She had to get out of there and find Jonas because she was caving bad where Tanner was concerned. She could feel it. She was within days of giving him anything he wanted; however he wanted. And risking everything.
She was falling in love with him.
Accepting that was one of the hardest things she had done. Because it wasn’t like loving Chaz had been. With Chaz, there had always been something missing, something not quite complete within herself.
There was nothing missing with Tanner, and that terrified her. Because she knew if he had used sex to question her, then she would have caved. She would have folded and told him everything he wanted to know.
All he would have had to do was withhold one orgasm. Made her wait, and then asked her anything. The lives she would have betrayed could be gone forever, because she was weak.
Her father was right the last time he had buried her. She was too weak to live. Too weak to survive in the world she had been born into.
Breathing out wearily, she kept her gaze on the faint impressions of Tanner’s hiking boots through the tunnel, until they turned and stopped right at the stone wall.
Her eyes narrowed. He couldn’t walk through a wall, dammit.
Reaching out, she ran her hands over the wall, frowning at the feel of it. It looked like stone, it almost felt like stone, but with a difference. Moving her hands from side to side, her fingers finally found the faint depression on one side. Hooking them into it, she tugged, surprised at the faint scraping sound as a rock-lined panel slid open.
This was the scraping sound she’d heard when he left. A false wall opening, and she hadn’t been able to find it. It was narrow, short, barely five and a half feet tall and maybe three feet wide. Tanner would have had to tuck and turn to pass through, but he could have easily done so quickly.
She paused there, knowing she would find an exit on the other side, somewhere. And she had to force herself forward. Force one foot in front of the other as she tightened her lips and moved into the next tunnel.
She felt the regret tearing at her now, a sense of loss. Had she ever felt as safe, as secure as she had felt cocooned in those caverns with Tanner?
She knew she hadn’t. She had found a haven in his arms, below the earth, and letting go of it was surprisingly difficult.
She felt as though she were letting go of Tanner. As though by finding that hidden panel, she had betrayed him. Hadn’t trusted him.
Shaking her head, she had to force herself to keep going. She wasn’t betraying him, she assured herself. She was saving him. If he wasn’t the spy, she was saving his family and his pride nephew. She wasn’t betraying anyone but Cyrus Tallant, and God above knew he deserved the betrayal.
Her hand flattened at her lower stomach. There was a slight burning sensation, a warmth that had begun to become noticeable the day before and didn’t seem to be easing.
Of course, she and Tanner had been fucking like minks; that could explain it. Her body wasn’t used to the pounding it had taken. The pounding it loved. Craved. Needed.
A bitter smile touched her lips. She had never known pleasure as she had known it with Tanner—fierce, hot as hell, and all-consuming. She hadn’t had sex with him. She hadn’t fucked him. She had made love to him, and she knew it.
Each touch, she memorized. Each taste, each of those growly little sounds he made, she loved. Like a cross between a snarl and a purr, sometimes when he was irritated with her, mostly when he found pleasure with her. And she knew he found pleasure with her.
Her suspicions that he could be in league with her father always faltered there. She knew he needed to be with her. She could feel it in him, see it in the hard, corded strength of his body each time he held back and let her touch as well.
God, what was she doing? She was convincing herself, even as freedom was so close, that maybe he loved her. Just a little bit?
She was willing to trade her life, and the lives of so many others, on a maybe.
Her taste in men sucked and she knew it. Her first lover, Chaz, had been an assassin. The second hadn’t been much better. The only difference was he wasn’t part of her father’s organization. He just wanted to be. The third. Oh, there was a real winner. The lover she had become acquainted with at one of the clubs she frequented had actually been an undercover federal agent. Actually, a married undercover federal agent.
Cyrus had really enjoyed punishing her for that one. At least he hadn’t killed the agent. Oh no, Cyrus Tallant didn’t murder useful talent right off. Nope, the married agent was still being blackmailed by Cyrus Tallant.
She’d had two other lovers, short affairs, men whose names she forced herself not to even remember. Nice, plain men whose saving grace had been their warmth. For a few short weeks she had let them keep her warm.
Rounding the curve in the tunnel, she moved into another. How fucking far did this damned underground path lead, anyway? She felt as though she had been walking forever.
And each step hurt more. The closer she came to escaping Tanner, the more it hurt. A physical, burning ache in the center of her chest.
Her common sense was screaming at whatever weakkneed little romantic was whispering that she turn back. Return to bed. Wait on Tanner. He was just checking on the soldiers surrounding his cabin, that unknown voice whispered in her head.
Stupid twit, shut the fuck up, her common sense screamed. He was probably reporting to her father even now.
But he had hasn’t hurt you. He was worried for you.
He wants answers, not your old-assed body.
She sighed. She felt old. So old that at times her soul felt shriveled, dry.
Until Tanner touched her.
Rounding another curve, she saw the way out. There, set in the stone, was a metal ladder leading to the ceiling and a light indention around what seemed to be a stone covering.
Freedom.
A tear slipped free of her eye.
Scheme brushed the dampness away slowly before rubbing her fingers together, absorbing the sign of weakness as she stared up at the exit. It was time to face destiny now. Fate. Karma. Whichever it was, it was time to pay for the lives her father had taken.
Wasn’t there a scripture in the Bible? Something about the son paying for the father’s sins? Well, she wasn’t a son, but she was the only child capable of paying.She grabbed hold of the ladder and pulled herself up it, using the flat of her hand to push the stone above her aside.
Freedom.
So why did it feel more like a return to captivity?
“Tanner, son, we got problems.”
Tanner crouched just behind Jackal and Cabal, his narrowed eyes piercing the early morning mists rising from the cliff-shrouded valley to envelop the high ridge his cabin sat on.
“What are you two doing here?” he murmured, his eyes following the delicate dance between a half dozen Council soldiers and the four Breed Enforcers moving around the small building several miles from the caves.
“Checking a few things,” Jackal’s ruined voice murmured. “We expected the Council soldiers to watch the cabin. We didn’t expect Jonas’s men to be there too.”
“He knows you’re here?” Tanner was aware that Jonas had ordered them to remain on active duty. Hours later, Cabal had flipped him the finger and walked out of the Bureau. Jackal had followed with a smirk, Cabal related.
“He shouldn’t know shit,” Cabal growled. “We went to Sanctuary first and slipped out from there. By the way, Callan said you’re getting your ass kicked when you get back.”
Tanner grunted as he slipped the noc’s, the short-range, multiuse glasses used for ground warfare, from Cabal’s face and set them over his eyes.
Son of a bitch. Council soldiers and enforcers were each pretending they didn’t know the other group was there.
“Wild,” he muttered. “What the fuck is up with this?”
“The Council crew is half a dozen of their best,” Jackal whispered. “Men they only call out in extreme circumstances because they charge an arm and a leg for the service. The Breeds playing patty-cake with them are part of what Jonas calls his Alpha Team. They’re the best of the best. Jonas recruited each one personally.”
“The other half of Alpha Team is concentrated around the comm shed at Sanctuary, and some of the equipment they’re using is definitely not standard issue.”
“Like?”
“Like short-range transmission locators and translators.” Cabal stared back at him. “They’ve been listening to every frickin’ message coming in and going out, and Callan wasn’t informed. That equipment wasn’t even through R&D last we heard.”
“If they’re everything he says they are, then they can be programmed for specific words or phrases while monitoring every damned frequency known to man at one time,” Jackal continued.
“What about encryption?” Tanner knew the few transmissions they had actually picked up from Sanctuary to Tallant had been intricately encrypted.
“All you need are the encryption keys,” Jackal said. “And I bet you they picked up something here. Does your princess have a radio?”
“Not possible.” Tanner shook his head. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing had come out of those caverns.
“Agreed.” Cabal’s voice was less than a whisper. “So tell me what the party is here?”
“They know about the caverns,” Jackal suggested. “It’s the only reason for both teams to be pussyfooting around like that. They’re looking for the same thing.”
“Jonas went to Sanctuary night before last,” Cabal mused. “You could hear him and Callan roaring at each other, but not much else.”
Tanner winced. “They’re looking for her.” He pushed his fingers through his hair ruthlessly. “I can understand Tallant putting out the effort, but why Jonas?”
Cabal glanced back at him worriedly.
“You got the op from hell goin’ on here, Breed,” Jackal said and sighed. “How we gonna play it?”
Jackal turned to look at him. The wicked scar that ran from his temple across his eye and the bridge of his nose, then down the opposite cheek gave him a brutal appearance. The navy blue eyes, so dark they were nearly black, and shoulder-length black hair didn’t help things.
At thirty-nine, he kept swearing retirement was at hand, but his gaze glittered with glee at the mere thought of taking on Council soldiers, supremists and their inbred purist cousins.
Tanner had opened his mouth to speak when he felt the silent alarm vibrate on his belt.
“Breach,” he hissed.
Council soldiers and Breed Enforcers were forgotten as the three men turned and melted into the forest, racing back toward the cliffs and the caverns.
Scheme had been searching for the damned exit every day she had been there, he knew that, but he didn’t believe she could have found it. He didn’t believe she had the desire to find it. And even if she did, he had made certain to never take the same tunnel to it twice, and that she was asleep each time he left.
That meant, possibly, someone else had managed to find the hidden entrance.
And Scheme was undefended.
CHAPTER 16
It could barely be called daylight. And was she in a forest? Trees, grass, dirt ground, with bugs and slimy forest things?
Ewww.
Grimacing, Scheme stood at the narrow entrance to the cave she had entered from the cover stone and stared out at the misty, wet-looking land beyond.
This wasn’t smog; she could have handled that. She was used to that. This was a wet mist hanging in the air and dampening everything it touched.
And there were birds. No pigeons. She wondered if birds really did crap on your head just for the hell of it. She had heard that—somewhere. At the moment she couldn’t remember exactly where.
The minute she stepped out of the caves’ narrow opening she was going to get her socks irreparably messy. They would never come clean. The damp would ruin her beautiful velvet lounging pajamas, and they really were her favorite pair. Unfortunately, there was nothing more durable in her luggage.