Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
“Did you know that a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope?” Whitney asked.
There was excitement in her voice as she used one of her self-soothing techniques to help her keep her emotions under control after a rough night of nightmares, and a panic attack earlier this morning when she hadn't heard one of the guys come up behind her in the kitchen.
“Nope, didn't know that one, darlin’,” Blade replied, happy to see a little color in her cheeks, and the haunted look in her eyes pushed to the background. At least for now. But he knew that Whitney had a long road ahead of her as she rebuilt her life and figured out what it would look like.
He had a lot to work through himself. Blade was trying his best to learn to ignore the sounds he heard so clearly.
What he wanted for his future with Whitney was to focus on feelings, not on using his enhanced skill as a crutch for everything, and an excuse to shut himself away from the others to at least attempt to get some peace and quiet.
“And did you know that a group of cats is called a clowder?”
“Didn't know that one either,” he told her as they walked into the kitchen, where the other two couples were sitting around the table drinking coffee and eating homemade cupcakes with cookie dough frosting that Whitney had made with Cassandra earlier.
“What's a group of frogs called?” Rose asked.
“An army,” Whitney said with a giggle, and it felt so wonderful to hear her laugh after all she’d been through. “Maybe we should start calling you guys frogs, cos you're a little army. Or Navy, I guess. Aren't SEALs called frogmen?”
“Think that’s funny, do you, darlin’?” he asked, tugging on the end of her ponytail as he pulled out a chair, sat down in it, and tugged her into his lap.
“Yep,” she agreed, shooting him a warm smile.
The bruises on her skin were darker today, and the shadows in her eyes, while receded a little, were still present.
When they got home yesterday afternoon, he’d helped her wash up properly in the bath, although he’d cleaned her up in the car on the way to the airport.
He knew from the way she constantly rubbed at her chest and face, that she still felt the phantom feel of Terry Richards’ semen on her skin.
But she was doing the best she could, and that was all he could ask of her.
Honestly, he was so proud of her, he was practically bursting with pride.
“What's a group of ladybugs called?” Steel asked, obviously noting that defaulting to random facts was helping Whitney remain calm and in control and playing along, something for which Blade was infinitely grateful.
It helped Whitney to know she didn't just have him, but also his entire team as part of her new family.
“A loveliness,” she said with another giggle.
“Aww.” Rose smiled, snuggling into Steel’s embrace. “I'm glad you came up with the nickname ladybug for me, even if it was annoying at first.”
“Better than your nickname for me.” Steel smirked. “Mr. Bedroom Man doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”
Rose shrugged. “Then maybe don’t break into people’s bedrooms in the middle of the night to kidnap them if you don’t want to wind up with a stupid nickname,” she sassed, making them all laugh, and Steel grabbed her chin and took her mouth in a fiery kiss.
“And a bunny?” Cassandra asked.
“Well, there are a few, like all of these, but my favorite one is a fluffle,” Whitney replied.
“Aww, adorable,” Cassandra cooed.
“I am not getting you an entire fluffle of stuffed bunnies to keep in our room.” Dragon huffed, although Blade was pretty sure the man would do anything, including fill his room with stuffed bunnies if it made Cassandra happy.
Whitney giggled again. “Did you know there are several names for a group of dragons?” she asked, and when they all shook their heads, she continued.
“Flight is one, that’s used for a group of flying dragons.
Then weyr is used for a group of non-airborne dragons.
Clutch for hatchling dragons, and brood for young dragons with their parents.
A wing is three to six adult dragons and their riders, and then there’s thunder for a group of large dragons flying. ”
“What's a thunder?” Thunder asked as he strolled into the room, Voodoo and Lion trailing after him. “Other than the obvious thunder and lightning.”
“It’s a group of large flying dragons,” Whitney replied.
“There seems to be an awful lot of names for an animal that doesn’t even exist,” Blade said to Whitney as he reached for a cupcake, pulled off the paper, and pressed it into her hand.
“Dragons exist,” Cassandra contradicted, tilting her head up to touch a kiss to Dragon’s jaw.
“One of them, maybe,” Blade agreed.
“Or more than one, one day in the future,” Cassandra said, and Dragon’s eyes widened in shock, before softening as they moved from her face to her stomach.
“One day,” Dragon agreed.
“One day we might have a whole gathering of tadpoles,” Steel added.
“A school,” Whitney corrected.
“Sorry to break up what seems to be a little school lesson,” Voodoo teased as he took a seat at the table and grabbed a cupcake. “But we heard from Prey.”
“Yeah?” Steel asked, his expression immediately snapping into business mode.
“Heard from Prey?” Whitney asked uncertainly, looking up at him for more information.
She’d been unconscious again by the time they got back in the car to drive to the airfield, and she’d been clingy and emotional on the flight home, so none of them had updated her on anything.
This morning, Blade had been aiming for normalcy, or at least figuring out what their normal was going to look like going forward, rather than catching her up on everything.
Not that he had any problem sharing intel with her. She was an equal part of this now, in this fight together with him and his team, Rose, Cassandra, and Prey.
“We found two links to Terry Richards and some of the men who I killed in the forest. One was to a trucking company that’s trafficking drugs.
We checked them out, but you weren't there.
We were already heading to the shipping yard when your tracker came online.
Before that, we didn't know where you were. Richards must have had a jammer, anticipating you might have tagged yourself. We lost you that day before we even got to the produce store.”
Blade had to pause to take a breath. Whitney’s hand smoothed up and down his arm before she tangled their fingers together, pressing her cut palm against his. The reminder of their promise grounded him.
“Before taking you to the docks, he must have found and removed all the other trackers, but also kept the jammer on. When you escaped and ran, you must have moved outside the circle it could block, and that’s when you popped up. We were about thirty minutes out by that point.”
“So you were coming anyway. If I hadn't run, you might have been able to take Terry Richards alive,” Whitney whispered, sounding like she was ridiculing herself.
“Never doubt your decision to fight to live, darlin’,” he told her. That she had fought for her freedom and escaped made him so proud.
“No certainty it would have changed anything anyway,” Lion told her. “Even if we’d eventually found you in the shipping container, we might have had to kill Richards to save you.”
“Saving you was always number one,” Blade assured Whitney.
“When we got there, we split up. We spotted you first, but the others found the shipping container. Richards had left his phone behind when he chased you. We handed it off to Prey’s Cyber Team because it was locked, and they’d have a better chance at accessing the data on it.
” Blade turned to Thunder, Voodoo, and Lion now.
They’d come into the room with intel the rest of them didn't have. “I take it they found something.”
“Message and call logs confirm that Terry Richards was corresponding with someone during the time he had Whitney about the setup of a new lab,” Thunder explained.
“He left for a while,” Whitney piped up. “Said he had something important he couldn’t avoid, and that when he came back, we were going to play.” When she shuddered, Blade tightened his hold on her, showing her with his body that she was safe now, protected, and no one would ever hurt her again.
“That’s likely where he went,” Lion said. “As head of security, he had to make sure the new lab was secure. We were in luck. The GPS in his phone tracked where he went.”
“So we have the location of this new lab?” Steel asked.
“We do,” Voodoo replied with a grin.
“Dr. Gardner usually worked out of the main lab, but since that’s destroyed, he might be working out of the mobile lab,” Whitney told them.
“I think it’s time we go hunting,” Blade said with renewed vigor. Now he had a whole new reason to want the scientist who had destroyed his life to suffer and die, and she was sitting in his lap.
For Whitney, for him and his team, for Rose, for each mark on Whitney’s back that represented a person who hadn't survived Dr. Gardner’s experimental drugs, the man deserved every bit and more of what was coming to him, and they might just have taken a step closer to making their revenge a reality.
Voodoo will risk everything to save the only other living recipient of the drug that changed him and his teammates in the fourth book in the action packed and emotionally charged Prey Security: Delta Team series!
Cunning Revenge (Prey Security: Delta Team #4)