Scorpio Sons 4: Chase: (SF/Shifter Romance) (17 page)

The more she thought about it, the more the pieces seemed to fit together. Everything she was finding out about the Guild pointed to a huge, powerful, covert network that could make anything happen. People going missing under the Communist regime had been so common place it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, beyond the notes in a police record. It
could
easily have been the Guild.

And the fire? Child’s play for people like them. She already suspected that many of the men involved in the Russian child sex-trafficking ring were Guild, like her Abuser, so it wasn’t a big step to see that ring taking children from her orphanage because they specifically wanted her.

Which meant she was responsible for what happened to those children. If she hadn’t survived the fire they might never have targeted that particular orphanage.

She began rocking on the computer chair, moaning softly. Part of her was aware of Caleb’s anxious voice as he spoke to someone, but she really didn’t pay attention. Her mind had tunnelled back to that nightmare time when she’d held a dying child in her arms and rocked him, in blood and agony, until he passed.

Her fault; his death was her fault.

How long she lived those memories she wasn’t sure, but it was Chase picking her up that brought her to her senses once more. He carried her along the hall until they reached their room, and then sat with her on his lap in front of their fantasy window, while he rocked and spoke soft words of nonsense to her.

Eventually, words started to trickle in. She was all right. Nothing could hurt her now. All the terrible things were in the past. He wouldn’t let anything ever happen to her again.

Except, he couldn’t promise her that. Because she had to go back. And if she went back they might capture her again.

She drew away from him and combed her fingers through his tousled hair. She liked him better when he was a little unkempt. The immaculate businessman was still a little intimidating.

“How are you feeling, sweet girl? What was I thinking to have you work on the Exodus Project? It was bound to end up hurting you.”

She smiled and covered his lips with her fingertips. “You’re doing it again. How could you possibly have known what happened to my father’s family and how it might have related to my family’s death? You take too much responsibility for things out of your control.”

“I saw you as a resource to draw on. I didn’t see the human element. I never do. That’s why I’m so destructive. Even though I regret it, everyone is just a number to me, or a chess-piece to be moved around, for the greater good. Any humanity I ever had was lost years ago. Now you’re finding out firsthand what that means.” He laid his head on her shoulder and clung to her, their roles reversed.

She kissed the top of his head. “You didn’t kill my family or have me abducted. You couldn’t have known what we’d find out today. So stop being so hard on yourself.”

His head shook against her shoulder and she felt his warm damp breath against her skin, sending tingles across its surface. Though the situation was totally wrong, sexual arousal hit her like a freak wave. When Chase stiffened against her, she knew that he’d scented that arousal. Lifting his head, his questioning gaze met hers.

“You can’t want me, after what you’ve just found out...” he muttered softly.

“Maybe I want you
because
of what I’ve just found out. All of the people I’ve ever loved are gone, have been gone for a long, lonely time. But now I’ve found you... For the first time in six years, I’ve found someone to love once more, someone who matters. And I have a new family that comes with you.”

Tenderly, Chase kissed her lips. “Do you know how amazing you are? Nothing knocks you down for long.”

She smiled before their lips met once more. “I’m a dented tin cup, remember?”

“You’re a titanium goblet encrusted with rare jewels, that’s what you are.”

She laughed at that, and hoped with all her heart it was true. She’d need that strength if she was to do what she now knew was her destiny.

But some secret hope she thought had died flared to life at his description. Maybe she wasn’t as tainted and unlovable as she had imagined. Maybe she wasn’t just a dented unbreakable old cup. If Chase thought it was so, then maybe she needed to consider the possibility. Something deep inside her softened and opened like a flower to the sun.

Their kisses grew more intense until all else was brushed out of her mind. She let it. No matter what the future held, she had this moment, this man, and the wonder of their lovemaking.

“I’ll need to go to
Przemyśl,” Anna announced, as they lay in each other’s arms, feeling the afterglow. Chase could understand the appeal of cigarettes at a moment like this, the lazy smoke floating upwards on each exhale, reflecting his satiated state.

Suddenly her words took meaning in his mind and he jerked upright, taking her with him. Turning to face her, he studied her expression for signs that she was joking. He saw none.

“You’re not going to Przemyśl. Haven’t you been through enough in your life? And you said you couldn’t remember the way. I don’t want you or my men lost inside the Carpathian mountainside.”

She studied him sadly but stubbornly. “Once I’m there, once I’m back in the caves, it will all come back to me. Anyway, we have to try. Caleb says it’s essential we find out what’s going on in there.”

“We have a great many covert incursion techniques we can use. The caves just seem the easiest,” he argued, the glow evaporating to the point where it was hard to remember it existed at all.

“Easiest yes, but also the most likely to result in minimal casualties. I want to do this, Chase. I have to do this, don’t you see? This is how I can contribute. This is something that no one else but me can do. And if I’m right, then a lot of people have died to keep what I know a secret. That secret needs to be used, to make those deaths mean something. To make the Guild’s efforts to destroy the knowledge, worthless. My father would want me to do this.”

“No, he wouldn’t. After everything that happened because of his family secret, he’d want you to forget about it. He wouldn’t want you risking yourself.”

“He was Résistance. You’ve told me he had to be Résistance. Every sacrifice is worth it to them. And even if he didn’t want me to go, I’d still go. This is not your decision, Chase. I’ll go on my own, if I have to. If you want me to be safe, then send a team with me.
That
is your
only
choice.”

“I’ll tie you to the bed. I’ll make sure you never get out of HQ. I’ll have your passport cancelled. You aren’t going to Poland!”

She smiled and kissed his angry lips. “You’re going to turn me into a real sex-slave then, are you? Because if you do what you’re threatening, then the only sex we’re having from now on is the forced kind. I won’t have you take away my choices, Chase, just because you’re scared for me. I’m titanium, remember?”

His cat surged to the surface and he took her face between his palms and glared down at her. “You would blackmail me by withholding sex?”

Her cat was out too, and he could feel her power. “I will do what it takes to get you to see sense. This isn’t a debate. I will have my way. Your cause is mine now. I've spent every day since coming here finding out the depths of the Guild's horrors. So it's not just because I want the people who abused me and those children brought to justice, but because the more I find out about the extent of the Guild’s evil, the more I know I have to do
anything
in my power to stop them.

“I’m not a hot-house rose that must be protected, Chase. You have to let me do my part. You have to support me in this. And I’ll be safe. I’ll just act as guide through the caves and tunnels. Once we’re there, I’ll wait to lead them back. Or maybe Caleb has a techie version of breadcrumbs we can use, he has everything else. Then I won’t have to wait. That’s even if I
can
find my way, of course. It might prove a waste of time. But we have to try.
I
have to try.”

For a long time her silver cat eyes stared into his. Slowly, the energy drained out of him as he realised the truth of her words. His cat might want to lock her away for her own good, but the man knew such a thing was impossible. And Anna was too stubborn to be worn down by arguments about safety.

He knew his eyes had returned to normal when hers did. That blue-silver glow was gorgeous, but the man in him preferred the non-metallic version better.

Kissing her nose, he shook his head reluctantly. “I’m
supposed
to be the leader around here; you do know that, don’t you? My word is
supposed
to be law.”

She grinned, knowing she’d won. “That’s why you can’t be seen to be playing favourites. If you send the other Mates onto the front lines, then you have to do the same with me.”

“I’m coming with you. There’s no way my cat will let you out of his sight for the length of time such a mission would take. And that will mean handing over the reins to someone else in my absence.”

"You were going to go off without me not so long ago," she said cheekily. "And anyway, I'm sure you have many capable Sons here. They’ll do your job well for the short time you’re gone. Who will it be? Colton? He’s better off staying at HQ with Alyssa anyway.”

Chase considered her suggestion. Of course Colt was the best choice. He was in charge of orchestrating missions, already. It was only one step up to being in charge of the whole organisation. Of course, Colt couldn’t take on the business side of his job. But people in his position took vacations, didn’t they? Just because he had never done so didn’t mean he couldn’t. Scanlan Industries still had his father and it would tick over just as well without him for a week. He really wasn’t that indispensible.

Claiming his mate’s luscious mouth again, he nodded. "I wasn't in my right mind. I couldn't have left you, even then.

“So, Colt it is. And my father can take up the slack upstairs. I guess I better get to it. There’ll be a lot of plans to oversee before we head out.”

In the end, it didn’t take as long as he expected. Their private plane took off at noon the next day, packed to the rafters with extra equipment and enough weaponry to wage war on a small third world country; plus two more units of Sons to add to the one that was already in place in Przemyśl.

During the first hour of the ten hour flight, Anna spent time looking through photos of suspected Russian Guild involved in sex trafficking. He'd cautiously brought the subject up as they took off, trying to keep her mind off what was ahead of them, and found she was keen to see if she could remember any of the men from that time. After working her way through the photos in tense silence she identified three Guild she knew for sure were part of the ring. Gregorov was one of them, and she'd shuddered when she looked at the toad-faced bastard.

Immediately, he contacted Colt back at HQ and told him to move all three to the head of the queue for capture. He wasn't going to allow any of them to live a moment longer, hurting more children as they'd hurt his Anna.

Once she'd done her part, Anna relaxed a little, and so did Chase. But he kept her by his side as much as possible for the rest of the flight. Not for her benefit; but for his. If his mate felt the pressure of being the only woman amongst twelve, she didn’t show it. He was the only one feeling threatened, and he knew it was the paranoia of his cat, rather than anything his men had done, that caused it.

They flew through the fast-approaching night, sleeping in shifts and talking little, except about last minute plans. Caleb had opted to join them because he said the only way he’d get in under the Guild’s interference was by being there, inside the perimeter fence.

It wasn’t unheard of for Caleb to leave his hole, but Chase knew that what drove him to do so this time was his affection for Anna, and his fears for her safety.

It had surprised him that Caleb had been the only one, other than himself, who thought Anna going to Poland was a bad idea. His cat didn’t like the brother’s interest in his mate, but he had to appreciate his commitment to protecting her. If anything happened to him during the mission, he knew Caleb would get Anna to safety. That, above all petty concerns of jealousy and possessiveness, was what mattered.

It was predawn when they arrived at the private airfield just outside Krakow. They were met by their ground team complete with a series of unremarkable vehicles, which included an ancient-looking delivery van for their equipment.

By the time they arrived in Przemyśl, a quaint medieval town nestled in the foothills of the regal Carpathian Mountains, Anna looked strained and tense. Chase knew she’d barely slept on the plane. And for the last hour of the flight she could barely stay seated. It was almost as if, with every mile that brought her closer to her old life, her stress levels rose.

Chase wanted to abort the mission. He wanted to turn the vehicles around; head back to the airport and get back to the States as fast as their jet could take them. But he saw the steel beneath Anna’s stress and knew she would never agree. She was committed. They would do this, whether he liked it or not.

The ground team had taken over a small farmhouse a few miles outside the township. The owners had happily taken the offer of a paid vacation for a month and a hefty fee for the use of their premises. Perfectly located, hidden away from the main roads, the farmhouse and outbuilding were also covered, for the most part, by trees already blooming with new life after the winter. That foliage would give them cover from satellite surveillance.

It was mid-afternoon before they were all stowed away and the second stage of the journey commenced. The plan was for Chase and two of the Sons from B Unit to accompany Anna to the area she remembered from her camping trips. They were all dressed in hiking gear, and the Sons wore baseball caps and sunglasses to hide their identical appearances. Luckily, the sun was shining brightly so the disguises didn’t look out of place.

The hardest part of covert work for the Sons was disguising their appearance. Nothing stood out like a group of muscular men, who looked remarkably alike, hanging out together. So when they had to mix with the general population together they did whatever they could to downplay their similarities.

The private, primitive camping ground, five miles east of town, was where they started their recon. Anna remembered it from her childhood. But at this time of year only a dilapidated sign indicated the existence of the site. It was a summer camping grounds, after all, used by the local farmer to augment his earnings during the time tourists flocked to the area.

The toilets, Anna remembered, had been the portable variety used on construction sites, and they always smelled of disinfectant and excrement. Compared to what she learned to live with in later years, those toilets were luxurious. An old barn had been converted into a wash-house with concrete floors and showers separated only by plastic curtains. Her mother had always insisted on accompanying her to the showers, while her father had to take her brother. There just wasn’t enough privacy, especially in the busy times when backpackers descended on the site, for her mother’s peace of mind. What would her hyper-vigilant mother have been like if she’d lived long enough to see what became of her precious daughter?

Anna directed the driver of the four-wheel-drive vehicle along a rough muddy track up into the nearby foothills behind the farmhouse. It was private property, but not too many people cared about such matters as long as you didn’t go off-road with your vehicles, leave gates open, interfere with livestock, or leave rubbish. Most hikers were environmentalists, which meant they stuck to the rules religiously.

When a large outcrop of bare limestone came into sight, Anna felt her fear turn to excitement for the first time. This she remembered. This was where they always parked their car before beginning their hikes. Their old heap of bolts wasn’t built for rough terrain, but hiking up from the campsite, especially when her brother was little, added too many extra miles to their daily trek. So they compromised and took their family car as far as possible and then left it locked up for the day while they walked.

Those summer days would be long. They took lunch and dinner with them, and rarely got back before twilight. But for all the hard climbing and walking they did over many miles, those days seemed to fly. Yes, she hated the primitive camping facilities, but the beauty of the mountains and her father’s obvious delight in bringing them here, always made up for that. This was high adventure of the kind kids adored. And clambering around in claustrophobic tunnels, hardhat torches illuminating darkness that smelled of bat guano always made her feel like Indiana Jones.

As soon as the vehicle stopped, Anna clambered out and took off up the hill in the direction of a bare cliff-face she knew so well. Her dad had told them it had been named
God’s Wrath
hundreds of years ago because it looked like a very angry bearded man in profile. She could see that face in the rocks now.

There were several cave entrances around the base of that cliff, but they were fairly well known. It was the ones, further up the steep hills that took them to the caverns her father called their family secret.

By the time they’d hiked up to the entrance to the first of these, she was amazed how exhilarated she felt. All the good memories of those days were flooding back to her. Memories she’d buried because they were too painful. But being here, experiencing all this again, was bittersweet and wonderful. Even if she couldn’t help the Sons find the way into the fenced-off area on the other side of the lowest mountain, she had at least unlocked those happy memories again.

She stopped beside the small outcrop of rocks and stunted trees that covered the entrance to the first cave. Chase offered her his water bottle and she drank from it thirstily. The climb had been remarkably easy, thanks to her cat stamina, but the flight had dehydrated her, so the added fluid helped. It was also a ritual from her past, to pause for a moment at the first cave and drink, before her father told them which cave they’d be exploring that day.