He couldn’t ask his fellow GhostWalkers, because if he could hear these two men, they could hear him. He sprinted past their position, inwardly cursing that he couldn’t wait to hear more. They were gaining on the house. He couldn’t allow them that close to Cayenne, Pepper or Nonny.

He got ahead of them and crouched low, once more sending poisonous gasses into the air so that they ran straight into them. The air shimmered with a particular glow that was a dead giveaway, but no one ever seemed to understand what it was until it was too late. He’d moved into enemy camps, that shimmer drifting ahead of him. Even when the enemy coughed and went to their knees, it still didn’t register that they shouldn’t breathe in the air around them.

In the swamp it was much easier to conceal. The shimmer looked a bit like drifting tendrils of fog coming together to form a veil. He heard the two men’s footsteps stumble. They coughed. Cleared their throats. Spat. One tried to take a drink. One tried to speak. He didn’t wait for them to succumb to the change in air. Gino was somewhere and needed backup. He stepped right in front of both of them, sweet air caught in his lungs. His knife slashed deep across each throat in one continuous motion and he was gone before the bodies dropped.

Two more down.

I’ve got one down here, Gino reported. The other two have holed up.

Whitney didn’t send them. They’re supersoldiers, but they belong to someone else, Trap reported. Mine are all down. If we can get one alive, we might be able to interrogate him.

I’ll do my best, Gino said. One’s asking for deliverance right now. Give me a moment to oblige him and I’ll ask politely of the last one.

Trap crossed the swamp, using the trail they’d built and then swerving toward the location Gino had given him. He spotted a soldier easing his way on his belly, using toes and elbows to drag himself forward through the thick vegetation, eyes trained on the house. Trap didn’t dare change the air because he didn’t know exactly where Gino was.

The soldier eased himself over the thin trunk of a sapling that had gone down a few years earlier. It was broken in places and rotting. Only a few inches in diameter, it was still quite long. The soldier’s stomach seemed to hang up on it for a moment. There was a gurgling sound. Blood splashed on the leaves around the sapling. Trap tried to spot Gino. He had to be somewhere on the ground. The soldier had been facedown, only a few inches off the ground, and yet Gino had cut his throat. The soldier had to have been staring right into his killer’s eyes when he died, but Trap couldn’t see his fellow GhostWalker.

Nice job, Gino.

I can handle this, Gino replied grimly. Draden can cover me, you get to your woman. Should have been on top of this, Trap. I’m sorry I let that sniper anywhere near her.

Not your fault. I should have been with her. She wanted to do this alone. Said it was important to her. When a woman tells you it’s important and your gut tells you no fucking way, go with your gut, Gino.

Copy that.

Trap made his way to the house, leaving the last soldier to Gino. Gino wanted to interrogate him. They didn’t have a whole lot to offer in return for information. Trap doubted that the soldier would believe them if they offered to spare his life. Still, Gino could make him very uncomfortable and plant a tracking device in his body while he questioned the man.

He stayed under cover as long as he could, not wanting to risk getting shot by the last remaining soldier. Crouching just at the tree and brush line, he waited. It took less than five minutes.

I’ve got him. You have to go.

Trap didn’t hesitate. He had to see Cayenne for himself. See that she was alive. If she was, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do with her. The rage buried so deep, rage he’d held for nearly all his life, was there. He could feel it. Powerful. Dark. Lethal. He’d spent years building a glacier to keep it covered. In that moment, when the first bullet had taken her, driven into her body, jolting her heart – that bullet had lodged into the very heart of his glacier. Great spiderweb cracks had radiated out from it, and now that rage was rising to the surface and he was helpless to stop it.

He knew Malichai would have had Pepper or Nonny inform headquarters that they were under fire. That contact would send a team to clean up the mess. They wouldn’t want the bodies strewn around the forest so a medical examiner could speculate on the deaths. They’d already be on their way. That didn’t matter to him.

At first he used ground-eating strides to cross the yard to the house, then abruptly he found himself running, using his enhanced speed. He jumped, clearing the long row of steps leading to the house. Like most houses in the swamp and bayou, the Fontenot home was built the traditional way, raised off the ground in case of a flood. His jump landed him on the wraparound porch Nonny loved so much.

He yanked open the door and at the last minute called out his name so Pepper or Nonny or both wouldn’t shoot him. He didn’t break stride as he went into the house. Pepper moved away from the door, her face lighting up when she saw him and then darkening to a frown when she really saw him. She bit her lower lip and stepped aside.

“Trap, Cayenne’s fine. She just has bruises and a few stitches.”

Pepper tried to soothe him, but he barely registered her voice. He couldn’t assimilate her reassurance. There was no way to calm the deadly beast rising like the molten lava in a volcano. He tried to breathe it away because now it was in his belly, hot and ugly, swirling like the fireball it was, spreading through those various cracks so there was no dam that could possibly stop them.

He moved unerringly through the house, his footsteps utterly silent. In his ears, his heart thundered. Roared. The jackhammers were back, driving deep into his skull with every step he took. The scent of blood was heavy, mingling with Cayenne’s fragrance. That sent the rage swirling a notch higher. The blood scent nearly obliterated Cayenne’s beautiful exotic natural perfume just as the bullets had almost taken her from him.

Nonny stood in the door of his old bedroom, but after taking one look at his face, she reached inside the room, caught Malichai’s arm and tugged. Malichai filled the doorway, opened his mouth and closed it, reading Trap’s darkened face and the lines carved deep. Both stepped outside the room and aside, allowing him to brush past them. They wisely closed the door, leaving him alone with her.

Cayenne was in his bed – the bed he’d lain in for four long months. He’d dreamt of her being in that bed. Fantasized about her being there. Jacked off thinking about her and what he’d do to her – all in that bed. Now she was sitting up in the damn, fucking bed, smiling up at him as if nothing had happened. As if she didn’t have a care in the world. All around her was the aftermath of her surgery. The empty bags of fluid and blood. Her bloody clothes shredded and on the floor. More blood – all hers – saturating the cloths they’d used to try to stem it.