And then, thankfully, it happened.
Tumultuous and chanting, press and protesters stormed into A.I.R. headquarters, their signs bobbing up and down like dinghies in a tidal wave. Thankfully, checkpoint guards and unsuspecting hunters—who were prepared for almost anything—loitered in the lobby and were able to halt any civilian progress into the actual offices or cells. Inside A.I.R.’s white walls, the boisterous crowd was a sea of colors and shapes, like a misshapen rainbow that had fallen from the sky.
Jack halted mid-sentence when the call came in. “Pagosa,” he barked into the phone. His eyes went wide, and his lips dipped into a scowl. “What the hell do they have to protest about?”
This was it, I thought, flicking Jaxon a glance. Our gaze locked for a split second before we faced Jack and waited.
“We’ll be right there,” Jack said, slamming the phone in its unit and blinking over at us with unparalleled shock. His cheeks beamed bright red. “We’ve been invaded,” he gasped out.
“What?” Jaxon said in mock surprise.
“How did this happen?” I asked. God, I needed an award.
He gave us a brief, “I have no idea. Let’s go.”
We jumped to our feet and rushed into the hallway, weapons drawn. The alarm suddenly screeched at high volume, blending with the constant wail of code blue. Red lights buzzed on the walls.
Before we even reached the lobby, a chant of “Kill hunters, not aliens” rang in my ears. My fingers tightened on my gun as a wave of anger hit me. These people needed a good dose of reality. Kill hunters? Please. They saw only the good aliens, the ones who now worked steady jobs and lived in their pristine neighborhoods. They didn’t see the evil ones, the ones who enjoyed mutilating humans, beating and raping them. They didn’t know some aliens could control their thoughts, change the weather, and transport into their homes undetected.
If they did, they’d get down on their knees and thank us for what we did. But we never told them what could happen. Panic would spread, and our government preferred not to have panic. They’d rather have ignorance.
We reached our destination. People paced every square inch of space; signs waved in every direction. “Save Lilla,” they all proclaimed. We pushed through the throng. I fought another crest of anger and forced myself to think only of the matter at hand: Kyrin.
“How did the goddamn press get the idea we were executing Lilla tonight?” Jack demanded over the noise.
“I wish I knew,” I said, dragging in a breath and scanning the crowd for Kyrin’s tall, handsome form.
“The damn bastard who told that lie needs to be kicked into next week,” Jaxon said.
Jack nodded. “Damn right.”
My lips twitched as I continued to gaze around, but a scowl quickly followed the action. Damn it. Where the hell was Kyrin?
Had he recruited someone else to come here in his stead? Someone we wouldn’t recognize? Maybe, I thought, then shook my head. No. I’d only been in his presence a short while, but I knew he possessed a hero’s mentality. He would want to save his sister himself. As arrogant as he was, he wouldn’t trust someone else to see to the job.
He’ll be here, I assured myself. All I had to do was wait. When he entered the room, I would know it. I would feel his vibrations, just as I felt him when he’d entered Dallas’s hospital room. Just as I’d felt the hum of his energy in the alleyway, and when we’d worked together against Atlanna—and when we kissed.
The memories made me shiver. So many emotions skittered through my mind. Anticipation. Dread. Uncertainty.
Desire.
As if I’d conjured him, a spark of awareness pricked and sizzled along my nerve endings. Soon after, the sweet scent of Onadyn filled my nostrils. Every muscle in my body tensed. My shoulders straightened, and I went on instant alert.
He was here.
I reached in my pocket and withdrew a small black box. On the inside was a single button. I pressed it, knowing a force field was erected outside.
“Don’t let anyone past these doors,” Jack commanded me. “I’m calling in reinforcements.” With that, he stormed away.
I leveled a glance at Jaxon and mouthed, “Kyrin’s here.”
He, too, straightened. “Where? Do you see him?”
“No. But I will.” I shoved my way through the crowd and waltzed upstairs, checking twice to make sure I wasn’t followed. I endured an ID scan, then stepped into the main observation room. Two guards were seated in front of monitors, eyeing me warily. “Shut off the alarm, lock every door to every room, then broadcast me all over the building.”
The guards glanced up at me in surprise. We’d trained for a hypothetical situation requiring a lockdown, but this was the first practical application.
“Do it,” I barked.
One of the men pushed a series of buttons. “Doors locked and systems ready for broadcast,” he said.
Speaking into a mouthpiece, I said, “Agents, arrest every citizen present.”
“These protesters are humans,” one of the guards said. “We can’t arrest them unless they aid an alien in a crime.”
“That’s an order,” I snapped into the mouthpiece.
11:55P . M .
Waiting for the unknown was hell for someone like me. Impatient and anxious, tense and ready, I wanted this night over with, the victory mine.
Jaxon and I stood at the edge of the foyer, watching as hunters continued to round up and band each and every protester and reporter present. A few men and women raced to the doors in a futile attempt to escape. Others fought. But every damn one of them kept chanting, “Kill hunters, not aliens.” Blah, blah, blah, that’s what I heard.
The protesters outside the building were being arrested as well. They’d thrown bricks at our metal-shielded windows and had tried to bust down our doors. And by God, they were going to pay for it.
Intermediately, the press launched questions at me. “Why are you murdering Lilla en Arr?” “How many murders does this make for you? Two hundred? Three?” “Do you possess a heart, Agent Snow?” “How are you able to sleep at night?”
I ignored them all. Yeah, I’d killed a lot of aliens over the years, and I wasn’t sorry. I did what I had to do for human safety.
One of the reporters, who had yet to be banded, had his voice recorder pointed in my direction. “Some have begun to call you and your men the Angels of Death. How does it feel to actually live up to your name?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I said, then paused. Kyrin, too, had called me the Angel of Death. I had to wonder if this man had heard it from him. “Lock this one up separately from the others,” I told one of the agents. “I want to talk with him privately.”
I stepped up onto the dais, straining to see Kyrin. I still felt his presence, but I had yet to catch a glimpse of him.
12:21P . M .
The crowd had been subdued, banded, and ushered into a straight line against the wall. I did a head count. There were over eighty men and women here.
Kyrin wasn’t among them.
Where the hell was he? I shifted from one boot to the other. Had he fled? No, no. His energy still purred inside me. He was here; he had to be here.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. God, I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do next. I couldn’t very well broadcast his name over the speaker and ask if he’d like to meet me for coffee in sector twelve.
Then…the second alarm erupted at high volume, a staccato wail of disharmony. “Breach in sector five,” a computerized female voice calmly acknowledged. “Unknown alien entry.”
I froze. The blood drained from my head. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Somehow Kyrin had bypassed our defenses and actually made it into cell check-in.
CHAPTER 13
“Stay here,” I shouted to the hunters trying to subdue the increasingly frightened protesters.
“Keep them calm.”
To Jaxon, I said, “It’s him.” We leapt into action. As we raced through the building, we remained side by side, our arms pumping in unison. The walls beside us became a white blur, an ever-constant sea of motion. A bead of sweat trickled between my shoulder blades, and the scent of fear rocked me.
The fear was my own.
Kyrin was smart. I knew that. There was also a distinct possibility that he was immortal. Yet even still, I doubted he was able to walk through metal-braced walls. So how had he slipped past security? How had he bypassed locks, motion detectors, fingerprint IDs, heat sensors, eye scanners, and weight-sensitive floor tiles? Molecular transportation? Then why not take Lilla and go?
If he actually rescued Lilla…
Only the bolts and eye scanners slowed Jaxon’s and my progress. When we at last passed them, I quickened my step, flying past agents who diligently hastened toward sector five. I had to get there first.
“If he nabs Lilla,” Jaxon said, putting voice to my fears, “we’re in deep shit.”
“God, I know.”
We reached our destination, the only entrance to the cells, and endured another retinal scan. The door buzzed consent, and we shoved our way inside…only to discover the thick metal entryway to the cells closed and secured, the cell guard asleep at his post. Asleep? With this noise? Not hardly.
Jaxon had the same idea and nodded. “I’ve got your back.”
I checked the slumped man’s pulse. Too rapid for restful slumber. Definitely not a natural sleep. Either drug-induced, or the man was under mind control.
“Kyrin’s been here,” I said.
Jaxon cursed under his breath.
A sense of foreboding swept through my veins. “I don’t like this,” I muttered. “Let’s get inside and guard Lilla’s door.”
I reached out, just about to press my palm against the print scan to release the locks. Then I paused, hand suspended midair. My skin tingled. Another wave of foreboding, this one stronger, more intense, crashed inside me.
I needed to open the entrance, but…
Jaxon watched me expectantly.
Do it. Open the door echoed in my mind, the words spoken by that same rich male voice that always made me shiver with both dread and heat. Open the door.
I remained motionless. Was it possible…could Kyrin make himself invisible? Was he here, now, waiting for me to escort him inside?
“Mia,” Jaxon shouted over the alarm. “What’s wrong? We need to guard Lilla. He might already be inside.”
I jerked my hand back. “How could he have opened this door?”
Jaxon shifted impatiently on his feet. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We need to get inside. This conversation can wait.”
No. No, it couldn’t. A slight breeze caressed my neck, a breeze that held the subtle fragrance of Onadyn. I spun to my left. Saw nothing amiss. I spun to my right. Again, saw nothing amiss. Yet I knew, knew, Kyrin was inside this room with me.
“Mia, damn it,” Jaxon said. “Let’s do this.” He stepped forward, reaching out, waiting for me. We had to do the fingerprint scan together, or the door wouldn’t open.
Just before his palm hit the sensor, I closed the distance between us and grabbed his wrist. “Kyrin is inside this room. I don’t know how, but he’s here.”
“What are you talking about? He’s not here. He’s—”
“There’s no way he could have opened this door. I think—” Another breeze, this one so close I felt a wave of heat brush my cheek. I didn’t finish my sentence as I released Jaxon’s hand and pivoted on my heel. I pressed my back against the cold steel door, dialed my weapon to stun, then pointed the barrel straight ahead.
Jaxon finally caught the truth of my words. Without another protest, he moved out of my way and stood beside me, his weapon trained, as well.
Open the door, Kyrin said, the words whispered next to my ear like a lover’s entreaty. His voice was low, a menacing growl. Strangely, I wanted to obey, though I did not feel phantom fingers inside my mind trying to bend me to his will. The most feminine part of me simply wanted to help him.
“Do you hear that?” I asked Jaxon, keeping my eyes straight ahead.
“The alarm?”
“The voice.”
He shook his head.
I forced my ears to block the screech of the alarm and my head to block the seductive rhythm of Kyrin’s timbre. I willed my breathing to slow and concentrated on the movement my physical senses could not detect.
Up ahead, a lightning swift rustle blurred my vision, and in that instant, a tingle of languid awareness rippled through me. Another blur, this one to the right. Then another, this one to the left.
“I’m not opening the door,” I said to the air in front of me.
I felt Jaxon’s silver gaze level on me.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Kyrin had already slipped past this door, and I was an idiot for not storming into the cells and stopping him. But I believed in trusting my instincts, and to do that, I was willing to take a chance.
“I don’t care how long the alarm blasts or what happens beyond this room,” I said. “I’m not moving from this spot.”
In the glass panel of the far entrance, I watched as Jack and several other agents sprinted toward the enclosure. Damn, I didn’t need their interference right now.
I had to stop their progress. They might unintentionally—or intentionally—ruin everything I was struggling to do.
“Lock the entrance,” I told Jaxon.
After only a slight hesitation, he darted across the small area and disabled the wires that allowed passage in and out. When Jack reached the portal, he hit the steel beams with a thud. I watched his mouth move swiftly in a stream of curses as he attempted to pry open the door with a solid kick, then with a punt of his shoulder. No luck. He shook a fist at us, his hand arcing wildly through the air in an attempt to wave me over and threaten at the same time.
