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He wasn’t a thoughtful creature. He didn’t think, plot, or plan. He didn’t particularly care about anything but where the next meal was coming from and the occasional need to mate.
But there was one thing Drack did hate. Drack hated guns. He hated the scent of them, he hated the feel of them, and he particularly hated the nasty wounds they had once torn into his body. He hated them to the point that even when the creature who housed him carried one, he felt n
othing more than the overriding instinct to kill. To destroy. Pain was the one memory, the one instinct that held sway when he felt the vibration of the small door open in the bathroom.
That door led to dark places, places where he could depend on a source of food if he ever reached it. Not that the creature didn’t keep him well fed, but he loved the hunt.
Tonight he would hunt more than rodents or lizards. His slitted eyes narrowed, his tongue tested the air, and a hiss of rage left his throat as he butted against the glass that held him confined.
He wanted out. Why wasn’t the creature who slept with his mate in the soft nest moving? He should be awakening. Didn’t he smell the death moving in, the weapon held by the creature that moved into the room?
Drack watched from his glass-enclosed cage, hissed and slithered to where the door latched. His tongue flicked, testing the air, and he smelled the offensive scent of evil.
Instinct and rage converged as he lay coiled, tense, waiting. The door would open, and when it did, he would be free. When it did, the evil that had stepped into his lair would die.
He knew it would open. It always opened. No one entered for long without detection. The creature who housed him, he would give him his chance. When he did, he would kill.
* * *
Macey came awake certain in the knowledge that somehow, some way, he had managed to fuck up. How had he done it? Had he set the security parameters wrong? Had a power supply failed?
It didn’t make sense. He was careful, he was always careful, especially when it came to his cave. He had one main entrance, blocked by pure steel and set with enough alarms to bring down the house. There was a bolt hole, just as heavily secured, that led to a sewer drain beneath the streets and any number of manholes scattered throughout the city.
The bolt hole should have been even harder to find than the main entrance, but someone had managed to not only find it, but to crack his security as well. And that someone had managed to slip into the bedroom where he slept with Emerson.
He could hear Drack scraping against the door to his glass cage. A door that should have opened when either entrance was activated. But Drack was scraping against it, which meant he was still locked in. There were no alarms screaming through the cave, no lights flashing, no hard rock blaring. And he was defenseless.
“Come on, Lieutenant Junior Grade Mason March. Wakey wakey.” Amused. Familiar. Deadly.
Macey opened his eyes and prayed Emerson would stay asleep just a few minutes longer as he stared into the shadowed face of the admiral’s executive aide, Pierce Landry.
Hell, he had never had liked that weaselly little bastard. Macey especially didn’t like him holding that automatic weapon to his head.
Macey sighed in resignation and hoped he could manage to get under the former Green Beret’s guard for a second to reactivate security and release Drack.
The anaconda could smell the weapon Pierce was carrying, and he hated guns. Hated guns so much that Macey had to bar the few friends allowed access to the basement from carrying weapons.
“How did you get past the security?” he asked, hoping to stall, to find that window of opportunity. Unfortunately, he knew Landry’s service record.
“All it took was finding the entrance; the security wasn’t that hard. After all, I’ve read most of your mission reports, March; I’ve studied your file and your abilities. Reasoning your system out wasn’t that hard.” Pierce’s gaze went to where Emerson appeared to still sleep against his chest. “You must have fucked her half to death. She hasn’t moved.”
Macey smirked. He could hear the vein of jealousy in his tone.
“What the hell are you doing here, Landry?”
“What am I doing here?” Landry’s large white teeth flashed white in the darkness of the room. The son of a bitch, Macey had always hated that smile. “Why, Macey, I’m here to carry out my assignment,” he continued. “I’m here to kill Admiral Halloran’s goddaughter since you so kindly fucked up the last plan to do so.”
Son of a bitch. He’d missed Landry. All these years, all the leaks they were searching so hard for, and he had missed Landry.
“See, this is why I didn’t just kill you when I stepped into the room,” Landry sneered. “Where would the fun have been in that? You wouldn’t have known who took the shot. Who got past your security. The admiral’s golden child wouldn’t have known who was smarter and better than he was.”
Macey arched his brow mockingly despite the violence slowly gathering inside him. Emerson had woken, too, and he could feel her tension, her fear.
“You must have me mistaken for someone else, Landry. If I’m anything, it’s the pain in the admiral’s ass.”
Landry chuckled at that, but the gun never wavered.
“He played you, Macey. He marked you for Miss Delaney’s bed years ago. Though, to be honest, I believe he was hoping for a wedding ring for her rather than a romp and play between the sheets.”
