PART I
Tia
ONE
Hell
Hell would beparadise compared to this wasteland. Every breath seared Major Tia Meyers’s lungs. The air was too damn thin, sucked away precious moisture, and crisped the soft, spongy tissues of her lungs. The fault lay in the rugged, mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. Her lips cracked. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Sweat didn’t linger long enough to dampen her fatigues. And her head? It pounded with each step.
She sipped water from the tube attached to the CamelBak tucked into her ruck. She hadn’t peed in hours. Frankly, that wasn’t such a bad side effect of dehydration. As the only female member of a six-man team, not having to squat in the middle of the desolate landscape came as a welcome relief. She would pee when she was dead.
“Doing okay, T?” Lieutenant Colonel Mike Collins called to her over his left shoulder.
The determination of his stride pushed the entire team forward at a relentless pace. He didn’t ask how any of the others were doing. He didn’t need to because the rest of the team was male. Assumptionswere a bitch, but she learned to fight the battles that truly mattered and ignored all other slights against her gender.
Collins led their team. He was their trauma surgeon and the shortest man. Only a few inches taller than her, he barely broke six feet. All the others on the team were ripped and stacked, alpha males with plenty of muscles and endurance and egos too big for their heads. Tall and wired with ropes for muscles, Collins was lean, whipcord strong, and demanded nothing but the best from his team. A person might discount him, but his endurance put the rest of the team to shame. The man ran ultra-marathons for fun.
“I’m fine, Colonel,” she said, stepping up her pace.Damn, when had she fallen so far behind?
Technical Sergeant Ryker Lyons glanced at her, his eyes narrowing with concern. As their team’s respiratory technician, she worked closest with him and dealt with his overbearing protectiveness far too much.
If he were an ugly bastard, she’d be able to deal with his looks and assumptions with far more grace, but Lyons had been breaking hearts from the day he was born. A stunning man, he had a smile that made it impossible to hate him. A prominent jaw framed his face. Twining cords of muscles shaped and defined his entire body. Everything about him was strong, powerful, and male. From his thick arms to his broad shoulders, his physique continued down to a ripped abdomen angling to muscular thighs. No one feature made Lyons handsome, but those eyes of his turned women stupid, needy, and horny as fuck, and his smile, at once genuine and mischievous, was a heart-thudding, sexy-as-fuck, irresistible force. The pull was real, irresistible even. When he lifted his cheeks and broke out that grin, his entire being illuminated with charisma and sexual charm. She fought the force of it every day.
If it wasn’t for her fiancé waiting back home, she might give in. Not that she’d ever sleep with Lyons, but he had certainly starred in one or two of her dreams along the way. She was engaged, not dead.Afghanistan nights were long and lonely, but dreams were harmless things.
He had lots to say with his eyes. His concern and overprotectiveness were more frequent than she liked. Beneath his look, a simmering lust lingered, and his eyes were as suggestive as they were protective.
People often spoke of the color of a person’s eyes, as if that were important to their character. She didn’t have a preference. Hers were the darkest brown, nearly the same color as the coal black of her hair. Her fiancé, Scott, had chocolate-colored eyes, deep wells of affection and love. She could lose herself in them for hours. With her olive complexion and his natural tan, they would make stunning babies one day.
Lyons’s eyes were a brilliant Amazon green—bright, vibrant, and shocking. They said people with green eyes were lustful creatures, and Lyons had her believing that myth because he never lacked female companionship. The problem was, when he turned those eyes on her, she would stare back longer than socially acceptable, and she hated how her thoughts tangled. She was probably sending the wrong signals to a man she had little interest in. Not that she could help herself. It was nearly impossible to look away.
Tempered by a ferocity barely kept in check, Lyons had been created to protect and defend those weaker than himself. Whatever he held dear, whomever he cared for, they bore the full brunt of that innate intensity. His fuck-me gaze brought women to his bed and taunted her at every turn. Not that there would ever be anything between them. Not only was she engaged, but she was also an officer. He was enlisted. That, more than anything, would keep them apart. Besides, his bed was an ever-revolving fuckfest of horny enlisted females. If he had any interest in her, which he didn’t, she would shut him down. It didn’t help that he was a horrible tease and probably couldn’t turnitoff if he tried.
Even if it wasn’t for her fiancé, rules and regulations against fraternization would keep her and Lyons separate. The worst part? Lyons knew he was a badass. He was a force of destruction, a badboy with the girls, and he tore through hearts with the same ferocity he brought to the field. Arrogance came with that knowledge, and he wore it like a badge of honor.
She didn’t have time for games like that or men like that.
Lyons’s gaze continued to linger. His eyes strayed to the heavy pack on her back, and then he returned his attention to her face where he traced every feature, as if he were absorbing her into his soul. Her jaw clenched, and she hooked her thumbs under the shoulder straps of her ruck and jogged past him. He met her glare with an uplift of his left eyebrow. His grin, complete with requisite dimples, filled his face while he took humor in whatever was going on in that head of his.
Staff Sergeant Mike Warren huffed beside Tia. The silent one of the bunch, their surgical tech carried the blades, the retractors, forceps, sutures, and everything the surgeons needed in his pack. Many people overlooked surgical techs, but Warren carried himself with a quiet dignity and an endless reservoir of strength.
Each member of the special ops surgical team was vital to saving lives at the front lines, behind the front lines, and basically anywhere in between the lines.
She hefted the pack on her shoulders. A glance at Lyons revealed the faintest shimmer of perspiration on his brow, but with the dry air, it disappeared between one moment and the next. She felt better about not being the only one pushing herself. They all forged ahead, pitting their endurance against the rigorous terrain.
Collins raised his fist, and everyone came to a sudden stop. They took a knee and crouched on the ground.
“Five minutes,” he said. A glance at the map had his features screwing into a mask of concentration.
She crab-crawled over to him, balancing the weight of the pack. It almost pulled her over, something she wouldn’t live down. Seventy pounds? Yeah, she’d be a turtle trapped on its back. Lyons wouldlaugh his ass off. Warren would offer a hand. Collins would do nothing. He demanded she pull her weight and not slow down the team. For him, she had to earn every breath. The other two members of their team—their orthopedic surgeon, Major Drummond, and their emergency doc, Major Marks—might as easily help her or not. Those two tended to keep to themselves, which was fine. Their arrogance annoyed her most days, but they were beyond phenomenal physicians, smooth as silk under pressure.
“Need help?” she offered.
The terrain they humped could challenge the best navigator.
“We’re off target,” Collins said.
Agreed. It looked like they were hiking along the wrong ridgeline.
