You really are very popular, aren’t you? Thorn asked him, a teasing note creeping into her voice. She slipped her knife out of the scabbard and turned toward a sound in front and to the left of her. Someone was near—too near.

Sam laid a restraining hand on her arm. Bloodthirsty woman. Leave them be. The cavalry is in the air and we want to be able to track them back to whoever sent them. Someone has to be left alive.

That’s a lot of someones to be left alive when they’re determined to kidnap my brother.

What she should have said was to quit touching her. No one touched her—not without her permission—and she wouldn’t give it if they did ask. Sounds increased all around them. They weren’t going to have much choice soon. The soldiers moving toward them weren’t from the Jeep. These were men who knew what they were doing in the forest. They came in formation, fanned out, covering ground, armed and ready for anything. They were moving swiftly as if they knew they only had minutes to find their quarry.

We’re nearly in the open. We won’t stand a chance like this. Her hand slipped once again to her gun. She was good in close combat, but there were too many to take down that way. It would have to be loud and that would draw fire. She could smell the coppery flavor of blood, but there was no scent of fear coming off of Sam.

Trust me. I know that’s hard when you don’t know me, but if you trust me, we’ll be fine.

Her heart thudded. The closest she came to trust was her father—maybe Daiki and Eiji—but even then, she preferred to rely on herself. She protected them, not the other way around. She swallowed the edge of fear—not from the enemy but from her own strange feelings. In the end, if they tried to take her prisoner, she’d kill as many as she could before they killed her. For one long moment she stared into those dark, fathomless eyes, letting him know silently her intentions. He didn’t flinch away but seemed to understand she had no intention of being taken alive. She would never be a prisoner again. Her nod was nearly imperceptible, but he caught it.

He wrapped his arms around her and turned, pushing her smaller body deep into a depression in the ground beneath a fallen tree. His body on top of hers obliterated everything, so that there was nothing but him in her world. He went completely still, his skin color changing subtly. He was wearing jeans and a loose shirt, a casual, almost elegant look on his muscular frame, his good looks drawing attention from the fact that the clothing reflected his surroundings so that he faded into the background. In an environment such as this one, his clothing was another tool of combat.

The soldiers were around them now, two on either side. The trunk of the tree shuddered as one booted foot stepped atop it. She didn’t move a muscle. Above her, Sam’s body seemed completely relaxed, although she felt the coiled tension in him, much like a snake ready for action. He might give the appearance of relaxed indolence, but he could easily explode into action.

Relax.

They are the enemy. But it wasn’t the enemy that had her tense. She was feeling things she shouldn’t. For him. Her awareness was frightening. She felt every breath he took, every beat of his heart, the bunching of his stomach muscles. She could almost feel the blood running hot in his veins.

He wouldn’t understand. How could he? She’d read his file. He hadn’t had it easy, but he still wouldn’t understand the demons running her. Her father had worked hard to rid her of them. Demons had no place in a samurai warrior. She admired both Daiki and Eiji. They had overcome their daunting pasts to replace rage with serenity. She had failed to wipe out that terrible anger completely. At the most inconvenient times—like now—anger exploded to the surface.

A dark, black cloud settled over her, and Dr. Whitney with his inhuman, reptilian features stared coldly and dispassionately down at her with absolute, utter distaste. He could take apart a child, dissecting them as he would an insect without so much as noticing they were still alive and suffering—she ought to know, she still had all the scars.

Her heart nearly stopped when Sam’s mouth skimmed, featherlight, across her forehead. She was certain it wasn’t just warm breath, but the actual touch of his lips. Accident or not, it set her blood rushing hotly. An insect crawled over her hand and she controlled the itch that ran up her skin, but it was impossible to control deep inside where something totally unknown to her—something feminine and all woman—reached for him.

She held her breath, certain in the knowledge that a great storm was coming in her life and that this man was at the center of it. Her fingers dug into the muscle of his arms inadvertently as if she needed to hold on to the only thing solid when everything else around her was spinning out of her control. She’d been waiting all of her life for revenge—or justice; either would work, but now she thought perhaps she’d been completely off course. This was what she’d been waiting for—this moment, this man—and he was about to turn her life upside down.

The soldier stepped with both boots onto the tree trunk, rocking it. She felt the pinch across her back, but didn’t wince, didn’t make a move or sound. She kept her eyes wide-open, observing Sam. His skin was discolored, fading into the leaves and branches scattered thick over the ground. She felt the small movement of his arm, so slow, inch by slow inch so as not to disturb a single leaf. His eyes, those beautiful dark eyes, changed subtly—became almost hypnotic so that she couldn’t look away even if she tried.

The soldier stepped down onto the ground a scant inch from where Sam’s arm rested against the trunk of the fallen tree. He curled his fingers, his eyes still staring into hers and brushed, ever so gently, against the camo-clad leg as the man took another step. She felt the movements of his arm—an easy uncoiling of the snake before it struck, featherlight and very gentle.

The soldier took three more steps and staggered. He called out in Farsi. Abruptly, to their right and left, two more soldiers rushed to his aid. The one Sam touched sank to the ground, his hand trembling, trying to hold on to his leg—the leg she knew Sam had brushed so casually. What had he done? There had been no sound. No change of expression, but he’d touched that man in that exact spot, she’d felt that subtle movement. What was different about his eyes? She swallowed and continued staring into those mesmerizing eyes, half incapable of looking away and half trying to understand what was happening.

The two other soldiers took positions on either side of their fallen comrade, the nearest one with his leg inches from Sam’s arm. Again, she felt that slow, stealthy movement. She knew she should have let go of his arm, but she kept her fingers positioned against his strange-colored skin. Sam wasn’t finished. Whatever he’d done to the first soldier, he intended to do to another, and she was determined to unlock his secrets.

Sam didn’t blink, his eyes shimmering with a fire deep under all that dark cover. His muscles bunched and rippled. His expression didn’t change. His gaze didn’t shift. He could have been lying in the grass studying the open sky. She knew his heart rate hadn’t changed at all because she felt each beat. His breathing was slow and steady. The man should have ice water in his veins, but even that wasn’t true—she felt the heat of his body.

Thorn couldn’t prevent the rising admiration for this man. He was truly dangerous and she wanted to uncover his every secret. That file had meant nothing but data to her. This was a man Dr. Whitney deemed useless to him and yet he could teleport and he had another unseen weapon she was determined to ferret out. Had Whitney miscalculated Sam’s psychic abilities as he’d done hers? She knew Sam had been altered genetically, his DNA manipulated, but there was little information on Sam beyond his ties to General Ranier.

The soldiers spoke in hushed tones. She translated in her mind, unsure if Sam knew the language or not.

“Something bit me. A snake perhaps. My leg’s on fire and my heart’s beating too fast.”

Great drops of sweat ran down the soldier’s body, covering his clothes with damp, dark splotches. Thorn smelled fear. In the distance, the sound of a helicopter moving toward them grew in volume.

Again she interpreted the soldier’s conversation in Farsi. “We have to go now. Get back to the clearing.”

“I can’t walk.”

“We’ll help you. We have to hurry.” The answer was gruff, as if the soldiers had turned their heads away from their fallen comrade, toward the ominous sound of the helicopter.

She felt the muscles ripple ever so slightly in Sam’s arm, the most gentle of flexes. His arm moved with that same infinite slowness, brushing so lightly that she heard the whisper against the material of the soldier’s fatigues, just along his calf. Again, his arm moved back with that same unhurried motion to the ground. So, he understood Farsi as well. And he was about to strike at the soldiers.

His eyes glowed with a fiery red bursting like angry starlight through a dark sky. His face never changed expression. He seemed … relaxed. She was trained in warfare, skilled in so many arts, and yet tension coiled in her so close to the enemy in preparation for battle. They were virtually hiding in plain sight a scant foot from the soldiers and Sam was clearly attacking them, yet his body was without anxiety or stress of any kind. He was—magnificent. Dr. Whitney was a fool to call this man expendable.

She felt that brush, so exquisitely delivered, that same unhurried featherlight bite of … what? Death? Poison? If so, how did he administer it? Did he carry a syringe? She was adept at passing an enemy and dispensing of them with no more than the small stinging bite of an insect, yet this was different. The soldier gripped his fallen companion and with the aid of his friend, the two set out at a fast pace toward the clearing where transport waited impatiently.

The second soldier stumbled. This man had taken at least three running steps, perhaps four, before he felt the fire of the attack. He grunted, dropped the now incapacitated soldier, and sat abruptly clutching his calf. “I was bitten too. I felt it. I feel it. Like fire creeping up my leg.”

The third soldier looked warily around the ground, his semiautomatic pushed forward, finger on the trigger, his eyes scanning sharply. Thorn realized Sam had known all along it was a possibility the one he couldn’t reach might get trigger happy and spray the ground. He had virtually covered her body with his, tucking beneath the added safety of the tree trunk. Still, he remained perfectly relaxed, his eyes smiling down into hers. The soldier backed away from the two fallen men slowly.

“Send Martinez for these two. They can’t make it back,” he ordered in Farsi into his radio.

He turned and sprinted away from the two fallen soldiers, racing through the trees to reach the helicopter. Sam rolled away from her.

Now you’ve got a few minutes to interrogate them. Make it quick. They won’t live long.

He was up fast, moving with his blurring speed to kick away the guns. The only way she could tell that he was weak was the slight tremor of his hand as he wiped it over his face. In spite of the application of the topical form of Zenith, promoting fast healing, the blood loss, coupled with the tremendous drain on him from using teleportation, had sapped his energy. In spite of it, he was a soldier through and through, refusing to give in to pain or exhaustion while there was still more to be done.

Thorn slipped from beneath the log and brushed at the insects, casually flicking them off her clothes as she took two steps toward the soldiers. The capricious wind shifted and she caught the smell of sweat. Sam!

She didn’t hesitate, launching her body at Sam. He caught her in midair, drawing her in, wrapping strong arms around her as he dove back and away from the two fallen soldiers. They hit the ground, Sam rolling under her to protect her. She heard him grunt, the air leaving his lungs in a rush. Angry bullets spat all around them, kicking up leaves, dirt, and splinters. Sam rolled fast, taking her into the area densest with trees.

The moment he let her go, she crawled behind the thickest trunk she could find, making herself small.