Unleashing the Storm (44 page)

“Ah…uh…excuse
me?” Dr. Lavery’s voice pierced the haze Kira had gone into as she lay half on,
half off of Tom.

“Thank
God, ma’am,” Remy said from near the door, where he was holding Haley’s hand.
“I was about to turn a hose on them.”

Heat
seared Kira’s cheeks, but Tom just grinned like the cat that ate the canary.
Clearly, the food was already working.

The
veterinarian sighed. “Remember what I said about waiting a week?”

“Don’t
worry,” Kira said. “I can restrain myself.”

Tom
looked at her like she was a big, fat liar, and if he weren’t lying in a
hospital bed she’d have hit him.

“Good.”
The vet glanced at Haley and Remy. “I have some news, but it might be best to
have some privacy.”

Before
Remy and Haley could back out of the room, Kira shook her head. “No. They’re
friends. Family. They can stay.”

Tom
groaned, and she could have sworn he mumbled the words
“So screwed.”

Dr.
Lavery nodded. “If you’re sure. I’ve been working with the research department
and the lab, and we think we can help ease your spring fevers. Before you get
your hopes up, you need to know that the cure could take time, as in years. But
in the meantime, we can make them more manageable. We’ll create prepared
applicators—backup in case Tom gets sick, injured or just needs a break.” She
shifted her weight and steeled herself with a deep breath, and Kira knew this
was going to be interesting.

“We’ll
have Tom bank his—”

“Ah,
wait.” Tom struggled to sit up. “What? No. Whatever you’re going to say, no. A
couple of weeks is not a problem.”

Kira
bit her lip. “Um, it’s four.”

“Four
what?”

“Four
weeks.”

Tom
slid back down in the bed. “Christ.”

She
patted his shoulder. “It’ll be fine. Since I’m on abstinence orders this week
and you’re not, we can get started with the bank thing right away. Fun!”

For
the first time ever, Tom’s cheeks flamed, and Remy wasn’t helping things, not
with the way he was laughing so hard he was in danger of busting something.
Like his ribs, which had Haley’s elbow in them. Over and over.

“There’s
more,” Dr. Lavery said, and Haley took the opportunity to drag Remy out,
apparently deciding that Tom could handle only so much family.

Dr.
Lavery drew a photo from the folder she’d brought with her and clipped it to a
lighted board on the wall. “This is your ultrasound. See these circles?”

Kira’s
lungs seized, and Tom went taut. “Is something wrong? Is Kira okay? What about
the baby?”

“Everything’s
fine,” the vet said in a low, reassuring tone, and Kira felt the breath she’d
been holding blow out in a rush of relief. “It’s just that we think, based on
your estimated window of conception and the size of the fetuses, that your
gestation period might be accelerated.”

“Fetuses?”
Tom sounded a little strangled.

“Yes.
Each circle represents one fetus.”

“But
there’re three.” Kira frowned. Tom’s hand tightened around her waist. “Oh, my
God. Three.”

“It
appears you have a lot more in common with the animal world than we thought,”
Dr. Lavery said. “Litters.”

TWO
DAYS AFTER ENDER WAS DISCHARGED from the infirmary and Kira had moved out of
Haley’s house, Haley hurried into the reception area of Dev’s office, to find a
scowling Marlena. The woman must not like working for a new boss.

“I
need to see Mr. Oswald,” Haley said. “It’s an emergency.”

Marlena
buzzed Haley in, and she stepped into Dev’s office to find a man she’d never
seen before, though he looked familiar. “Mr. Oswald, I’m Haley Holmes.”

“Call
me Oz.” He threw a foot up on the desk. “So what’s up?”

What a
strange man. Definitely not military. Once again, Haley wondered why Dev had
turned ACRO’s reins over to him, but really, it wasn’t any of her business as
long as this guy knew what he was doing. Which, at the moment, she had her
doubts about.

“I
don’t think we’ve met. I’m the head of the Meteorology department. Did Dev fill
you in on the weather-machine situation?”

“Itor
supposedly has some monstrous thing capable of creating massive tornadoes and
hurricanes?”

“Yes.
I’ve been looking for it since September.” She opened her briefcase with
shaking hands. “I think I’ve found it.”

She
slid a computer printout across the desk to him. “It took this long because I
had to compile known data from the mini-machine’s weather patterns—I’d
encountered it last fall, and then had to search the world for similar
patterns, as well as determine—”

“I
trust your research. Skip to what I’m looking at.”

“The
coordinates.” She strode to the giant map of the world on Dev’s far wall, her
stomach queasy with excitement. “It’s here.”

One
dark eyebrow crawled up his forehead. “That’s the middle of the Atlantic.
That’s impossible.”

She
nodded. “That’s what I thought. Then I got some satellite photos.” She hurried
back to her briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers. “At first, all I saw
was water.”

She
handed him the photos, and he sifted through them, seeing nothing of
significance.

“But
then I got a close-up with this one.” When she pushed the last photo in front
of him, he glanced at it and then looked up again.

“It’s
more water.”

“Look
closer.”

What
he did was look at her like she was insane, but he finally peered down at the
picture. After a moment, his eyes went wide, and she knew he’d seen it.

The
fuzzy, nearly invisible outline of a monstrous oil platform.

“Holy
shit,” he breathed. “They have a light-bender.”

“A
what?”

Tracing
the oil rig with his finger, he breathed deeply. “Someone who can bend light to
create an invisible shield. ACRO used to have one. Maybe he’s still here. But
he could only do this to himself. I’ve heard rumors of a guy who can do it and
take small things like chairs with him, and
that
is extraordinary.” He
stabbed the photo with his finger. “This…this is un-fucking-believable. And an
oil platform…”

Before
she could say anything, he slammed his fist on the desk.

“Mother.
Fuck.”

“That’s
kinda what I was thinking.”

He
pierced her with a hard stare. “We’d have an easier time breaking into Fort
Knox than we would getting onto this. They’ll know our methods, and this thing
will be a fortress. Not to mention they have the world’s biggest moat around
it. We’re screwed.”

She
snapped her briefcase closed. “Welcome to ACRO.”

Epilogue

Whenever
Ender came home from a mission, he was on edge. He thought about taking a hotel
room or staying at ACRO for the night, just to decompress. This was the first
time he’d ever come home from an ACRO job to
someone.
And not just
someone—his
mate
.

Except,
fuck, he missed Kira like crazy and with the babies due in just a few months,
he wanted all the alone time with her he could get.

He
walked into the house carefully. He’d already put the safeties on his weapons
and now he placed them into the steel-doored closet he’d had built the second
he’d realized he was going to be living in a fucking menagerie.

He’d
put his foot down when Kira told him that Spazzy had requested to live inside
the house. Because a man had to put his fucking foot down at some point.

He
tripped and cursed, because she’d rearranged the living room furniture while
he’d been gone—no doubt, to balance his chi or something crazy like that.

He
shook it off and moved on.

They
attacked him when he was halfway through the kitchen, took him down hard on the
ceramic-tile floor.

“Dammit,
Babs!” he yelled at the Weim, who’d Velcroed herself to his side. She merely
raised her ears and wagged her tail, while Rafi was fucking sitting on his
chest, staring down at him. And there was Spazzy, standing over him and so
not
outside the house.

So.
Screwed. And that was without the three little monsters, three girls, who were
going to be running loose around this place and running roughshod on him.

Kira
was watching him from the doorway, and God, she looked even more beautiful than
she did last week when he’d left. She was round and curvy and he was going to
make love to her tonight—she’d left him a message a few days earlier that Dr.
Lavery had given her a clean bill of health at her August checkup.

“I’d
like to have some time alone with Tommy,” she said now, and immediately the
animals dispersed, though they hung around in the distance. He stood and
embraced her gently.

“Hey,”
he whispered.

“Hey
yourself.” She ran a hand along his cheek. “Are you okay? Need some time
alone?”

He
looked around at the animals surrounding them, and at Kira’s belly, and finally
at her. “No,” he said. “Not right now.”

She
tugged his shirt and began to walk up the stairs, him trailing closely behind.
“Remy said that you tried to strangle the pilot tonight when you landed.”

“He
had a shitty touchdown,” Ender said. “And Remy has a big mouth.”

They
were on the landing, right outside the bedroom, and she turned toward him,
shaking her head.

“Wait
a minute…You don’t expect me to be…nice, all of a sudden, do you?” he asked.

She
laughed at what must’ve been the look of horror on his face. “No, Tommy—I want
you just the way I fell in love with you.”

“Well,
good. But that guy’s an asshole.”

“Yes.”

“Moody.”

“Of
course.”

“Not
a nice guy,” he said. “Never going to be a nice guy.”

“I
don’t like nice guys,” she said, and he growled deep in his throat. She growled
right back at him before she ripped his shirt open, and he knew he’d found the
not-nice woman for him.