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“Will do,” Knox said, tipping up the curved, worn hunter green bill of his John Deere cap. “I’ll call it in when we locate him—then tell him to get his ass back to the lodge. I’m guessing you’ll… want a word.”
“Or two,” Dmitri muttered. “I’ve got my hands so full as it is”—he tilted his head toward the hallway and Stacy— “part of me hopes youdon’tfind him.”
Knox chuckled, clapping a hand on Dmitri’s shoulder. “We’ll corral him. I’ll bring him in by the scruff myself, if it comes to that. You worry about your omega. Lucky bastard.”
Leaving her alone was likely the better percentage play—the agent still completely in defiance mode—but his own needs were becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. He knew the others were wondering if he’d lost his head. Giving a new omegaanysort of leeway or choice in anything at all, really, was essentially unheard of.
But he needed to learn more about her. He wanted toaddher strength to his line, not crush it under his boot. There was a time for strictness with omegas, but with her, it wasn’t yet that time.
Much as he might wish it were.
Strolling down the hall, the floorboards creaked under his boots. The commotion from moments earlier seemed to fade away in moments, Knox presumably leading the men out to their days toil in the forest. The lodge was pleasantly quiet.
Resolved to try to get things back onto a better foot with his “guest”, Dmitri flicked the lock open and turned the knob on her bedroom door. At that early hour—it was just after eight—it was very possible she was still sleeping. He’d have been disappointed in her if shehadn’tstayed up late into the night fuming at him and plotting both his demise and her escape. But eventually, exhaustion overcomes even the most white-hot of rages.
Even the rage of an omega who still didn’t want to face the truth of what she was.
The door swung open, the hinges creaking ever so slightly. He wondered if she’d be laid across the bed or curled up wrapped in blankets at the foot—
An explosion of pain erupted across the right half of his face as a glass vase—one of the few in the entire lodge—smashed against the side of his head, shards of shattered glass flying everywhere. He smelled the flowers—fragrant lilies, and the just-slightly-too-old water—as they sloshed down his soaked button-down navy shirt, rivulets of purple mixed in, soaking into the fabric.
Blood.
Momentarily blinded, he shook the water from his face. Then he roared immediately to life, snarling as he wheeled around, flinging the door open with such force that it broke away from its hinges, hanging at a crazed angle, the metal screeching as it bent.
But she wasn’t inside the room anymore.
He tried to turn but he knew it was already much too late. “Oh sh—”
The foot impacted the bottom of his scrotum so hard, he was certain she’d driven his testicles all the way up into his throat. He dropped to one knee, a strangled gasp all he could manage. Her hands planted on his back, shoving him forward, and he slammed to the floor with a soul-crushing groan. The pure fire of slivers from the floorboards lanced into his right cheek, pain the likes of which he could scarcely remember clawing into his lower belly, his balls screaming as if they’d been crushed in a vice.
No, not a vice. Just an FMB’s standard issue women’s size sevens. Idiot.
Reaching out for her, pain so intense he was shuddering with it, he merely grazed the hem of her slacks with his fingers as she bolted away, straight down the hall toward the front entry.
Returning her clothing to her was one of many serious screw-ups he’d need to talk to the men about after this little episode.
Taking his time, he rose slowly to a knee, drawing deep breaths, wincing as he cradled his belly with one arm. His balls throbbed with such intensity he swore they were physically swelling larger with each surge of sickening agony lancing up into his lower abdomen.
At least you aren’t puking.
“Cold comfort, that,” he muttered bitterly, regaining his feet as the sound of the front door of the lodge slamming shut echoed through the building.
Shaking off the pain as best he could, he ran down the hall, bursting out into the brilliant sunshine on the entryway porch, the morning overcast having given way to a crystal blue sky. The lodge was flanked on both sides by outbuildings, clad in sun-faded clapboards whose original brilliant white had been withered to a dried bone gray, a dirt round-about immediately in front of the lodge.
The trucks the men used were typically parked inside the two buildings, and just as he stepped down from the last riser of the front steps, the twin doors of the building on the right burst open, the steel of the lock shattering and flying in a spray of shrapnel, the wood paneling of one of the doors partially splintering. The beat-up black Dodge Lariat that Matthias favored careened out onto the dirt, skidding sideways as it tried to turn down the drive, the tires digging deep furrows in the earth as a storm of dust exploded all around it. The engine roared and the tires spun for a moment, sending up rooster tails of earth the color of burnt sienna, pelting Dmitri with grit and gravel, the acrid smell of exhaust filling his nostrils.
Goddamn agents.
Stacy met his gaze as she shifted, the gears grinding on the manual transmission, her lips a thin line of determination, her eyes sparkling so bright it was as if they were alight from within.
For an instant, he considered chasing the truck down, sure he could reach it before she built up too much speed, but he nixed the idea as she screamed away, twin bursts of blue-white smoke puffing from the tail-pipes as she hurtled down the driveway. As the truck drove further down the hill, passing out of sight, Dmitri fished his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans, dialing Knox.
His lieutenant picked up on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“You win. Asshole.”
Knox’s chuckle was rich with satisfaction. “How?”
