Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 (13 page)

Lightning struck the corner of the building two floors below them and sizzled through the wind and rain. The outer layer of glass beneath their feet cracked with a loud tinkling explosion of sound. Enough. She might be in control of this incredible storm, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

Tim swept her off her feet and carried her into the building, off the roof and away from the call of storm and sky. She was limp as a rag doll in his arms as he raced down the stairwell to the heated main room they’d left behind just minutes ago. And she was cold. Too cold.

She was dying. As she drifted farther away from him and merged her energy with the storm, every beat of his heart was an echo inside a cold, dead cave.

He’d been promised more a few hours ago. Much more, and suddenly he wanted it all. True love and all that happy mumbo-jumbo, namby-pamby bullshit he made fun of his buddies for but never succumbed to himself.

So what if he had secrets, and enemies. She did, too. And hers were bigger and a hell of a lot scarier than a bunch of military brass in lab coats or behind sniper rifles. She needed him.

You’re hers and she’s yours. You better come to grips with that fast or you two won’t survive
. Luke and his big mouth.

Tim sank to the floor against a pillar and settled her across his lap, her beautiful cheek pressed to his chest, her sightless eyes staring straight through him.

His phone slid out of his pocket, but he let it go and lowered his lips to cover Sarah’s in a gentle kiss. Their cold and unmoving softness angered him.

“Come on, Sarah! Snap out of it!” Determined to wake the sleeping beauty in his arms, he lowered his lips to hers and tried again. Still nothing.

His head ached with the possibilities of failure and he rested his forehead against hers and held his lips centimeters above the soft pink temptation of her mouth.

He wanted to kiss her lips, sear her body with heat and claim her. He moved his left arm up from where it rested across her waist to her shoulder, then gently slid his hand to the side of her neck where he covered the cold skin surrounding her Shen with his hot palm.

Instantly her heartbeat pulsed through the Mark and her body shivered in his embrace, awakened to the cold numbness of being left behind.

“Come on, Sarah. Come back to me.” Tim whispered the words against her lips and crushed her chest to his, trying to warm her up. They were inside a heated building, and she still felt cold as a corpse. “Come on, come on, come on.”

The pulse beneath his palm grew stronger and his legs no longer felt like they’d been filled with cold jelly. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to burn. He needed to know she was fire and light to his darkness. He desperately wanted to feel again, and he realized he never could without her. It still didn’t make one damn bit of sense but he no longer cared. She was his. He would not lose her like this.

Gently nudging her face with his nose, he stroked her cheek with his cheek, and nibbled and tugged gently on her lips in a constant assault.

The steady beat of her heart grew strong and he smiled as he felt its pulse reach all the way to the Mark on his neck, flooding it with heat.

He buried his nose in the soft satin of her hair and nuzzled her ear. “That’s right, Sarah, come back to me.”

She gasped in the deep sigh of a woman who had nearly drowned and arched in his arms as she awakened from death’s sleep to whisper his name.

His internal temperature skyrocketed from cool and worried to flaming lust in three heartbeats and he claimed her next breath with a kiss meant to both punish her for nearly leaving him and demand submission to his claim on her.

She melted into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, and locking him to her with arms like steel chains around his back. She was sleek, muscular, and strong, and that flipped every damn one of his switches. He burned for her. There was no thought, no conscious decision to invade her mouth with his tongue. He simply had to be there, had to taste her, feel her skin beneath his palms and bury himself in her wet heat. It was not want or thought, his need took over like animal instinct and he knew he was more dangerous in that moment than he’d ever been on any mission or combat situation. If someone or something tried to hurt her or take her away from him in that moment they would die.

Even the thought made him crazy, mostly because he hadn’t listened to Luke’s warnings. This was his fault. He’d nearly lost her and he had no one to blame but himself.

Never again.

He kissed her with renewed vigor and moved his right hand down her back to the hem of her hoodie. Gliding his hand beneath it, his fingers swept up beneath the bottom seam of the soft cami and caressed the still cool skin in the curve of her lower back and side.

Her Mark pulsed white hot beneath his left palm and she gasped his name between kisses, shaking in his arms.

Never in a million years would he have planned to get naked with a woman on the floor at the Observatory, especially not when it was their first time together. But he hadn’t planned on her either.

A low rumbling noise penetrated the red haze of Tim’s mind, but he ignored it. It came again, closer this time, but Tim pulled Sarah more tightly against him and continued to explore the hot depths of the kiss.

Something hard pelted him in the shoulder and he lifted his head, ready to kill anyone or anything that threatened.

A man’s large brown shoe lay on the floor where it had fallen.

“Snap out of it, Tim.” Luke waved his arms in front of his face like he was a rabid dog and he was afraid to be bitten. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here, right now.”

Alexa’s disembodied voice drifted to him from the elevator doors. “Hurry, Luke.”

Tim’s every instinct switched to operations mode as he registered the panicked sound of Alexa’s voice and matched it to the coiled energy dancing behind Luke’s eyes. Luke’s easygoing, good-guy persona hid a highly trained, Einstein-smart threat.

“You’re military, aren’t you?” How the hell had he missed that?

“Not technically.” Luke grabbed his shoe and bent down to lift Sarah from his arms.

“Don’t.” It was the only warning he was going to give. Tim stood and gingerly allowed Sarah’s feet to hit the floor. They collapsed beneath her and she fainted. Tim scooped her back up. He hugged her tightly in an attempt to combat her body’s severe shivering. “You a company man?”

“No.” Luke walked to the elevator and stepped inside, blocking the open door. “You in here, baby?”

“Yes, I took care of the camera but we’ve got to go.”

“I know.” Luke wrapped his arms around air and held the door open as Tim stepped in with Sarah. Luke punched the button.

“So, who do you work for and what’s going on? Do we have company?” Tim gritted his teeth as the doors slid closed, trapping them inside. He leaned his shoulder into the elevator wall to keep his balance as the steel beast lurched beneath their feet and began its descent. His mind warred with instincts as he continued to hold Sarah. He couldn’t get to a weapon fast enough to defend them if he needed to and he couldn’t bring himself to dump the shivering, vulnerable Sarah on the floor either. The conundrum had his pulse pounding. The pressure in his chest built until he was sure one of those freakish aliens would erupt from his sternum at any moment.

“Once we reach the bottom you’ll have to cover us all as we head straight out. We don’t have time to sneak around.” Luke leaned down to place a kiss on the now visible Alexa’s forehead then turned to Tim. “The people I work for don’t exist, and don’t know these girls exist. They are irrelevant. We have to get the hell out of here because while Sarah was attacking the Archiver’s ship, the real bad guys picked up Sarah’s energy trail. The Archiver says we’ve got less than five minutes to get the hell out of here.”

Chapter Seven

Tim studied Luke’s protective stance and watched the man wrap his arm around his wife’s waist with a worried frown and tense shoulders as they rode the elevator system down. Luke stood and moved like Tim did, like a hundred other guys he’d known and fought with over the years. The guy was combat trained, and more, if Tim didn’t miss his guess. But Luke disarmed with a smile and friendly cheer. That screamed company man. He was a damn wolf in sheep’s clothing to be sure. How the hell had he missed it?

He’d been too distracted by the flesh-and-blood woman in his arms to pay attention to all the details. That kind of mistake would get them killed. A science geek, a diplomat, and a killer all wrapped up in one perfectly charming package? Hell yeah, he could see where that could come in handy. Not necessarily
more
useful than an engineer who could trigger a trap and eliminate an enemy from miles away, but still useful.

“Sorry about the shoe, but I prefer to keep breathing.”

Tim snorted. Like he would’ve killed the guy. Fuck. He might have, if Luke had been stupid enough to come up on him. He’d been completely out of his mind. Dangerous. And stupid. He couldn’t afford those kinds of mistakes. “How are they coming in?”

“By air, in a cloaked ship.” Luke’s gaze watched the numbers dim and fade as they rode the elevator down.

“How do you know? Why did you tell me she was attacking the wrong ship? How did you know that? How could you possibly have known that?” Tim watched the other man’s face for every tick, twitch or nuance that would tell him something. This guy was just full of surprises.

“I have a contact on the ship.”

“A contact? And this contact did what? Gave you a call on your cell?”

“Something like that.”

Alexa snorted and rolled her eyes, but Luke spoke. “I can’t say. Too dangerous for both of us. I shouldn’t have told you at all, but I didn’t really have a choice, not with Sarah’s attack.”

Alexa rubbed her temples in slow, delicate circles and Luke’s hand found its way to rub her lower back. The guy had it bad. “If Sarah could’ve held out longer, if she’d had control, she could have identified the second ship and brought them right to her. She could’ve tried to take them out.” Alexa sighed and looked at Sarah’s unconscious form. “Guess that’s not an option at the moment.”

Which was, of course, his fault. Luke’s grim expression and Alexa’s tired, gray-tinged skin tone were worse than the most guilt-inducing lecture he’d ever received from his mother. His fault. He didn’t do his job and ground her properly so she could keep her energy surges under control. He was the weak link on the team.

Before he could even attempt a response, the elevator dinged and Alexa placed her hand on his shoulder from behind him with Luke covering his wife’s back. Luke wrapped his fingers gently around his tiny wife’s upper arm. Alexa gave the orders now.

“Walk straight out to the street. Side door, right corner leads to a stairwell with a one-way exit door that’ll get us out of here. I’ll hold the light as long as I can.”

Tim walked and tried not to notice that everywhere Sarah came into contact with his body felt like dry ice pressed to his flesh. Her shivering had nearly stopped, but he wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “Sarah’s getting cold again. We’ve got to hurry.” All he could think about was getting her into a tub of warm water. Naked.

Don’t go there…

“Put her hand on your Shen. You dropped the connection when we started moving.” Luke’s suggestion sounded more like an order, but Tim didn’t argue. He shifted until he could grab her left hand and lift it to the Mark on his neck. Heat blossomed and spread down his neck, through his chest, and reignited the attention of the reckless and obsessed second brain in his pants. But Sarah sighed and snuggled closer instead of flopping like a limp ragdoll in his arms.

They made it to the street and moved as a synchronized marching unit for a block and a half. Thirty feet and they’d be under cover of the parking garage. The streets were nearly empty most likely thanks more to Sarah’s storm than the late hour. Tim cursed under his breath when Alexa’s hand left his shoulder. Nothing like painting a big fat target on their backs with an alien spaceship hunting for them.

“I’m sorry. I can’t…” Alexa didn’t get a chance to finish before Luke scooped her up and jogged for the cover offered by ten stories of concrete and shadow.

“Shhh. It’s okay. We’re almost there.”

Tim jogged beside him, carrying Sarah until they hit the inside of the garage. He wanted to put Sarah down and search the skies for their enemies, he needed to know what they were facing, but he didn’t dare. Maybe he could…

“Keep moving, Tim. They’re out there, but you won’t be able to see them.”

“How do you know? Where the hell are you getting your information?” Tim was all about information on the fly, but he didn’t see any explanation for where Luke was getting his intel.

“Shut the fuck up and move!” Luke shouldered past him and Alexa’s face was briefly illuminated by one of the dim garage lights. She looked nearly as strung out as Sarah did.

“Are you okay?” Tim couldn't help but ask.

Alexa smiled wanly. “As long as there are snacks in the car, I’ll be fine. I blew through my last protein bar half an hour ago and I’ve never hidden four people at once before.”

“Don’t worry, angel. I brought chocolate-covered peanut butter bars.” Luke opened the door to their car and settled Alexa in the passenger seat then reached onto the floorboard behind her and pulled out a small cooler. Alexa grinned and slid back the lid. A sigh of bliss and a quiet, “I love you,” fell from her lips.