Forged in Ash (34 page)

She looked fragile, and more than a little pathetic. But she was alive, and relatively unharmed.

Which was more than Cosky could claim for himself.

Grimacing, he faced forward again, his shoulder sending bolt after bolt of throbbing agony into his brain. Now that they were safe, it was getting harder and harder to lock the pain down. He needed to get hold of Rawls. As the corpsman of ST7, his roommate had plenty of experience manipulating dislocated joints back into place.

But before he reached out to Rawls, he needed to get hold of the cops. Call the bombing in. The amount of ammo stashed in the Condo made it a serious threat to both bystanders and firefighters.

He reached for the cell phone holster on his belt. It was empty.

Son of a bitch,
he’d left the damn thing on the coffee table—which no longer existed. “Kait, call nine-one-one,” Cosky said, leaning forward to take the pressure off his shoulder.

They needed to get hold of Zane, Rawls, and Mac too. Let the team know everyone who’d been inside the house was safe.

“Already done,” Wolf said, in that deep, smooth baritone Cosky had already come to recognize and hate.

“Really?” Relieved to have something to concentrate on besides his damn shoulder, Cosky didn’t try to hide his suspicion. “When was that? Before the damn bomb went off?”

“No,” Wolf responded, his rich tone not quite disguising the menacing challenge lurking beneath the smoothness. “Before the bomb went off I was too busy saving your worthless ass.”

That’s when it clicked. Kait had received a call just before the bomb had detonated. He went rigid with rage. That call almost had to have armed the damn thing. The electronic jammer would have scrambled any other incoming signals.

“You called Kait?” He worked to keep the aggression out of the question, but knew he hadn’t masked it well.

“I did.” Challenge vibrated in the bastard’s voice. He twisted the rearview mirror back to the right. Glittering eyes brimming with hostility raked Cosky’s face. His lips twisted dismissively. “To warn her to get out of the house.”

“How the hell did you know she needed warning?” Cosky demanded, his muscles bunching, tensing for battle.

He reeled the enmity in. Damn it, he needed to use his brain. They were trapped in an SUV, going at least forty miles an hour. He had a fucked-up shoulder and knee. It would be impossible to get Jillian and Kait out of the vehicle at this speed, in his condition.

He needed to keep the big bastard from pulling anything, at least until the Escalade was parked and he could neutralize him.

“You don’t have the clearance for that answer.” Ebony eyes gleaming with hostility caught and held Cosky’s gaze.

The bastard made no attempt to hide his wrath. Which begged the question—what was he so angry about? Had Kait told him about those hot-as-hell moments on the couch? If the two were involved,
yeah, finding out Cosky had made love to her would explain the anger.

“We need to stop by a hospital,” Kait interrupted the building skirmish. She twisted in her seat and leaned around the backrest of the passenger seat. Worried brown eyes raked Cosky’s awkwardly hanging left arm. “Cosky broke his shoulder.”

“Dislocated,” Wolf said in an unconcerned voice before Cosky could correct her. “I’ll take care of it.”

Like hell.

From the menacing vibes, the big bastard was more likely to rip Cosky’s arm off and garrote him with it than manipulate it back into place.

Kait must have picked up on the tension, because she frowned and turned toward the driver’s seat. “Wolf—”

“You should have stayed away from him,
nebii’o’oo.
” The affection in the comment was clear, so was the frustration and anger.

“You have no idea what happened,” Kait snapped, her shoulders stiffening.

“I know you’re my
netesei
and he almost got you killed.” Steel laced the smooth baritone.

Cosky’s body twitched. What the hell was a
netesei
? And what the fuck was Kait to him?

Not his business, damn it. Not his business.

Kait was off-limits to him.

She was also a beautiful woman. Of course she was going to have male companionship. It was just a hell of a lot easier to ignore that fact when her
male company
wasn’t breathing down his neck.

He took a deep breath, tried to relax. But it became trapped in his constricted chest.

The Escalade took a hard right into an abandoned parking lot next to a high school football field and screeched to a stop next to the chain-link fence. Those hard black eyes met and held Cosky’s own through the rearview mirror. He caught the open challenge in the big bastard’s gaze.

Every muscle in his body locked onto that challenge, reciprocated it.

The driver’s door flew open. Wolf slid out of the SUV.

Cosky thrust open his door and stepped out to meet him, his adrenaline firing like rocket fuel.

The bastard wanted to have at it?

Bring it on.

He was vaguely aware of Kait exiting the SUV behind him, but the bulk of his attention was locked on the huge bastard stalking around the corner of the Escalade.

They met up next to the taillights.

While Cosky wasn’t expecting a friendly handshake, neither was he expecting the battle-ax of a right hook to his jaw. The blow slammed into him like an anvil and would have knocked him on his ass if the Escalade’s rear door hadn’t caught his back.

His face numb, ferocity a violent red mist blanketing his mind, he shoved off from the back door and launched himself at Kait’s
nebe’ib.

The bastard was going to be her ex-
nebe’ib,
if it was the last thing he did.

“As I’ve explained,” Mac said for the tenth time as he leaned against the hot metal of the shift sergeant’s black-and-white cruiser. “We had
a report that the woman who attacked Lieutenant Simcosky and Kait Winchester had taken refuge inside—”

“And you wanted to check the premises yourself before calling it in.” The stocky patrol sergeant who’d spent the last twenty minutes interrogating him broke in, repeating verbatim what Mac had told him.

“Exactly,” Mac said with a tight smile, one that showed his teeth and building annoyance. “We wanted to make sure she was in there, instead of wasting your time if it was a false positive.”

He raised his arm and wiped a stream of sweat from his temple with his shoulder, then twisted slightly to check on his men. They’d been taken to individual cruisers for questioning.

Luckily, they’d had time for a quick strategy session before the first cruiser had pulled up. At least everyone would be reciting the same information.

“While we appreciate your concern for the department’s time management,” the sergeant drawled back, his voice both dry and disbelieving, “the
question
is whether you actually intended to call the situation in, or whether you’re here to apprehend the woman yourselves.” His voice dried and slowed even further. “As I’m sure you’re aware, it’s against federal statute for anyone in the United States military to act in a law enforcement capacity.”

The smug, self-righteous motherfucking asshole. He knew fucking well that was the exact statute they’d been accused of breaking by the DOJ back in Seattle.

“Yeah,” Mac drawled back, cinching in the retort he wanted to make—something along the lines of
if you’d do your fucking job in the first place
…“We had no intention of apprehending the woman. We were going to leave that to you boys.”

The sergeant dipped his head, his eyes and face unreadable. But
Mac knew the bastard didn’t believe a word that had come out of his mouth.

Not surprising really, they were trained to recognize bullshit.

He was just hitting on the wrong steaming pile of shit.

Mac had to hand it to Pachico’s ringer. Sending the police out on this wild goose chase had been a brilliant move.

Albeit a fucking annoyance and waste of time.

“Look,” Mac tried to sound reasonable, which was damn hard to do when his entire body was shedding urgency. They needed to get on the road. He caught himself before glancing at his watch. The bastard questioning him had caught him checking it twice already. One more time and he’d start wondering why Mac was so obsessed with the time. “You’ve checked our weapons. Regardless of what your nine-one-one caller claimed”—nice touch, you motherfucker—“you can tell from the smell that they haven’t been fired.” He paused and gave the sergeant a hard smile. “If the woman was in there, she’s probably long gone by now. How ’bout we call this a bust and move on?”

“There’s still the matter of permits for this arsenal you and your men are carrying.” He held Mac’s impatient gaze with cool eyes. “And why you had such an arsenal in the first place.”

Mac lost his smile. “You know damn well we have permits. As for the volume of weapons, sue us; we’re used to being armed. The volume may seem a little much to you boys in blue, but believe me—it’s light for my team.”

With a frown, the sergeant opened his mouth, but a sudden burst of static, followed by the urgent babble of a rushed voice, distracted him.

Leaning against the hood of the cruiser to the left, Zane cocked his head and listened, only to suddenly straighten. Tension gripped his lean frame. He leapt toward Mac, his face tight. Grim eyes locked
on the sergeant’s suddenly wary face. “What’s a ten eighty-nine and an eleven seventy-one?”

The sergeant turned and pointed toward the last two cruisers, waving them off. The officers dove inside, cranked their wheels, and took off in a cloud of dust.

“Damn it.” Zane caught the guy’s elbow and jerked him around, then stepped up almost chest to chest. “What the fuck does that code mean?”

The sergeant jerked his arm free, glancing between Mac and Zane. “Why?”

“Because that’s our place,” Rawls said, closing in on them at a run. “And we left friends back there.” His face was hard, his voice urgent. “What happened?”

Swearing, the sergeant took off his hat and ran a hand over his head, then glanced at the dissipating dust storm.

“Goddamn it.” Zane was already dialing his cell. After a minute he turned back to Mac, shot a look at Rawls, and grimly shook his head. “His phone’s going to voice mail.”

“What’s going on?” Mac roared, his voice getting louder by the second.

A chasm opened up inside him. From the sergeant’s reaction and reluctance to tell them, it had to be bad. Very bad.

Well, fuck him.

“Let’s go,” Mac yelled, gesturing toward the van. Not that the order was necessary. Tag, Tram, Russo, and Hollister had abandoned the cruisers they’d been escorted to, and were headed toward the van at a dead run.

“You won’t be allowed in,” the sergeant said flatly, grabbing Mac’s arm.

Ignoring him, Mac yanked his arm free and turned toward the minivan.

The sergeant swore, grabbed his arm again, and swung him around. “The whole block will be cordoned off. It’s standard procedure after a bomb threat and a fire.”

Bomb? Fire—

Jesus.

Mac’s legs went weak. He saw horror twist Zane’s and Rawls’s faces.

Grabbing his phone, he punched in Cos’s number.

It went straight to voice mail.

For a moment Kait simply stood there, her cell phone still clenched in her hand, her mouth open, shock freezing her feet to the ground as Cosky and Wolf tried to beat the life from each other. With fists, knees, boots, or shoulders—anything that could deliver a solid blow.

Blood misted the air as fists connected with noses and mouths and ears.

They locked the rage in tight throats and rigid faces, with an occasional breathless grunt as a particularly vicious blow knocked the air from their lungs. But there were other sounds: the dull, hollow thud of a fist hitting home, the gravelly scrape of boots on pavement, the muffled thud of solid muscle hitting the Escalade’s rear door.

She was amazed at Cosky’s strength and skill. He was holding his own, even though he was down an arm and a leg. Although—Kait watched him pivot and kick, his boot catching Wolf under the chin—the leg didn’t seem to be handicapping him.