Mikal (Second Wave Book 3) (17 page)

Feeling strangely confident, Mikal probed a little deeper, hoping for something more to go on.

“You have to wonder if you were that good at your career or your life if it could be ruined that easily. Sounds to me like you’re just an average failure, and you’re looking for someone to blame,” Mikal said in his most condescending tone.

“You son of a bitch!” the man yelled.

He turned beet red again as he tore at his straps, this time breaking free and stumbling across the small space to Mikal as the mercenaries attempted to keep the man upright.

With his face inches from Mikal’s, the man began to scream at him.

“You bastard, you’re the one who went on that bridge! I did my damn job and lost it all because that bridge fell! It was your fault, and I lost everything! My wife, my job, my home!” the man screamed in Mikal’s face.

The irony made Mikal laugh heartily for a moment while the mercenaries continued to keep the enraged man on his feet in the helicopter as they flew across Lake Ontario towards New York.

Mikal leveled a disgusted glare on the older man, finally realizing whom he was facing.

“What I find more disturbing than anything is that you shot at me on that bridge, causing a collapse that killed 46 people, and the only thing you care about is that you lost your job,” Mikal said.

The helicopter took a sharp right turn and Mikal used it to his advantage. Lifting his long powerful legs, he caught the older man around the waist and as the craft started to right itself, he slammed the man into the wall above his head.

Mikal laughed as the mercenaries across from him caught the now-unconscious man and pulled him across their laps. Mikal saw the butt of the rifle coming at him from his right and he dove towards the hit, again deflecting most of the force of the blow as he glared at the slightly shaken mercenary holding the weapon.

Mikal was determined to keep the assholes off balance. They thought he was his father, and they had no idea there was more than one of them loose in the world. He wanted to keep it that way. The less they knew, the better. And the safer his real father would be.

*****

Chris waited until he saw the dark blur flash around the trees near the water before he stepped out from behind a tree and held his arms out.

“Chance! We’re over here!” he called out, watching in fascination as the black blur turned sharply and headed directly for him.

He saw a few of his siblings come out around him as the dark blur stopped right in front of him. Seconds later Chance and Charlie came into form. Chris sucked in a sharp breath as he looked at a spitting image of his brother, only a little older, standing behind the females. 

His brothers raised their weapons and aimed directly at the man who had obviously fathered their brother as Chris took a step closer to him and held his hand out for Chance as he spoke to the wary stranger.

“Don’t take it personally, but we’re taking no chances with our brother’s family,” Chris said before he chuckled. “I know how that sounds since you are obviously his father, but you’re not part of
our
family.”

Chance looked at Mikal’s father a little nervously before he spread his arms wide and she ran with Charlie to Mikal’s brothers. When they were safely behind a wall of siblings, Chris lunged at the man and had his hands wrapped around his throat while Declan kicked the back of his legs, dropping him to his knees in the grass.

“You tell me how the hell you found my brother and where they are taking him!” Chris roared in the man’s face.

Mikal’s father didn’t blink or attempt to fight them. He stayed calmly on his knees, his hands loose at his sides as he stared into Chris’s blazing eyes.

“I know how this must appear to you, but I swear I had nothing to do with my son being taken. I only arrived here this morning. I was on the other side of the planet when I felt Mikal’s energy. I came as fast as I could, expecting him to be gone as he was every other time I’ve felt him. I was stunned to see him standing there . . .” Indrid said, his voice breaking as he thought of his first glimpse he’d had of his son in almost 147 years.

There wasn’t a Dranovian or Tezarian there who didn’t feel the man’s deep anguish and pain. Chris let go of his neck and stepped back from him, trying to judge if he was telling the truth or not.

“Why did you take the females?” Declan asked accusingly.

Indrid looked up with sad eyes.

“I could feel his love for them and knew they were his to protect. When I saw him attacked, I moved to protect that which meant the most to him. Now, if you are done interrogating me, I’m going to find my son,” Indrid said evenly as he stood and began to shift.

“Wait! Damn it!” Chris said, stopping Mikal’s father from disappearing.

“What is it you want?” Indrid asked warily.

Chris looked around at his siblings, who had no idea what to do either, and knew he had to make a decision. He just hoped he was making the right one.

“Our brother wouldn’t want us to turn you away. Besides, we’re already tracking him and plan to get him back before they lay a hand on him,” Chris said, then added with a heavy sigh, “You’re welcome to come with us and help us get him back.”

Indrid looked around at the unusual group of men surrounding him, and he pulled their energy towards him, sifting it all to determine what he could of the strangers who claimed to be his son’s brothers. He was stunned at the love he felt they had for his son and the concern that throbbed like a painful sore in their energy.

Although he was more than a little curious as to how his son had found such an interesting group to call family, he was more interested in the fact that they were tracking where his son was going.

“I will help you free my son,” Indrid said with a determined nod.

Shane cleared his throat.

“We need to go; the first responders and news crews are getting ready to overrun this place,” he said.

Chris nodded and turned to the water as he called Deacon through the Shengari’. Moments later, one of their watercraft came into view near the shoreline, and they ushered Chance and Charlie to the edge of the water.

Indrid looked up at the boat and watched as Chance changed her form and carried Charlie to the boat, and he followed suit, ignoring the stares of Deacon as he formed on the deck. In less than a minute, the rest of the siblings swam the short distance to the ship and Indrid and Chance helped them aboard before Deacon revved the engine and the craft shot across the water, cloaking as it went.

Chris nodded as Gun moved behind Mikal’s father.

“What the hell?” Indrid roared as he felt a sharp stab in his shoulder before he felt his energy shift and scatter.

Chris stood with his arms folded across his chest, his feet splayed on the deck, just waiting for the man to come at him.

“That is a drug that that the humans created to prevent Mikal’s people from shifting to their wind form. They injected it into him before they took him. Until we know for sure that you aren’t a part of his kidnapping, you’re going to remain as he does,” Chris said harshly, uncaring if he offended the man.

Chris’s only concern was getting Mikal back. He’d deal with playing nice with his father later. Chris was a little surprised when Indrid nodded his head absently as he watched Chance comfort a crying Charlie.

The rest of the ride across to the opposite shore passed in silence until Lara, Trick and Vladimir met them at the boat dock. Ranger paced on the dock, growling with each step.

Although they had all heard through the Shengari’ that Mikal’s real father was with Chris, they still stared in surprise at the remarkable resemblance between father and son. Chris was in no mood for curiosity.

“Load up! We need to get back and get our shit together so we can get Mikal!” Chris ordered as everyone loaded up in the SUVs that Lara and the others had brought with them for the pick-up.

*****

Grai stood in front of the wall in the conference room in Dillon, Texas, and shook with fear as he listened to the broadcaster relate the news.

“Several people were injured when an apparent movie filming went horribly wrong in Toronto. Several children and parents were injured when some of the props malfunctioned sending shrapnel into a crowd at a theme park.”

“Witnesses said that they weren’t sure what movie was being filmed at the time but they saw the very attractive actor from a popular profiler show being taken away in a helicopter,” the emotionless woman on the screen said, as grainy cellphone footage displayed Grai’s son being led into a helicopter in handcuffs.

Grai grabbed his chest as pain and fear gripped him so tightly he couldn’t breathe. It was Traze rushing into the room that brought him out of it and pushed him into action.

“They have my son,” Grai roared as he ran from the room.

Traze was fast on his heels as Grai called out orders to anyone within hearing distance. With every step he took, Grai manipulated his fear and pain until he turned it into a pure, dark rage that simmered beneath the surface just waiting to be unleashed on those who dared to take another precious loved one from him.

As he met his personal team in the docking bay, Grai sent one message to his captured son. It was all he needed to say.

“I am coming for you, my son.”

Mikal heard his father’s strong voice in his mind, and he smiled as the helicopter landed and they dragged the still unconscious man from the craft. He wasn’t sure if his siblings would call in their father, but he was glad they had. Mikal knew when he heard the determination in his father’s voice that he was as good as home.

Chapter Seventeen

Chris was barely out of the SUV when he was greeted by the siblings who’d stayed behind to protect the other freed females. They’d been too afraid to go with Charlie this morning.

He shook his head in frustration.

What happened today isn’t going to make them feel any safer about leaving either
, he thought angrily. 

Chris noticed everyone staring at Mikal’s father, and he whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention.

“Look your damn fill now, then get your head back in the game. They have our brother, and we’re getting him back! Now tell me where you’ve tracked him to, and get me everything you have from facial recognition on the others that were there. I want satellite on where he is before we get to the damn conference room,” he ordered as he took long strides through the hangar towards the conference room.

“Get me Sergei!” Chris added as he picked up his pace.

“Chris, we have a problem,” Siggy said as he tried to catch up to his brother.

Chris stopped suddenly and turned on everyone following him to the conference room.

“Yes!” he roared at them all. “We have a serious damn problem! They have our brother and we need to get him . . . oh hell,” Chris said, his voice trailing off as he saw their father’s ship land just outside of the open hangar door.

“Yeah . . . that’s the problem I was trying to warn you about. It made worldwide news,” Siggy said with a grimace at the look of pure rage on their father’s face as he strode through the hangar towards them.

Chris looked worriedly at Mikal’s biological father and considered having his brothers hide the man until he could deal with their dad, but he knew it was pointless when Grai’s eyes widened at the sight of Indrid Cold and he made a beeline for him.

Grai walked directly up to Mikal’s biological father and stared down at him with cold, deadly eyes.

“I know who you are and I don’t give a damn. Until
my
son decides to allow you into his life and asks me to relinquish my parental responsibility . . . fuck that. Not even then will I stop being his father, or stop loving him. I will get
my
son back. You will stay the hell out of my way or you will wish you did,” Grai said coldly before he turned and preceded Chris to the conference room.

Indrid turned to stare at Grai, his deep voice echoing around the hangar.

“That is
my
son and you and your . . . family, will not stop me from getting him back,” Indrid said, uncaring that he was outnumbered and couldn’t shift.

Grai stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned to Indrid as his children and the Tezarians held their breath, waiting to see what Grai would do.

“You can’t even dream of a moment that I’ve not already shared with
my
son in the last 147 years that you’ve been gone! So don’t you dare stand there and presume to think that I will stand aside now that you’ve decided to find
my
son and meet him! As far as I’m concerned, until you prove otherwise, you are nothing more than a genetic donor!” Grai roared at the man, his fists clenched and ready to fight.

Indrid’s face fell, and it looked like the Grai had cut the man’s heart out. With a heavy sigh, Grai stepped forward and tried for a less angry tone.

“
Our
son,
their
brother for the last 147 years, is in grave danger. If we don’t get him now, we may never get him back, and that is not an option I am willing to consider. You can help or you can stay out of the way. The choice is yours,” Grai said before he turned back around and went in the conference room, followed by his personal elite team.

Traze stood back and stared at Indrid with a disgust and hatred that the siblings had never seen cross his boyish face, and it scared them. They watched their previously fun-loving uncle step confidently up to Indrid Cold and clench his fists at his sides.

“He may cut you a break right now, but I will not. If I find that you had something to do with Mikal being taken, or if you do anything I think is suspicious, I will tear you apart limb by limb. This is
our
family and Mikal is a part of it. You are not,” Traze spat before he walked past Indrid, slamming his shoulder into Indrid’s as he followed Grai into the conference room.

Everyone in the hangar released a huge sigh of relief that there had been no bloodshed. It had been so tense for a few minutes they had all wondered who would throw the first punch.

Dree walked up to Indrid and gently took his hand in her own as she smiled up at the large, dark man who looked so much like their beloved brother and friend.

“I have no doubt you love him and you’ve worried and missed him all these years. But while you were gone, he was lucky to be loved so greatly, by so many extraordinary people. We will gladly lay down our lives to get him back. It’s a testament to the kind of man your son became. You should be proud,” Dree said gently before Liam slapped Indrid on the shoulder.

“Come, father of my brother. We need to get him back,” Liam said, then he took Dree’s hand and pulled her away from Indrid and into the conference room.

Indrid stared in open-mouthed wonder at the multitude of different energies and colors emitted from the people around him. Somehow, they’d become a strange family with his son. The only person stranger than the one who claimed to be a second father was the one staring at him.

Lara chuckled softly as everyone filed into the conference room. When she was alone in the hangar with Indrid she suddenly threw out both of her hands, and a golden net of energy sprang from her fingertips and wrapped around Mikal’s father.

Indrid struggled uselessly against the strange energy field that had robbed him of the ability to move and speak. He watched with wary eyes as the strange woman walked up to him.

“You are wondering much, but I will tell you only what you need to know to understand. The rest is up to you and your son to discuss. As you’ve seen, Mikal is not the only unique and extraordinary child that Grai rescued over the years,” Lara said, looking carefully into Indrid’s eyes as the energy net sifted more than his energy.

Lara slowly walked around the immobile, mute replica of Mikal.

“Grai took the lost, unwanted, and forgotten and turned them into one of the most loyal and loving families I have ever had the pleasure to know—on this world or any other. Whatever your intentions regarding Mikal, do not expect them to walk away from him,” Lara warned as she faced him again.

With a snap of her fingers, the net disappeared and Indrid gasped, running his hands along his arms to make sure the net was gone.

“What are you?” he asked on a gasp.

“I am friend. Or enemy. That is your choice,” Lara said honestly.

“What?” Indrid asked in confusion.

Lara stepped closer to him and stared up into his familiar eyes.

“Mikal means everything to this family—my family—if you do anything to hurt him, you will die,” she said simply.

Indrid was startled at the violence these people exuded, but he also had no intention of ever harming his son or pulling him away from the only family he’d ever known. He’d heard their messages loud and clear.

More importantly, he’d watched his son give himself up to save the child and female he’d claimed. The small female had been correct when she’d said it was a testament to the man his son had become—without him. Indrid crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at the strange female, his gaze holding hers as he spoke from the heart.

“I am here to know my son. To learn of the man he has become and to teach him of his people, his legacy. I did not expect to find that he’d made a family of his own, but I will respect that,” he said, unwilling to let go of the child he’d searched the world for.

Lara grinned.

“That’s all we ask. Besides, I already know you don’t want to hurt him, or I’d have dropped you when I saw you,” she said as she walked into the conference room.

Indrid stood still for a moment and shook his head at the strange people he was currently in the midst of. If his son wasn’t missing and in danger, he probably would have laughed at the absurdity of finding his boy among them. But his son
was
missing and he was determined to find him before anything happened to him.

Squaring his shoulders, Indrid moved across the hangar confidently before walking into the conference room. He almost lost his confidence when everyone stopped speaking and stared at him.

It was Grai who motioned to a chair left empty at the head of the table.

“Have a seat. We’re just discussing the satellite intelligence. The copper chip that Dr. Sergei implanted in Mikal’s heart as a child, shows hi—” Grai began when Indrid stood in fury.

“You did what?” Indrid roared in rage.

“Whoa, whoa! Settle the hell down!” Sergei said, waving his hands at the angry man. “I placed the chip inside his heart so he could be found in a situation just like this one! It does no damage and luckily can’t be dispersed by that drug they shot in him! You idiot! Like we’d ever harm him!” the Russian doctor said, offended that the man would think he’d ever harm one of the children he loved like his own.

Indrid huffed and struggled to calm down. He knew his emotions were on edge, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to handle hearing all of the things that were done to his child or how he was raised.

Grai sighed and ran a hand down his face while Traze looked ready to rip Indrid’s head off his shoulders. Grai turned to Indrid as calmly as he could.

“Among your people, do your children ever get upset and do things you don’t wish?” he asked, surprising everyone.

Indrid looked at him with a raised eyebrow and nodded his head slowly.

“Yes, our children are no different than any other when they are becoming mature and testing their boundaries,” he admitted, trying to understand where Grai was going with this.

Grai chuckled and motioned around the table at his other adopted children.

“Try finding an angry, hurt child having a temper tantrum when they can turn into air and you can’t. How would you find that child and comfort them? Bring them home? Of course I couldn’t do it the way you would. I can’t shift to wind. I did what I could. And right now, I’m damn glad I did. Now sit down, we have much to go over,” Grai said, seeing the understanding in Indrid’s eyes as he spoke.

“Anyway,” Grai said continuing the meeting. “he’s being held on Plum Island off Long Island in New York.”

“Wait, that’s that animal/bioweapon facility isn’t it? They’re supposed to sell the place in order to pay to move the facility to another location,” Siggy said, wondering if they were talking about the same place.

Grai nodded his head.

“They moved him to that island instead of one of the closer military bases for a reason. We can’t be fooled into thinking this place is closed even if that’s the official story they’re giving the humans. It’s under the control of Homeland Security so expect mercenaries and the rejects who couldn’t get in the military because they failed the psych tests,” Grai warned.

Lt. David Jacobs grinned evilly.

“My bullets don’t care how crazy they are,” he said as he and a stone-faced Traze bumped fists.

Indrid listened carefully to conversation and planning going on around him. He wasn’t a fool; he could easily see and feel the love they had for his son and their intention to get him back at any costs. Although he wasn’t quite sure what a few of them actually were, their dedication to his son couldn’t be denied.

As much as Indrid hated to admit it, the last 147 years of dreams he’d had of finding his son and of their joyful reunion, lay in dust at his feet. Out of the ashes of unrealistic expectations he’d had, he began to try and form the only connection he could right now with his son—a connection with the odd family that Mikal had become a part of. He was jerked out of his musings by Grai’s next comment.

“Mikal said he’s being held in an underground area of the larger building on the island,” Grai said as he pointed at the image of the island Traze put on the wall when he’d entered the room.

“How do you know that?” Indrid asked, his voice wavering.

Grai looked at him curiously for a moment before answering.

“He told me while I was on the way here. You’ve no need to worry, he assured me that he is unharmed,” Grai said, unsure why he felt pain emanating from the man.

No matter the reason for his pain, there was no way in hell Grai was going to be the one to tell the man that Mikal had been taken because he was mistaken for his father—and that Mikal was playing along in order to protect him. Grai continued the briefing, unwilling to spend the time pondering the man’s problems while his son was in danger.

Indrid felt like his heart had been ripped out. He’d specifically reformed the energy bond between he and Mikal before his son was taken. Instead of contacting him—his true father—his son had called on Grai.

The guilt and pain was overwhelming, but Indrid forced it away, pushing it down as far as he could so he could concentrate solely on getting his son back alive. Mikal had to be alive in order for him to repair their relationship and reform the bond they were meant to share.