Romancing the Alpha: An Action-Adventure Romance Boxed Set (102 page)

“Why is your penis out?”

“Bathroom break,” he said, stuffing his junk back in. “Don’t be gross. Big picture, okay? There’s a bear...oh.”

Elena let out a
whoosh
of air as the thing backed up and disappeared into the forest. She cleared her throat and flicked out the overhead light. “I saw the big picture just fine.”

“You do know how to make a man feel good. Watch my back while I stomp out the flare. We might need it later, and we don’t want to attract any human visitors. When I get back, I’ll take first watch.”

Kent awoke to the sweet smell of rotisserie. He popped up, angry that he’d finally succumbed to jetlag and that he’d left Elena on her own long enough to find, kill, skin, and damn near finish cooking breakfast. But Elena wasn’t like other women. So far, they’d saved each other’s asses at each and every point of danger. They made a good team.

“Look who’s awake.” She pointed from him to the rabbit with a steel-tipped arrow in her hand. “Breakfast,” she added with no small amount of pride.

“I’m stunned to silence.” He plopped down on the log next to her and angled over until their shoulders met. He toed the long back cylinder he’d seen in the hotel. Inside was a folded bow. “Impressive.”

“Archery is the national sport of Bhutan. I learned on a wooden bow, just like my mother.”

He fingered it, a shiny black thing that glinted all of the sun’s morning light in tiny sparkling colors. “This is a long way from a simple wooden bow, dear.”

“It was a gift from my sister when I joined the ranger battalion.”

Kent coughed out a laugh between his yawns. “Your family sounds a lot like mine. I got my first twenty-two at age five. By ten, I’d moved on to handguns. My parents were—are—warriors to the end.”

“And then they had you.”

“Funny. No, and then they had five. Then me and two more.”

“My god, there are eight Avery kids in the world? I’m not sure I can handle another Kent.”

He reached for the bag of water at her side and took a sip. “Dear, you’ll never find another quite like me. To your point, however, we kids were given two choices in life: direct military action or government intelligence. You can say that I majored in the latter and minored, spectacularly, in the former.”

“And your siblings, are all the opposite?”

He split the air with the side of his hand. “Straight down the middle. Our Christmases largely involve gifts of guns and ammunition caches along with logic clues about where to find them.”

“Sounds fun. We’re a terribly traditional Swedish family. All around the tree, warm blankets and mulled wine. I told you how my parents met. What about yours?”

“At the end of Vietnam.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Why? They met under the harshest of situations. I suppose my father figured that if he could meet and care for a woman when the world had gone to shit, he could really love her when it wasn’t.”

He waited for a response, but she gave him nothing. She wouldn’t of course, just to prove a point. Elena was naturally contrary, like his father. Luckily for her, he took after his mother. “Anyway,” he continued, “she writes curricula for combat nursing, and he’s commandant of the Academy.”

“And the rest of your siblings?”

He ticked them off on his fingers, one by one. “Covert, super black ops, Marine, other Marine—black ops, a sailor...” He stopped to clear his throat. “The sailor was Lisa, killed in action.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Uh, then there’s me, another covert action type, and the youngest is in grad school.”

Her hand closed over his, and he brought it to his lips. He needed her, and she didn’t withdraw. Instead, she leaned into him and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You all sound very close.”

“We are.” But he needed a topic change and toed the black carrier. “Tell me about that. Bows are hot.”

“I hadn’t touched a gun until I joined the army. But this,” she said, twirling an arrow between her hands like a whirling baton, “I learned from my mother, and she always kept one eye shut.”

“Bad form.”

“Different form. I’m right eye dominant—or was. When I first shot this after the accident, I was consistently off by five feet or so. I learned to shoot again with the bow. I adjusted. Learned to compensate and...” She shrugged and bit her bottom lip. “I don’t want to brag but—”

“But you caught breakfast before I woke up. It’s okay to brag on that,” he said, flipping the rabbit another turn.

“Thanks.”

“Question.”

“Hmm?”

“Won’t this attract Baloo?”

“Moon bears sleep during the day. That thing was probably out of it anyway – it ought be hibernating. I wonder what happened to stir it this early. Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, a lady needs a bit of privacy. I’ll be right back.”

He worked in her absence, if only to keep his mind off her absence and thoughts of his family. It didn’t work, and soon images of her and his family merged. They had to meet. She’d fit there as well as with any knight of Ambra.

Weirdly, he had an insane urge to meet her people, to find out about her seemingly opposing cultures and this sister she spoke so fondly of. In short, he wanted to know Elena. Everything about her.

He’d lost his man-whore card for sure. The woman had him hooked and all with just a couple of kisses. The truly sick part was that he didn’t feel bad about it.

He’d fallen. He’d fallen hard. He’d fallen fast.

On the other hand, it was a typically Kent thing.

He chuckled as he walked from tree to tree, pulling out the infrared devices as he went. There wasn’t a single thing in life he’d done halfway. Why shouldn’t he approach the possibility of a relationship with the same fervor? There also wasn’t anything he couldn’t perfect without a little practice. Seducing her, learning to make her crave him too, would be the greatest success of his life. He wanted what his parents had, and he was tired of waiting for it. In the end, he couldn’t think of a single damned reason not to go after a prize like Elena. She was his for the taking, and by god, he’d have her.

Elena took well longer than necessary for her toilette. The story of his parents had all the consequences she assumed he’d wanted. Of course, she saw the parallels there, and yes,
their
story had a happy ending, but it didn’t mean that hers would.

Vietnam was an eternity ago. A different time. It didn’t mean anything that...“Ow!”

Elena tumbled to the ground, slipping on a patch of unsteady earth and rolling hands over legs down a small hill. She landed with a
thud
at a small outcropping.

An outcropping with a chain ladder.

Okay.

She ought to call for Kent, but on the off chance she wasn’t alone, she didn’t want to alert anyone else of her presence.

Slowly, as not to make the metal clink, she unfolded the chain ladder. It took a couple of rotations, but her eyes landed on a spot of foliage not quite like the others. Its branches were bent and discolored. Grass packed down. Someone had put it there on purpose.

Ladder in one hand, she peeled away the greenery, revealing a gloomy hole to nowhere. She leaned back, but when no one shot or screamed at the new light, she dangled the ladder inside.

Gun in hand, she put one foot below the other until she hit solid ground in the cavern. The only light came from the hole above, but to her eyes, it looked like a mining cave. A full-scale operation.

That made even less sense. Bhutan didn’t have many minerals to start with, let along precious metals to warrant something like this. She scrambled back up and ran to their campground. Kent was bent over, packing up their things. “Ready?”

“No. Grab the light and follow me.”

Kent’s easy smile dropped. His nostrils flared and he tapped the gun on his hip. At her nod, he grabbed another one from the car. In silence, they ran toward her discovery, squatting by the entrance of the hole. “Shit.”

“This must be how they move the cigarettes.”

“I’m assuming you’ve already been inside.”

“Of course.”

He rolled his eyes and went in. They didn’t speak for several seconds, nor did they turn on the light as they moved further and further away from the entrance. Shrouded in darkness, Kent’s hand was proof that she wasn’t alone in the universe. The darkness was alive down here, moving and swirling around them. There was plenty of air though, and a breeze indicated an air propulsion system. Her mind knew that, yet she gasped for each breath as if the darkness reached down into her lungs to steal it from her.

His light flickered on. Kent turned, and one massive hand came down on her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Good. Ideas? This thing could go on for miles. Agree that this will lead us directly to Xiàng?”

She nodded. “Agree.”

“Agree that there’s no way we or anyone else can get those amber panels out through this tunnel?”

“No question.” If all of the walls of the Amber Room were here and intact, they were looking at over two tons. That meant a truck and a big one. “I say we follow it anyway to see where it goes. For all we know, it ends in Xiàng’s garage.”

“Let’s find out.” Kent flicked out the light, and the darkness took over once again. After a mile or so, florescent beams blossomed, creeping out from around the bend. Elena and Kent pressed their backs against the damp wall, mirroring each other with guns at the ready.

Kent peered around first and pursed his lips in silent whistle. A second later, she saw the object of his widened eyes.

There had been a sliver of hope—a tiny one—that the amber panels had somehow been hidden down here. No. Not at all. Just a series of bags stuffed and overflowing with Euros.

She went to investigate, but Kent’s arm corded around her waist like a lasso. “Name one good reason someone would leave open bags of cash?”

There wasn’t one. She grabbed the light and waved it around. Nothing. Well...perhaps. She spit in the air and it danced like little diamonds on a wire. “The whole thing’s booby trapped.”

“I imagine the entrance to his compound is on the other side of it. I’ve never seen the spit technique before.”

“Hush.”

“I don’t disapprove—”

Any other smartass thing he was going to say died as voices echoed off the craggy walls.

Elena stepped as far forward as she dared. “Yue dialect. Southern China...West Coast.”

“It fits our boy.” He pulled her back into a small cut away.

They didn’t speak much after that. The voices grew louder and closer by the second until they saw the men pass. No, not pass. Stop.

The men dumped crates so close to their hiding place that dirt flickered onto Elena’s face.

No, not now.
She swallowed back a sneeze, letting it out in a
peep
and whoosh of air.

She froze. Kent froze. And so did the two men.

Some rodent, a mole or shrew, skittered briefly into the light before disappearing into the tunnel and after a shared laugh, the smugglers resumed their low conversation. She listened, greedily taking in what she could. Their speech wasn’t in her area of expertise, but she caught enough.

An Australian buyer had a barge waiting in Haldia, India. More worryingly, at least as far as she was concerned, was that this buyer had a team of drivers waiting to take over the bus in Siliguri tomorrow afternoon.

The voice and footsteps retreated, along with the squeaking wheel of a pull cart. They’d get no better time to escape. “Back to the car,” she whispered.

She and Kent walked backward, soft as cat paws, until he deemed it safe to run. It took too long to see it, but after an eternity, the light and ladder came into view.

Kent climbed up ahead of her. The first thing she saw was his smile. “What?”

“That was way more fun than I thought it’d be.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

He extended his hand and hauled her up, but her feet didn’t touch the ground. Kent held her body tight against his warmth. He rubbed his morning stubble against her cheek. “So are you.”

The man was an unexpected burst of honey, too sweet and yet impossible to reject. His timing, however, left much to be desired. “They’re moving the Amber Room tomorrow.”

“What?”

“C’mon, help me put everything back like it was, and then we’ll talk. We’ve got less than sixteen hours.”

They settled the car and motorcycle in a copse of trees a few miles away from Xiàng’s walled estate. Another fire this close to the compound was impossible. They couldn’t risk the smoke. Everything they ate was cold and chewy, but neither of them complained.

The closer they got to danger, the more Kent morphed into the machine she’d seen on the bus and by the road. His two natures couldn’t be more different, and yet both sides made the whole of the man who’d done so much for her in such short time. How much would she change if she stayed with him longer?

Who would she be after one year with this man? She closed her eyes, and a vision of a group of people laughing in front of a Christmas tree played in her head. No patch. Just her and him at her side. Together. Smiling. Happy.

Kent dropped another branch over the car’s hood and peered inside. “Day dreaming about me again?”

“Don’t be conceited. I’m checking the terrain. I saved a topographic map of the area. It’ll take some fancy footwork, but the bike can manage it. We’ll run parallel to the road, and when the time comes, take the truck.”

Kent heaved up another branch. The collar of his shirt was dark with sweat, and his neck muscles twitched with exertion. “We need to make the time come. Force a diversion. I can get naked if I need to.”

“I’m sure they’ll hand everything over without a fight.”

“It’s not unlikely.”

His wink was more endearing than before. Or perhaps it’d always been that way, and she’d been too guarded to notice. Rather than figure what she felt and why she felt it, she winked back. Just because.

When he bent, she rose to her knees. Just because.

And this time, when he kissed her, she didn’t pull back. She didn’t regret. She enjoyed. Her heart grew in these cold mountains and his arms. She burned like a phoenix —dead and perfectly reborn against his lips.