The Valkyrie's Guardian (18 page)

He felt stupid doing it, but tried to think in dialog, assuming she could hear,
There's no place to land, and I need to get the casualties back to base. Can you use a ladder?

Yes. I'll bring the others here, give me a minute.
She released Chief, the sensation like hanging up the phone. Cassie scrambled back down the rocks, her heart pounding. She tried to hold back panic. Casualties. A sterile word for a horrific matter. She prayed none were dead.

The boy didn't protest as she picked him up. He locked his arms around her neck and hid his face in her shoulder while she climbed. He freaked out when the Seahawk hovered into view, the noise and wind made him flail and claw like a cat hanging from a diving board. Cassie pinned his limbs against her side and muttered in his ear, trying to soothe him. Buck slid down the ladder and she passed the boy to him without a word.

Jack's head lolled on his shoulder when she made it back to the forest floor. His eyelids fought a losing battle with gravity. On top of everything else, he couldn't hold back the energy crash. His body needed calories, or the blood sugar dive would probably stop his heart. He was dead weight when she hefted him onto her shoulders, too delirious to complain about the pain. Clambering back up the rocks was a precarious matter without her hands free and her balance askew. Halfway up a foothold gave way, and she fell down the slope, handing hard on her knees on the shelf of rock below.

“Thundercat, we gotta go!” she heard Chief bellow from the top.

Coming, Chief. Give me thirty seconds.

You have ten. We're taking fire.
The Seahawk engine whined, and Cassie hoped it didn't mean the pilot took off anyway.

Cassie took a few steps back then ran toward the outcropping and jumped. She quit trying be so careful with Jack, and probably rebroke his leg as she monkey-climbed over the rocks. As soon as she was eye-level with the top, she rolled Jack off her shoulders, swung herself over the edge, then scooped him up again. She ran like hell for the ladder extending from the Seahawk, it was already backing away.

An explosion in the dirt right where she meant to take her next step made her trip. She righted her balance just as Jack lurched, throwing her weight forward again. She managed to catch the rope rung of the ladder then hooked her legs in. Her other hand curled around Jack, locking him against her shoulders. The view downward panned out as the chopper lifted away, and Chief hopped onto the space below her. He cradled an M-16 against his side and sprayed cover fire into the foliage until they flew out of range.

Hang on,
she heard Chief think, as the ladder tugged upward. The men above were pulling them in. She knew she shouldn't look down, but the thousand-foot drop blurred in her periphery anyway, and it was just as terrifying as looking outright. She couldn't stand it, she climbed the rest of the way and rolled Jack onto the floor of the chopper. Chief pushed her rear end, shoving her over next.

She sat upright to the sound of macho cheering, and didn't get it.

SEAL Team Three was jazzed. She couldn't fathom why, because Jack was comatose, and she smelled blood and burned flesh all around. She had work to do. Her knees slipped, and she looked down to see a pool of blood. Coming from Jack. She turned him over, cut off his combat vest then ripped open his clothes to see an inch-round hole oozing blood high on his hip. He was still unconscious. Cassie thought Jack had moved moments ago, tripping her, but he'd been shot then. He'd unwittingly saved her life, since the place he'd been shot covered the back of her head as she'd run.

The medic on the Seahawk crouched over a soldier on a gurney. She caught his attention and mouthed as she pointed to Jack, “I.V. Saline and Dilaudid. Or morphine, whatever you've got, but give him triple or he'll burn through it.” He took in Jack's size and nodded, then rifled through a compartment for the equipment. She turned her attention back to Jack and noticed her red bra dangling from the ceiling next to the miniature U.S. Navy flag. It made her smile, and she needed it. She stopped the bleeding and knitted the wound together. After two minutes of I.V. fluids, Jack blinked awake, surprised to see rigging on the ceiling of the helicopter.

Cassie leaned over him and kissed him into tomorrow. She held his face and crushed her lips to his, telling him without words that he was her hero. With a few testy nips and bites she derided him for being so reckless, then forgave him with another tender kiss that ended with her licking across his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, the way he usually did to her. A deafening chorus of cheering reminded her she was not alone. She sat back and smiled sheepishly.

I'll fix the rest in surgery,
she promised Jack as she moved on to examine the injured soldiers. Three black body bags in the back made her heart sink. She whipped her head around and locked gazes with Chief.

The dead?

Two rangers and one other unidentified civilian, taken from the station.

She nodded, relieved her soldiers were not among the dead.
Her
soldiers?

Pops cupped his groin in false modesty as she unfolded the flaps of his fatigues. “Nothing I haven't seen before, hot stuff,” she teased, and he smiled and winked. She took a pair of tweezers and extracted cornflake-sized pieces of shrapnel under his navel then healed the wounds shut, not bothering with stitches.

Chet and Buck both had bullet nicks, and Chief had a third-degree burn down his left thigh. The rest of the injuries were minor and could wait. It was Memphis on the gurney, and he was in worse shape than Jack. He'd been gut shot during the ambush and lost a lot of blood, since he'd run to the rendezvous point, bleeding the whole way.

She asked the medic to move away, and he seemed doubtful until Chief used what he called “a little persuasion.” Cassie moved the copious bandaging and sucked in a breath at the mess beneath it. Either Memphis had taken multiple rounds, or the one had ricocheted around in that bizarre way some bullets were prone to do. Most likely a death sentence for a human relying on human doctors.

The team fell silent, the only noise the throbbing roar of the chopper. All eyes watched her, and their chorus of sober anxiety hit her with a rush. She couldn't work that way. She turned to stare them down and mouthed, “No way am I sending Memphis home to his wife looking like this. A little duct tape and he'll be fine, okay?” Nods and flat smiles answered, and she went to work. The Russian boy watched, huddled in the corner. His black eyes missed nothing, and still Cassie felt his mind sealed shut.

The day had taken its toll on her nerves and her strength. More than once she paused to calm her shaking hands and rub her eyes as best she could with her shoulder when her vision blurred. All she could think of was pale and pretty, faithful Sarah, who waited by the phone to hear news that her husband would come home to her tonight.

“I suffer from amnesia. Do I come here often?”

—Jack MacGunn, King of the Bad Pick-Up Line

Pops twisted the cap off a bottle of beer and stretched his feet on the desk. “We're thinking of getting it bronzed and mounted on a plaque, but I kinda like the red.”

Holy Hera. Her bra was immortalized. Cassie blinked at the sight of her Victoria's Secret pushup bra hanging from the office flagpole in all its red satin glory. Everyone who passed through SEAL Team Three headquarters would know she wore size 34B, and that she had parted company with her unmentionables in public. That meant, what, only a crew of two, three hundred soldiers and staff? No big deal.

“Sexy, Thundercat.”

Cassie shrugged. “Hey, only the best for the Navy.” She turned to study a map covering the wall.

“Hey, you did good. You proved you got balls. And you took care of our boys. I appreciate that.” He wanted to say more but didn't. He was dying to ask about her ‘magical' healing. She let him wonder.

“You're welcome.”

“You gonna stick around?”

“I go where Jack goes.”

Pops whistled low and rubbed his forearm, splashing beer on his desk. “You gave me chills, darlin'. Would you mind saying that again? With my name in it?”

Cassie smiled. “Nobody knows your name, Pops.”

“Anthony.” He shot her a cute scoundrel grin and she smiled back. The world-weary look in his eyes struck her. He was twenty-one, her age.

“You surprise me. I could have gotten you killed. The entire team was in jeopardy.”

“That's our job, Thundercat. That's what we do, get it?”

“You shouldn't have risked your lives in a private battle.” She had to look away as she confessed, “But I'm glad you did. It would have been a death trap if only Jack and I went.”

“Wanna hear the punchline?” He rubbed his chin and looked her in the eye. “A recon crew just returned from the battle zone. Guess how many of the dead tangos are on the Chechen hotlist?”

She raised her eyebrows, remembering how she hadn't heard the thoughts of any enemy soldier during the ambush. That still needed solving.

“Identified twenty-two out of thirty-four, wiped off U.S. MILINT's most wanted list. All Chief has to do is classify the operation, and the rest of the paperwork is recommendations for Silver Stars. Who knows, maybe you'll get one too.”

“So Jack's not in trouble?”

Pops laughed. “Honey, right now Captain Russo would fill Jack a bathtub of champagne.”

“Until he lands himself in trouble next time.”

“Hey, a man does what he can. Cut him some slack.”

Cassie hid her surprise. Pops was sincere in defending Jack. She'd offended him, slightly. “Speaking of Jack, I'd better go see if he's awake. I had to give him a triple elephant dose of sevoflurane to keep him out during surgery.” She winked and opened the door. “He'll be as high as a kite and eager to tell all his deepest darkest secrets.”

“You don't wanna miss that.”

“Not for the world.”

“Hey, is he going to be okay? That leg looked like hamburger.”

“I don't know,” she answered honestly and left with a salute to her infamous bra.

• • •

Oh yes, Jack was awake, doing his best impression of the Incredible Hulk. She heard him roaring and ran the rest of the way down the hall. Monitors beeped and shrieked, his I.V. stand crashed to the floor, tools and supplies went flying out of their canisters and trays. A cottonball snowstorm.

Thankfully only two nurses stood in the way as Jack burst from the bed, full monty. They were too frightened to look, but Cassie wasn't. His body had always been hard-wired to respond alike to violence and arousal, one and the same for him. But she shouldn't stare, no matter how magnificent the sight.

Feeling better, Jack?

He froze, heaving noisy breaths. In slow motion he turned toward her and sniffed the air, startling her when his eyes flashed iridescent green. He put the hospital bed back on the floor. The side rail fell off with a clatter. Jack turned to dart for the sheet, which ripped when he yanked too hard on it. His head lolled and he staggered, trying to see through his dizzy spell. The nurses ran away. She couldn't blame them.

Cassie tossed Jack a wrapped deli sandwich just as he tucked the scrap of sheet around his waist. She smiled, watching him decide in a fraction of a second whether he wanted the food or modesty more. Somehow he managed to keep hold of both the sandwich and sheet, further proving he felt fine.

Fine, except for the horrid limp in his gait. Two steps, and his knee buckled. Her heart sank with disappointment and dull panic. Cassie rushed forward to push him back onto the bed. “Why don't you get the weight off your knee, and I'll take a damage report.”

He sank onto the mattress when her hand pushed his chest in the right direction. His groggy head processed thoughts in mono-syllabic words, and he was still minutes away from being able to speak. He covered her hand with his, and his pulse slowed from nightmare palpitations to match her slow, steady rhythm.

“That's right, no danger here. You're in the clinic at the base. I operated on your right knee, and you took a round to the hip. Do you remember the battle this morning?”

He blinked and squeezed her hand tighter, making the bones in her hand ache in protest. He was still drugged and unaware of his strength. It shocked her, since he was usually so careful to control it. She sent him a silent message to ease up, and he answered by pulling her into his lap and folding her into a suffocating embrace. Cassie drew a breath to shout for him to let go then paused as she felt him shaking. With his face buried in her hair, he seemed to be laughing at first. Tears dropped onto her neck before she realized he was crying.

Cassie went utterly still — her world changed. She had never seen Jack show anything other than flirtation or anger, ever. He was always either on or off, and she had no idea what do with him like this, trembling and clutching her, weeping with a sound like heartbreak. She rubbed over his shoulders and stroked his neck.

Did he have PTSD? Reaction to the medication? Could be a simple release after his adrenaline high. He'd probably awoken in the same state he'd fallen unconscious: panicked, revved to confront danger but powerless to take action.

Thirty seconds later his state of mind altered, and with the medication impairing his judgment, Cassie heard the unrated version of his thoughts. Testosterone and endorphin-scented arousal struck her the same moment his mind flooded hers with breathtaking reverence and devotion in her name. She'd caught pieces of this before, when his control faltered that night in the backyard. It had stroked her mind like a feather then, but unfiltered now it consumed her in a wave of white-hot fire.

Jack loved her.

Men said they loved a woman, married her, then lived happily ever after, or not. But Jack felt it like some sort of religious experience, soul-deep, torturing him the same time it elated him. He wanted her kept safe and innocent while he wanted to claim her in the most primitive way possible; the conflict ate away at him. He would die for her, and it made sense that a hint of violence came mixed in with his love.