Has to be easier than delivering a baby, right? he teased, laughter in his voice.

The knots in her stomach tightened with dread. Her mouth went dry. She was rock steady in combat as a rule, nothing fazed her, but deep inside she felt jittery.

Damn straight.

Coming up now, honey. Top just gave me the word.

She glanced down, although she knew she shouldn’t, to see Kane leap up, gripping the rope. She’d never seen a man climb so fast. Hand over hand, he went straight up as the backwash from the helicopter’s blade blew the rope into a whirling frenzy, not nearly as bad as with her lighter weight. His strength was beyond her comprehension, and she had to force herself to stare into the scope to protect him.

He was more than halfway to the helicopter when two of them with her began shooting rapidly. She spotted a soldier lifting his rifle, and she took the shot, seeing him go down. A volley of shots rang out, and the helicopter jerked.

She gasped and looked down. Kane was right at the entrance, reaching with one hand to pull himself inside. She never actually heard the bullet tear into him, but she saw his body rock back, away from the helicopter, and she flung herself forward and with both hands caught his wrist.

Don’t you let go of that rope! Rose put every ounce of command she had into her voice.

There was blood everywhere, all over him. He was too heavy, much too heavy, and she had no time. One of the men beside her leaned out with her and caught him under his arms.

“Fucking shoot that bastard,” came a command behind her.

“On it, Top,” two voices said simultaneously.

Kane was unconscious, but when the bullet hit, instinct had him clutching the rope, his only lifeline, with his remaining hand. They had to pry it out of his closed hand. Before the sniper could shoot a second time, at least two men behind her fired over her head.

She didn’t have time to identify the man beside her who was keeping Kane from falling to his death. “Get him in. Get him in. We don’t have any time. Set up for a transfusion. Move. Move. I need a medical kit. Open one fast, get out the iodine.”

She put every ounce of strength she had into helping the man beside her haul Kane’s dead weight into the helicopter. She dragged him inside and laid him out, scrambling to kneel beside him, her knife out. She cut away his clothes, exposing his belly. The bullet had torn into his abdomen and ricocheted through his chest.

“Get a needle into him before his veins collapse,” she snapped, not looking at the grim-faced men surrounding her. Her entire being was focused on saving Kane—and she only had minutes. Her palms burned, scorching, unbearably hot.

“Iodine. Hurry, pour it over his belly and my hands and knife.” She held them out, and even as they poured, she cut into Kane’s flesh.

Someone—again, she didn’t know or care who—crowded tight against her back and placed a blade firmly against her neck, a threat one shouldn’t ignore, but she did. If the bastard wanted to kill her, so be it, but she wasn’t going to take even precious seconds to try to make him understand. There was no way to explain how she had known the moment she laid her hands on Kane that the artery was severed and he was bleeding out fast—too fast.

Everything around her faded until she was in that deep tunnel where there were only her hands answering the needs of a critically injured human being. Already the energy was surging through her. Her fingertips tingled and burned. She plunged her hands into his body, unerringly finding the artery. She grasped it between her fingers, slipped on all the blood, and had to fish again. The artery felt like a noodle, or worse, a squid. She wasn’t squeamish unless she allowed herself to think about failing.

“What the hell are you doing?” a voice demanded.

“Don’t distract her.”

That had to be the master gunnery sergeant. She could tell by his voice. It sounded as if from a great distance, but she was aware of all them on some level.

She could hear sounds. Harsh breathing. The blades of the helicopter. The rustle as one of the men fed plasma through an IV, holding the vein open for life-saving blood, if she could just do this. If. There it was. Oh, God, she had it.

Live, Kane. Don’t leave us alone.

She felt the ends and pushed them together, closing her eyes, taking a slow, deep breath and breathing down, through her body, sending the healing heat, that scorching-hot heat through her veins and out the fingers of her hands. She had to fuse the ends together, but it was delicate work to keep the blood flowing through while she held the severed ends with heat.

The intense burn took her breath away, but she held on. For a moment everything went dark, and there were only stars and a fading sensation. Her stomach lurched. She became aware of the blood all over her clothes, of her hands inside Kane. The blood was up to her elbows. She couldn’t fix the rest of the damage done to his organs, but they had a chance of keeping him alive until the surgeon took over, if she could hold on.

“Hurry. Use me for the transfusion. Whitney always gave pairs compatible blood.” Now it was her own voice that came from far away, or maybe from a deep, deep hole. “Have your surgeon meet us. And for God’s sake, hurry. He has to be set up for the operation wherever we land. Can you do that?”

“The doc will be there.”

She turned her head tiredly, and her eyes met a pair of cold black eyes surrounded by ridiculously long lashes.

“Who has my baby?”

“I’ve got him, ma’am,” another voice said. “Name’s Ethan Myers. You must be Rose.”

She was too tired to state the obvious or even look. The knife slowly disappeared from her throat. Only then did she feel the slight sting. The threat had been all too real. She did manage to look up at him from over her shoulder, and her heart dropped. She recognized the one called Javier. Death stared back at her. There was no expression on that face.

“Rose,” the man with the black eyes spoke her name gently, the man they referred to as Top. “Javier is going to support your back while we make our run. Can you hold on?”

“Yes.” Because there was no other choice. None. If she didn’t, Kane was dead.

“I’m putting in the needle. You’re going to feel it. I’m Mack McKinley, by the way.”

“Just do it. Are you certain the baby’s all right?”

Ethan answered, “He’s fine. He looks very aware. He keeps turning his head toward the sound of your voice.”

The smell of the blood made her want to gag. It felt like she was bathing in the stuff. She was going to have nightmares for the rest of her life, but it was Kane’s blood, and she wasn’t losing him.

Do you hear me? I won’t lose you. She heard the small internal sob and hoped she hadn’t lost control in front of the others. Not now, not when we’re so close. Hang on, Kane. Just a little longer. Fight for us. Fight for me.

Her body trembled now as the helicopter dipped and bumped, flying fast over the desert. She could feel the heat draining from her body and flowing into Kane’s. She was certain she was sitting upright until she felt Javier’s arm suddenly slide around her waist and ease her back against his chest. She thought rather fuzzily that he was far stronger than he looked. In the distance, Mack McKinley, the one they called Top, was barking orders into his radio.

She shivered, cold creeping into her bones. Javier rubbed her shoulders.

“Hold him a little longer. Don’t let go.”

No, she couldn’t let go of him, because her fragile repair would burst, and Kane would bleed out before they could get him to the surgeon.

She was vaguely aware of the helicopter setting down. Of grim-faced men surrounding her, helping to lift Kane onto a gurney, setting her there with him. She never let go, even when they rolled her into the sterile tent hastily erected and the doctors and nurses regarded her bloody hands inside Kane.

She looked around at them with their masks and gowns, afraid to turn him over to them.

“It’s all right, Rose,” Mack said gently. “We’ve got him now.”

The cold took her then, like it always did when she used this particular talent, sliding inside her, freezing her from the inside out. Her teeth began to chatter, and she couldn’t move her stiff body, as if every muscle was completely frozen.

“Let them take over,” Mack said again. “She’s holding him together, Doc.”

A pair of hands came into view, and Javier lifted Rose. “Let him go,” he whispered. “He’ll be safe.” Those black, killer eyes jumped to the doctor. “Won’t he, Doc?”

Those softly spoken words penetrated, and she released Kane into the hands of strangers.

Chapter 11

Kane yawned and stretched, wincing a little when his wound, now almost completely healed, pulled a little. Keeping his eyes closed, he inhaled, just to breathe in Rose’s scent. She wasn’t in bed beside him, but she was close by. He had woken up to her every morning now for several weeks. He could get up and walk around with a cane, but only for short periods of time. He found convalescence very irritating. His body was weaker than it had ever been, and physical therapy and training seemed slow.

He caught the fragrance that was only Rose’s, a combination of fresh spring and wild summer. He could hear the soft pad of her bare feet as she came into the room and crossed to the bed. Her palm banded his forehead as she checked him for a fever. He reached up and covered her hand, preventing her from moving.

He loved her touch. Her warmth. The softness of her skin. The silk of her hair. He loved watching the way she moved, a little ballerina flowing and fluid as she tidied things. Already the first floor of the warehouse where he resided was being transformed into a home. Rose seemed to love the wide-open space of the enormous warehouse. He and Mack and the others of his “family” had added a couple of bathrooms and sectioned off a living area and bedroom, but that was as far as the building of his home had gotten.

The warehouse was three stories high and took up nearly half a block. On the corner, one side ran along the bay side, water lapping at the wharf where they stored a getaway boat. Jaimie Fielding had bought the monstrosity and was in the process of renovating it when the team had caught up with her. She resided on the top floor with her husband, Mack McKinley. The middle floor was their offices, housing the computers and so many other electronics it gave Kane a headache thinking about it. They had a gym equipped with the best training equipment available to them. They could put together a simulation of any building and do practice runs over and over until they were perfect in their execution. Their security system was state-of-the-art, thanks to Jaimie’s brilliance.

Kane had taken the bottom floor for his home in the hopes that someday he would find Rose and they could raise their family there. They had managed to acquire the warehouse next to theirs as well as two across the street. Negotiations were already in the works to try to acquire the apartment building directly across from them. They were putting together a fortress, a compound they could easily defend, one with multiple escape routes: water, land, and even air.

Kane opened his eyes slowly, just to drink in the sight of Rose. She wore one of his thin, button-down-the-front shirts. It completely enveloped her small body. Under the white material, he could see the outline of one of the nursing bras Jaimie had bought for her. He didn’t see much else. Her legs were slender and shapely, her feet bare. She must have just gotten out of bed and fed the baby. Even her hair was still tousled, just the way he loved it.

It was amazing to him how quickly she had become his world. Rose and Sebastian. He felt at peace every time she brought the boy into the room and sat quietly nursing him, or simply rocked him to sleep while Kane convalesced.

His doctor, Eric Lambert, a surgeon renowned for his work in gene therapy, was usually the first choice when it came to the GhostWalkers. He had saved the life of Jesse Calhoun, a member of Team Two, and had immediately come to their aid when called. Now, it seemed, he had saved Kane as well. The man came nearly every day, barking orders and examining Kane, but so far, Rose had steadfastly refused to allow him near Sebastian. Kane found her stubbornness secretly amusing.