Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six) (18 page)

She looked at Grant again and it was only then that it dawned on her that he was in full combat gear, dressed in black, the fabric straining around his arms. Two black stripes ran under his eyes, smudging his cheeks. She’d never seen him geared up, ready for battle. Any other time, she would have thought him sexy as hell for it.

“Where are you going?” she asked suddenly, standing up and sloshing the coffee over the rim and dropping the sandwich. “Are you going on a mission?”

He nodded slowly, in time for Grim to walk in through the door wearing much the same. Her heart constricted, seeing the easy gait with which Grim moved, like the step of a predator already willing to pounce.

“You can’t,” Kelis said, eyes going wide.

In the back of her mind, only one thought resonated:
I can’t lose them too!

“We have to,” Grant said, putting his hands on her arms. “We have a shot at something. We need to go now or it… or it might be too late.”

“We just wanted to say goodbye. You know, in case something happened,” Grim said, coming to a stop as his eyes looked over the two frail bodies in the tiny baby beds, hooked up to every manner of machine.

“Where? When?” Kelis asked, flustered.

Her head felt like it was spinning, her throat dry and her eyes painful with the endless tears she’d cried.

“We’re going right now. We think there’s a lab down in Arizona that might be working on the gas and PX-45. If we get more of it, we can save them. Reynolds is sure of it. And I agree with his research. It’s the only way.”

Her heart seemed to stop beating in her chest for a moment as she looked from one man to another. Were they honestly going to go now, and they might not even make it back by the time… she bit down on her lip painfully, shaking her head.
No.

“I’m coming with you.”

“What? Kelis, you can’t! Someone needs to stay here with Dylan and Dante!” Grim protested, his fingers very lightly tracing Dante’s leg, bandaged up like the rest of him.

“How are you going to get to New Mexico?” she asked tersely, her mind quickly working to figure out the details.

“We’re getting armored vehicles. Connor’s friend—” Grant started, but Kelis cut in.

“Fuck that. You’ll never make it back in time. I can get a Night Hawk helicopter. Give me twenty minutes. Find me gear,” she growled through gritted teeth.

Giving the men looks that would offer no argument, she kissed both Dylan and Dante on their foreheads before standing up ramrod straight, still gripping the damn coffee and sandwich. She ripped the sandwich package open as she stormed out of the room, and the first bite into it reminded her that she obviously hadn’t eaten in days.

She was going to need all the energy she could get if she was going to help save her boys.

***

As Kelis had promised, they were in the armored vehicles in twenty minutes, her suited up like Squad Six, heading for a small helicopter pad in a very obscure location in San Francisco. Right where the biggest mansions were built and the biggest startup billionaires lived, there was a tiny little spot nestled between expansive backyards and endless pools—a hangar with several decommissioned and rebuilt US Marine Corps helicopters.

She wasn’t sure that Squad Six really believed she’d pulled it off until they piled into the aircraft, with her hopping into the pilot’s seat, the engines already roaring and ready to go. Kelis let out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding when Troy, a large, steely-eyed man with a slightly lopsided grin, gave her a pat on the shoulder from the co-pilot’s seat and opened the door.

“She’s a bit bigger than the SuperCobra, but I don’t think you could fit those guys in one of yours,” he said with a chuckle. “You gonna be okay or will I strap right on in here?”

“No, Troy. Thanks. You don’t know what this…” she ran out of words, something that seemed to be happening really often lately, the high whir of the blades drowning out her stutter.

“Don’t sweat it. Just bring her back in one piece and tell me the story later, okay?”

He gave her a knowing look, leaning back in and squeezing her shoulder before hopping out and slamming the door shut behind him. A moment later, he was giving her the go-ahead to get airborne and Kelis let muscle memory take over. This was the work she knew, the work that was built into her. If she could harness it to help her kids, there wasn’t anything that was going to stop her.

She knew damn well that she could help more here—at least trying to fight for Dylan and Dante—than if she were just sitting by their bedside, crying herself into a stupor.

“Everyone ready?” she asked, speaking into the headset.

“Lock and load!” came the Shifter Squad Six war cry and Kelis didn’t need to glance over her shoulder to know that every single man there was ready to fight and win for her kids.

It was a brotherhood, one that she had the good fortune of being tied to through the men who loved her and who she loved back with equal ferocity. She pulled up on the throttle and the heavy helicopter rose up from the pad and into the murky, muddled lights of nighttime San Francisco.

There could be no failure.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Grant

There was little doubt in Grant’s mind that the moment they got back to San Francisco, every single one of his squad mates would be without a job. Not only that, he was sure that they’d get thrown into the Crypts, The Firm’s version of solitary confinement, and probably left to rot there until Hemingway or Spade or whoever the asshole in charge for that day was felt the need to bring them out again.

They were going against everything they’d been told to do. And not a single one of them hesitated.

The Night Hawk had been set down a few miles from the compound, another dull-looking building that betrayed nothing about what was going on inside. Kelis, Connor, and Thatch were on the chopper, and Kelis would airdrop them on the roof when the rest of them had broken into the compound.

Dutch had set up a nest on a small hillside that covered two of the four watchtowers around the lonesome building, high barbed wire fences making a perimeter that wouldn’t be easy to pierce. It would be Grant’s, Tex’s, and Grim’s job to take out the remaining two towers and get in the building as fast as possible.

“Delta Two, in position,” Grant spoke into the comms, his voice a low whisper as Connor initiated the countdown.

One by one, every member of the team came through the static, down to Kelis, who was Delta Seven. Grant still couldn’t believe he’d allowed her to come on this mission, but she was right. As she always was, that infuriating, gorgeous, flawless woman. They would never make the drive back, considering the state the boys had been in. The squad had one shot at this and if they mucked it up, they’d be returning home to two very small body bags.

“Outer teams, go,” Connor’s voice barked, and Grant burst into action.

He knew that meant that the Night Hawk would be starting its sequence, moving in, and by the time it reached weapons range of the guard towers, there better not be anyone firing at the damn helicopter anymore.

Silently, Grant counted to ten in his head before he ran out of cover, having snuck up to the very edge of the low foliage around it. The fence was still some twenty-five feet ahead, but exactly at ten, two large explosions went off, one to the far right and the other to the far left of him.

Grant made it to the fence in a few steps, knowing that Grim was doing the same at the other end. He cut through the fence with record speed, running to the tower now and keeping himself low, hoping that the diversion was enough of a distraction. He slapped two small explosive kits that Tex had given him on the supporting beams, flipping on the countdown, before rounding back about twenty feet as searchlights came on one by one in the yard.

“Tower One cleared,” came Dutch’s ragged voice over the comms.

Then, a second later, four smaller explosions went off one by one, quickly collapsing the towers assigned to Grim and Grant. Grant watched his come down like some sort of prehistoric monster, collapsing onto itself with the screams of men inside. One of them jumped out mid-fall and before he’d hit the ground, Grant had gotten him in the head with a bullet from his assault rifle.

He couldn’t help but grin.

This is for all the pain you fuckers are causing my kids,
he thought.

Two shots sounded from across the yard as Grant moved closer, checking the wreckage. There was movement inside, the second guard still alive, but pinned under the rubble. He was flicking between his wolf form and human one, his blue eyes and blond hair changing to the long maw and pristine white of his wolf’s coat every few seconds.

Grant grabbed his knife from his belt and stabbed the man in the neck with one smooth, almost offhanded movement. The twitching and the groaning stopped.

“Tower Three clear,” he said into the comm.

“Tower Four clear,” came Grim’s voice.

Just in time, too. Grant could already hear the low whir of the helicopter moving in from the distance. But then he heard something a lot worse. The steady rattle of a machine gun. When he saw the flares that came with each shot, his stomach sunk.

“Tower Two has a fucking railgun! I can’t get a clear shot,” Dutch hissed, sounding like he was on the move.

The chopper was moving closer and it would be in range within a minute, Grant knew, checking his watch. By instinct, he dropped the rifle and took off in a run, shifting between steps, the steady footfalls of a soldier-for-hire turning to the almost graceful, soundless bounds of a large male cougar, speeding across the yard.

He got caught in several of the searchlight beams that were originating from the building itself, but he didn’t care. If the helicopter was shot down, then even if Kelis survived their hopes of saving Dylan and Dante would be dashed.

Grant had never run so fast. The tower came closer and closer and when he thought he could make the jump, Grant’s massive, powerful body stretched out, jumping more than fourteen feet into the air and clinging to the railing, pulling himself on top as his claws sunk into the siding.

His teeth were bared as he balanced on the beam, like a monstrous gargoyle waiting to strike. Two men were handling the machine gun, clearly trying to get a fix on Dutch, before the roar of the helicopter became loud enough to tear their attention away.

Grant didn’t hesitate. As the guy who’d been helping to feed the shells into the gun looked up, Grant pushed himself off with powerful legs, claws outstretched. He landed right on top of both of them, the gun kicking up in a wild flail for a moment before it hung forward limply, the shots replaced by blood-curdling screams as Grant ripped through the two men.

Their blood tasted bitter in his mouth, coppery but disgusting. They were both bigger than they should have been, eyes slightly bloodshot, but nothing compared to the beasts they’d met in Detroit. More like the chumps who they’d killed on the airplane—all brawn, no brain.

The Night Hawk whipped over Grant’s head, hovering over the building for a second as Connor and Thatch rappelled down, running toward the entrance of the stairwell the moment their boots hit the ground. For a second, Grant could see a flash of Kelis’s helmet as she pulled the Night Hawk up and away quickly, disappearing above the tree line as if she’d never been there at all.

In his heart, Grant knew she was as thick in the battle as any of them.

He jumped down from the edge and halfway there saw the large, tense body of Grim’s cougar stalking around the side of the building, obviously having diverted course. If he was in his shifter form, it could only mean that he’d been on his way to the tower as well.

They were similar in their shifted forms. Both hulking, vicious-looking beasts with golden, sandy coats. Grim had more white on his chest and wider facial markings, where Grant had a white tuft to his tail. Not that it mattered much. When one or the other came for you, all you could see were flashing white fangs and imminent death.
 

It was a relief to see his brother well, though Grant had been sure that nothing had happened to him regardless. There was a bond between Alpha twins strong enough to sense whether something was cataclysmically wrong or not and thankfully, all had remained intact so far. It only made him wonder if Dylan’s and Dante’s pain was now doubled because of the agony of the other brother, as it often was with Grim and Grant when one of them got injured.