Twice Tempted: Between Two Alphas (Mia and Cameron) novel Chapter 74

Chapter Seventy-Four

MIA

“Go below deck,” Eric tells me.

“What? Why?”

He’s on his feet. His legs are braced apart. His arms flex at his sides. He hasn’t shifted, but his wolf is at the surface. His eyes flash pure gold, then they flutter as he’s talking to…someone.

“What is it?”

Then I hear the whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopter blades and I realize we’re about to be boarded.

“No!”

“It’s going to be fine.”

We left the dinghy at the dock, thinking it could’ve been compromised. We’re in the Pacific Ocean. There aren’t even any islands or hints of land in sight.

They airdropped a slew of wraiths onto his lands. We were ambushed by more wraiths in New Orleans. Those came in with the mist and dropped out of nowhere.

“Please,” Eric says. “There isn’t a lot of time. I can’t fight the way I need to if I’m focused on keeping you safe.”

I hesitate. Not because I’m afraid or don’t want to risk my life, but because I don’t want to distract Eric. If something happens to him…

“Go. Please!” He pushes me to hide.

He storms off for the upper deck, taking the stairs three at a time.

I stand here next to the sundeck, debating.

The staff is nowhere to be found and that’s a blessing. Should this take a truly terrible turn, then we can’t afford for them to see our true forms.

No paranormal creature–not wolf, nor witch, nor vampire or demon, or any other preternatural being will reveal themselves to humans.

But there are at least a dozen of them on this boat. People with families and kids and lives outside of this crew. There is a very high chance they’ll be caught in the crossfire or simply executed to ensure their silence.

I can’t let that happen.

It’s an arsenal.

Automatic weapons, Assault rifles, handguns. Grenades and knives and two rows of cannisters–I don’t know what those are for.

My munitions experience is limited. I learned to shoot as a kid, because I lived out West and hunting was a part of life for us.

But most often, we preferred to hunt in our true forms. Shooting our prey was boring.

Still, I recall the lessons from my father and I drop the cartridge into the rifle, flip off the safety and check the chamber. I load two handguns and tuck them into the back of my jeans. I drop one knife into each pocket. The grenade I keep in my left hand, so I can still lift and use my trigger finger on the right.

I’m back out the door in seconds and running for the upper floors.

My senses are on high alert. I don’t hear any yelling or fighting. I don’t smell anything, but the wind is at my back and it’s blowing hard.

I take a deep breath and rush up to the top deck.

What I see has me dropping the grenade. It rolls across the floor.