She was in love with Aric Chase. The thought of losing him--the mere idea that he could meet with harm at the hands of their enemies tonight--put a hollow ache in the center of her breast.
“Around to the back,” Mira said. “The house is nothing but glass looking out over the water. All the easier to blast our way in from that side.”
Kaya nodded, reloading with a fresh magazine. “Let’s do it.”
She and Mira shot out the wall of soaring glass, standing back as the sharp, heavy shards rained down on the bricked terrace where they stood. The breach brought three men running into the large great room inside. Before they could open fire, Kaya and Mira mowed them down then stepped around the corpses to enter the residence.
Just as they did, bullets sprayed at them from the open loft area above. Mira squeezed off a volley of shots as she took cover behind an imposing carved wood bar that dominated one whole side of the room. Meanwhile Kaya dove out to the adjacent hall just as another armed man thundered her way. Rolling into a crouch, she squeezed the trigger of her semiautomatic pistol and the big human went down like a rock.
“Aric,” she whispered urgently into her comm’s mic. “I’m in. Where are you?”
His sharp, angry curse was a relief all by itself. “Kaya? Damn it, stay put.”
A deafening cacophony of gun blasts ripped over the open link before it went dead silent. “Aric!”
Ultraviolet light couldn’t hurt him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be shot to death with enough rounds to the head or vital organs. There were other ways he could be killed too. Possibilities she dared not even imagine.
She started moving even before she realized her boots were chewing up the floor beneath her. From the schematics of the house the team reviewed before leaving base, Kaya recalled the location of a back staircase that led to the second floor. The gunfire she heard over her comm had come from above. If Aric was up there too, she had to find him.
She found the stairs and started bounding up them on silent feet. Halfway to the top, a gunman rounded the corner and spotted her. He swung his weapon up and took aim at her. Kaya fired first, but had no choice other than to leap over the railing to avoid the returned shots.
She dropped to the floor below, bullets spraying her from behind. More than one struck home. The searing pain made her let out a scream.
Blood streaked the floor where she’d fallen and in a path behind her as she staggered on a wounded leg into a sheltered position against the wall of the stairwell. As soon as her assailant peered down to look for her, she raised her gun and filled his chest full of lead, ignoring the fiery protest of her bleeding biceps. The man fell over the banister in a heavy heap at her feet.
To her horror, as she sagged back against the wall, panting from blood loss and agony, three more guards closed in from all sides.
She struggled to lift her bloodied arm to defend herself. But in that next instant all she saw in front her was a blur of shadow and quicksilver movement. When it stopped, Aric was there, standing between her and the broken bodies of three dead gunmen whose necks had all been savagely twisted.
As for Aric, he had never looked more lethal. Eyes blazing like burning coals, his narrowed pupils were all but devoured by the fire of battle rage that lit his gaze. His fangs filled his mouth, bright white, sharp as daggers. Thedermaglyphsthat tracked up his arms and disappeared under the short sleeves of his black fatigues were seething with dark, vicious colors. His clothing was torn and bloodstained, bullet wounds riddling him in too many places to count.
“Aric.” She exhaled his name on a broken whisper. “You’ve been shot.”
He didn’t answer, just went down on his haunches in front of her and tenderly caught her face in his palms. On a curse, he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her, slow and deep, as if he needed the contact even more than she did. His Breed gaze traveled over her, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled a shallow breath.
It took her a moment to realize just how quiet the place had gotten. No more gunfire. No more thudding boot falls or sounds of violence. The fighting had ended.
Tavia materialized as if from thin air, her speed of movement far too fast for Kaya to track. “Thank God, you’re both all right.”
“Kaya’s been wounded,” Aric said, still hunkered beside her. She didn’t miss the odd pitch of his voice as he lingered so near to her bleeding injuries. His voice was rough, unearthly. Filled with an unmistakable hunger . . . and torment.
Sterling Chase strode in from the adjacent hallway now, accompanied by Mira and Kellan. Rio and Dante followed along with Darion Thorne.
“Carys brought Webb up from the waterfront. He took a few rounds, but fortunately he’s fine. Rafe is healing the worst of them.” The commander glanced over at Kaya. “Better let him have a look at you too.”
Aric’s answering growl was barely audible, but the possessive, animal sound vibrated against her. Something deep inside her responded with a blooming heat that throbbed through her veins and into her marrow.
“Scrully’s dead?” Chase asked Tavia.
She nodded. “I found him in the master bedroom. Someone wanted to make sure he didn’t get up ever again. Large caliber round delivered point-blank between his eyes and his throat sliced open for good measure.”
Dante blew out a low whistle. “Opus’s cleaners sure are messy motherfuckers.”
“And they came prepared for a fight from the Order,” Tavia added. “There are two crates of UV ammunition sitting in a van parked inside the garage.”
Chase cursed, running his hand over his jaw. “Opus’s assassins knew to expect us. And they were obviously ordered to take out as many of us as they could.”
Aric acknowledged that fact with a grim nod. “They blasted me with UV half a dozen times on my approach. You should’ve seen the looks on the bastard’s faces when I kept coming.”
