Skin Walkers Conn (3 page)

Steele gray eyes
pinned her from dark craggy features.  A rough scar cut the man’s
face
from his hairline, over one eye and the
bridge of his nose and slashed
across the opposite cheek.  He looked fierce,
intimidating,
commanding. 
Savagely handsome.

As Aries slowly lifted the pistol and rested in against his chest, she felt a regret sear through her when his features broke into a warm smile. 

“Good girl,
” h
e whispered as he lifted a hand and easily pulled the weapon from her failing fingers. 

“Boss,” one of his men spoke from behind him.  “She’s got no halo.”

Halo
? 
That doesn’t make sense.
  The drugs had to be working faster than she’d expected.
 

She watched as the man’s eyes dipped to her throat.  Confusion registered on his face for a moment before he could mask it. 
“York,” he barked the name as he stood
with some effort
.  “Bring the woman.  We’ll camp at her place tonight and leave at dawn.
”

Aries’ eyes slid closed before this York ever even touched her.

Chapter
2

Aries woke, but kept her eyes closed and her breathing even.  She didn’t know what time it was o
r where she was for that matter
.

“
Chopper’ll
be here in twenty Conn.”

Conn
?
  Memory came flooding back.  She’d been captured!

“Well, let’s get moving.  I need a hot steak and cold beer.”

She recognized the voice.  I
t was the man she’d tried to shoot. 
Conn.  Is he their leader?

“You sure your okay
boss
?”

“Ask me again a
nd I’ll show you how okay I am. 
James
, you and Shane go on ahead as recon.  York and I will follow with the woman.”

Conn,
James
, Shane, and York. 
She committed the names to memory though she didn’t know
why;
she didn’t expect to survive this ordeal. 
She took a quick inventory of her
body.  She didn’t feel beaten or used.  They hadn’t raped her while she’d been unconscious and that realization was surprising.  What else could they want her for
besides the bullshit story of a brother seeking her out
?
  Her hands and feet were free.  Either they didn’t think much of her as an adversary, or they didn’t think she’d
attempt an
escape.
 
Suckers!
  She’d make them pay for the
underestimation the first chance she got.

Conn’s order was short.  “Bring the woman.”

She heard boot heels stomp closer before she opened her eyes
and sneered
.  “I can walk.”

The man half-crouched to pull her up from the couch had a
red goatee
.  His long
satiny
red hair was pulled back into a tight
ponytail
at the nape of his neck and his green eyes darted from Aries to Conn.
  He was handsome and young.  Aries’ guessed him to be about her age, which was nearly twenty-four.

Aries slid her eyes from the C
eltic
looking
warrior in front of her to the imposing figure frowning at them from the door. 

Conn looked from Aries to York before he turned as if the matter didn’t concern him.  “Fine.  Let her walk.”

York righted himself and held out an arm indicating for Aries to follow Conn out the door.

Defiantly, she dropped her feet to the floor and stood before swaying dizzily.  York
grabbed her shoulders and she shoved his hands away.  “I fucking got it.”

Surprised,
the large man snorted and shook his head, a light smile touching
his features.  “
A feisty one.  I like it
.”

Aries lifted her
chin and
shuffled
through her living room and out the front door in
to
the pre-dawn jungle. 
Her head was pounding painfully, and there was a sharp pain centered in the pit of her stomach.  She knew the headache was from the tranquilizer and chalked
the
stomachache
up to her nerves.
  She’d had the
stomachache
often in the past
few
years and wondered if she didn’t have an ulcer, but she couldn’t afford the time or expense it would take to see a doctor.

Outside i
t was cold and still dark, but she knew by the sounds of the animals that were coming to life that
sunrise was drawing near
.
  She figured the men had caught her sometime around ten and she guessed the time now to be around four a.m. 
Shit, I’ve been out for six hours!

She trudged after Conn, intentionally trying to put some space between
herself and the much larger man
. 

York, the
Celtic warrior,
a
t her back had different plans.
  “If you
can’t keep u
p, I’m going to have to carry you
.”

Aries threw a sneer over her shoulder before picking up her pace by a fraction.  She didn’t want to be carried, but she knew her odds of escape were better if she only had to g
et away from York rather than York
and the fierce looking Conn. 

She nearly lost her balance when York shoved her shoulder from behind.

“Faster woman!”

She spun on him, balling her hands into tight fists as she glared up at the red-haired giant.

York
stopped short staring down at her in first shock then amusement as his eyes slid down to her fists.  “Do
ya
want to take a swing at me then?”

Aries staggered her feet, evenly distributing her weight in preparation for the punch she intended to throw. 
When something wrapped around her throat she reached up and grabbed it instinctively seconds before she was jerked backwards.  She spun as her body was thrown off balance and landed on a knee before she glared up at Conn who stood frowning at her holding the end of the rope that was now lassoed around her neck.

She rose slowly from the ground, her hands still held tight to the rope around her throat as she glared at Conn.  Then
her lips
curled in derision as she scoffed over her shoulder, “
Later then chump!
”

York growled and took a menacing step toward her.

“York!” Conn snapped.  When Aries looked forward, Conn wordlessly tossed the rope to York.
  The Celtic beast smiled at Aries before tugging on the rope and pulling her after him.

So much for her plan of lagging behind.  The rope was cinched tight around her neck and with both men
now
in front of her, she took advantage of the opportunity to shake her head a few times
.  She needed to clear her head of the residual
effects of the tranquilizer that
had her
vision
still
a little hazy.  She would never admit
it, but she was feeling nauseated
and slightly off
equilibrium wise. 
Fuckers
! 
Aries sucked it up and kept pace, she didn’t have a choice in the matter now.

She eyed the two men from behind, sizing them up.  Clearly mercenaries.  Both carried assault rifles and both were built like line-backers. 

When the sun finally rose it glinted off something and caught her attention.  She looked at the man York and noted that he wore a stiff silver band arou
nd his neck.  Her eyes snapped to Conn, remembering the way the similar object around banded around his throat had flashed brightly before he’d taken a knee in the jungle.
 

Several minutes later they stepped into a clearing where
a
large military-
type
helicopter sat parked
in the center of her jungle.  At the sight her heart-rate picked up.  Someone was going through a great deal of expense.  She cleared her throat as York tugged on the rope drawing her closer to the waiting helicopter
where Shane and York held defensive positions with their rifles at the ready
, scanning the jungle as if expecting an attack
.

“Look, you’ve got the wrong lady.  I
don’t
have a brother.”

York spun and smiled at her.  “Sure.  Next you’ll be
tellin
’ us that your last name’s not
EnemyHunter
.”

Aries frowned as she pulled back on the rope with both hands using her body weight to assist even as
York reeled her closer.  “It’s not.  My last name’s Bracken.”  She growled in frustration as Conn walked up and grabbed her by the arm before lifting her into the helicopter. 

Conn followed her in as did York.  Shane and
James
kept their rifles pointed toward the jungle and only jumped into the chopper as it lifted off the ground.
  None of the men spoke to the pilot, and he didn’t seem at all concerned that the group had obviously just kidnapped her.

“I don’t know who’s paying you boys, but you’re about to find out that you’ve fucked up
royally
.”

York looked from Aries to Conn.  She could tell by his look that he was inclined to believe her.  Conn on the other hand ignored her completely.

Several minutes into the flight, Conn pulled a map from the
leg pocket of his fatigues and motioned for his men to come closer.  Conn sat across the cabin in the furthest seat from Aries.  York and Shane who’d been on either side of Aries both took a knee in front of Conn as
James
slid down h
is seat to get closer to their C
ommander as the group
huddled and
quietly discussed some unknown plans.
 

Watching them, Aries saw that James and Shane
also
wore the same band around their throats.  She wondered if it was some new military device. 

As the men talked, Aries inched closer and closer to the opened doors of the Pave Hawk Helicopter.  When she felt Conn’s eyes on her, she feigned a slight tremble, wrapping her arms around her
self
and rubbing her arms
in what she hoped was the appearance of a woman
cowering
in the grip of her fear
of heights. 
It worked.  Conn snorted his derision at her weak reaction,
turning his eyes back
to
the plans he and his men were scanning intently. 

B
efore any of the
m even realized what was happening, Aries dropped to her knees, rolling with the mo
mentum
of her body
as her arms
snaked
out and snagged a
bundled
parachute just as her body was sucked out the door of the helicopter.

Four sets of eyes snapped to the open door of the helicopter.

“Holy fuck!”
James
’s tone was reverent.

Precious seconds were wasted
as C
onn and his platoon of
men stared dumbly at the
now v
acant ledge of the helicopter before
Conn
finally
broke free of his disbelief.  “Get your asses out there!”  His words were a harsh growl, self-admonishing. 

York,
James
, and
Shane
quickly donned chutes before dropping wordlessly from the still moving copter
as Conn barked orders for the pilot to circle back
. 
 

What the fuck was wrong with her? 
Surly she had to know that if he
wanted her dead, she would be.  Conn shoved an angry hand into his short brown hair, even as the thrill of the chase excited him more than he’d been in years.  No one had ever run so hard or made such
a daring and death-
defying attempt at escape.  His lips curled into a satisfied smile even as
he
lifted
a
packed nylon parac
hute and simply stared at it
before he dropped it to the floor of the cabin and dove out the helicopter
’s cabin
. 
He and his men were to use the highest level of discretion regarding their shifting abilities, but the adrenaline surging through him with the thrill of the chase had him throwing caution to the wind.  They were in the jungle
after all
.