Alphas Unleashed (34 page)

She’d worked too long and too hard for this story. Tracked one of the soldiers for weeks, followed him, stalked him, and bribed several friends to get his phone and credit card records. The man she tracked was an ex-Navy S.E.A.L.

Some “ex”. The man was still in a uniform. Still carried a weapon and gear and reported to someone at Fort Carson. And most telling of all? He still disappeared for days or weeks at a time.

But, according to the government, the man didn’t even exist. If not for her informant, she never would have discovered him or his team. Her blog had brought her some strange bedfellows, and some terrifying allies.

This time, the file her anonymous friend sent to her had led her here, to this man and this mountain. She’d tracked the soldier for the last few months. Every time something crazy hit the tabloids about alien sightings, portals, other dimensions, or UFOs, this guy disappeared for a while.

He was an asshole. She knew that much. Dropped the F-bomb like it was his favorite verb, snarled at everyone he talked to, and was one of the most self-contained and brutally efficient people she’d ever followed. He was also suspicious as hell. He’d nearly caught her twice.

And in the years she’d spent as a journalist in her previous life she’d become very good at not getting caught. Very good at being a fly on the wall, unseen and unnoticed. Unfortunately, that skill had cost her everything, her identity, her family, her “normal” life.

She’d survived, and this mountain estate was her prize. There was something here, something inside the house that broadcast energy like a radio station pumping out hard metal music. Nothing shy or soft about this place. It screamed to be heard.

The energy pulsed through her body in waves, painful staccato bursts like ice needles piercing her heart.

Zoey ignored the sensation and continued taking photos of the soldiers, the house, the vehicles’ license plates, everything she could document would go up on her blog. The more she had, the more people would believe her.

She needed the world to wake up! A year ago she’d been like the rest of them. Blind. Helpless. Safe in her dream world and ignorant of the truth.

The truth. Such a small word to carry so much power.

Setting her camera aside, Zoey double-checked the antireflective cover on her binoculars and scanned the surrounding hills once more. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming her way. Something powerful and very, very evil.

Movement. There! To her right and a bit farther up the adjoining swell of hillside.

She focused in and her heart froze, skipped a beat, shocked back into a frantic rhythm when she saw him.

God, he was beautiful. Dark hair that fell past his shoulders, a bare chest chiseled to perfection and abs any elite athlete on the planet would kill for. But his beauty wasn’t what stunned her.

It was the blood. And the chains. And the fact that he was moving straight toward her at an inhuman pace.

That and the terrifying creatures she spotted moving like dark water down from the higher terrain behind him. They glided like dark shadows weaving through the pine trees, so dark and fast a normal girl would’ve convinced herself they were nothing more than tricks of shadow and light.

Those things. Here.

Holy shit. She was in serious trouble.

“Careful what you wish for, Zoey-girl.”

The memory of her sister’s laughing voice echoed in her mind and brought the pain of the last few months screaming to the surface. Those
things
were not going to take one more life, not while she breathed. Not while she had blood in her veins and a knife in her hand.

Scrambling to her feet, she forgot all about hiding. She pulled her knife free and raced toward the bleeding man. Why didn’t he run or yell for help? Maybe he hadn’t seen them yet.

Oh, God. They were on him.

“Look out!” She shouted a warning but knew he’d never hear her. The man’s desperate roar filled her legs with an extra shot of adrenaline. The surge was just enough to overcome the paralysis of the memories that followed on the heels of the creatures’ sickening screams. Farther down at the base of the slope the guards sent up the alarm, she felt them scrambling and running. None of them were close enough to help the chained man.

Only her.

Running all out, she leapt over rocks and dodged thirty-foot pine trees. Rocks and twigs rolled beneath her feet and twisted her legs as she ran. Dried pine needles cushioned her steps and the hard branches of wild brush tugged at her clothing, tangled and yanked at the hair threatening to escape her knit hat and scratched her hands and face as she shoved her way through them. She ignored the sting and ran with her forearms raised in front of her face to protect her eyes. Faster. Faster. She had to help him. Those things couldn’t kill him. She wouldn’t watch them kill another human being. Not again. Not today.

Terror clogged her throat but she ran. Her camera and binoculars bounced painfully against her chest and back like forgotten baggage. She lost sight of him behind a clump of trees and pumped her arms and legs harder, racing around it. Faster. She had to go faster.

Eerie silence greeted her as she skirted the last tree and caught sight of the man up ahead. Beneath his grip, the last remnants of what she assumed were the alien creatures floated away in the wind like soot from a fireplace. Dust. They were no more than dust. And he had destroyed them with a touch…

The man didn’t turn to look in her direction. He flexed his hands and stared at the blood that covered his arms. Deep lines creased the corners of his eyes, not from age, from suffering. He looked young and strong, gorgeous as a god, except for those haunted eyes. The manacles rubbed him raw at his wrists and feet. Around his neck, another thick band wore his flesh away. Dried blood mixed with fresh beneath the metal restraints and remnants of the red fluid coated his body.

He looked like he’d just escaped from hell. Literally.

The man moaned in pain and collapsed, unconscious, his large frame crumpled to the ground like a pile of human rubble.

Zoey raced to his side but hesitated to touch him. What would happen to her if she did? Would she turn to dust, too?

She hovered and examined his body. Head to toe, he’d suffered. Manacles and chains. Spliced open and bleeding from too many wounds to count.

The creatures wanted him dead. That was enough for her. If she turned into dust and disappeared, it wouldn’t really matter. Not many people were left alive to miss her.

Decision made, she gently tugged on his arms and legs, straightening them into something that looked more comfortable. Still alive and dust free? Yes. Okay, she was good.

But he was heavy, his limbs muscled and thick. Strong. Strong enough to kill those things with his bare hands.

She pulled his head into her lap and studied his face. Straight nose. Black hair. Full lips she had the odd desire to taste. His brows arched aristocratically over eyes she’d had the barest glimpse of, but she knew they were dark and intense. This was not a playboy or an accountant. He was a warrior. And if he was hunted by the creatures that took her sister, she was definitely on his side.

His eyes opened slowly and she cradled his head in her lap, stroked her fingers softly down the side of his face. “Shh. They’re gone. You killed them.” Those eyes. Green and dark, like grass under moonlight, and glowing with pain.

“What are you?” Two things flashed instantly to the front of her mind. One, the man wasn’t human. Human eyes did not glow. Human skin did not have swirls of black sliding and coalescing beneath his skin like oil and water flowing together and fighting for space beneath a microscope slide.

Two, he’d killed two of those creatures, turned them to dust. If he could kill them, she’d do anything to save him. Anything.

And just plain bizarre? The swirls seemed to retreat from her touch, like they were alive…and afraid of her.

“Move out!” The soldiers from the house were organized now, barking out orders and preparing to swarm the rising slope where she held the man. She had to get him out of here. If those bastards got ahold of him and discovered what he could do, she’d never see him again. She needed him alive.

“Shhh. Stay quiet.” Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze from the man to study the troop movement below. She peered through the brush as about twenty men massed at the base of this mountain. They’d hit this hill and find him for sure. If she hurried, she might be able to drag him along behind the tree line and get him out of here, back to her truck. If she hurried, and they got lucky.

“Shit.” She looked back down and realized that even as she’d studied the problem, she’d continued to pet his face.

Feeling awkward, she pulled her hand away. He stopped her, moving faster than her eye could follow, and placed her palm flat against his cheek. “No.”

She smiled then. “Do you speak English?”

His hand heated over hers and she felt an odd pull at the top of her spine. It lasted seconds. Then he spoke. “Yes.”

She sighed in relief. “Good. Those guys are not going to be nice to you if they find you. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

He said nothing, just watched her and lay passively in her lap.

She allowed herself the oh so necessary perusal of his injuries one more time. Mostly scratches, but he had one deep cut across his neck, one across his abdomen, and four deep furrows along his thigh right above his knee. It was deep there, and she was afraid the white showing was either tendon or bone. Wet warmth soaked her lap and she had to assume his back was also a mess. God, he should be dead. “Can you walk?”

“If I must.”

Odd. “Okay. Give me a second.” She had one ace up her sleeve, one. And if it didn’t work, they were screwed.

She gently lifted his head from her lap and slid out from beneath him. This time he let her go, and she felt stupid and foolish for missing the contact. She reached into the side pocket of her right pants leg and pulled out two flash bangs.

If she was lucky, she’d get them twenty meters downhill. Unlucky? Well, she’d just throw the damn things and they’d have to move as fast as they could. It was the best she could do.

Too bad she never played baseball. Sucked at all sports, had her whole life.

She yanked the red tab out of the first one and threw it as far as she could down the rocky slope. It clanked and hopped, bounced off rocks and ground still hard as dried concrete and gained her some extra ground. She turned away and knelt over the man’s head. “Cover your ears.”

He ignored her order completely so she raised her hands to his ears and used the bulk of her arms to try to cover her own. His skin was soft as melted butter, slightly cool to her touch, and black as onyx. Her fingertips tunneled into his long dark hair and she closed her eyes as the silken strands parted, the light stroke of his hair like whisper-soft kisses to her senses.

The explosion of light and sound set off alarms and yanked her back from dreamy man land. She turned her head to peek over one shoulder at them through the cover of twigs and leaves. The soldiers below scrambled and yelled. No shots were fired. Thank God. She had one flash bang left and a two-hundred-pound man to get to her vehicle alive.

Still covering him, she froze in place as his hot breath penetrated her tank top between her breasts.

“Snap out of it.” Good Lord. What the hell was wrong with her? She felt utterly foolish for smothering him between the girls like that. She pulled back and met his heated stare, relieved that his skin appeared normal again. “Sorry.” She felt the blush creep up her neck and face, and the odd pulling sensation at the base of her skull. She ignored both. “Come on. We have to move.”

She held out a hand and he took it. She braced herself to pull his heavy body up from the forest floor but he barely tugged at all as he rose from the ground. It was almost like he held her hand just to maintain the contact with her, and not because he needed the help.

Zoey shook her head to clear it. Ridiculous. But he stood beside her. The worst of the bleeding had stopped and several of the smaller wounds appeared to be nearly healed. The white streak she’d seen a minute ago above his knee was gone. Now it was just a gooey, red mess. Healing from the inside out?

Definitely not human.

With a mental shrug, she tugged her hand free and got ready to throw the second flash bang.

“Allow me.” He held out his hand, palm up and steady as a rock.

Why not? He was a guy and she sucked at baseball. Just about anyone over the age of five would be able to throw farther than she could. “All right.” She placed the round device in his hand. “Throw it north of us, toward the northern end of the house. I’m parked southeast, just over that rise.” She pointed in the direction she wanted him to throw. “Throw it over there.”

He pulled the tab and threw the device the length of three football fields, right onto the grounds, into the middle of the soldiers’ parked vehicles.

Wow. She turned away and covered her ears until the explosion echoed through the small valley, surprised when he wrapped her in his arms and turned his body to protect her from the blast. Shouts of anger and confusion sounded through the quiet mountain air, and all she could do was stare at his broad shoulders and cringe at the deep gashes still bleeding at his neck. She found herself wanting to take care of him, to nuzzle her face against his chest, to sit him down and tend every wound, kiss every scrape, inspect every inch of him to make sure he was okay.