Page 63 of Bought and Shared
Cracking a smile, he says, “I’m not opposed to going into the compound quietly, but no matter what, wearegoing in there.”
“Agreed.” There’s no way I’m leaving our mate in that den of iniquity for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
We land in a field a short distance away from the compound. Taxiing the craft into the shelter of an abandoned barn, we wait for the others to arrive.
Skell and Farron, two squad mates I befriended years back, show up within minutes and we step out to meet them.
Dressed in camo and armed to the teeth, Skell dispenses with the niceties of a greeting and replies, “We ready to free your girl?”
I smile darkly. “A hundred percent.”
Oren nudges his chin in the direction of the dilapidated barn. “That’s our way in.”
Skell, the talker of the two, quirks a pitch-black brow. “Am I missing something?”
“There’s an underground tunnel that leads directly to the house where Aurora’s being kept,” I explain, as we head for it.
Skell checks the sight of his weapon before holstering it once more. “I see. Just so I understand the mission correctly, are we killing or detaining those who get in our way?”
“Depends,” Oren says then.
Falling into step behind us, Skell asks, “On what?”
“On whether or not they are foolish enough to come between us and our mate,” Oren’s deep voice is filled with menace.
CHAPTER 20
Aurora
I drift in and out of consciousness. I feel light as a feather and completely unbothered by my lack of focus. But that’s wrong. I know it is. I fight back against the need to simply slide around inside my mind. As lovely as it is, and boy is it ever, I need to remember my goal. What was my goal again? Oh yeah: escape.
It takes me a moment before I recall where I am and what I’m doing here. I’m in my childhood home. My old bed to be specific. I remember that much. The smells and sounds of the space wash over me like an old familiar song. I squirm in place and begin to stretch my weakened muscles, testing the limitations of my restraints. I don’t have much freedom of movement at all, but at least I still have feeling in my arms.
Willing myself to sit up, I fail on the first try. And the second. But by the third, I’ve managed to lodge myself against the headboard. One step at a time, I remind myself when I immediately become frustrated. I can’t think about the bigpicture. If I do, I’ll give up under the sheer weight of my task. I must break it down into steps if I want to be successful. As the old adage goes: how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Taking a deep breath, I fight my swimming mind. That’s when I hear it. The sound of soft footfalls. My heart beats erratically. Who’s there? It doesn’t take long to find out the disturbing answer.
The door creaks open and a pale figure enters the room. It pauses at the door for a few seconds, then closes it behind them. When the person steps into the moonlight, I recognize who’s standing at my bedside and I immediately become tense.
“Were you waiting for me, Aurora?” Micah asks. “I couldn’t wait another day to see you after our stimulating conversation this afternoon. I’ve come to finish what we started. I know you must be as excited as I am to take it to the next level.”
And with that, he unbuckles his pants.
Oren
Knox has a rudimentary set of blueprints uploaded to his comm device. We trek through the maze in the dark, blindly following coordinates via a single beam of light he projects from his tablet.
If we aren’t careful and lose our way, we could easily get lost down here. Since nobody officially knows where we are at the moment, and since Aurora needs us right fucking now, that would be a serious problem.
“We’re almost there,” Knox informs us, as the narrow tunnel slants up into a sharp incline.
In a tight formation, we follow one after the other until Knox comes to a dead stop. This is the tricky part, the undocumented section of the tunnels. To the best of our knowledge, nobody has used them in years and we have no idea if all of them are still safe and unblocked.
“Here goes nothing,” Knox huffs, as he reaches for the latch of a heavy old door that is standing between us and our mate.
He gives the handle a quick twist and nothing happens.
Swearing, Knox orders, “Stand back,” and adds his enormous shoulder to the task as he forces his weight and strength against the decades-old, unused door.
