The Valkyrie's Guardian (30 page)

He spoke around his chewing, “Oh, yeah. Especially the last part.” He made a sexy growl in his throat and winked.

She rolled her eyes and tapped her foot, impatient. Now that he had his calorie fix, he would soon drop unconscious, for at least a half hour.

“Honey, I'm just glad I found you in one piece. Go ahead and rip me a new one, I feel great.”

“What is it, Jack?”

He sighed and dropped his jocular façade. “The sniper's back.”

Cassie cursed, it just popped out. She'd better curb the habit before the baby developed enough to hear.

“That's not the worst of it. I had a chat with Henry. Turns out Mr. X let him overhear his orders. Krav was after
you.
”

“What?”

“He was supposed to kill me, kidnap you without harming you, and evade ‘the Greek and his flame-haired mate.' Kyros and Lyssa, who else? Good thing we brought backup, or it probably would've worked.”

“Oh.” Cassie sank onto the bed. “That explains the ambush and their cloaked minds. They expected to have to distract Kyros and Lyssa while they outnumbered you and snatched me. Or did I miss something?”

“Sounds like a winner to me.”

“But why? Why capture me?”

Jack snorted and raked his eyes over her figure. “Love slave?”

“Very funny.”

“At any rate, they know you're here. I pretty much put up a neon sign,
Hey bad guys, here is Network-One! C'mon over.
” He tucked his arms behind his neck and leaned back. “And with that damned sniper here, you can call me Velcro, baby. Jack MacGunn, bodyguard at your service.”

“You already
are.
”

“Nope, I mean every waking moment
and everything in between
.
You won't even take a toilet break without me.”

“That's hardly necessary. What, you think they'll break in through the loo?”

“You been in combat long as I have, ye learn to take no risks.” He patted the mattress. “Come keep me warm, baby. I need to think a while.”

Cassie sighed and shook her head, but crawled next to him and spooned herself against his side.

“Ye please me, Cass, know that?” He yawned and squeezed her flank. “When I'm not in the mood to spank ye for being a naughty lass, I'll ask ye to tell me what you were
really
up to in the west wing, and why ye didn' tell me you've been in pain.”

Stalling was good. “Later, Jack.”

“A man wants to know.” He nodded off to sleep, one hand molded over her hip and the other warm on her chest.

No, actually, you don't.

• • •

An email had been waiting from Darren York, her ex-boyfriend who
didn't
drop out of their medical residency. That would make him Darren York, MD FACS. He'd won the cardiothoracic surgery fellowship they'd competed for. When she occasionally heard from him, she tried not to be jealous, hearing about his FDA-funded clinical trials and journal publications. Damned rock star. But she hadn't gone into medicine for the accolades. She took a deep breath and let it go.

It had taken her three days to find a spot at Kinmylies where she could get a decent internet signal. Oddly, she found it outside a Cromwell-era ruin overlooking the river. She sat with her back propped against the wall, basking in the heat radiating from the sun-baked stones while Jack lay buck naked in the grass next to her. He appeared to be dozing, but eavesdropping on his thoughts she knew he was concentrating, listening for any unnatural sounds in a three-mile radius. He kept an M-4 carbine within arm's reach, along with holstered throwing knives.

Jack had complained about a “funky smell” coming from the river and spent the morning alternately on diving patrols and watching the river from the hill under cover of the ruin, hoping to catch the sniper. He'd insisted Cassie wear Kevlar, but apparently he couldn't scare up a pair of swim trunks. No complaints. Only the arrival of news she'd been going crazy waiting for could distract her from the sight of Jack
au naturel
.

She opened the email from Darren, feeling almost giddy. He wrote:

Cassie scanned down the list, item after item of abnormal substances in the blood, outrageous levels of various chemicals — proof of superhuman behavior on a cellular level. Seems she drove Darren crazy, wondering how she had doctored the sample as a joke. She wished it was a joke.

Cassie shifted and tugged at the Kevlar vest. The screen on her phone went dark while her brain bogged itself in a stupor. Weird, but if she didn't know better, she would've said the blood analysis sounded exactly like Jack. With the exception of the pregnancy hormones, of course. The evidence suggested her blood's properties had altered — mutated — to match Jack's. Still she didn't believe it.

Maybe it was nature's way of making her a compatible host for the berserker baby?

Okay, that made sense, in a Twilight Zone sort of way. So now the million-dollar question: Was it a permanent change? Because other than Jack being a
spazoid
, the greatest difference between them was his immortality and her lack of it. What would the change in her blood do to her?

It could be good news, but the fact remained that she was only six weeks pregnant and already debilitated by complications. She supposed nature adapted to the baby's advantage but took its toll on her. She'd known from the beginning this was part of the package, and it was still okay with her. A relief to finally know what's going on in a medical sense. Less frightening.

Jack, wake up. Let me check your knee again.

He groaned and rolled onto his back, obliging but unhappy with being a lab rat today.

Cassie knelt and tested the sutures in his knee. “Okay, good. No excess fluid, no signs of inflammation. Can you flex your kneecap?”

He did that without trouble, which was an improvement. But he held his breath, knowing she would ask him to raise his knee and bend it to a ninety-degree angle next. He'd done it after the first operation she attempted a few hours ago, but the effort kicked his pulse into the red zone and squeezed tears of pain out the corners of his eyes. Hopefully the second surgery had worked.

“Sorry, baby. You have to.”

Jack exhaled, his expression like a man going to the gallows. She forced herself to appear clinical as Jack lifted his knee. He bent it slowly, and she waited. Still waiting for the bones to grind, for damaged tendons to pull and burn, but it didn't happen. She smiled as he made it halfway before it bothered him.

“It's better. I'll do the same procedure once more tonight, then heal the incisions.”

“What'd you do?”

“I lubricated friction points with a cartilage transfer and cushioned it with plasma. Don't ask how I got it, you'd be grossed out.”

“I'll take your word for it, Doc.” He wrinkled his nose, wondering what on earth she'd done to him while he was under anesthesia.

Cassie smiled. Funny that her fearsome berserker was such a baby about needles and scalpels when he slept with a serrated combat knife under his pillow. She helped him ease his leg back to the ground.

“Nowhere near perfect, but you should be able to walk without limping. No stairs, no running.”

Jack snorted and rolled a piece of grass in his teeth. He didn't even attempt to mollify her by saying he'd obey. It would have been a lie, and they would both know it.

“Here, you take my lollipop, and I'll improvise.”

—Jack MacGunn, King of the Bad Pick-Up Line

Wake up, Cassie. I need you.

She shot awake and staggered, her head spinning. Cassie had been in the middle of a bizarre dream about a red-headed valkyrie. She'd looked familiar, she was lovely and dangerous, and oddly, friendly. The valkyrie in her dream tipped her head back, gorgeous copper-russet-striated hair twirling in the wind while her fingertips shot precise beams of lavender-colored lightning. Seconds later, the vision faded.

“Magnus is missing. Get up, honey.”

“What — missing? How?” She reached for the bedside lamp but Jack stilled her hand. That's right — his night vision. She'd blind him if she switched on a light.

“Curtis summoned me. Magnus was missing from the second quarter watch roll call. We've either got a prank or a kidnapping. Come with me, silently.”

She heard the quick
shuck-shuck
of Jack putting his pants on. Cassie rolled out of bed and remembered she wore only her skin. Jack had worn her out last night and she'd fallen unconscious where she'd dropped, that being the foot of the bed on top of Jack's chest. She was alert now, and aware just how freezing cold the middle of the night in Scotland was.

And then it dawned on her. Magnus, the spontaneous combustion kid, missing? Oh, no.

“What about Henry?”

“Accounted for.”

She hated feeling relieved when a boy was still missing, but there it was. All she had time for was yoga pants and a camisole before Jack herded her out the door. He grunted his approval and rubbed a hand down her flank. She heard him sending mental orders to the guards scattered over the three floors of the academy. She trailed behind him as they approached the dormitory, most of the professors already awake and waiting for Jack.

“Cassie, you swear you rigged that alarm, right? Because nothing went off, not the motion or heat detectors. Not to mention the triple layers of guards.”

“I'll double-check the keypad, but I know I configured it correctly. If someone left the room, it should've tripped the alarm.”

Everybody, listen up.
At Jack's command, the professors slumped at the foot of their beds sat up and the guards shuffled closer. “Magnus is missing. He was present for the first quarter watch roll call and gone for the second. Cassie?”

She squinted to see the display by light of the emergency exit sign. “Disarmed. Someone shut off the alarm system.” She added on a private channel
, It was password-encoded, Jack.

Who has it?

Me. Curtis. That's all.

They both avoided looking at Curtis, who stood with the other professors and appeared untroubled, as far as she could tell in the dim light.

Jack swept his gaze around the room as he broadcast to everyone,
Okay, here's the plan. I want all security personnel except Alpha Team to guard inside the dormitory. Lights out, absolute silence. Keep the children asleep. Professors, stage a search of the three floors but stay in pairs. Turn on lights, make noise. Make it look like you're searching for the missing student, but stay in the hallways.

Alpha Team, stake out the dormitory after the search party leaves. If this was a diversion, the enemy will move when we seem distracted. Apprehend any tangos, deadly force authorized if necessary. Got it, everyone?
He nodded after everyone sent their silent agreement.
In case of FUBAR, revert to emergency evacuation plan and wait at rendezvous point.

Jack went first out the door. He tucked Cassie under his arm and whisked her down a dark hallway before the search party and security team left the room.

“Jack, did anything about Curtis seem off when he summoned you? Because his mind behaved a lot like that brainwashed SEAL candidate who attacked me. Blank-ish.”

“Smart lass. That's why I said nothing about what you and me are doing. The rest was a decoy.”

“What are we doing?”

“Up for a little game of cat and mouse?”

Jack led her down the fire escape stairwell, and she tried not to stumble. His knee popping made her cringe, but she didn't even try to make him slow down. He wouldn't.

He whispered, “I'm thinking: Mr. X brainwashes the dean and makes him disable the alarm, takes the kid … he's not going to stick around, right? He's going to run for it. But first he'll wait and see how we react. Maybe it was a diversion. Maybe he really wants the kid. Maybe he's just a psychopathic jerk. We'll find out when we corner him.”

Instead of going out the exit, Jack punched a code in the security keypad, and a concealed door opened out of the wall. Complete darkness yawned behind it, with the dark earthy smell of an underground tunnel. “No one but me and Kyros has this code.”