Page 67 of Dash

It drove me nuts that she had to be here, in the middle of a fight, exposed to danger and reliving the fears she’d just confessed to in the limo. Leaving her behind wasn’t my preference, but I had to move fast.

“Don’t worry about me.” I planted a quick kiss on her mouth. “King will take good care of you. I’ll be right back.”

***

Thena

I’ll be right back. Famous last words of dead men and soldiersgoing into the battlefield. My heart pounded in my temples and pummeled my ribs at the same time. I hadn’t been this scared in… never.

One moment I’d been living the dream and about to realize my fantasies. The next moment everything had exploded—well, except for me. The second Dash had pulled out of me, that fantastic orgasm coming at me had deflated faster than the limo’s blown tires.

Now I knelt in the darkness, surrounded by moss-covered rocks, in the depths of a night illuminated only by the orange glow of the flames and a sliver of a moon that came and went. My knees sank on a bed of pine needles and damp earth. The rustle of the breeze as it meandered through the trees made me edgy. Even though I was enveloped in Dash’s jacket, I shivered.

We should be dead right now, but despite what looked like a well-planned ambush, Dash and his crew had kept us alive. I hugged Dash’s cane to my breast, but fear tightened my chest. Dash was out there. What if he ended up needing his cane? What if something happened to him and he died, like Nix did?

“At ease, ma’am,” the one called King murmured. “We got this. Omega’s got your back.”

Dressed in a black tux like the others, he sprawled on the ground next to me. He braced on his elbows, balancing the barrel of his rifle on a niche between rocks, sweeping the area with his scope.

In the darkness, the brown skin of his face reflected the hues of the fire as if he was made out of flames. Lithe muscles flexed on his arms as he grasped his weapon. His wide shoulders and narrow waist reminded me of an Olympic swimmer.

As my eyes adjusted to the night, I made out his thick, expressive eyebrows. They perched straight on his forehead then curved at the end over a pair of big, dark, and slightly angular eyes. A straight nose, a square jaw edged with a hint of facialhair, and a well-defined mouth completed his profile.

I had to admire his equanimity under fire. I also appreciated the easy-going smile he flashed at me. It seemed to be permanently parked on his face. It was so bright and honest that I fathomed it was capable of squeezing joy out of stones.

“Wait a minute.” I waggled a finger at him. “I’ve seen you before. Weren’t you my dedicated waiter at the gala?”

“That was me all right.” The man flashed a row of straight and white teeth, but his eye never left his scope. “Sorry about spilling your water on the tablecloth. Give me a weapon and I can shoot. Hand me a surfboard, and I’ll show you how it’s done. But waitering?” He shrugged his athletic shoulders. “Yeah, no, I’m not qualified for that.”

“I don’t give a fuck about water on the tablecloth.” Crawling on my elbows, I scooted as close as possible to him, so that I could hear his whispers and also get a good view of the edge of the woods. “You just saved our lives.”

“It’s a work in progress, Goddess.” He teased me with a glance. “But no worries, Omega’s always a good bet.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘Goddess?’”

“Everyone gets a call sign.” He kept his attention on the woods. “Since you’re Tracker Team’s very own Athena, we all settled on Goddess. That’s what we’ve been calling you since we took over your protective detail. Problem?”

“I… um…” Here we were, in the middle of nowhere, being hunted by some psycho and his associates, casually whispering about what amounted to my new nickname. “It’s too much, don’t you think?”

“I told Goofman you may not like it.” King shook his head, where a mop of straight black hair stuck up in places around his face. “He’s the team’s self-appointed call sign giver. Goddess is too on the nose. Am I right?”

This man was risking his life for me without hesitation.For all I care he could call me a witch and I’d be happy to hear it. It wasn’t the right moment to tackle the expectations that came with a nickname like that. “If we survive, we can talk about it some more.”

“Ifwe survive?” He grimaced. “Don’t say conditional stuff like that. It’s offensive to the team and me. Youwillsurvive. Have no doubt about it.” A pair of adorable dimples formed in his cheeks when he widened his smile. “Just to let you know, Goddess comes easy to the guys.”

I rolled my eyes. Oh, brother.

“Speaking of call signs,” I whispered. “Dash’s call sign is Omega. Micah’s is Granite. What do they call you?”

“I go by KK or K-man, mostly, though Goofman loves to play with names, so I’m sure you’ll hear variations of that.”

“And your real name?”

“I’m Kai King.”

“Nice to meet you, Kai King, even in these awful circumstances.”

“Meh.” He shrugged. “I’ve been in worse. Like we say in Hawaii, Aloha Goddess, and welcome to Tracker Team.”

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