Chosen by Blood (30 page)

The mage looked over.

“You know that telekinesis shit you pulled the first day we met?”

Lucy nodded her head.

“If something goes wrong, feel free to use it to save Hunt’s ass, okay?”

Hunt glared at him. “And why wouldn’t she use it to save your ass?” the were growled. Then, before Knox could answer, he grinned and nodded. “Oh, yeah. You can just teleport your ass someplace nice. Where’d you say Red was going when she left?”

Knox shook his head. “I didn’t. But I’ll be sure to tell her you enjoyed meeting her when I see her.”

“Bullshit,” Hunt said, taking Knox by surprise. “If something goes wrong, you won’t teleport and leave one of us behind. And I don’t know if that makes you a hero or stupid,’cause I’d hate to see what that kind of fall would do to a creature who can’t die.”

Me, too, Knox thought, but he’d sure as hell spent the last few hours imagining it.

“All right, we’re almost there,” O’Flare said a few minutes later. “Unhook your restraints, then double-check the GPS device on your suit to make sure the coordinates are set. I’ll jump first, which means I’ll be in the lowest position and will telegraph the travel course for the rest of you. You ready? Sound off.”

They sounded off just as O’Flare had instructed them to, lining up in front of the opening of the plane.

“Knox ready.”

“Hunt ready.”

“Lucy ready.”

Wraith didn’t answer but they could all hear her breath hitching as if she was hyperventilating, sucking oxygen in rapid, asthmatic thumps. Which made no sense, really, since she had no monitorable pulse or brain activity, and thus shouldn’t even need oxygen to survive.

“Wraith!” O’Flare yelled, with no answer forthcoming.

Knox turned around. She’d unhooked her safety restraints and was standing, but she seemed to be staring at the floor.

“She seemed fine when I checked her,” Murphy said.

O’Flare nodded and strode up to her. “Wraith, you need to sound off. Can you do this? Wraith?”

Wraith lifted her chin and stared at O’Flare. He reached out, checked her GPS setting himself, and triple-checked her equipment. Then he shook her by her parachute straps, causing her to face him squarely.

“You’re pissed off at me, right?” he taunted loudly.

She said nothing, just narrowed her eyes at him.

“You want something else to be pissed off at me about? Mahone owed me for using me to set you up. He showed me the video files he got from that mage who put the collar on you.” At Wraith’s startled expression, he nodded his head and wisely backed away. “I know you don’t want that to happen to others, and I know you want to kick my ass for seeing what you went through. In order to get that chance, you’re gonna do whatever it takes to jump out of here and land on the ground in one unharmed piece. Or, I swear, I’ll kill you myself, got it?”

With those final words, he turned and took his position at the front of the line. Wraith adjusted her helmet and mask and got into position herself, but not before glaring at O’Flare like she was imagining giving him the ass-kicking he’d mentioned. Finally, she pulled up the gloves that would help keep her hands warm after she jumped. They all wore the gloves, but for Wraith the gloves were either unnecessary or twice as important since her body temperature was naturally so low anyway. Artificial tests had indicated she’d be fine, but there was no way to know for sure until she jumped out.

O’Flare turned and gave them all a thumbs-up. “See you down there,” he yelled. Then he jumped out of the plane and disappeared.

Sumner and Masterson were shouting commands, and everything moved fast. Without hesitating, Knox followed O’Flare on cue. He swore he felt his heart stop, then explode. When his heart dropped back into his chest, he was aware of wind swooshing in his ears. For what felt like an eternity, he free-fell, his entire body rattling. Just below him, he spied the dot that was O’Flare and . . . He narrowed his eyes. The bastard was doing flips like he was some kind of air gymnast; then Knox saw him trigger the wings on his suit.

Grinning and exhilarated now, Knox waited two seconds then triggered his own wings. With a jerk, his body stalled, then started gliding forward. Adrenaline fueled by excitement rather than fear kicked in. He didn’t look back, but he opened himself to the thoughts of the team members following him. He felt their terror as well as their exhilaration; he relaxed a bit when, one by one, he felt their relief. They’d all activated their wings and were anxiously hoping their parachutes opened just as smoothly.

After a few minutes, Knox had drifted low enough that he could see the Korean landscape begin to form below him. Following the trajectory programmed into his GPS, he manipulated the glider’s handlebars to follow O’Flare. He had only a few seconds to experience the sheer joy of flying before it was almost time to activate his parachute.

He had ten seconds to go when his parachute suddenly activated, jerking him up and catching him around the neck, causing him to spiral uncontrollably. He struggled to free himself and keep control of the glider, at the same time trying to stave off the blackness that was blurring his vision.

He knew he was tumbling to the earth at a speed faster than normal, and although the thought of teleporting briefly flashed through his head, he pushed it away. Whatever happened to him, he couldn’t abandon his team and leave them with no way out.

For a split second, a combination of resolve and regret outdistanced panic.

He’d sworn an oath to save his clan and promised Felicia he’d come back to her. On each occasion, for the first time in his life, he might have failed to tell the truth.

His last thought when he landed was that it didn’t hurt too bad.

Then he blacked out.

 

 

Knox jerked awake with a gasp while at the same time shoving at his face, trying to remove the slick, rubbery creature that had attached itself to him. His vision was blurred, his breaths loud and panicked, and pain radiated from his heels to the top of his head, concentrating in his neck and lower back. Voices faded in and out, and he frantically snatched at snippets of conversation, trying to orient himself.

“—emergency chute opened—” said a garbled female voice.

“—broke his back—” said a male’s.

Hands helped Knox remove the mask from his face, causing biting cold air and sunlight to touch him. He sucked in loud, serrated breaths and blinked his eyes, ignoring the shadows that hovered over him and trying to determine if he was all in one piece or otherwise suffering from any gaping wounds. He panicked a little when he couldn’t get his vision to focus. White dots flashed in front of his face.

“—the only body part that can regenerate after being separated from a vamp’s body is a heart that hasn’t been burned. He’s fucking lucky he didn’t sever a limb or he’d be alive but hopping his way through the jungle.”

Gritting his teeth at the pain that was shooting up his back now, Knox let himself fall back to the ground. He’d never been as happy to hear anyone’s voice as he was to hear Hunt’s sarcastic grumble. Not having severed any limbs was good. Very good.

“What the hell happened?” he gritted out. The last thing he remembered was seeing land and thinking he was doing pretty good for a newbie.

“Your chute opened early. Not sure why, but you’re damn lucky your emergency chute activated in time to slow you down before you hit. You beat me to the ground,” O’Flare said.

“The others?” Knox asked, then hissed as the bones in his back shifted, realigning themselves but making sure he felt every damn twinge of pain in the process.

“We all made it,” O’Flare verified. Then he grinned. “Unfucking-believable. I was sure two of the five of us were going to bite the big one.”

“Too bad you were wrong. I know which two I would have voted for.”

Knox winced at Wraith’s comment, then took a closer look at O’Flare. The right side of his face was bruised and swelling. “Didn’t see her coming, did you?” Knox asked softly.

O’Flare’s gaze moved somewhere beyond Knox then back to him. “I was a little distracted trying to make sure you were alive.” He shrugged. “At least she stopped ignoring me for a while, right?”

The pain in his back had subsided to a dull throb, so Knox held out a hand. “Help me up, would you?”

Grabbing his hand in his, O’Flare helped pull him to a standing position. Knox wobbled a little, struggling for balance given that he was still wearing the glider suit, wings extended, although half of one had broken off. Things like sensation and sound and vision were starting to align. The white dots he’d thought he’d seen were snowfall. The freezing cold, only slightly less biting than what he’d experienced when he first jumped from the plane, made him reluctant to take off the glider suit, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to walk in it. Peeling back the material from his sweat-soaked clothes was no easy feat.

“Don’t let Hunt fool you, by the way,” O’Flare said as he helped him, at the same time handing him a towel and outerwear. “He was the first one ready to give you CPR if you needed it.”

Hunt growled from behind him. “You’re a riot, O’Flare. Anyone tell you that?”

But when Knox turned to face the three others, Hunt jerked his chin at him. “Welcome back. Now, can we get the hell out of here and undercover before someone comes after us with one of those damn collars?”

“Here” was a low plain just north of what began hundreds of square miles of dense forest at the base of a mountain range. It had been the best spot to land but left them exposed to detection and gunfire. Whether by design or because his teammates had dragged him there, they were currently standing in an area with a frozen watering hole edged by overgrown grass and a few trees.

On a deep breath, Knox flexed his shoulders and stretched, stifling a moan. Everything was aching and sore, but working properly. He glanced at Lucy, who stood near the wraith dressed in layered camo and a ski mask, so that only her eyes were visible. “You still connected with the helo?”

She nodded. “Yes, but it’s already getting spotty. We’ll lose contact within a few miles. Mahone’s been calling in, wanting an update, but I haven’t answered yet. I didn’t want to give him news about your condition until we were sure. In case it worried someone unnecessarily.”

Knox grinned. “Good girl. Now you can let them know we’re all fine. As soon as we bury these glider suits, we’ll be on the move.”

“Seems a shame to bury them,” Hunt said. “You can’t . . .”

Knox raised a brow. “Teleport them back? I’ve already expended energy having to heal myself. You wanna take the chance that I use more for the suits and don’t have enough to bring you back?”

“Good point. Did anybody bring a shovel?” Hunt asked.

Lucy raised her hand. “Moving dirt and snow shouldn’t be as hard as keeping two males from killing each other. How about I do that and save you guys the trouble?”

The werebeast grinned at Lucy, surprising Knox but startling Lucy so badly that she actually flushed. “I knew I liked you the best for a reason.”

Lucy tried to appear unfazed by Hunt’s statement, but didn’t quite succeed. Blushing even harder, she turned and bumped into the person behind her. She gasped. “Sorry, Wraith—”

“Don’t worry about it, Lucy,” Wraith drawled. “But remember what I told you. I’m willing to give the vamp the benefit of the doubt.” She stared pointedly at O’Flare. “Anyone else around here with anything remotely resembling a dick is not to be trusted.”

With jerky movements, Wraith walked to where she’d shed her chute and glider. Shrugging at O’Flare, Lucy followed her. O’Flare glared at Knox. “What makes you so special that you get the benefit of the doubt?” he asked.

Knox grinned. “She can’t kill me, so she’s gotta live with me. You two? That’s a whole other story.”

“
T
hey’re all in.”

Mahone heard Felicia gasp at his words. He shared her relief. Even though the mission had just begun, just knowing the whole team had made it to the ground was a considerable salve to their worries. If it wasn’t a good omen, then nothing could be.

“Please continue to keep me updated,” she said, and Mahone sensed she was about to hang up on him.

“Felicia, wait.”

“Yes?”

“I hate that this has affected our relationship,” he said. “You know I’ve always thought of you as—as well, one of the best agents in the Department—”

“Strange that you wouldn’t have let me know, then, about your concerns about Wraith or Knox. Or that you were having O’Flare con us.”

Mahone gripped the phone tighter. He’d known she’d be pissed if she found out, but at the time, there had seemed no other way. “It seemed better that way, given all the tension between you and Knox already.”

“Well, that was your decision to make,” she said, her voice colder than he’d ever heard it. “I just happen to disagree with it. Just like I disagree with you authorizing a mission that depends on Knox’s ability to teleport the team plus any Others they can rescue back to Quantico.”

Mahone gritted his teeth. “That was his decision and one he made for the good of his clan. But only once he knew you weren’t going to be there,” he threw out, knowing he was being manipulative but not caring. Jesus, did she think any of this was easy for him? He heard the frown in her voice immediately.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean, Felicia? Before he knew you didn’t plan on going with them, he wasn’t willing to take the chance on teleportation. He knew you wouldn’t exit before the rest of the team, and he wasn’t willing to risk you. The others? Well, I guess he views them differently.”

The silence on the phone practically pulsed, making him feel even guiltier.

God, he was so sick of feeling guilty. He cataloged the pertinent events in his mind—the Goddess’s visit, her ultimatum, the formation of the Para-Ops team, Felicia’s suspicion and rejection. Was this his own special brand of punishment for betraying the vampire he’d loved?