Page 12 of Callen's Captive
“Open,” she said, holding the cheese to his lips in one hand while splaying her other hand against his upper chest to steady herself.
This was better than any picnic could possibly be. As he held her between his legs, her scent called to his wolf. Her curves fit all too well against his body. Callen could slip his hands around her waist and draw her close enough to feel those lovely breasts press against his chest while he smoothed his hands down her back and over her backside.
As she fed him the cheese, he captured her finger between his lips and sucked very slowly. The sound of her breath catching went right to his cock. With a pop, her finger eased out of his mouth, and her brows furrowed. She was still trying to figure him out. He was a simple guy with simple needs, and his body was telling him what he needed was her.
He finally swallowed the cheese.
“Good, right?” she asked, ignoring the fact that she was still trapped between his legs. There was an ease about her that he hadn’t seen before. This Kate was smiling and carefree. All it had taken was a pitiful wedge of cheese and bread he’d stolen from a deli.
“Delicious,” he said without taking his eyes from her.
A thud outside in the alley made her jump. Instinctively, he covered her mouth with his hand, then lowered her to the floor, away from the window. Wide eyes greeted him. He smelled her fear, but she wasn’t panicking. That she deferred to him pleased his wolf, but not him, not entirely. He liked her independent nature and didn’t want to see fear force it away, but this was his area of expertise. He motioned for her to stay put while he slipped out the window.
The butt of a gun caught Callen in the head as he turned toward the noise behind him. Pain surged through his head, and his ability to think turned to mush as he struggled to pull himself off the ground. A hard kick to his ribs sent pain through his body, but it was being lifted and thrown against the house that made everything move in slow motion. Blood streamed in his eyes, clouding his vision as a half-dozen mercenaries surrounded the house. He had led them here. He had endangered Kate without realizing it.
Callen released his wolf until the mercenary set the gun muzzle at the base of his brain. “Shift and you die.”
The mercenary with the poison ivy rash on his face and arms, snickered as Callen forced his wolf down. With a single draw of the air around him, Callen recognized the man’s scent. This was the mercenary who had tracked Kate through the woods, one of the men who’d nearly beaten Anna to death.
Callen stayed still as boots pounding against the wooden floor inside the house followed by calls of ‘all clear’.
“She’s gone, Briggs,” said a tall, blond guy as he rounded the corner.
“Fuckin’ marvelous.” Briggs scratched the red blotches on his face as he placed his boot on Callen’s neck. “Mills, fan out, search every building in a mile radius.”
“What about the shifter?”
“Let’s see if he’s the right bait for that traitor.” Briggs fired his gun in the air once.
Callen didn’t know how Kate had escaped, but he was damn proud of her.
“Do you hear that bitch?” Briggs shouted at the top of his lungs, probably figuring she hadn’t made it very far. “Turn yourself in, or I’m going to hang this animal right in front of the school. You have two hours.”
“Run, Kate!” Callen yelled, and that was the last thing he remembered as Briggs cracked the gun against his head.
* * *
KATE
The second Kate saw the mercenary pistol-whip Callen from behind, she grabbed her go-bag, removed the panel inside the closet in her bedroom, and shimmied up the steep incline into the small attic. The sound of boots pounding through the house terrified her, but knowing the mercenaries had captured Callen kept her from freezing up. She needed a plan, something to draw them away from Callen.
Kate tore into her backpack and withdrew her laptop out of the waterproof bag she kept it in. She fished around for the portable battery. With practically everything in plastic bags, she needed to move slowly, to keep the crinkling of plastic at a minimum for any of the mercenaries who could still be in the house.
Ah, there, she finally found the battery, hiding under the gun. Kate got to work programming offline. Once the soldiers left, she’d sneak out and find a place with reliable Wi-Fi. As soon as she logged in, they’d track her, so she’d have only one shot at uploading the program. Until then, she could work out the finer details of her plan.
Within an hour, the sound of the mercenaries outside fell away. They had moved on, taking Callen with them. Letting them leave with Callen brought her anxiety to an all-time high, but she didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t like she could walk outside and fight a bunch of highly trained and armed men, especially with only one gun. Staying calm and sticking with her plan was the best chance of getting Callen away from them.
When she finally finished the program, Kate snuck down the crawlspace and into her old bedroom. Why they thought Callen mattered enough to her that she’d risk her life to go after him was interesting, but they were right. She didn’t know much about him, but he had risked his life to save her, and now he was in trouble because of her. She owed him.
After hiding her laptop at the bottom of a bin of packaged coffee bags in a coffee shop with good Wi-Fi, Kate took off for the schoolhouse. The sudden absence of mercenaries in the town was obvious if not insulting. The question wasn’t if they were watching but from where? Did they have video surveillance or were they using scopes on long-range rifles?
Sticking to obscure paths that including climbing over a few fences, Kate found her way to the school unseen. As far as she knew, she hadn’t been caught on video either. Unfortunately, she had to wait until nightfall to make her move. She climbed a large scots pine on a hill overlooking the school and playground below and settled in. Now the wait began.
For two hours, nothing happened. Then three men clad in black with guns strapped to their sides dragged a shirtless Callen out by his arms. The toes of his boots furrowed the dry ground beneath, sending up a cloud of dirt in his wake. Her heart nearly stopped when she realized he wasn’t moving. The bastards tied a rope around his ankles and then hauled him up the flagpole. His chest and face were a bloody mess, and his fingertips dangled inches from the ground.
Kate scurried down the tree and edged as close to the schoolyard as she could without being seen. She had to know if he was alive. His body was swinging in the wind, and blood dripped down his arms and his face, pooling in the dirt.
Dead men didn’t bleed, did they? What about shifters? Were the basic rules of physiology the same?
