He lowered the glasses. He’d been too long without sleep. He’d traveled to ten foreign countries in two weeks, working on forming a collective pool of multinational antiterrorist information for an elite assassination squad. The team would live in the shadows, travel to the kill zone, destroy all targets, and fade away before anyone ever knew they were in the area. Each member would be totally anonymous so there could be no retaliation against families. Each member would be a GhostWalker, able to get in and out of a target zone like a shadow.
Kadan had been assigned the task and was pulling his team together when he was abruptly called home and given another mission—and this one was too important to mess up. He was known for his coolness under fire, his absolute calm in any crisis, his ability to lead his team and undertake any mission, find a way to carry it out and get his team home again, no matter the odds. He sighed. He didn’t feel cool or calm now, he felt edgy and mean. He was grateful his fellow GhostWalkers weren’t around to witness his struggle.
Deliberately slowing his breathing, he took another drink from his camel pack. He was going to have to climb down to the rocks below and find a way to convince her to join him, because in the end, she didn’t really have any more of a choice than he did. He had a feeling it wasn’t going to be easy or pleasant, but completing the mission was necessary. And he had the feeling that if this woman had been given up for adoption years earlier by Whitney, she probably hadn’t been chemically matched with him, which, quite frankly, was going to make things one hell of a mess. Whitney had kept her DNA and had programmed him, but not her.
He’d thought the task was going to be heartbreaking and difficult enough just convincing and perhaps forcing Tansy to partner with him in his investigation, but now, with the added threat of the physical pull between them, the mission had become daunting. She had suffered a breakdown, and by all accounts, it had been real. He’d read the report carefully, as well as all her medical records. She’d spent weeks in a hospital and months in seclusion with her parents. She’d been fractured, shattered by her last case, her mind splintering and refusing to relinquish the evil voices of the killers she’d tracked, or the screams of their victims. He was going to have to ask her to let other, more powerful and vicious voices in. On top of that, he was going to have to somehow explain that he was paired with her.
Kadan found himself unable to tear his eyes from her. The longer he watched her, the tighter and more urgently his body made demands. He had never experienced such sexual hunger. It seemed to fill every cell of his body, invade his brain, squeeze his body in a vise until jackhammers were ripping through him, driving out every civilized thought. He had to get some kind of handle on the link between them or he would destroy any chance he had with her.
He sat down, folded his legs tailor fashion, and closed his eyes, searching inwardly to center himself. He needed balance. The discomfort of the rocks, of his boots, of his body swarmed into his brain and he allowed it to wash over him, to form rings on the pool he focused on and disappear in the ripples of the water. He breathed long, deep breaths, searching inside himself for the truth of his strong emotions.
Fear for her safety. Both from animal predators and from human ones. This area was so isolated, it frightened him to think what would happen if she were found by some drunk hunter, or a man without scruples or principles. Any animal could stalk her while she lay defenseless in the sun; the cat already had. Anger. He examined the turbulent emotion from all angles. It was one he was not completely familiar with. Most of his life he had been cold and dispassionate in his dealings with people. That was what made him so good at his job. He had mastered his every emotion. Anger. It ripped through him. Boiled. Surged and pounded. Insisted on release like a heated volcano. Completely over-the-top, and he refused to let it to the surface. He had a mission, and nothing—no one—got in the way of a mission.
He took another deep, calming breath and stayed in the pool of sanity while insane emotions swirled and clamored and finally abated, leaving him whole again. He opened his eyes and smiled. The smile of a predator. He came to his feet, unexpectedly fluid for such a large man. His eyes found her once again. The shadows were just beginning to reach for the soft curves of her body.
He moved with sudden decision, finding the easiest way down the mountainside. It was steep and rocky and, as always in the mountains, deceptively longer than it seemed from a distance. It took some hunting to find the steep, narrow staircase that actually led to the secluded basin. He made his way down as quietly as he was able. He wanted to study her while she slept, just take his time and let the image of her burn into his memory for all eternity. He wouldn’t mind throwing one hell of a scare into her either.
Chapter 2
Kadan was careful not to allow his shadow to fall across Tansy Meadows’s body. The granite was smooth under his boots and made no sound to give him away. He stayed out of the wind just in case she possessed an enhanced sense of smell, and made certain he didn’t interrupt, even briefly, the flow of air moving around her body. GhostWalkers were all sensitive to the smallest change in the energy flowing around them. Meadows may not have been trained as a GhostWalker, but if she was enhanced, as he suspected, she would be a force to be reckoned with.
He scanned the surrounding area, searching for any weapon, anything she might use to defend herself. He frowned when he realized her clothes were neatly stacked some distance from where she was stretched out sleeping. A small dart gun was beside her clothes, up against a rock. Kadan eased his way, placing each foot carefully so as not to disturb loose rock, his body moving slow to keep the air still, and reached for the dart gun. For both of their safety, he slid the weapon into his belt. She should have held the gun under her palm where she could easily defend herself against a wild animal or a hunter. If she was a GhostWalker, her self-preservation instincts weren’t as good as they should be.
After satisfying himself there was nothing she could grab to cause either of them harm, he crouched down beside her. More than anything, he wanted to see her face. Up close she was breathtaking. Her skin looked so soft and warm, it took every ounce of his self-control to keep from touching her. Her hair was a mixture of true platinum and skeins of gold that spilled down her back and across the rock. Long lashes lay like crescents, feathery and thick. Her face was a small oval, her mouth full and inviting. He stifled the urge to bend down and wake her with a kiss. She was much smaller than he’d expected, but her legs were long, her bottom curved, and his body told him she would fit him like a glove.