Kane drew another breath as he shoved the memory away ruthlessly. He was a big man, dwarfing her in size, all flowing muscle, his height proportionate with his weight and not an ounce of fat. He loomed over her, nothing more than a shadow, his arms coming around her from behind to take her weapon, and in one smooth motion, he tossed it on the broken-down couch. She tried to whirl around, going for his instep, but his arms became a steel cage, trapping her. His hands settled over her midsection and shockingly, she was round, like a basketball. His heart, after one heavy thump, settled into a satisfied rhythm.
“Shh, Rose,” he said gently, trying to breathe calm into her. Her breathing had gone ragged. “There’s a gun trained on you. Don’t pull another weapon. Just stay still.”
Under the palm of his hand, he felt the small rounded belly and a peculiar push as if the baby kicked him, trying to protect his mother. The sheer relief and satisfaction that she carried his child shocked him a little. “No one is going to hurt you.” And they wouldn’t, not ever again. She carried his baby, and no matter what else, the child would always connect them.
Rose went still. She didn’t turn her head but remained tense, her hands gripping his wrists as if to pry them from the slight swell of her belly. “Kane?”
He felt the tension coiling in her, not rigid and tense, but the coil of a snake about to attack. “I’m here, honey. No one wants to hurt you. Just stay still, and we’ll sort this out without anyone getting hurt.”
“I won’t go back. He can’t have my baby.” The statement was delivered in a quiet voice, but he believed her. Rose might look like a little Asian pixie, but she had a spine of steel. She had thwarted Whitney each time he’d sent a man to impregnate her. She’d fought until they feared they might kill her, and she was a vicious fighter. More than one man had been in the infirmary after a round with her.
“Our baby,” he corrected, and the rightness of it took some of the knots out of his belly. “You want to tell me why you didn’t look pregnant? How did you manage that?”
“I’m not without my own skills. I can camouflage when I need to. I felt all of you the moment you got close. Whitney isn’t getting my baby. He doesn’t know for certain yet that I’m pregnant, and I’m keeping it that way.”
“Whitney didn’t send me after you. I don’t take orders from him. We reported his experiments, and he’s gone into hiding. I’ve searched for you ever since you disappeared.”
She had begun to relax, but at his words she tensed again.
“To help you, Rose,” he explained hastily. “I was the one who helped you escape, remember? I’m not about to hand you over to the enemy.”
Kane didn’t make the mistake of letting go of her. He knew Gideon had a high-powered rifle on her and was all too aware that Gideon would protect him first. He wanted her away from the window, but that might trigger Mack to send in Javier. It was a very fragile line they were all walking, and one wrong move could result in disaster.
“Then let’s just get this over with,” Rose said. She kept her gaze trained upward, right out the window, as if daring the marksmen to kill her. “I assume you are part of the team sent in to handle the hostages. For them to warrant a GhostWalker extraction, they must be pretty important.”
“If I sit you down in the chair, will you stay put? Not do anything stupid?”
She turned her head for the first time to look up at him over her shoulder. His heart jumped when her dark gaze met his. Steady as ever. Cool under fire. That was Rose. But he was shocked at the exhaustion marking her face. He was equally shocked at how not just his body but everything in him responded to her. His every protective instinct, his animalistic side, the alpha male in him—everything male.
He forced his voice under control. “You’ve been sick.”
She nodded. “I haven’t been able to keep much food down,” she admitted, all the while searching his expression, trying to decide whether to trust him. “That’s made me fairly weak, and staying below Whitney’s radar means moving all the time.” She sent him a humorless smile, just a flash of her white teeth, but it was enough to act as a warning. “I will get the baby to safety, and anyone in my way isn’t going to live very long.”
Kane knew her quiet statement was more than an idle threat. Rose would fight if necessary, and as small as she was, she had psychic abilities and survival skills that made up for her size. He had come to know her in the brief time they’d been forced together. Dr. Whitney, head of the psychic experimental program, had gone rogue, determined to breed supersoldiers. Rose had been forced into his breeding program, but that brief time in his breeding program hadn’t stopped any of the women there from training daily. The men tended to forget the women had undergone training almost since birth, while they had joined the military later. The women actually had an edge, although they were smaller in stature.
“I said I’d get you out of here safely, Rose, and I meant it.” He tried not to sound aggressive or commanding, when he felt a little of both. He tamped down his take-charge nature. Rose wasn’t getting away again, not with danger surrounding her and their child every moment of every day. She needed protection, no matter how independent she was. Kane understood her aversion to him, but her safety took precedence over everything else.
She didn’t acknowledge his statement, and with Rose, he had no idea what she was thinking. She appeared fragile, but she had a core of steel and a will of iron. Even Whitney hadn’t been able to get what he’d wanted from her. She’d chosen her partner, refusing to accept any of the others Whitney had sent to her, despite the fact that his punishments were horrible.
Kane clamped down hard on those memories. It was difficult to stay cool and disciplined when fury raged through him. Very gently he urged her toward the chair away from the window.
She’s out of my line of sight, Gideon warned. She’ll know that, Kane.
Damn it, don’t you fuck with me on this, Kane, Mack snapped. I’ll send Javier in after the both of you.
Go to hell, Mack, Kane snapped back. She’s pregnant with my baby, and you’re damn well not going to shoot her.
“They’re really angry with you, aren’t they?” Rose sent him a wry smile. “They’re right, you know; you’re in danger.”
“If you’re going to make your try, Rose, do it now, before they send someone else in.”
She studied his face, and he couldn’t help using the opportunity to do the same with her. Those long, sweeping eyelashes of hers drew his attention. From there his gaze dropped to her high cheekbones, her small, straight nose, and her lush mouth. The women had been taken from orphanages, and Rose had most likely come from China, but how Whitney had managed to get hold of her, Kane couldn’t guess.
She touched her tongue to her full lower lip, and his body tightened. “I’m not going to do anything stupid. You’re ready for me to try something.”
That didn’t tell him if she still planned on running, and he was going to have to help Mack and the others get the hostages out. He sighed and changed the subject. “Tell me about the hostages.”
“About a week ago, there was a sudden influx of cartel members. It isn’t all that difficult to make them; they carry some serious hardware and scare the crap out of the decent people around here. Two murders occurred, heads severed as a warning for everyone and the bodies dumped in the fountain two streets over. The buzz on the street was something big was going down. At first I thought it was a big drug deal, and then I spotted the prisoners. They were brought in at night, dark SUVs with tinted windows. I thought maybe members of a rival gang, but as soon as I saw them—a woman of about thirty-five and a little girl of maybe ten—I knew this had nothing to do with a drug war.”