Bear My Baby (Shifter Squad Six 1) (2 page)

Still, reaction and training kicked in when his brain wanted to take a moment to truly appreciate the gorgeous creature that fate had landed before him. He looped an arm around her waist and slammed his hand over her mouth, squeezing hard so even if she tried, her screams would be muffled yelps at best. Instinctively, she clawed at his arm.

His body reacted immediately. There was a sudden flash of heat traveling through him, claiming him with a ferocity that he’d only expect from a bullet to the chest. It felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him, but his body still worked. His legs still moved. Connor almost lifted her up as he dragged her backward, angling her toward where he’d come from and shoving her on along the well-lit, bright corridor.

“I’m here to help. Move or we’re both dead,” he hissed in her ear, hit with the sudden and indescribable urge to bite and lick at that delicate part of her instead.

She looked up at him with hazel eyes sparkling with threads of gold, wide with fear. He didn’t stop, keeping her moving and running forward as well. A door slammed in the distance, and then he could hear shouts. He couldn’t make them out but what he did know was that they only had one direction to run in. And the fucking wolves would know it too.

She gave a tiny little nod and tentatively he took his hand off her mouth, immediately missing the feeling of her warm breath against his skin. Connor let her go and grabbed her hand instead, tugging her along as his other hand grabbed for one of the sidearms secured on his hip. The shouting moved faster and at least three pairs of combat boots were slamming down the corridor in addition to his own.

Fuck.

“Do everything I tell you to,” he said, casting her a quick glance.

Her face was marked with streaks of blood and her hand was warm in his, still coated with the lifeblood of her employer. She was visibly shaking, even while she was giving it her all to keep in step with Connor. Seeing her like that, eyes sunken and her body struggling to keep up with everything that she’d seen and done that night, broke Connor’s heart. He’d make fucking certain that nothing would hurt her again. 

Any other time, he would have stopped to think about how fucking ridiculous that sounded, but not this time.

He had to protect her. No matter what.

The footsteps came closer, a deafening flurry that trundled down the corridor. When Connor pushed open the door to the stairwell, a bullet bit into the plaster right next to his head, making his left ear whine and lock up. The woman whose hand he was holding screamed and he shoved her into the stairwell ahead of him, spinning back quickly to fire off a few shots behind him at the black, approaching figures.

Connor growled under his breath, kicking the door shut behind him. There was a plan for a plan for a plan. Contingency after every contingency. But these bastards were going through his arsenal damn fast. The announcement from Tex, Thatch’s twin, sounded in Connor’s ringing head the same moment he heard another set of footsteps rushing up the stairs.

“Movement in the right stairwell. Advise moving to the roof.”

“No shit,” Connor hissed under his breath, half-pulling, half-carrying his dark-haired goddess up those steps to the tenth floor.

“What?” she asked, her voice quivering.

He didn’t answer. There was no time for pleasantries. No time to enjoy the absolutely maddening tingle her touch made run through him. No time to focus on the fact that he knew what this feeling was, and he knew
exactly
what it meant. No time to look at her and memorize every tiny detail in that face. No. There was only time to survive.

He didn’t even know her name. It hadn’t been important for the mission. His team knew, of course. They’d scoped all the possible players out, and she’d been right in the middle of the list. But all he knew was that she was the right girl at the wrong place at the wrong time. And now she was in more shit than she could ever hope to shovel out of on her own.

They almost fell through the door that led onto the roof, as it was often unlocked in buildings like that. There wasn’t a fire escape up that high, but one started a few stories down. Ropes and harnesses were piled in a corner, out of sight, waiting for Connor and his package.

“Get behind that, honey. Duck down. Don’t look up. Don’t come out. If they get through me, jump off the ledge on the left side of the roof. There’s a fire exit down there. My team will get you on the ground. Don’t look back,” he barked at her, his light blue eyes boring into hers as he pointed toward the wide air ducts in the middle of the roof.

He could hear several pairs of combat boots beating up the steps, so close he could almost taste them. And there she was, staring at him like an angel shoved into the middle of something she wasn’t supposed to be in. Hesitant. Afraid. But a fire burned in her eyes that made him lick his lips.

Not fucking now. Focus.

“GO!” he hissed, diving to the other side so he could be behind the corner of the outcrop of the stairwell.

“Dutch, you in place?” he whispered, touching one hand to his ear and reloading a new clip into his gun.

“Lock and load.”

The party was just about to start.

CHAPTER THREE

Cassie

Her breath was right where it had been when she’d been running toward her home—the one place where she was supposed to be safe—right in her throat. Every manner of adrenaline and heat was pounding through her, blinding and deafening her while at the same time making her all the more keenly aware of her surroundings.

Cassie’s legs ached. Her hands shook like she was a drug addict going without a dose for too long. Her throat was dry and her lungs were screaming at her from the way she’d flown up the stairs. And now she was crouching behind an air vent, the constant, loud hum of the air rushing through it muffling everything else.

Why are you doing anything he tells you to? Maybe he’s the fucking psycho who killed Jonah? Maybe those other guys are here to help…

At that instant, the door was blown open with a hail of gunfire. She yelped and ducked lower, holding onto her head with both hands. Her fingers dug into the loose curls of her hair and she tasted that bitter taste of dread again in her mouth that she’d experienced when that big guy grabbed hold of her. He dragged her right off her doorstep, but from the corner of her eye she’d seen guys start piling out of there and none of them looked too happy to see her leave.

She was confused as hell, but that primal desire to
live
kicked in full force. The gunfire was so loud she had to imagine every cop car in the city would be heading there. Or would they? The South Side, late at night, shots heard… yeah, she’d be lucky if there was a patrol car coming to survey the apartment. And even then, what could they do against the arsenal that these guys were obviously packing?

Cassie bit down on her lower lip to keep from sobbing. It was all too much. Finding Jonah dying and having him tell her that she needed to get out, that someone would come for her. How he pulled her face closer to his to whisper into her ear, pressing down hard on the back of her neck, so hard that it hurt. He wouldn’t even tell her why she would have to run, all the while choking on his own blood from the deep puncture wound to his chest. Just that it was important that she did. He wouldn’t let go of her until he drew his last breath and the last bit of life left him.

Then, coming to her apartment and finding a veritable army waiting to do to her what she could only assume was the same thing they’d done to Jonah. And now there was a firefight going on over her head.

There were too many open questions to even try and make sense of anything, and her mind raced to keep up. Her cream coat was spotted with blood, and she’d crouched her five-foot-eight form into as small of a ball as she could, peeking out from the side of the air vent. She could mostly see feet, ducking to the sides and finding a better vantage point to shoot at her nameless savior. As they backed up a bit more to put themselves out of the immediate line of fire, she could see that they were all in black, with harsh expressions and angular lines on their faces.

Like the kind of guys you could buy as a set to do your bidding. All almost interchangeable. The big guy, as she was referring to him in her head, wouldn’t have a chance. One of the guys was carrying a damn assault rifle for heaven’s sake.

I’m a God damn assistant! How’d I get involved in this?!

Panic frayed at the edges of her mind, but she pushed it down. She’d have time to lose her mind later.

Peeking out a bit more, she could see the occasional shot fired from the other side of the little outcrop, muzzle flashes blinding her in the otherwise solid darkness of the night. The shots echoed and reverberated through her, choking her with numb fear.

I hope he kills every last one of them.

It was then that the big guy rolled out of his cover, completely exposed. He tricked one of them into dodging out of his own cover and shot the man in the knee and then in the throat as he toppled forward, screaming in agony. Cassie had to muffle her scream by clamping a hand over her mouth, her hazel eyes going wide as the man slouched to the side. The last thing he saw was her, staring back at him as the life went out of his eyes.

There was a spark of recognition in his gaze before it went completely dull.

The next thing she knew, the big guy was right by her side, gritting his teeth so loud she could hear it. He was favoring his right side and the smell of blood and gunpowder residue on him burned her nostrils.

“Stay down,” he barked again, and Cassie had no intention of moving.

She felt oddly better though, with him right there with her. Not that it would do them any good when they both ended up bleeding out on the roof like the guy in front of Cassie.

“You got a shot,” he said into his earset, strain obvious in his voice. “Fuck,” he concluded, and then rolled out again without so much as a warning.

Bullets blazed around him and Cassie could see one of them nipping by so close to him that the fabric of his shirt tore on his arm and a thick red streak of blood appeared on his bicep. He didn’t lose a beat, but kept moving like it had been nothing more than a mosquito bite.

One of the assailants leaned out an inch too far and was awarded for it with a bullet right between the eyes, leaving a gaping wound that smoked as he collapsed onto the ground. It hadn’t come from the big guy though, as he was halfway up the outcropping, scaling it like he was a mountain climber trying to break some sort of a demented record. In astonishment, Cassie watched as he descended on the last enemy from above, bringing his heavy fist down on the guy’s head like Thor’s hammer.

They fell to the ground and within a few aimed, unrelenting punches, the man with the angular features wasn’t even twitching anymore. How could he? His face was nothing more than a bloody pulp. All Cassie could see was a steady pool of blood forming around what used to be his skull.

“Come on,” the big guy called, getting up with a grunt.

He didn’t spare a look at his arm, which was seeping blood. It seemed like all the colors she saw that day were crimson and black.

Cassie stood up on shaky legs, looking from one mangled body to the next and then back at the big guy. Her legs suddenly felt like they were filled with lead and even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t be able to move a step. He gave her a stern look that would have had her melting like snow in the summer heat had the situation been any different, and then ran to her. His iron-like grip latched onto her hand and pulled her along, past that horrible door that seemed to only let death in, and to the assorted gear in the corner.

“We need to move fast. There will be more.”

While he was talking, he was already putting her in a harness and checking the connections on the ropes that were tied down on the roof. His hands worked lightning fast and a tiny bit of her brain couldn’t help but notice the way his cheeks strained as he concentrated and that little dip formed between his eyebrows when he checked over his handiwork.

“Coming down,” he spoke into his earset.

Cassie could hear a reply on the other end, but she had no idea what was said. The wry smirk he cracked told her that it was something probably not meant for her ears to begin with.

“Get on the ledge, honey. We’re going to fly,” he said with a grin.

Fuck, he was hot. And it pained her to no end that
that
was what her brain decided to focus on. Not the life-threatening danger, nor the fact that she’d watched four people die that day. No, she had to take notice of the hunky psycho commando and think that she’d sure love to see what he looked like underneath all those black layers. The croak of laughter that came out of her mouth was about as fitting as funeral music at a wedding reception.

He hooked himself into his own harness as she wobbled up on the ledge, holding onto it with her hands and staying on the balls of her feet. At least she was wearing flats instead of pumps—small mercies. He hopped up next to her like it was the most natural thing to be hanging out on the ledge of a building, ready to rappel down into probable danger. He flashed her a smile that was as cocky as it was delicious.

“Who are you?” she asked, struggling to find her voice.

“I’m the man who’s about to make you grow wings,” he said, grabbing hold of her suddenly and throwing both their bodies off the ledge and into the darkness below as the stairwell door was flung open again.

CHAPTER FOUR

Connor

Cassie was furious with him and he thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

The way the corners of her mouth turned down a little and how she furrowed her brow made him want to throw her over his shoulder and carry her into the deep recesses of the cabin they were in. He wouldn’t let her out before she was screaming his name at the top of her lungs and not a hint of that frown remained.