“I love you,” Bronte said in answer.
Arat’s smile was sexy as fuck. He kissed Bronte’s cheek. “Love you, too. And while I’d like to tell you endlessly how much, now isn’t the time or place for that. Talk, baby.”
Bronte took a breath. He glanced at the security door and squinted. “Logically, I think we need to secure that room first. But I’ve been staring at this room for so long, sure that there’s something important in there.”
“What’s your gut saying?” Kohara asked.
The pained look on Bronte’s face would have had me giggling, except that I knew this situation was serious. And Bronte really was struggling. He wanted to be taken care of. Loved and spoiled and cherished. Hedidn’twant responsibility outside of his work. And that’s the life he lived.
These moments were harder for him than most people would understand.
Movement behind the security door had us turning around just as the doorknob turned. “Decision made,” Raiden said, raising his weapon. I had half a mind just to lay my hands on the door and fry their asses behind it. Only knowing that I’d likely fry the entire computer system that our friends were currently sweeping through made me stop.
The door pulled in and before anyone could fire, Zilan dropped to the ground, his body shuddering. His mouth foaming. We stared in shock for a second before my men acted and stormed the room. While I stood frozen, staring at Zilan as his muscles spasmed.
“No,” I screamed, dropping to my knees and grabbing him. Was he having a seizure? What was happening? I ran my hands over his body, putting his head in my lap so he’d not knock himself out while he convulsed. And because I was touching as much of him as I could, I found the little pin that stuck in him and could feel the magic pulsing.
Tears stung my eyes. “Help,” I cried as I tried to grip it. “Fuck, someone help.”
Bronte
It had been going sowell. Zilan’s fall happened in slow motion and all I could do was stare as my husbands surrounded him and our wife fell to her knees beside him. Chaos broke out. There were lights and sounds and the building trembling.
I was sure that everyone knew we were here now. There was no alarm. We’d successfully shut that down. And hopefully, our friends had moved through their computers quickly enough that they had stalled if not cut down outside communication.
But I was still frozen. Staring at the mayhem happening in front of me. There were more men in the security room than I thought was possible. Not a dozen, though. We should have easily eliminated them.
The soft click shouldn’t have penetrated the ruckus in front of me. Between Hadley’s pleading for help and Zilan’s pained grunts as he uncontrollably spasmed on the ground. The echoing blasts of weapons and yells of men. The distant voices in my ear that I could barely concentrate on. I shouldn’t have heard it.
But as if I were only attuned to that one thing, the softclickhad me holding my breath. Slowly, I turned, heart racing. With my back stupidly to the threat behind me, I stared at the door to the room I couldn’t see within on the magic sonar hologram.
The door wasn’t shut securely anymore. It was cracked open. Darkness loomed within. With a taser in hand, I touched the trigger. Feeling the crackle of energy as it surged forth, ready to come crashing out.
I took step toward the door and it moved slightly, as if caught in a breeze. My heart raced as I continued forward, reaching out my hand. My fingers brushed the metal of the door and I waited for something. A jolt of magic. Static from all the energy in the air. But there was nothing. Just the cool metal under my fingers.
I shoved it open and peered into the dark room, waiting for the light of the hall to penetrate the abyss inside. Slowly, my eyes adjusted and as soon as I could feel shapes, the sheer amount of magic within the room made me take a step backward. My breath caught, and it took me several struggling attempts to inhale.
When I finally managed to focus, I found that there were eyes in the room. Watching me. A low growl in the air. The eyes moved. They grew. But I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t figure out what I was looking at.
Then it was too late.
The snarl that ripped through the air had me scrambling backward, but I wasn’t quick enough. I stumbled, fell to the ground hard and my taser went flying. My back slammed the floor, knocking the air from my lungs. In that moment, the thing was on top of me. Its claws digging into my chest.
Pain streaked through my body as I tried desperately to regain the ability to breathe. Its spit dripped, falling onto my neck as its big teeth hovered over my face. The saliva burned. It was enough of a shock that I managed to catch a breath.
I shoved at him. Struggling to keep him away, even as the feel of fire on my neck and its claws in my chest made me delirious with pain. A pulse around my head and then strength coursed through my body. With more power than I had, I threw the thing off me.
“I owe you, Coen,” I gasped as I quickly flipped to my hands and feet.
“No, you don’t,” came his quiet reply in my ear.
The thing should have been shoved through a wall with all that force. But it twisted in the air and landed against the wall with four feet. The wall cracked, gave way in some places, but it used its animal agility to spring off and land nearly on top of me.
I threw myself sideways, reaching desperately for my taser. With my fingers barely on it, claws ripped through my back and I cried out. When it gave a loud, pissed off growl and released me, I knew someone had done something to intervene.
Without looking, I lunged for my taser. Grasping it in both hands, I rolled onto my back, crying out again when I landed on my newest war wounds. Blinding pain made my vision blur as I pushed myself up.
The thing was circling with Hadley, her hands filled with lightning. She looked like an ethereal god, surrounded by black clouds and streaks of light.
