as the wounds looked—and yeah, Brielle’s eyes were so wide he could make out the white all the way around her irises—it was actually the one in the leg that hurt the most. The other two rounds had punched right through him, and the wounds were already closing up. The bullet that hit his leg had bounced off the bone and was still in there. Saying it hurt like shit was an understatement. If he had time, he’d dig it out with a pocketknife and a pair of pliers.
But he didn’t have the time. None of them did.
“I’m fine,” he growled, at the same time giving Brielle a look he hoped was reassuring. Then he turned and started moving down the tunnel in the direction they’d been heading before this last ambush, his stride picking up until he was jogging at a pace that would cover a lot of ground quickly while still allowing everyone else to keep up.
As he ran, Caleb replayed the conversation he’d had with Brielle a few minutes earlier. There was a huge part of him freaking out that he had so openly confessed his love for her, dumping the whole soul-mate thing on her out of the blue like that. He never would have imagined putting himself out there. Then again, he never imagined feeling this way about a woman.
On the downside, she hadn’t said she loved him in return. But shehadkissed him. A real kiss. That counted for something, right? He only hoped that once she had a second, she’d tell him she loved him back. Unless she didn’t feel the same. His stomach twisted at the realization. That was a possibility, too, he guessed.
Caleb heard shooting long before they reached the action. He had to run down a long stretch of tunnel and around two corners before sliding to a stop at what he found. Four of Harrington’s Vandal security guards blocked the far end of the passageway. A man and a woman Caleb recognized from the briefing at the warehouse were lying on the floor of the tunnel bleeding badly. Kiara and Julian probably would have been in the same condition, but they’d found some protection behind a stack of equipment crates left to one side of the tunnel. But those crates were quickly being shredded by the onslaught of bullets coming their way, and Julian was already bleeding from a hit he’d taken while trying to shield Kiara with his body.
