Within two minutes of walking into the First Intelligence Office building, Kevin had borrowed an identification badge, a clipboard, a hat, and a set of files. He strode to the seventh floor without a concern. The key to belonging in a building was making sure he looked like everyone else. So he did. While the FIO wasn’t near as chaotic as the Haven City Enforcement Services divisions, it had its own level of crazy he had to contend with.
Ryan Voklane, assistant to the Director of Operations, the Arch Guardian Synintel, was high enough on the food chain to merit his own office. However, to get to said office, Kevin had to not only go through a maze of endless corridors, but two cubicle bays. Sneaking in through the fire escape had been so much easier. If the sun were anywhere but almost vertical, Kevin would have seriously considered doing so again.
Kevin didn’t bother to knock, walking into Ryan’s open office and quietly closing the door. Voklane scribbled something inside a folder while reaching for a document. The afternoon rays spilling through the window behind him was so bright his hair appeared more white than golden. He didn’t look up, simply motioned with his pen.
“Set the folders there on the corner, I’ll get to them when I’m able.”
Kevin carefully set the paperwork that didn’t belong on the man’s desk on the corner requested. “The Shield Guardian Enbrackon has my wife.”
Pale blue eyes snapped up, shifted to the door and then back to Kevin. His broad shoulders straightened, a frown flattening his mouth. “Merrick.”
Kevin returned the greeting. “Voklane.”
Ryan tapped the pen against the desk, thankfully not one to dwell on polite exchanges to get to the heart of matters. “You’re positive?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Synintel’s footmen. At least they were wearing his uniform and claimed to be from him.”
Voklane grasped a fresh sheet of paper. “Have you had reason to suspect a man within Synintel’s employ?”
“As of last night, yes.”
Ryan’s gaze met his again before focusing on the paper. “Report.”
With clipped words and years of training to isolate only necessary information, Kevin reported the suspected incidents, along with a few other pertinent encounters concerning Enbrackon. “Blackbain and Dandridge are gathering the information for a possible location now.”
“Have you gone to Synintel?”
Kevin crossed his arms over his chest. “For what purpose?”
Ryan’s frown deepened. He set his forearms on the desk, shifting the pen between both his hands. “I suppose that’s a fair question.”
Their Direction of Operations Liaison sat back in his desk and regarded Kevin for silent moments. Kevin remained calm in the space of time, knowing Voklane was processing, planning, assigning. Doing everything required of him for a mission he usually had weeks to organize instead of minutes.
“I’ll need to know where so I can have clean up handled,” Ryan finally said.
Kevin nodded. “I won’t have time to assess involvement. Whether it’s Enforcement he’s pulled in, or even Intel Guardians who’ve joined the ranks, I won’t be able to tell you.”
“Understood. But I don’t think it will be.”
“What do you mean?”
Voklane shrugged, sitting back in his seat. “Just a feeling. Be careful, and make sure if Mrs. Blackbain can offer cover, she does so.”
“How deep is Enbrackon in?”
Ryan took a long, profound breath. “Too deep. I don’t think we’ll be able to overlook this particular grievance. He was lucky with Katria, lucky I allowed you and Dandridge to handle it instead of going to Synintel. Now, we don’t have a choice, which means we’ll have to let on we aren’t in the dark anymore.”
“Maybe it’s time.”
“There’s never a good time for the other side to know more than you wish.” Ryan tapped the pen against the edge of the desk. “You should know we suspect he’s after Synintel’s position.”
Kevin shifted his weight and drew his brows together. “As Director? That’s a bit of a step from leading city Enforcement, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and no. Sons can inherit after just training. Enbrackon at least has leadership experience. If you can call his showing up at work experience. After all, he’s in his current role thanks to his father.”
Kevin mulled the information over, not liking the direction it led. “He’d have to be appointed.”
“Or marry into it.”
Everything became startling clear in that moment and Kevin had to dig his toes into his boots to keep from flying out the door. “She’s bait.”
“Likely, yes.”
“Do you have anyone else in country who can help?”
Ryan shook his head. “No, Survaine is half a world away, literally, in some country barely grasping this side of the Primal Years, ensuring they actually stay in this century. My other interceptor as capable as you is in Westica, saving some Master Guardians daughter who thought it’d be cute to play bandit and ended up being the bounty.”
“She didn’t get left to her stupidity?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Sadly no. She’s not alone in the kidnapping, they took a prominent member of the government too, and made an international incident of it. Don’t you read the paper? She’s been front page news for the last two days. We had no choice but to rescue her sorry butt. While there are others, they aren’t at your team’s level. I fear you’d get annoyed with them versus being thankful.”
Fair enough. When you worked with the best, below standard wasn’t acceptable. Kevin let out a deep breath, expelling uneasiness. “Very well. Save the girl, don’t die in the process.”
“It’s pretty imperative you don’t die. Let Dandridge know Katria is to keep you alive when he’s plotting the strategy, whatever he manages time for.”
“How long have you suspected Enbrackon’s goals?”
Voklane shook his head. “Not so much his goals, rather whoever is running around in the shadows causing conflict that we can’t seem to pin down. They are setting big goals.”
“They want to place Enbrackon in a power position? Why?”
“Not just Enbrackon. They’re slowly replacing leadership roles in all the branches of government.”
Kevin’s already uneasy nerves made his fingers twitch and his shoulders roll. “They’ve succeeded in these attempts? How many so far?”
“We don’t know for certain, and we don’t know how many have been coerced and how many are voluntary, either. I’ve managed to gather some intel that says some of the men and women were forced into compliance. Synintel is working hard to infiltrate what he can, but progress is slow.”
“That’s why Blackbain’s team is still here. You need us to keep picking up the fragmented pieces we’re able to find.”
Voklane gave a little weary shrug. “Yes and no. Synintel is fixated with his daughter’s safety. He has been since… since just before what happened to Nachemir. Then, after that incident, he became fairly obsessed. I don’t know what happened almost five years ago, but it was enough to spook the Arch Guardian. He seems to function on two levels now. One handling his job, through me, and another handling his daughter, through you.”
A little over four years ago something happened. My father acted strangely for weeks. He wouldn’t come out of his office for any reason except to sleep and bathe.
Raina’s words came back to Kevin, fitting another piece into the puzzle forming a complete picture. “He needed to make sure Raina didn’t become a pawn in their game.”
And made sure by keeping Kevin a pawn in his.
However, he couldn’t really begrudge the man anymore, not when Kevin had to admit the squeezing pain in his chest was likely something he had no choice but to admit to. Somewhere along the very unemotional journey of his marriage, he’d had a very emotional response.
He’d fallen in love with his wife.
Losing his rank suddenly became the least of his concerns. If Enbrackon managed what Voklane feared, Kevin would be dead and Raina would be an Arch Guardianess. And while the rank certainly suited her better, Kevin couldn’t imagine the new husband would. He couldn’t envision any man in that role besides him now. No, another man touching, kissing, loving his woman in a manner he hadn’t even been able to experience was definitely not acceptable.
Kevin flexed his fist and took a calming breath. He’d have to ensure such a fate didn’t happen.
A gentle evening breeze teased the grass around Kevin’s thighs. The sun hugged the horizon, leaving dying tendrils of warmth spilling over the field he waited in. He pulled in a deep, calming breath. In his ear Mason’s composed, controlled voice relayed information through the bulky, yet necessary magnetically powered radio communicator clipped to his belt.
“I have six on the east side.”
Katria replied in an equally clipped tone. “I count four at the south entrance. Sean counts at least five in the loft.”
Fifteen visible targets. Meaning there were at least that many unseen, if not more.
“I’m seeing a strange marking on their left sleeve,” Katria’s soft, female voice crackled over the air.
“Copy, I see it too,” Mason replied.
Kevin kept his eyes closed, his emotions grounded. He pressed his com button down. “What does it look like?”
Katria answered, “A pyramid with a sword going through it.”
The information made Kevin open his eyes and focus on a bird bouncing between blades of grass. “Cairoen Sentinels.”
Mason cursed. The next voice that came over the line was his leader.
“Are you positive?” Sean asked.
Kevin raised a brow. “Did you really just ask me that? Give the com back to your wife.”
Katria’s laughter arrived before her words. Kevin couldn’t help but smile at the easy trust in his team. “Do I need to worry about a counter marksman?”
“No, they’re ground force trained,” Kevin answered.
“Copy that.”
They’d faced bad odds before, but not on this level. The last time, they’d had a building to clear, which meant foes on floors, not all together. Kevin figured he’d have to hold his own for a bit before Katria would be able to leave the safety and necessity of the height she and Sean waited at. The roof of another warehouse. Mason was ground level, and a decent shot, but not nearly as quick or accurate as Katria.
Mason relayed instructions based on what they’d discovered in the short time. Kevin stood, stretched fully, and then went to Eadric, his Icekutian stallion. Large saddle bags hung from either side of the beautiful slate gray beast, packed with necessities Kevin had made Tabby fill for Raina. They’d not be returning to Haven City if he managed to make it out alive.
He mounted the horse, ruffling a hand through Eadric’s silky mane before commanding him to move forward. They were a quarter mile from a small collection of warehouses situated barely outside the city. The rail line ran along the western side of the property with a docking line curving away from the main line to load or offload cargo without blocking other trains needing to get to their destination. According to the schedule for that track, a train would provide sound cover in exactly thirty minutes. For how long, they didn’t know. Kevin hoped to be free of the building before the last car cleared the property boundary.
Not that Kat needed the cover, her rifle was made with a built-in silencer. But, the fall of bodies couldn’t be silenced. The train would help with that. In the distance the loud, blaring horn called to the approaching buildings and anyone within proximity that a charging mass of steel advanced. Kevin urged Eadric into a gallop, in a race now with the oncoming train.
“South entrance clear,” Katria’s voice called over the com.
“No awareness from the east side,” Mason relayed.
“Approaching the south,” Kevin said, sliding his mount between two warehouses.
“We see you,” Katria confirmed. “Opening a window and clearing the loft.”
Kevin tied up Eadric, informing Mason of the stallion’s location so he could move him to the east entrance. He sprinted to the warehouse, looking up at the broken window. Time to get his wife back. And hopefully not lose her at the same time. If she didn’t despise him after learning his true nature, he’d be shocked.
Ignoring the massacre at the south entrance, Kevin prepared a rope to swing into the window Katria had shot out for him. Before the night was finished, he’d likely have a higher body count than the team’s markswoman. He always did. And he always tried to bury the guilt of wasting a human life, no matter how necessary.
Glass tinkered to the floor in the loft above. Raina snapped her head toward the sound. A man fell limply from the second story edge, landing in a heap of flesh and bone on the cement floor. She swallowed a scream, her fingers grasping the chain holding her hostage. A diffused pop sounded, another body tipped over, landing not far from the other. Two men rushed the stairs, their focus on the shadowy space above.
Raina yanked on the chain with her hands, ignoring the pain of the metal shackle biting into her ankle. Enbrackon departed hours ago. The sun’s dying light had left her with a sense of hopelessness. Kevin hadn’t been able to find her like the Shield Guardian had believed he would. Three more rapid, muted pops echoed from the upstairs. The faint accompanying thump, thump, thump told her three more bodies had likely fallen.
Who was killing these men and was it a new threat to her? She had no way of defending herself against a bullet. Not that she’d be able to even if someone put a gun in her hand. She’d never held one before Katria had handed her one so many nights ago. She’d been as useless then as she would be now. If someone in the FIO learned of Enbrackon’s plan, Raina might be better dead to them than alive, regardless of who her father was. His position was certainly more important to some than her life.
Biting her lip until the pain rivaled the one grinding along her ankle bone, she squeezed her eyes closed in her fear and willed her pounding heart and rolling stomach to calm. She took in several slow breaths through her nose when her head spun. Though, perhaps if she were going to die today, it’d be better if she were passed out and didn’t see it coming.
A shout followed by running feet forced Raina’s attention back to the gruesome scene unfolding in the warehouse. Men sprinted from a short corridor to her right. Their booted footfalls on the concrete echoed all around the empty space. A shadow launched from the loft, landing in graceful arc, taking two men down in the process. When the dark figure rose to full height, Raina gasped.
Kevin.
Fear swallowed her whole and this time she couldn’t hold in the scream. Severely outnumbered, she couldn’t see anyway for him to walk out of the center of the men who seemed twice as big as him physically.
Then an explosion of motion happened. The expression on his handsome face wasn’t Kevin. He wore a mask of indifference, his gray eyes luminesce, almost silver with an inner fire. Virtually too fast to perceive, he caught, deflected and returned every punch or kick. One assailant lunged with a knife. Kevin caught the man’s wrist, twisted and sent the knife blade up through the bottom of the attacker’s chin. With a swift yank, the blade jerked free in a fountain of blood and was imbedded in the chest of a man across from him before Raina could blink.
No.
Air refused to enter into her lungs any way other than too quickly.
No.
Her husband did not just murder two men… make that three. A man landed on the ground at Kevin’s feet, his neck at an unnatural angle. The crack of bone, a scream, followed another body to the floor. Stars danced on the edges of Raina’s vision. Every one of her muscles trembled.
The flash of blade preceded another sickening snap. A new body joined the ranks. Blood seeped along the floor in dark puddles. Raina’s stomach lurched. Panic tingled along her skin and she jerked harder on the chain, moving her attention to the bolts, wanting to be far away from the nightmare her life had moved into.
“You’re in a bad dream. Any second now you’ll wake up, when nothing more is wrong than you can’t figure out how to brush your hair.” She repeated the words over and over, tears burning and flowing down her cheeks.
When the bolts didn’t budge, despite her bracing her feet against the wall and yanking with all her strength, a sense of hysteria threatened. A guttural cry formed deep in her throat. The chain rattled and clanked uselessly in her hands. Still she attempted the impossible, refusing to believe she was locked in a warehouse with dead men and a maniacal man she thought was her husband.
Bloody fingers grasped the chain near her ankle. Raina screamed until her throat burned, twisting onto her knees, her only thought to escape. The chain pulled tight, digging the shackle into her upper foot and heel. She didn’t dare look to see who was after her. Or if her husband had survived. Terror filling her that he hadn’t. Not wanting to know if the gory hand belonged to one of the many Sentinels who may have been ordered to retrieve her.
The binding on her ankle released. She didn’t contemplate how. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting free.
A powerful arm snaked around her waist and hauled her up against a solid chest. A second arm banded around her torso. Strong thighs locked alongside hers, giving her no chance or means of escape. “I need you to calm down. I know you’re scared, but I can’t be worrying about your emotional state. Later, yes. Right now, I need you to be the very in control of yourself daughter of an Arch Guardian. Do you understand?”
Kevin.
Raina focused on the calm familiar deep timbre of Kevin’s voice. Not the cold lethal predator sending men to their death seconds ago. She forced herself to relax in his embrace, slow her breathing, swallow the bile still a burning threat in her throat.
His arm around her upper body tightened. “Do you understand?”
Not trusting her ability to speak, she simply nodded. Slowly he released her, but kept a hand wrapped around her wrist. Raina tried to ignore the sticky slide of his fingers on her skin. She forced herself to look straight ahead at a wall.
Later she’d analyze the strange, weakening relief at knowing Kevin survived, mixed with the warring sense of fear of who he was. Now, she’d do exactly what he asked. She’d be Synintel’s daughter, pulling on the regal training she’d received since birth. Using the memory of a stiff rod against the back of her thighs when she hadn’t obeyed her Mistress of Etiquette as a reminder.
Yes, she might give in to moments of childish emotion, more so in the presence of Kevin than she cared to admit. Even she had to concede her lapse of sanity, in her opinion, was warranted in this particular moment. But the moment had passed. If getting out alive meant reining in her emotions, so be it.
Forcing a sense of calm her pounding heart betrayed, and a breath that continued to be a bit too shallow, she straightened her back and ran to keep pace with Kevin’s long strides. Her hips and knees hurt from sitting too long, and little pin pricks danced along the bottoms of her feet. Graceful she was not, but somehow she managed to match his speed.
They sprinted toward the short corridor the group of men had come from earlier. Raina closed her eyes for a second and hoped there weren’t more lying in wait. She slammed into Kevin’s back so hard she lost her footing. A faint swoosh went over the top of her head. The knife meant for her missing by a hair’s breadth. Kevin had already released his hold on her wrist, and she landed firm on her rear, bouncing and sliding. A sickening crack, pop forced her eyes open, looking upward at the battle raging a few feet away.
Kevin ducked, his fists pounding into the stomach of a Sentinel in front of him before he twisted, yanking a knife free from another assailant whose arm hung limply at his side. The knife flipped in Kevin’s hand. In a flash of steel against the dying rays of light, the blade disappeared into the chest of the attacker nearest to Raina. The man slumped to the ground near her thigh and she scrambled away, swallowing a scream.
Looking anywhere but at the blank dark eyes staring into nothing, Raina focused on her breathing. When Kevin’s fingers motioned behind himself, she rose, but didn’t accept his outstretched hand, still caked in drying blood and gore she didn’t want to consider.
At the door he pressed his arm into her chest, forcing her behind his back and into the wall. “Are we clear?”
He must have heard something he approved of, for he eased the door open. Golden light spilled into the darkened interior. The rumble and clank of a train filled the air, drowning out any sounds of nature. Raina found the noise fascinating. She’d only ever heard the hiss and swish of a MagnaRail flying by, never the harsher, grittier steel wheels on track. A powerful commotion fitting for her terrified condition.
“Where are we going?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“To the right.”
In another time, Raina would have strained to see as they dashed between a set of buildings to catch a glimpse of the train. Now, however, she was too busy watching for moving shadows that would send Kevin into another battle.
Hours of adrenaline poured through her veins, saturating her system. A squawk overhead made her flinch. Looking upward, she expected an army to be repelling down after them. Only the glide of wings on air and a flash of white as the creature banked greeted her. A tremor raced down her spine and her teeth clamped together.
“Are you still with me?” Kevin asked.
Raina met his concerned glance over his shoulder and nodded. The loose gravel under her feet bit into the weak bottoms of her shoes, meant for little more than fashionably walking around the house or to and from a carriage on bricked paths. She ignored the pain and suppressed the complaints.
Kevin kept at a pace she’d never had to manage before. Her legs burned, and a curious stitch ached in her side. They rushed past building after building, twisting and turning through a maze of wide paths just large enough for a cart to pass through.
“Anything?” Kevin asked and it took a second for Raina to realize he hadn’t been speaking to her. A few moments later, he said, “Acknowledged.”
They rounded another building and Raina slid to a stop. A beautiful, huge gray stallion stood regal and proud, tied to a post. Kevin spoke a low command. The horse immediately responded, lowering his head. Long silvery hair fluttered as he shook his mane. Kevin unhooked the leather leads from the post and motioned for Raina to come closer.
“He won’t bite,” he said when she hesitated.
Raina eyed the beast warily. “He’s huge.”
Kevin was huge too, at six-foot-five-inches, yet he barely reached the back of the stallion. “Eadric is an Icekutian.”
Raina had heard of the breed, normally used in the Northern Boundary, where temperatures rarely reached above fifty even in the summer months. The large, stocky class of horse was utilized for its resistance to below freezing conditions.
Cautiously, she neared the beast. Kevin grabbed her waist before she could realize, lifting her with ease. Her skirt fluttered around her ankles and she squeaked when her butt landed hard in front of the saddle on a mass of solid horse muscle. She grabbed fistfuls of mane and held tight. Kevin swiftly mounted behind her.
The heat and strength of his thighs pressed in around Raina. His thick forearms slid along her sides, brushing against her ribs and hips as he guided the steed away from the warehouses and onto a narrow trail leading into woods.
His hand touched her back a second before he spoke. “We’re safe, heading north. Thanks again for everything, no way I could have done this alone. Sean, be sure to brief Voklane. Watch your backs, Enbrackon is going to be more than upset. Radio contact out.”
Raina sat tense through the exchange. “H-how are you speaking to them?”
“A magnetically powered radio. Doesn’t your father have one in his office?”
“Yes, it’s quite large though.”
“That’s because his will broadcast across an ocean if he needs it to. Ours only go a half a mile or so.”
Raina pondered that statement for far too long, her hands clenched in the horse’s mane. When she glanced up and realized the sun was nothing more than a glow beyond the horizon. They rode through a field. She looked behind them and couldn’t find any sign of the forest they’d marched into. Eadric’s steady gate clopped along the trail. An edge of trees hugged the meadow to their right.
They’d escaped, and judging by the daylight left, they’d been traveling long enough to put a good deal of distance behind them. Whether enough to keep from being caught up with, she didn’t know, and suddenly she didn’t care. The whole affair, from being thrown in a carriage, stabbed with a needle, chained to a wall, being told she was basically contracted to two men (one just had to die first), witnessing her husband’s lethality and almost being on the sharp end of a knife had her mind rebelling.
She fought against Kevin’s arms holding the reins. “Stop,” she ordered. When the horse continued to trot along, she lost it. “Stop!”
Raina didn’t wait. She shoved at his arms and squirmed free. Eadric made a sound of protest, but had come to a halt when she slid down his muscled flank and landed inelegantly on the uneven ground. Nausea swept through her system. On wobbly legs, she tore across the field toward the forest, her only thought to put space between herself and Kevin before she lost what little she had in her stomach. When her foot caught on a rock and she fell to her knees, she didn’t bother to rise. Bracing her palms on the rough grass, she gave in, vomited and sobbed.