From This Day Forward (2 page)

Chapter Two: The Way Home

Noah Easton never saw the frontline these days. No operator did. Hadn't since probably about WWII. But in Special Forces, the frontline was all around you. In front, in back, beside. Hell, sometimes inside. The battle raged everywhere and you never knew where or when to expect the next strike. Like now.

Shit. He'd wanted to go home. But not this way. The
barrel of a cold .45 pressed to his temple.

“
What are you thinking, Captain?” the young man who'd fought next to Noah for the last year snapped. Literally and figuratively. What brought a man to this point, to the edge of sanity? This kid wasn't a bad kid. Really. Sammy McDonald was green. Untried. And why the hell they'd planted him on this mission so soon, Noah had no freakin' idea. But he didn't question his commander. Well, hell. Yes he did. But at the moment he stood in a grimy back alley in an old section of Dubai, apparently awaiting some kind of handoff. So he had a little more on his mind than the chain of command.

“
I'm thinking you sure as hell don't want to do this. You've got a bright career ahead of you. This gains you nothing.”

Sammy laughed. Sweat bathed his thin face and his eyes
gleamed with an unnatural gloss. “Shows what you know. It gains me the world. I'm gonna get paid royally for this. I just gotta deliver you to The Fox. Then I'm set for life. I disappear. Get a new name, a new life, and go on my merry way.”

Noah paused, studying the situation. They were alone. Seemingly. The operation had been, per usual these days, minimalist. No fanfare.
Three of them deployed based on the Intel. Land in Tel Aviv. Infiltrate. Operate. Gather. Execute. Extract.

Only he'd never figured Sammy would try to execute him.

“Come on, kid. Really? You don't want to do this. Listen to me. Put the gun down, walk away and I'll forget this even happened.”

Like hell he would.

“Even I know that's bullshit. I'd be a dead man.”

Damn straight. Noah could disarm the kid, put him out of his misery. Easily. But,
damn, he had to see where this threat led. And why someone had targeted him. What they wanted. The Fox. Yeah, code names were rife in the military, but especially in Delta Forces. No one called anything what it really was today. Everyone spoke in a crazy double-speak that drove him nuts. He was a man who valued the truth. Fact. And he never shied away from calling it like it was whenever he could. His commander would receive a few pointed questions after this one.

“
Sammy, put the gun down. Let's talk. Be rational.”

“
The Dragon? Rational? There are stories about you. Big, bad bedtime stories that make the men afraid to go to sleep at night. No. I think I'll keep my gun right here. That way, I stand a better chance.” He nudged the muzzle, bumping it ruthlessly against Noah's temple.

Little did the kid know
those stories were truer than Noah would ever admit to anyone not magickal. He was The Big Bad Wolf. And Sammy didn't stand a chance. Gun or no gun.

“
Who's been telling fairy tales, Sam?”

The kid lifted one should
er. He rubbed his forearm. “I dunno. Just things we hear. How some target goes missing before the rest of the team gets in and you're always there.” The boy eyed Noah's arm. He fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “So what's the deal with the tat? I thought we weren't allowed identifying markers. You know. Anonymity and all that Special Ops bullshit.”

Sammy referred to the
color tattoo on Noah's upper arm, just below the short sleeve of his Army-issued t-shirt. There were times the whole tat rearranged itself—like a living breathing dragon truly inhabited the space on his bicep, contained in a thick tribal ink cage that banded it, top to bottom. Little did non-magickals know it really did live and breathe there. A charm embedded in the ink ensured mundanes never remembered the tattoo specifics. They had some vague idea of a colorful dragon, but they couldn't latch on to the image or it wouldn't stay concrete in their heads. And they certainly never remembered it moved.

“
People can't seem to remember it, or me, for long. Guess I'm pretty unremarkable.”

A shadow
slipped out of a doorway. A pebble skittered behind him on the cobbled stones. Someone stood outside his peripheral vision. He could feel the person breathing. A tiny pulse in the sultry night air.

Where the hell had the human
come from? He inhaled rancid smells—human urine, garbage, rat feces, and a faint wild dog scent. Musky. He drew it deep into his lungs again.

Still, he couldn't
pick up the odor of another mundane other than Sammy. Something bigger was going on. No one snuck up on him. No one. And it wasn't just because he was the elite of the elite Delta Forces. Hell, no. His magickal abilities gave him the edge. His human form, hammered by the military, made him the best operator in the business. However it's what lived and breathed on the inside that made him the best at what he did—helped him track and eliminate terrorists in order to free the oppressed. Dragon bred, born, and trained . . . his sense of sight, scent, and hearing were well beyond the human norm and made him the best.

Usually.

So either he was having a really bad day, which didn't happen, or there was magick at play here. That fact alone brought the threat to a whole new level.

“
No, Captain Easton . . . I'd say you're pretty remarkable,” a husky female voice said close to his ear. The woman’s warm breath skimmed his neck, making goose flesh appear. He didn't flinch or show his surprise.

“
The Fox, I presume?” Noah asked, but remained perfectly still otherwise. His knees ached from kneeling on the hard, uneven stones for the past half hour and his arms had gone numb, hands tied behind his back with a nylon zip tie.

Sam still
pressed the handgun to Noah’s temple.

And the kid had a hair-trigger finger.

Noah didn't want to give him any reason to get nervous.

The woman ran a finger across
Noah’s shoulder, from blade to blade as she circled him from behind. He could only track her movements because she touched him. Weird. She stopped at his side and then brushed her hand over the tattoo on his bicep. Almost a caress. He didn't look at her, but kept his face forward, his eyes focused on the entrance of the alley. “What does a fox do when she corners a dragon, Captain?” the woman asked. A slight French accent flavored her words.

The dragon did
not quiver with tension. Did not seethe. Did not shift. It remained silent, asleep, awaiting the command to arise.

Noah paused before answering her.

She knew he was dragon. No doubt about it. No reason to play dumb, which he despised anyway. However, Sam, of the itchy finger and the penchant for gossip, still stood over him with attitude and an insatiable craving for his due in life.

No. He wouldn’t blatantly admit his secrets before an unstable mundane.
Noah didn't want to kill the kid or wipe his mind clean. Although he'd done both to countless enemies over the years.

But only when absolutely necessary.

“I’d recommend you operate with caution.”

Her soft chuckle sounded warm,
buoyant and bounced around the narrow confines of the deserted alley.

“
The Ice Dragon would say that . . . caution.” Sam sneered, his derision apparent. “Always caution. Wait for this, wait for that. Damn. Do you ever respond off the cuff?” Sam asked, making it sound like emotional responses in the heat of battle were a good thing. They were not.

Noah had learned long ago that keeping your emotions under a tight mask was the only true way to survive in this business. So, yeah, he embraced the Ice
Dragon moniker his men had given him. He wore it as a badge of honor. Damn straight. “Nothing wrong with a little ice in heated situations, Sam.”

“
I wonder . . . how far you'd go to save what's important to you?” The woman mused aloud as she stepped around Noah. “When everything you value is taken away, will you remain this cool? Who reigns then? Dragon or man? Emotion or intellect?”

He didn't shift his eyes, but stared s
traight ahead. Focused. Jaw tight. He hoped to God she didn't know what was important to him. Everything he valued most lived in Mystic Springs, Pennsylvania. But he'd done everything he could over the years to make sure no one knew about April or his daughters. He kept his footprint small on purpose. Little to no contact. No Skype video chats. Infrequent phone calls only from prepaid, disposable phones.

Hell, he’d done everything he could to keep his career and his home life separate.
A thick wall of ice kept those he loved protected from harm.

When you were an operator you had no past, no future.

You lived in the moment. You died in the moment.

Army life was all
he knew. But one day, when he’d had enough of this work, he'd enjoy every moment with his girls again. All his girls.

He hoped.

Only, he didn’t know when enough would be enough.

How did you know when
to let go when Special Forces pumped in your veins?

The woman walked into his line of vision and stood
five inches in front of him. Close enough that he stared right at her breasts, where her long black hair brushed her cleavage and hissed against the leather she wore. The toes of her shoes bumped his knees where he knelt, forcing them wider.

Noah shifted his position, but he
refused to avert his gaze or show any weakness. He stared at the silver zipper cinching the leather closed over her ample breasts.

She was a
ll curves and tight black leather.

He was a man. He
could appreciate a great body and beauty, wherever he saw it. But because he was a happily married man, that's all he did. Appreciate it from a distance. Hands off. And he didn't look twice. Ever.

He didn’t lust after other women. He loved his sexy wife, the mother of his children.
He’d never wanted anyone else.

April was everything that was good and right with the world
—sunshine and joy incarnate. She was the night star that kept him grounded, the guiding light that reminded him who he really was in a world filled with so much terror and pain.

So
right now he ignored the synapses that were trying to send a message to his brain telling him that a damned hot, dangerous woman had gotten the better of him.

He focused on the last
part of that thought instead . . . that anyone had gotten the better of him pissed him off. Yet, he was careful to keep his face bland, his breathing even. No reaction. No response. A cool head allowed him to think through options to come up with a plan to get himself out of this situation.

An emotional response gave the enemy an advantage.

Never, ever give the enemy the advantage.

“
Ice must run through your veins. There’s a reason they call you Ice Dragon and it’s not just because of the tattoo on your arm. But not for long. Things are going to heat up real quick. They have plans for you. Big plans.” The kid chuckled without humor.

“
Enough.” The woman said, her voice sharp.

Uh oh. Sammy boy wasn't going to live beyond this alley.

Damn. Now Noah would have to save the kid’s sorry ass too, not just his own. Sam knew too much. Or thought he did, which was even worse. Unfortunately, his cockiness made him a good operator, an unconventional warrior.

That's
how they were wired in Delta Forces. How they trained. They found unconventional solutions to problems no one wanted to know about and they dealt with them, no questions asked, no lies spoken, and no excuses.

Unconventional was good.
Until you stayed on the wrong side too long. And that's what Sammy had done. He’d lost his way, crossed to the dark side and now he wanted to live there.

T
hat's where problems came in. When the good guys became the bad guys, when the intent shifted to a desire to live in the darkness instead of just visiting it on occasion.

Shadows were okay.
They all had them. Dealing with those shadows, no matter how they manifested, was the cross every human had to bear. But it's what you did with the shadows that made you the man you were, that determined if you lived with honor or died in shame.

Fuck. Sammy was one of his men. He had
a responsibility to save him. Loyalty was everything to Noah. Everything. He wasn’t a Marine, but his personal motto was the same as the jarheads—Semper Fidelis, Always Faithful.

He
demanded it of himself. He expected it of his men.

Y
es, Sam had broken that trust. Damn, he’d betrayed him. But Noah couldn't let the man die for his sins. He'd rescue his ass, let a court martial do the rest. There were rules. Even in Delta. Treason and espionage were still crimes against the United States of America. So if Sam had colluded with the enemy in any way, shape or form—no matter who that enemy turned out to be—he'd face his day in court. Plain and simple.