Chapter 23
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Sloane’s head turned slowly. There was no sound in the house besides the normal city noise that filtered in through the walls, but he knew he wasn’t alone.
His steps were silent as he retraced his path back toward the main living space.
The only illumination came from cars passing on the street, their headlights flashing across the shiny black floor.
He stood in the middle of the living room for a beat, his head turned toward the windows. Instinct bristled half a second before the glass shattered.
Two black-clad bodies burst through the windows in the same instant that another slammed him from behind.
The breath exploded out of him, but he didn’t hit the ground. Tucking low and bending his knees, Sloane used his attacker’s momentum to throw them over his shoulders and into the glass coffee table, which exploded into millions of pieces across the floor.
A fist just missed his helmet as he swept out one leg, aiming for another attacker’s knees. Trying to get distance more than anything, Sloane threw himself backward. Movement was a blur around him as three powerful bodies came at him at once. He didn’t have a moment to think, but he didn’t need to.
His body moved on autopilot, matching every blow for blow, because he’d fought these people hundreds of times.
If they’d wanted to, they could’ve shot him. They all carried bolt guns and rifles. They all had their own special weapons of choice, as well as stun guns and more hidden on their bodies. But they didn’t use them.
Because even Fracture had a code of honor for their teammates.
The moment he got his hands on the front of a dark uniform and lifted, he knew exactly who he was dealing with. Vesta sailed through the air with a grunt. Plaster and wood erupted from the hole she put in the wall, while a tacky framed print fell from its hook to crash onto the floor.
Mere moments after he let her fly, a lucky hit to his ribs nearly buckled him, giving one of his teammates an opportunity to wrench his right arm behind his back.
Pain radiated through his shoulder. Using the grip on his arm, Sloane was forced to kneel on the floor. Breathing hard, he let them hold him there for a moment as he got his bearings.
The living room was destroyed. A leather couch had been demolished, a television ripped off the wall, and glass scattered across nearly every surface. A pair of boots crunched the debris as they came to stand in front of him.
That raw nerve in his chest throbbed. There was no panic. There was no urgency.
Not returning to Cecilia wasn’t an option. It was the only thing that mattered, and if he had to kill his teammates to do it…
Pain rippled through him, not from his various bruises and the very-nearly-dislocated shoulder currently being twisted out of its socket. It was a deeper, stranger feeling. It felt an awful lot like reluctance.
I… can’t kill them. The thought worked its way through him in a great, internal earthquake. I don’t want to. Even now.
But if he couldn’t get back to Cecilia, what choice would he have? If he was forced to decide between destroying himself or living without her, he’d choose the former every time.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” a modulated voice informed him.
Sloane looked up at Arjun, a snarl lifting his lip behind his visor. He didn’t need to smell him, see his face, or hear his real voice to know who he was talking to. They’d trained and fought beside each other for decades. He’d know Arjun by something as ephemeral as his shadow.
Arjun dropped into a crouch before him. His dark visor covered a familiar bearded face that no doubt oozed contempt when he said, “You fucked up, Fortuner.”
Sloane didn’t respond. The part of him that was more animal than man was in control, determined to get back to his mate, and that part of him turned his head to assess who it was that held his arm.
Cesare.
He breathed deep, pushing hard against the niggling reluctance to harm their youngest teammate.
They had an unspoken rule that Cesare got special treatment, strictly enforced by Sloane himself.
He was the last to be snatched from his family and the youngest of them by decades. Sloane had basically raised the boy.
He’d done his best, anyway. Not that it did any good. Cesare still ended up a killing machine just like the rest of them.
“Let me go,” he bit out.
Both men froze. From somewhere deep in the wall, Vesta called out, “You’ve turned off your modulator?”
Cesare leaned more of his weight on Sloane’s arm. Despite all emotion being scrubbed from his voice, the young elf still managed to sound wounded when he demanded, “Why would you do that? Why would you go AWOL? What are you doing, Sloane?”
Unable to face Cesare without feeling that uncomfortable, prickling pain in his chest, he turned his gaze back to Arjun, who was probably the unit's biggest asshole. “You’ve been assigned my capture, I assume.”
“Not yet. The captain has given you a grace period of forty-eight hours to return without consequences. Mostly.”
Surprise flickered through him. “What? Why?”
“Because as far as he knows, you haven’t menaced the public yet.”
“And Atria asked him to,” Cesare added. Not even the modulator could completely scrub the boyish adoration in his voice.
The sound of Vesta peeling herself out of the destroyed wall drew his attention. She dusted plaster and drywall debris off her shoulders as she strode across the room. “It’s against protocol, but she seems to believe you should be given a chance to come back.”
“She’s not a commanding officer,” he pointed out, too dumbfounded to feel grateful.
“Incorrect,” Vesta replied. “She’s the captain’s consort. That means she commands him, which makes her his superior officer.”
That he understood. Cecilia was in all ways his CO, so he could only imagine what it was like for Kazimier.
“So you’re coming home,” Cesare announced, grip tightening for a painful second before he shoved Sloane away. “And everything will be good again.”
Whatever confused relief he might’ve felt knowing he could return mostly consequence-free evaporated in an instant.
Rising to his feet, he surveyed his teammates with a look of grim resignation. “I’m not coming back.”
“You can’t do that,” Vesta insisted. “They’ll kill you. They’ll make us kill you.”
Sloane rolled his shoulder. There’d be bruises tomorrow, but they would hopefully heal before his doe got another look at him shirtless. And if not… well, he’d figure out an excuse, because he wasn’t turning down any chance to be touched by her again.
“You can’t kill me,” he informed them. Just like I can’t kill you. They’ll have to send another squad to do it.
Arjun stood up. Crossing his arms, he replied, “Depends on why you abandoned us.”
“What were you doing here? We got intel that you’d left the city days ago.” Vesta jabbed a dusty thumb at the tipped over drink cart that once was full of expensive alcoholic synth. “You hunting vampires or something?”
“He couldn’t be hunting vampires. They’re too easy. There’s no way that would take him away from us,” Cesare argued.
Vesta shook her helmeted head. Swiping a gloved hand over the visor, presumably so she could see through the dust that made a film over it, she replied, “Depends on the vampire. They can be creative. Of course, it’d still be embarrassing for him, but—”
“I’m not hunting fucking vampires,” he hissed.
“Then what are you hunting?” Arjun stepped dangerously close to Sloane. Head tilting, he pressed, “Who are you hunting?”
His teammate couldn’t see it, but Sloane flashed his fangs in a vicious snarl. “Back off.”
“Why? What are you hiding?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he growled.
Vesta scoffed. “You do if it’ll get you killed, and you really do if we’re going to be the ones given the order. Whatever hunt you’re on, there’s a very slim chance it’s worth your life.”
They had no idea just how wrong they were. The urge to tell them rested on the tip of his tongue, a desire to share the burden and proudly proclaim Cecilia as his. But he couldn’t do that. He’d been given a small reprieve from consequences only because the true reason for his absence was unknown.
Before he could think of a response, Arjun moved. Sloane stepped back sharply, expecting a hit or a swipe of his claws, but neither came.
Arjun simply unlatched his helmet. The seal broke with a hiss as he lifted it over his head. Dark eyes narrowed as he leaned in close to a deep breath.
Sloane realized what he was doing half a second too late. By the time he’d reared back, arm swinging in the direction of Arjun’s unprotected face, the damage was done.
“A woman?” Arjun wasn’t exactly prone to showing emotion, but whatever scent clung to Sloane’s skin and clothing made his mouth drop open in surprise. “He smells like a woman. And sex. Fresh sex.”
Sloane didn’t blush. Whatever heat rose to his face came from fury, not from any embarrassment over the fact that he hadn’t wanted to scrub the scent of her off his skin and now his team knew.
And just like that, they all took their helmets off.
Swinging his fists and snarling didn’t put them off. Vesta lunged for him at the same instant that Cesare threw himself onto his back.
“Fuck off!” he raged, bracing his legs to take their combined weight.
“Smells like strawberries,” Cesare noted, his eyes as wide as saucers. White fangs flashed against dark iridescent skin when his lips pulled back in an incredulous grimace. “And sugar. And… pretty.”
Leaping back to avoid a swipe of his claws, Vesta breathed, “It is a woman. That’s why you left.”
Cesare took a nasty kick to his knee before he stumbled away. Clearly baffled, he asked, “Why would he risk being executed for a woman? Why would you leave us?”
Sloane backed toward the door he’d come in through. His heart beat hard and fast in his chest. His foot lifted, preparing to flee, when the truth finally occurred to Arjun.
“The same reason the captain ran.” Arjun watched Sloane with dark, inscrutable eyes. “Because he found his consort.”
The glass trapped beneath his boots screeched across the floor as Sloane sprinted for the door. Vesta’s yell followed him, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t risk it.
They know. They know. They know.
Fear sluiced through his veins as he propelled himself over the fence and down the alleyway. The only time he’d ever moved faster was when he saw the vampires through Cecilia’s window. Getting away, getting home, getting her — it was a matter of survival.
He couldn’t live without her, and he couldn’t kill them, no matter what he told himself. Running was the only option.
Sliding behind the wheel of his car, he peeled away from the curb as fast as he could. If they keep their mouths shut, I have forty-eight hours to convince Cecilia to leave with me, he realized, hands trembling on the wheel.
Gods, please let them keep their mouths shut.