Tempting the Fire (32 page)

He turned back to the camp, assessed the situation with his high-powered binoculars. Some GWC guys, being guarded by some Itor ones. Perfect. Itor had always found a way to spoil a party.

“They’re all yours,” Akbar said quietly.

“I thought we’d draw straws to see which one played captive,” Stryker grumbled.

“I thought I’d just pull rank.” Akbar flashed his easy, familiar grin. Anyone who didn’t know what the man was capable of could easily underestimate him—

and end up dead, thanks to one flick of a wrist.

Akbar’s gift came in the form of poisonous spurs that shot out of his wrists.

Stryker and Akbar planned as much as they could, leaving room for the inevitable fuckup, which could happen at any time. Stryker would provide most of the muscle, with Akbar jumping in with the element of surprise at the end. If needed, Annika and Gabe could play a role as well.

He stood and prepared to head to the camp.

“Stay safe,” Akbar told him.

“Always,” Stryker answered, the way he had hundreds of times before. But this time, when he began to walk away, a feeling of unease hit him and he almost turned back.

Just your nerves screwing with you, he told himself as he worked through the thick jungle. His clothes helped with the worst of the bites and scratches in dealing with the underbrush, but man, what he wouldn’t give for a cold pool. And a beer.

And women. Not ones who could kill you if you touched them either.

Focus, man. He got to the edge of camp and checked out the competition.

He could take them all down pretty easily, but it would be nice to have the GWC

guys on his side. And so he strode in from the jungle like he owned the place.

“Hey, why the hell didn’t anyone relieve me?”

All the men turned to stare at him. He walked straight up to one of the GWC men—easily differentiated from the Itor bastards because of the look of annoyance on their faces. “What’s going on here, guys?” he asked loudly, and then mouthed, “Work with me,” to one of the men.

“Who the hell is he?” one of the Itor guys demanded, and Stryker pivoted around.

“I work for GWC. Who the hell are you?”

The Itor guy—fucking excedo, of course—slammed him to the ground with one closed fist to the side of his head. Stryker bit the dirt and held his temper in check. It wasn’t the time to give away the fact that he could play the special-abilities game. Yet.

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But he’d have fun with payback when it was—because, fuck, that hurt every single time. Fucking overkill—excedos loved that shit.

For now, he sucked the dirt and pretended he was down for the count while they jacked his hands up behind his back with plastic disposable cuffs and dragged him across the ground. He waited for a while, at least an hour, until he heard footsteps stop next to him.

He rolled and groaned.

“It’s okay, man … you’re okay,” one of the men whispered. He opened his eyes and stared at a man with half his face bandaged.

“Where’s Logan? And Sela?” he asked quietly.

“Some woman’s got them in the jungle, searching for the thing—the beast,”

the man said as he helped Stryker sit up.

He chafed against the restraints. He could get them off, but it would come with a price—the price of his temper, and it was way too early for that part of the plan.

Instead, he assessed the GWC men around him; few seemed worse for wear, and he’d guess that none of them had any special abilities beyond being ex–

Special Forces. Which, he had to admit, came in pretty damned handy in a pinch.

Except for the old guy—identified by pre-mission briefing photos as Richard; he didn’t look like he was willing to do anything but get in the way.

“Who are you?” he asked, crouching next to Stryker.

“I’m here to help.” Stryker kept his voice low and his gaze on the Itor bastards, some of whom patrolled the perimeter of the camp, and others who maintained a watch of the GWC people.

The old man’s eyes crinkled as they narrowed. “You government?

Military?”

“Something like that. You’re going to have to follow my lead and we’ll all get out of here alive.”

“Itor has my daughter.” Richard gripped Stryker’s shirt in his fist. “If you’ve jeopardized her safety, if they transmit trouble back to their headquarters

…”

Stryker stared into the man’s eyes. “They’re not calling in shit. We’ll be ready when the rest of my team arrives if you shut up and do exactly what I say. If you don’t, I can promise you’ll be sorry.”

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That Phoebe bitch scared the crap out of Sela. Mainly because when Sela looked into her baby blues, the only thing she saw was evil. The uncommonly gorgeous blonde had a body to die for and eyes that said she’d be happy to help with getting you dead.

How she’d do it was the question. Sela had no idea what the woman’s special ability was, and she really didn’t want to find out. So she kept quiet as the group hiked through the jungle with the chupacabra’s body, Chance still draped over Logan’s shoulder.

A fierce rainstorm caught them about halfway back, making the last three miles even more miserable. When it was over, steam rose up off the forest floor, mingling with the streaks of intense sunlight that pierced the cap of tree branches, and Sela might have thought it was beautiful if not for the fact that she was soaking wet, hot and feeling like she was living in a pressure cooker.

By the time they straggled into camp, the afternoon heat and humidity had taken its toll on everyone—except, seemingly, Phoebe. The woman smiled brightly at her crew, and Sela took the opportunity to nonchalantly move toward Logan’s tent, while everyone else dealt with Chance and the dead creature—a dead creature Sela would love to study. If she could get to Logan’s sat phone, she could call Dev and find out where the hell her backup was. She needed boots on the ground, and fast. She had a sneaking suspicion that Itor wasn’t going to leave anyone alive once they got everything they wanted all packaged up.

Sela was almost there when a hand came down on her shoulder, and she was roughly jerked around by the female Itor agent.

“If you were planning to call for help, you should know that all tents have been cleared of electronic devices.”

“Well, goody for your efficiency,” Sela snapped. “But I wasn’t planning on calling anyone. Who are you anyway? Is Itor a government agency? For the United States? Another country?” Yep, Sela could play dumb pretty well.

Phoebe laughed. “We work for many governments.”

Yeah, you work for any sleazy government with enough money to pay you to do their dirty work. Probably best not to say that. “What do you want with Global Weapons Corporation so badly that you had to hunt them down in the middle of the jungle?”

Phoebe’s hand trailed down Sela’s arm in a playful caress, and Sela had an instant suspicion that, sexually, the agent played for the home team. “You ask a lot of questions for a cryptozoologist.”

“You barged into camp, took over and threatened our lives. I think I’m 185

asking questions anyone would ask.”

A half smile turned up one corner of Phoebe’s mouth, and she let her hand drift to Sela’s breast. “I suppose you’re right.” She paused when one of her men approached.

“What are your orders?” he asked.

“I want the unconscious man and the creature prepared for transport,” she said, her fingers plucking at Sela’s nipple now. “Confiscate all research materials, and call Jackson. Tell him to bring in the rest of the team. I want to be gone within the hour.”

The agent nodded and jogged off.

“The rest of the team?” Sela asked, stepping away from Phoebe’s groping hands, but the other woman caught her, backed her against a tent, and this time slipped her hand under Sela’s shirt. Sela’s skin crawled at the feel of the hot palm sliding around her waist.

“We didn’t want to alarm anyone, so we’ve had half our team staged outside the camp.”

Hopefully they’d been killed by the guerrillas or eaten by another chupacabra. Because Phoebe wouldn’t be calling them in if they weren’t a cleanup crew. Which meant that everyone in the camp was about to die.

“Ma’am? Is everything okay?” The familiar male voice had Sela whipping her head around. Stryker stood there, and though Sela couldn’t tell for sure, she thought his hands were bound behind his back.

He was watching Phoebe, completely expressionless.

“This is none of your concern,” Phoebe growled. “Go away.”

One eyebrow cocked up, but Stryker didn’t move. He merely looked to Sela. “Ma’am?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “We’re just talking. Killing time before the rest of Phoebe’s crew gets here.”

Phoebe’s nails dug painfully deep into Sela’s hip, punishment for what she’d said. But Stryker had gotten the message, and he dipped his head in a brief nod before walking away.

“I didn’t realize it was a secret,” Sela said, lowering her voice, putting her Seducer tricks into play.

As a Seducer, she’d been trained to reel in men and women, had been instructed in all the ways to pleasure both sexes. On the job she’d done what—and who—she’d had to, and when it came right down to it, fucking a woman she hated was just as easy as fucking a man she hated. It was all a matter of putting your mind in the right place and detaching yourself while engineering their pleasure.

Problem was, Logan had ruined her, and she didn’t know if she could get to that place with anyone else ever again. But if she could keep Phoebe busy in a tent for a while, maybe she could buy Stryker some time to call in help or plan something. Better, if she could get the Itor agent to climax, she might get some good intel.

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But the only person she wanted to make climax was Logan, and as Phoebe’s hand drifted down the back of Sela’s pants, the images that popped into her head were those of Logan, his head thrown back in ecstasy, his eyes closed, tendons in his neck straining.

Maybe that would be how she could deal with Phoebe; keep Logan in her head as the person who was stroking her ass, inching fingers down between her legs.

“That’s it,” Phoebe purred into Sela’s ear, and that fast, she was jolted out of it. This wasn’t going to work. Roughly, she shoved the Itor agent away.

“I’m not playing your game, lady.” Sela had to raise her chin to meet the other woman’s stare, but she didn’t let that intimidate her. “I’m a scientist, not a whore. I want to study the chupacabra.” True enough, but maybe she could buy ACRO some time.

Phoebe’s ice-cold eyes revealed nothing, but her voice rumbled with annoyance. “What you want is irrelevant.”

“I’m the world’s leading chupacabra expert. No one knows as much as I do about them. Sounds to me like you need some help with whatever you’re doing, and I can be that help.” Sela could see the wheels start turning in the gorgeous woman’s brain.

Finally, Phoebe inclined her head. “You might be useful. How do you feel about travel?”

Sela didn’t answer the rhetorical question, and she knew as well as Phoebe that this would be a one-way trip.

***

professionals, so Phoebe expected them to perform their jobs quickly and without creating panic. Obviously, the GWC staff were terrified; Team Two looked like something out of a science-fiction military movie. But the team, consisting mainly of excedos, knew how to gather people up and offer reassurances that everything would be fine as long as they cooperated.

They were excellent liars.

Phoebe dragged Sela with her to the staging area, where Mick was supervising the packaging of the dead animal and the guy named Chance. The animal had been stuffed into a body bag, and Chance was sitting quietly inside a cage. The Marlena woman watched with red-rimmed eyes, but she stood stoically, making no trouble, which was smart. Huh. Beauty and brains. Shocking.

Well, it might have been shocking if Phoebe didn’t possess both of those traits too.

Dane was standing outside the medical tent, whose canvas sides had been rolled up to prevent any of the GWC staff from trying something cute. Inside, Logan was attempting to keep his father calm. Maybe now was the time to bring in 187

Caroline. She’d either die in the camp or she’d die where they’d left her in the jungle, so it didn’t matter to Phoebe. But if she was here, Richard and Logan might be easier to control.

The small hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and the sensation that someone was watching her rolled over her like a cold wave. Slowly, she turned, locked gazes with the man who had interrupted her and Sela. He stood near the open command tent, wrists bound behind him in flex-cuffs, like eighty percent of the camp. But even so, there was nothing restrained about him.

He had to be nearly six and a half feet, and she had a feeling his jungle camos were hanging on a solid frame of muscle. But it was his eyes that really gave him the impression of power. Crystal orbs flecked with blue and green, they were almost hypnotic. They gave absolutely nothing away. He could be terrified, or he could be enjoying himself.

Leaving Sela with the animal and Chance, she approached the man, halting just a foot away, well within his personal space. It didn’t seem to bother him. Too bad. “What is your name?”

“Guess,” he drawled, in a deep, rich voice that hit her in places men didn’t usually touch, unless she was desperate.

She struck his face with her open palm, leaving a pink handprint on his cheek. “Next time, I draw blood.”

“Look closely,” he drawled.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

“You might see me tremble.”

Snarling, she hit him again, this time with her closed fist. A satisfying trickle of blood formed in the corner of his mouth. “Name.”

He bared his teeth, now streaked with red. “How about … Bob.”

This time, she buried her fist in his gut. His hard abs hurt her hand a little, but his soft grunt was satisfying. “Your name, not a name.”

“Hit me again, and you’re going to regret it.” His voice was eerily calm and flat, but the flecks in his eyes were flashing like glitter in the wind. Weird. And in her world, weird meant special. As in special abilities special.