Marcus (4 page)

Her voice lowered. “I know, Marcus. It’s
them or us. Tough choices have to be made.”

Marcus scraped a hand through his hair.
“Shit.”

She gripped his arm. “I’ve been your comms
officer for six months. I know this is war and it isn’t nice. Now,
I’m going down to Interrogation whether you’re with me or not.”

“Fine.” He checked the urge to kick
something.

They were silent as they navigated the
tunnels and took the spiral ramp down to the lower levels. Blue
Mountain Base had started life as a little-used military facility.
But after the raptor invasion, it had become a home. Because of its
excellent defenses, hidden location, and the fact it had the
essentials like a power source, running water and a comp system, it
had turned out to be the perfect haven they’d so desperately
needed.

It also had a section of reinforced cells in
the lower levels.

They reached a heavy metal door guarded by a
solider in fatigues.

“Steele,” the man said with a nod.

“James. We’re here to talk to the
prisoner.”

James nodded. “Captain Bladon’s in there.
Talk to her first.”

“Will do.” Marcus pushed Elle through the
door with a hand on the small of her back.

“Staff Sergeant Steele. What have we done to
deserve the presence of Hell Squad’s leader here in our humble
environs?”

Marcus nodded at the tall, redheaded woman
blocking their way. Laura Bladon, once a member of the Coalition’s
Navy Intelligence Unit, was young but she ran the prison area with
an iron fist. Behind her, the tunnel was lined with thick,
reinforced glass windows that looked into the cells.

“Elle is working to decode the map for the
comms hub your raptor prisoner gave us intel on.”

“But we can’t decipher it all,” Elle added.
“There are too many raptor words we can’t translate.”

Bladon’s eyes narrowed. “You think he’s
going to help you? It took my team an entire month to get anything
out of him.”

“We have to try.”

Bladon caught Marcus’ gaze. “You sure you
want a civvy in there?”

Elle straightened. “I’m Squad Six’s comms
officer. I’m not a civvy.”

Bladon raised a russet brow. “All right.
Come on, then.”

As they followed the captain down the hall,
Marcus cursed the choices he kept being forced to make.

***

Elle dragged in a breath and stepped up to
the glass.

Her gaze settled on the raptor chained to a
metal chair and her pulse tripped.

He was big. But they were all big. Over
six-and-a-half feet, the alien had a humanoid body that was all
packed muscle, and covered in thick, gray-mottled, scaly skin.
Prominent brow ridges and a heavy, elongated jaw dominated his
frightening face and large, hairless head.

Sensing them, he looked up and stared at
them. His eyes glowed deep red. Elle could almost see the hatred
and a vicious desire to kill within them. She shivered. Then he
opened his mouth in something resembling a snarl, baring
razor-sharp teeth.

Everything inside her shook. For a second,
she was back in that dark closet in her parents’ house, listening
to her mother’s screams.

“Elle?”

Marcus’ gravelly rasp drew her back to the
present. She wasn’t that girl anymore and now she was fighting
back. “Open the door.”

She heard Marcus mutter under his breath but
he pushed the door open.

“I’ll be waiting out here if you need
anything,” Bladon said.

As the door closed behind them, the raptor’s
hellish gaze zeroed in on them. Elle was grateful for Marcus’ solid
presence beside her.

Marcus crossed his arms over his chest and
glared at the raptor. “You scare her…in
any
way…and I’ll
make you hurt.”

Swallowing, Elle stepped forward, holding
the tablet out. “I need to understand these words.”

The raptor bared his teeth again and let out
a hissing noise.

Up close, she saw blood staining his skin,
and ugly wounds that the chains at his wrists and ankles had left.
Her stomach turned over. She really didn’t want to know what they’d
done to get him to talk.

“This word.” She pointed at the strange
alien scrawl. “I think it means wind. Or air.” She fanned the air
with her hand.

The raptor lifted his chin, looked over her
shoulder at the wall, and stayed silent.

“This word.” She pointed to another. “What
does it mean?”

The raptor lunged against his chains,
rocking the chair, and let out a loud growl. Elle jumped
backward.

Suddenly Marcus was there, between her and
the alien, slamming the creature and his chair back against the
wall. “Do it again. I want to hurt you, you bastard.”

Marcus’ low words had the right effect, and
the raptor dropped his gaze.

Elle steadied herself. She stepped forward
once more. “Let’s try again.”

They kept at it for over an hour. The raptor
did know a few English words, but not many. And despite Marcus
getting physical with him, he didn’t share much.

As they left the cell, Elle’s shoulders
sagged. “One word. That’s all we got.”

“It’s more than we had.” Marcus flexed his
hands.

She stared at the blood staining his
knuckles. She hated that he’d had to do that.

He noticed her looking and thrust his hands
in his pockets.

“
Fly
. It doesn’t really help much,”
she said.

Captain Bladon met them. “If you leave the
words with me, I’ll have my team continue working with him.”

Elle stared at her tablet. “Working with
him” was such an innocuous way to say it. She had a choice to make.
To leave her notes, and give permission for that…being to be
tortured. Butterflies flitted in her belly. Not pretty, gentle
ones, but ones with razor-edged wings.

The raptor, for all his invading and
killing, was still a living, breathing being. She thought again of
her mother’s screams, of all the blood soaking into the carpet. Of
Marcus and the others going out every day to fight. Elle slowly
nodded. “I’ll send them through to your comp.”

As Elle and Marcus headed back up to the
main part of the tunnels, she felt exhaustion dragging on her.
“I’ll take another look at the map document. See if I can—”

“You need to get some sleep.”

She knew he sometimes did back-to-back
missions without much rest. He must think she was weak. “All
right.”

He reached out and tucked a strand of her
hair back behind her ear. “Grab a few hours of sleep and then meet
me in the gym.”

“What?”

“We still have a training session to
do.”

Her chest tightened. Time with Marcus.
Alone. “Okay.” She headed down the tunnel to her room, excitement
lightening her steps.

“And Elle?”

She glanced over her shoulder. With his
broad shoulders and muscled bulk, he seemed to fill the entire
tunnel.

“Don’t look at that translation again. Get
some sleep. I mean it.”

Marcus blocked Elle’s kick. She came at him
again and he knocked her leg away with his forearm. He was careful
not to use his full strength. She was lucky if she weighed sixty
kilograms and he was twice that.

“Good,” he said. “Again.”

She nodded, bouncing on the balls of her
feet. Dogged determination was etched on her face. She swiped her
arm across her sweaty brow. Dark strands of hair stuck to her damp
skin.

Then she attacked.

Roundhouse kick. Step, turn. Side kick. That
one packed enough strength to make him grunt. A kick aimed at his
head that he deflected. Then she moved in close and slammed a fist
into his gut.

He caught her hand before it connected, spun
her and yanked her up against him. Her back was pressed to his
chest, her rounded ass nestled against his crotch.
Dammit
.
He was going to kill Cruz.

“Don’t bother trying to punch.” God, he
loved the feel of her against him. “You have to get too close.
Raptors are bigger, stronger. Kick to incapacitate, to buy a bit of
time, and then run.”

“I suck at this, don’t I?” Her voice was
quiet.

“No.” She was actually getting pretty darn
good. “But you aren’t physically strong enough to take on a raptor
at close quarters, no matter your training or your armor. Not many
of us are. Got it?”

She nodded. Her hair tickled his face and
her scent filled his senses—something with flowers and coconut that
was all Elle, mixed with healthy feminine sweat. His cock twitched
and he recited a few mental curses.

He set her away and dragged in some air.
“Again.”

She lifted her chin and rushed at him, her
kick aimed for his midsection. He blocked and watched her move. Her
kicks would never be powerful enough to do much damage, but damn,
she moved gracefully. Like a dancer.

“Come on, Elle. Quit playing around.”

“Playing around?” Her jaw set, something
flashing in her eyes. Yeah, he’d noted that determination in her
before. First, when she’d lobbied to become Hell Squad’s comms
officer. He’d fought just as hard not to have her.

But she’d found ways to prove to him she was
the best person for the job. Getting extra intel for their
missions. Filling in when their old comms officer was sick. Quietly
winning over his squad until he’d had no choice.

Yeah, he saw her determination every time he
was planning a mission or out in the field. Elle bent over
backwards to do the best job she could for Hell Squad. He wondered
what ghosts drove her burning need to prove herself

Marcus remembered the night he’d found her.
It was a few weeks after the alien invasion. The base had been a
chaos of military personnel all jostling for command. But Marcus
and his team had kept going out and bringing in survivors. Elle had
been with a rag-tag group who’d made it out of the city. She’d been
covered in raptor blood and shell-shocked, but she’d still been
helping to comfort other survivors.

His brief foray down memory lane cost him. A
sudden, hard kick to his knee took him down. Her slight weight
slammed into him and he was enough off balance to hit the mats
hard. Elle landed on top of him, straddling his chest.

“Yes!” She grinned and pumped a fist in the
air. “How’s that for playing, Steele?”

Hell, she was so goddamned beautiful. He
stared at her face and realized he rarely saw that free, easy smile
on her. He wished he could see it all the time.

“She got you, Steele,” a voice called
out.

Marcus managed to rip his gaze from Elle.
Roth Masters, leader of Squad Nine was doing bicep curls with a
couple of members of his team at the free weights in the far corner
of the gym.

“Yeah. She did.” Marcus looked back at Elle
and their gazes met. Caught.

Her smile melted away and Marcus felt the
air leave his lungs. The air around them turned charged.

She licked her lips. “Marcus—”

“Nice work, Elle.” Roth appeared above them.
“Felling an oaf like Steele takes some skill.”

Elle scrambled off him and onto her feet. “I
think I surprised him.”

A tiny smile tweaked Roth’s lips. “Yeah, I
reckon you’ve been doing that from the first day he met you.”

Marcus shot Masters a scowl, and without
bothering to use his hands, leaped to his feet. “Don’t you have a
mission to plan or training to conduct?”

“Nope. Watching you get your butt kicked by
a girl is much more satisfying.”

“Screw you, Masters.” But Marcus knew the
ribbing was all in good fun.

Roth smiled, but then his rugged face turned
serious. “I heard you recovered the raptor comms map but the geek
squad can’t get a location from it.”

“You heard right.” The burn of frustration
was bitter.

“There are too many unknown raptor words,”
Elle added.

“And our guest downstairs wasn’t any help?”
Roth asked.

Marcus shook his head. “Doesn’t know enough
English to be much good to us. Elle tells me she needs a Rosetta
Stone.”

“The stone used to decipher Egyptian
hieroglyphs?”

Marcus raised his brows. “How’s a grunt like
you know that?”

“I’m not stupid.” Then a frown covered
Roth’s face. “You know, I might have seen something like that on
our last mission.” He spun. “Hey, Mac, remember that raptor
research center we raided two days ago?”

Mac was short for Mackenna. The short,
petite woman wandered over. Marcus knew more than one man had
underestimated the female soldier who had a black belt in something
deadly and took no prisoners. “Yeah, boss. They’d taken over a
library in the city. Had a load of that damned organic cabling of
theirs all over the place.”

“Do you remember much about the raptor comp
screens we saw?”

“A bit. They had a bunch of raptor gibberish
on them but there was English as well. Looked like they’d hacked
into the library’s network. Also saw a bunch of those black
crystals they use to store their data.”

Marcus had seen the black crystals before
and knew that Noah had had some success pulling data off them.

“What were they doing there?” Elle
asked.

“Not sure, exactly.” Roth shrugged his broad
shoulders. “My best guess, they were trying to decode our data. We
went in to investigate, but it turned into a rescue mission. They
had a few librarians they’d taken prisoner.”

“Prisoner?” Marcus frowned. “Never seen them
keep prisoners long.”

Roth shrugged. “Librarians didn’t know why
the raptors kept them. They had been locked up in the dark and were
lucky to get a little bit of food and water.”

Marcus didn’t know why the raptors wanted
human prisoners, but whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good.

Elle turned to Marcus. “We need to convince
General Holmes to send a team in to recover these crystals. They
might just give us enough data to help us translate the comms
map.”