Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder

28

They’d driven to the auction site. Five and a half hours. A few checkpoints. Finn chattering most of the way, all of the typical flirtations and innuendos—even with the guards who’d demanded their IDs. Like she hadn’t clutched his and Nate’s hands the night before, clung to their naked bodies in the dark. Or maybe like she had. Maybe this was Finn assured of his place in the world. Grace was still getting used to the new normal. Even when they finally pulled up just outside the lodge and conference center.

“You up for this, Grace of my heart?” Finn wondered as she steered the car behind a thick copse of bushes.

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she assured him coolly. This was what she’d wanted since signing up with Third Shift. To be a part of the active teams. Not relegated to first aid and triage. To be beside someone she loved. She was ready.

They made sure the car was appropriately camouflaged before they headed toward the lodge. It wasn’t far. Less than five klicks. She ran more miles on the treadmill four times a week. Getting inside the actual compound was the tricky part. There were few open access points—which probably worked in its favor as a getaway for criminals. The front entrance. A loading dock. The patio with the outdoor pool, covered now for the season, that sat adjacent to the indoor pool. Olympic-sized with two Jacuzzi tubs. That was their best bet, since no one was likely to be swimming during a supervillain serum auction. They had thieves’ tools to get in the glass patio doors, one of Joaquin’s prized Honeybees to disrupt the security feed, and maybe five minutes to get in and grab Chase Saunders before being discovered.

“No pressure,”Jackson had joked while briefing them. But Grace thrived on pressure. On knowing that mere seconds could spell the difference between a clean operation and one that would require a follow-up. So her blood was pumping when Finn broke into the natatorium. When they crept along the side of the long pool, their footsteps barely making noise on the white tile. Finn could probably smell it on her. The thrill, the focus, the adrenaline. He grinned at her, a distinct gleam in his eye, as they hurried through the narrow room and into a hallway. He didn’t have to speak. His eyebrows said everything she expected and more. He loved this part of the operation, too.

According to the heat signatures Joaquin had transmitted during their drive, Chase was being held in a second-floor room on the resort’s east side. With the Honeybee engaged, they took the east fire stairs up to the room in question. A measly two guards stood in front of the door. Honestly, Grace was a little disappointed. One would think that a celebrity would require more security than that. An entire retinue of henchmen. With giant guns that screamed overcompensation, not perfectly reasonable shoulder holsters. Maybe Aston’s people were cocky. Maybe they just didn’t care.

She tranqued one while Finn bit the other. Their bodies barely made a thump on the threadbare hall carpet. Once they were taken care of, the dim, dark room where Mirko’s men had stashed their hostage was easy to access. Especially if you had a vampire who could just break down the door with one well-placed shove. No additional guards inside. Nothing except an incredibly famous, and incredibly sedated, man on the dusty comforter of the room’s king-size bed. The maid service in this place was clearly lacking, but they’d kept him hooked up to his IV, so that was worth a tip.

“Oh, this one’s a beauty. Even half-dead with his arse hanging out of his hospital gown. I see why Miss Meghna had to go and marry him.” Finn’s words were typical, but the look in his eyes and the downturn of his mouth didn’t quite match them. As if he was still practicing being himself again.

“She shouldn’t have married him,” Grace murmured as she unhooked the saline drip from the stand and wrapped it, dropping it into Chase’s lap. She then stepped back, gesturing for Finn to lift the unconscious man in his arms. “It wasn’t fair to Chase. He didn’t know what he was getting into.”

“When is it ever fair, Grace of my heart?” Finian countered. “We do what we have to do. And who we have to do. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we find someone who understands that.”

She knew he was thinking about Nate, whom they’d left in his bed with stern admonitions to go nowhere in their absence unless it was absolutely necessary. Another human who could so easily become collateral damage in this ongoing war—who had already seen more than his fair share of violence. Were they cruel for loving the Chases and Nates of the world? For willingly and knowingly bringing them into dangerous lives? Grace was human, too, but she’d made the conscious choice to join Third Shift. To use her superhuman skill as a doctor, hard-won through years of education, to aid in their fight. Growing closer to Finn had been as accidental as it had been a foregone conclusion. He’d insisted on it, bulldozing through the professional walls she’d tried to erect. But Nate? A civilian? What right did they have to do this to him? To risk his life and also make him worry constantly for theirs? It was a heavy burden for any one person to carry. Far heavier than the armful of wounded actor who Finn transported like nothing at all. Nate claimed he was ready. He claimed he could handle it. But Grace wasn’t even sure she could handle it and she’d been living this life, a double life, for years.

They emerged in the hallway with its ugly, dated carpeting. The entirely too quiet hallway. “Trap?” Finn suggested with the quirk of one brow.

“Trap,” she agreed.

Finn shifted his grip on Saunders so he had a defensive shoulder forward and one hand free for his gun. She drew both of her own weapons, one with bullets and one with tranqs. And moments later, bears filled the hallway. Fully shifted werebears.

“At least it’s not birds,” Finn offered optimistically. “I still have PTCS from the last time.”

Grace frowned. “Don’t you mean PTSD?”

“No.” He grinned. “Posttraumatic cock-sucking.”

She should’ve known better than to ask. She didn’t have time for more than a cursory eye roll before a huge brown bear shifter charged her. She shot him neatly through the forehead and then gave Finn momentary cover as he dropped back and returned Chase Saunders to the room they’d found him in. He was deadweight, safer out of the fray. And it freed Finian to use his teeth—which he did, to great effect. They worked in bloody concert, the surgeon and her closer. She took down two more supes with head shots. Finn snapped three necks after taking a chunk out of each. It was exhausting and invigorating. Like an eight-hour procedure compressed into less than eight minutes.

Had Aston thought Meghna would be overwhelmed by bear shifters? Had he wanted her torn limb from limb? This was overkill for who they assumed was a human woman. A man who would order such an attack deserved no mercy. His minions deserved no quarter. And Grace and Finn didn’t give them any. Before long, bodies littered the narrow hallway. And they stood ankle-deep in them, bloodstained, sweating, but victorious.

* * *

Finn and Grace were in. Their comms were muted, and Elijah didn’t wear his during ops where he was likely to shift, but he trusted the timetable that had been set before Go Time. And, of course, he trusted his people. The two operatives had taken the more circuitous route into the McCammon Lodge. He and Meghna, since she’d technically been invited, were using the front door. Brazening it out as guests of the esteemed Mirko Aston. They were patted down in the foyer of the event center by a big blond bear shifter whose nostrils flared when he caught Elijah’s scent. Apex predators didn’t particularly get on. Shocker. His handling was rough, and he pulled the gun from Elijah’s ankle holster with something like glee…not realizing it was there for that very purpose. It made him focus on that as the threat and not Elijah reeking of lion. After all, there were probably dozens of shifters already here for the auction. What was one more?

But Elijah was a weapon. Just as Meghna was—and the hulking, humorless shifter, who lingered on the curves outlined by her formfitting black sweater, missed the stilettos in her hair entirely. If they needed extra firepower, they could always take a weapon off some unlucky bastard who wasn’t going to be using it anymore.

They’d dressed for black ops work more than whatever party Aston was throwing. Dark clothes. Nothing loose that anyone could grab hold of. But Meghna still looked like a million dollars. The conversion rate to pounds would be even higher. Stretchy black pants, glittery and out of the club wear section of the Locker, clung to her long legs. Her boots were practical for combat, with stacked heels that hid wicked blades. His own were more utilitarian. Same with his trousers and shirt. He’d be losing it all at some point in the proceedings, so he hadn’t picked his Sunday best.

The chopper had left them a few klicks from the event center. The middle of a clearing. It would circle back a few times before the agreed-upon return at 2300 hours. And Joaquin was monitoring all comms in case immediate action was necessary. So far, though, Elijah reckoned they were all right.

They were led through a reception area that must’ve been grand once. Now it just looked faded, sad, like its glory days were sometime in the 1970s. Frayed wall hangings, dusty columns. An empty marble check-in desk on a slightly raised bit of floor.

“Lovely,” Meghna said dryly. “Maybe we should have our wedding reception here. The aunties would have so much to talk shit about.”

“Are Indian aunties anything like Jamaican aunties?” Elijah asked, laughing lightly. “Because I’d never hear the end of it.”

“We should get married just so we find out,” she bantered back.

Their escort was not amused…but he was also not threatened, which was far more important. He made a grumpy noise as he herded them toward a set of double doors to the left, continuing to underestimate the people he was bringing into Mirko Aston’s midst. Maybe he hadn’t been briefed about the things the two of them had got up to. Elijah wasn’t about to enlighten him. Because he was too busy enjoying the moment of light before the storm, the bit of respite. It made something catch in his throat. In his chest. Wedding receptions. Marriage. She wasn’t serious. It was all part of the persona she slipped on and off like a favorite gown. But he was gobsmacked by how much he liked the idea. Marrying Meghna Saxena-Saunders. Flirting, fucking, and fighting side by side for the rest of their lives. However long that might be.

He held to that idea as they were prodded into a small anteroom…and tried not to find it too ominous when the bear shifter locked the doors behind them and left. This was expected, after all. They’d been formally invited for a purpose. And that purpose soon became clear. A large flat-screen monitor was the focus of the makeshift green room, which boasted a few upholstered dining chairs and a paisley-print sofa that had seen better days. As well as two more doors. One set into each flanking wall. The monitor was on. Showing an intimate party room filled with people.

“Well, this feels familiar,” Meghna said, grimly observing the gathering that looked very much like the one where they’d met.

Vodka fountains. A few tables with cold appetizers. Still other tables with clear glass tops, for cutting lines. And the room was full of entitled white men. Many he recognized, a few he didn’t, and some he associated with pictures from the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Elijah had been in many rooms like it before, not just the one at the Manhattan Grand Hotel last week. Even from the outside, he was painstakingly aware of his Blackness, his Otherness. Just as Meghna was likely conscious of her Brownness. The temperature in the antechamber had dropped to an icy chill the moment they’d been pushed over the threshold. Nobody in this building wanted them here. Everyone here intended them harm and would waste no time in enacting it. He felt that; he knew that. He was poised to shift, his lion rising inch by inch and pushing against his skin. This was not a safe space. But they’d come here explicitly knowing that. The serum was far more important than his discomfort, than his every instinct screaming at him to get the fuck out. They had to get it away from these assholes.

He and Meghna were left alone for several interminable minutes. After assessing their own confines, checking the perimeter of the room, and testing the doorknobs, they returned to the monitor. Watching the movements on-screen. Listening to the chatter. Waiting. The California movie producer was there. Rick Keegan. Maybe that was how Mirko had gotten to Chase. And Tony Rossi, the head of a Chicago crime family. They both looked well recovered from their binges at the VIP party, eager to bid on Mirko’s secret product. These people were all enemies as much as they were Mirko’s allies. Competition. Once the show got started, it was liable to turn into the Hunger Games.

“Twenty-eight guests, in all kinds of criminal flavors,” Meghna murmured, her side pressed to his in the most beautiful benefit of forced proximity. “No waitstaff. Locked doors. This doesn’t look good.” He could smell her skin like this. Her hair. Her essence. It didn’t matter that she’d used the basic soap they kept at Third Shift HQ; he recognized her. His inner lion knew her just as well as it knew him and his mum and his sisters. She was part of his pride, whether she accepted that or not.

And she was right. This didn’t look good. At all.

Still, they couldn’t afford to wade in too early. Not before sussing out the situation. Not before finding out why they were in this room and not that one. “We need to wait this out. Whatever this is,” he cautioned.

“Why?” she challenged. Because that was who she was, a person who would always challenge him. “What are they going to do if we don’t wait, Elijah? If we leave and get in there? Kill us? They’re going to try that no matter what.”

Meghna wasn’t wrong. That was the hell of it. All of the strict operational maneuvers he’d learned in the military, at the Apex Initiative, they went by the wayside when you were actually in the field. This was when you went by instinct, by whatever the situation called for. But before Elijah could barrel through a door, locks be damned, and discover whether there was a lady or a tiger shifter behind it, a commotion in the party room drew his and Meghna’s attention. A door had burst open there. Revealing Mirko Aston and a handful of guards. Suited up. Heavily armed. Estrada was behind them. Dressed more for thieves’ work. Without visible weapons. And his dark eyes seemed to tilt upward, as if signaling to a hidden camera. Signaling to Elijah and Meg or someone else? Whoever it was meant for, Lije got the message loud and clear. Danger. Be ready. And then Estrada slipped away in the direction from whence he’d come.

Mirko Aston didn’t seem to care that he’d lost one minion. No, his gaze flashed over the crowd like a searchlight. Gleaming with something so cold that it sent a shiver down Elijah’s spine. Meghna squeezed his hand. He could feel her vibrating beside him as Mirko began to speak.

“Thank you so kindly for your attendance!” the arms dealer boomed with movie villain menace, his Eastern European accent thickening for show. Like he was one of James Bond’s enemies. “Your sacrifice will not be in vain, I assure you.”

Oh. Bloody. Hell.The implication clicked just a few seconds too late. While Mirko and his men were already putting on gas masks. It wasn’t an auction. It was a slaughter. Gas seeped in from the air vents, and men began to clutch at their throats. People broke out in ugly red hives, writhing as they sank to the floor. Whatever agent Mirko had pumped into the room, it was not bringing death instantly or kindly. It was meant to make his rivals suffer. To let them know precisely who was behind their untimely demises. And he no doubt reveled in the fact that Elijah and Meghna were being forced to watch.

Mirko stood across the ballroom, masked and…and ecstatic. The line of thugs behind him like pawns in a macabre chess match. That Estrada had skived off from his disgusting show of strength wasn’t a concern. That the floor was strewn with corpses of those he’d done vodka shots and coke with… It was a source of pride.

The people who hadn’t died immediately scrambled in vain for their firearms. Tried to get across the carpet to the gloating son of a bitch who’d double-crossed them. Whatever chemical agent they’d been exposed to made the efforts futile. Some of them were done for within minutes. Starved to death before the Hunger Games could even begin. Still others…they tried to shift, tried to take on a defensive form. That was when the bigger guns came out. Literally. Aston’s guards pulled out AR-15s, spraying what was left of the crowd. The sound was amplified. From the monitor and from their surroundings. Wherever this party room was, it was well within earshot.

“The poison is targeted,” Meghna concluded aloud almost clinically. “Whatever they used, it didn’t work on the shifters. So they had to switch to semiautomatics.”

As if on cue, a hissing sound drew their gazes up toward the ceiling. Where vents sat at high points along the walls. Gas wended its way out of the slats and floated down toward them. “Fuck!” Elijah instinctively moved in front of Meg, like that would somehow shield her from its path.

“It’s okay,” she said, still with that remote and robotic tone. “Mirko thinks we’re human. It’s not affecting us at all.”

“Yet,” he corrected. “It’s not affecting us yet, and I don’t think we should wait around to find out.” If Mirko Aston assumed they’d been taken care of—disposed of as ruthlessly as his auction attendees—then that gave them an advantage. However slight. They had the element of surprise on their side.

Meghna nodded, the set of her jaw grim as the chemical cloud wafted closer. And Elijah took that as his sign to take action. He pivoted back to the entrance they’d used and plowed through the locked wooden doors. Putting his back and shoulder into it, thankful for shite 1970s style and equally shite upkeep. They splintered under his assault and let him and Meghna loose in the reception area. Gas dispersed in their wake, but they kept moving. No telling what they’d encounter if they stood still.

The thunderous rat-a-tat of automatic gunfire had petered off into eerie silence. And Elijah spotted another set of thrown-open doors just a little bit farther along. Odds were, Mirko and the guards had only just made their getaway. They were likely still on premises somewhere. He’d memorized the site schematics. There weren’t that many entry or exit points. The pool. The front door. The back, which led out to a parking lot and a private helipad. The compound was secluded, very upstate New York meets The Shining. And he had no desire to go stark, raving mad trying to get the fuck out of this bloody hotel.

Meghna was oddly silent, unresponsive, almost doll-like as he tugged her along down the center hallway. It was unnerving, but he didn’t have time to be unnerved. To be off his head with worry. He just had to hope she’d come out of whatever fog she was in. Shock. PTSD. He’d seen men in combat freeze the same way after an IED took out a supply lorry or a Humvee, or a scout party ahead set off land mines and didn’t live to tell the tale. You could tolerate death and violence up until you couldn’t. Until it finally sank beneath the skin. And then you cast up your guts or woke up sweating every night or started fights in the canteen.

He’d been lucky. He had his regiment. Then he’d had the Apex Initiative and Jackson, his best mate. As strange as it was to hit it off with a rich, white Yank. And, of course, he’d had Mum and Dad and his sisters. When he’d come home on leave, all that support and all that joy brought him back to what mattered. Life and love and laughing. If Meghna couldn’t come back on her own, he’d remind her. They weren’t dead. They were still here. And as long as they were here, they could still change the world.