Marcus (2 page)

A Hawk filled the opening, with its sleek
gray body and four spinning rotors. It was near-silent, running on
a small thermonuclear engine. It turned slowly as it descended to
the landing pad.

Her team was home.

She threaded her hands together, her heart
beating a little faster.

Marcus was home.

***

Marcus Steele wanted a shower and a beer.

Hot, sweaty and covered in raptor blood, he
leaped down from the Hawk and waved at his team to follow. He kept
a sharp eye on the medical team who raced out to tend to Shaw. Dr.
Emerson Green was leading them, her white lab coat snapping around
her curvy body. The blonde doctor caught his gaze and tossed him a
salute.

Shaw was cursing and waving them off, but
one look from Marcus and the lanky Australian sniper shut his
mouth.

Marcus swung his laser carbine over his
shoulder and scraped a hand down his face. Man, he’d kill for a hot
shower. Of course, he’d have to settle for a cold one since they
only allowed hot water for two hours in the morning in order to
conserve energy. But maybe after that beer he’d feel human
again.

“Well done, Squad Six.” Holmes stepped
forward. “Steele, I hear you got images of the map.”

Holmes might piss Marcus off sometimes, but
at least the guy always got straight to the point. He was a general
to the bone and always looked spit and polish. Everything about him
screamed money and a fancy education, so not surprisingly, he
tended to rub the troops the wrong way.

Marcus pulled the small, clear comp chip
from his pocket. “We got it.”

Then he spotted her.

Shit.
It was always a small kick in
his chest. His gaze traveled up Elle Milton’s slim figure, coming
to rest on a face he could stare at all day. She wasn’t very tall,
but that didn’t matter. Something about her high cheekbones,
pale-blue eyes, full lips, and rain of chocolate-brown hair…it all
worked for him. Perfectly. She was beautiful, kind, and far too
good to be stuck in this crappy underground maze of tunnels,
dressed in hand-me-down fatigues.

She raised a slim hand. Marcus shot her a
small nod.

“Hey, Ellie-girl. Gonna give me a kiss?”

Shaw passed on an iono-stretcher hovering
off the ground and Marcus gritted his teeth. The tall, blond sniper
with his lazy charm and Aussie drawl was popular with the ladies.
Shaw flashed his killer smile at Elle.

She smiled back, her blue eyes twinkling and
Marcus’ gut cramped.

Then she put one hand on her hip and gave
the sniper a head-to-toe look. She shook her head. “I think you get
enough kisses.”

Marcus released the breath he didn’t realize
he was holding.

“See you later, Sarge.” Zeke Jackson slapped
Marcus on the back and strolled past. His usually-silent twin,
Gabe, was beside him. The twins, both former Coalition Army Special
Forces soldiers, were deadly in the field. Marcus was damned happy
to have them on his squad.

“Howdy, Princess.” Claudia shot Elle a smirk
as she passed.

Elle rolled her eyes. “Claudia.”

Cruz, Marcus’ second-in-command and best
friend from their days as Coalition Marines, stepped up beside
Marcus and crossed his arms over his chest. He’d already pulled
some of his lightweight body armor off, and the ink on his arms was
on display.

The general nodded at Cruz before looking
back at Marcus. “We need Shaw back up and running ASAP. If the
raptor prisoner we interrogated is correct, that map shows one of
the main raptor communications hubs.” There was a blaze of
excitement in the usually-stoic general’s voice. “It links all
their operations together.”

Yeah, Marcus knew it was big. Destroy the
hub, send the raptor operations into disarray.

The general continued. “As soon as the tech
team can break the encryption on the chip and give us a location
for the raptor comms hub—” his piercing gaze leveled on Marcus “—I
want your team back out there to plant the bomb.”

Marcus nodded. He knew if they destroyed the
raptors’ communications it gave humanity a fighting chance. A
chance they desperately needed.

He traded a look with Cruz. Looked like they
were going out to wade through raptor gore again sooner than
anticipated.

Man, he really wanted that beer.

Then Marcus’ gaze landed on Elle again. He
didn’t keep going out there for himself, or Holmes. He went so
people like Elle and the other civilian survivors had a chance. A
chance to do more than simply survive.

“Shaw’s wound is minor. Doc Emerson should
have him good as new in an hour or so.” Since the advent of the
nano-meds, simple wounds could be healed in hours, rather than days
and weeks. They carried a dose of the microscopic medical machines
on every mission, but only for dire emergencies. The nano-meds had
to be administered and monitored by professionals or they were just
as likely to kill you from the inside than heal you.

General Holmes nodded. “Good.”

Elle cleared her throat. “There’s no telling
how long it will take to break the encryption. I’ve been working
with the tech team and even if they break it, we may not be able to
translate it all. We’re getting better at learning the raptor
language but there are still huge amounts of it we don’t yet
understand.”

Marcus’s jaw tightened. There was always
something. He knew Noah Kim—their resident genius computer
specialist—and his geeks were good, but if they couldn’t read the
damn raptor language…

Holmes turned. “Steele, let your team have
some downtime and be ready the minute Noah has anything.”

“Yes, sir.” As the general left, Marcus
turned to Cruz. “Go get yourself a beer, Ramos.”

“Don’t need to tell me more than once,
amigo
. I would kill for some my dad’s tamales to go with
it.” Something sad flashed across a face all the women in the base
mooned over, then he grimaced and a bone-deep weariness colored his
words. “Need to wash the raptor off me, first.” He tossed Marcus a
casual salute, Elle a smile, and strode out.

Marcus frowned after his friend and absently
started loosening his body armor.

Elle moved up beside him. “I can take the
comp chip to Noah.”

“Sure.” He handed it to her. When her
fingers brushed his he felt the warmth all the way through him.
Hell, he had it bad. Thankfully, he still had his armor on or she’d
see his cock tenting his pants.

“I’ll come find you as soon as we have
something.” She glanced up at him. Smiled. “Are you going to rec
night tonight? I hear Cruz might even play guitar for us.”

The Friday-night gathering was a chance for
everyone to blow off a bit of steam and drink too much homebrewed
beer. And Cruz had an unreal talent with a guitar, although lately
Marcus hadn’t seen the man play too much.

Marcus usually made an appearance at these
parties, then left early to head back to his room to study raptor
movements or plan the squad’s next missions. “Yeah, I’ll be
there.”

“Great.” She smiled. “I’ll see you there,
then.” She hurried out clutching the chip.

He stared at the tunnel where she’d exited
for a long while after she disappeared, and finally ripped his
chest armor off. Ah, on second thought, maybe going to the rec
night wasn’t a great idea. Watching her pretty face and captivating
smile would drive him crazy. He cursed under his breath. He really
needed that cold shower.

As he left the landing pads, he reminded
himself he should be thinking of the mission. Destroy the hub and
kill more aliens. Rinse and repeat. Death and killing, that was
about all he knew.

He breathed in and caught a faint trace of
Elle’s floral scent. She was clean and fresh and good. She always
worried about them, always had a smile, and she was damned good at
providing their comms and intel.

She was why he fought through the muck every
day. So she could live and the goodness in her would survive. She
deserved more than blood and death and killing.

And she sure as hell deserved more than a
battled-scarred, bloodstained soldier.

“What do you mean you haven’t got anything
off the chip?” Elle stared at Noah Kim, unable to take in what he’d
just told her.

Noah sat back in his chair, surrounded by a
mess of salvaged, mismatched computer equipment in the computer
lab. A lab he considered his own private domain. He rolled
something around in his left hand and Elle knew it would be a pair
of dice from his collection.

“I got the data off the chip, Ellie, it’s
just undecipherable.”

No
. She gripped the edge of the
table. Marcus and others were
not
going to be happy.

Noah pushed his dark-rimmed glasses up his
nose. He was long and lean with a handsome face dominated by high
cheekbones and dark eyes courtesy of his South Korean father. His
black hair was in desperate need of a cut and brushed his
shoulders.

“There are too many new letters and words.
You’ve been working on the raptor language project, you know we can
only translate a small portion of it.”

Elle released a breath. Yes, she knew and
Noah never lied. He always gave people the stark truth whether they
wanted it or not. “Dammit.”

He patted her hand. “Sorry. I know it wasn’t
what you wanted to hear.”

“You’ll keep working on it?”

“You know I will.” He leaned back and set
his dice on the shelf behind him. On it, lined up with precision,
was his collection—dice of all shapes, sizes and colors. Some were
ancient and made from bone, others were electronic and made of
metal. The man was obsessed and didn’t let anyone touch them,
ever.

Back at his desk, he picked up what looked
like…well, she had no idea what the mass of chips and wires was. “I
have some priority work to do on the solar-power system, then I’ll
get to it. Promise.”

A hundred years before, some genius had
perfected making nuclear power safe. But only on a small scale.
Tiny thermonuclear reactors could power a quadcopter or a vehicle,
but something as large as Blue Mountain Base couldn’t be powered by
them. They’d just end up with more nuclear waste than they could
neutralize. Instead, they relied on a high-tech solar-power system
that Noah kept running.

She nodded. “Well, I’ll go and tell Squad
Six the bad news.”

He winced. “I don’t envy you the task of
telling Hell Squad they just risked their butts for nothing.”

“They’re used to risking their lives.” Too
much, in her opinion. “And it isn’t for nothing. We
will
find a way to translate that map, or we might all end up raptor
bait.”

Elle hit the tunnel and headed toward the
rec room.

Over the last year, the bare concrete walls
and twisting tunnels had become familiar. The polished wood and
luxury furniture of her parents’ sprawling mansion seemed a distant
dream. As she neared the large open space that had become the
recreation area, she heard the strum of strings and the murmur of
conversation punctuated by the odd laugh.

She paused in the arched doorway. It was
busy tonight. It seemed like most of the base was packed into the
room, leaning against the walls and lounging on chairs. A slim man
was playing guitar, bent over the battered instrument, lost in his
music. A couple of women in tight jeans had gamely cleared a small
space near him and were dancing.

Elle spotted the members of Six by the far
wall. Shaw—newly healed—straddled a chair backwards, the light
glinting off the golden strands in his hair. He was laughing at
something the intense, tall and imposing Gabe had said. Gabe, with
his shaved head, dark skin and tattoos, didn’t appear to notice
that many people detoured around him to avoid gaining his
attention.

Claudia was sitting cross-legged on top of a
table, swigging back a beer, her dark hair in its usual braid.
Marcus and Cruz leaned against the wall. Only Zeke, Gabe’s twin
brother, was missing.

Her gaze instantly went to Marcus, drawn
there like metal to a magnet. Her breath hitched. He’d showered,
his short, dark hair damp against his head. He wore a well-worn,
black T-shirt and even more well-worn jeans that were going
threadbare at the stress points. Marcus wasn’t the tallest member
of his team, but he was the biggest. He had a tough, solid body
that was all muscle. His arms were crossed, his biceps bulging, a
beer dangling from his fingers. He was listening to something Cruz
was saying.

Elle bit her lip. Every single cell in her
body vibrated with need. She’d never, ever wanted a man so much.
She had no idea why he affected her so much. Cruz, with his
liquid-dark eyes, mouthwatering face and a sexy Latin accent, was
more handsome. Most women in the base were half in love with Cruz’s
trademark sexy grin. Elle had heard one woman call it
panty-melting, but it didn’t have that effect on Elle.

Marcus’ face was rough, tough, and dominated
by a large, ragged scar ran down his right cheek and across his
neck. No one knew how he’d gotten it. Rumor said he’d charged a
raptor raiding party in the early days after the invasion. That
he’d killed them all with his bare hands and been given a slash
during the fight for his trouble.

Elle had no idea if it was true, but she had
no trouble believing he could do it.

As she watched, Claudia said something that
had a small smile curving his lips. Elle’s shoulders sagged.
Claudia was so his type—a strong, female warrior. Never in a
million years would he want a woman like Elle. The thought left a
bitter taste in her mouth.

“Hey, Elle. Want a beer?”

She blinked and focused on the man just
inside the door, manning the makeshift bar. “Ah, no thanks,
Zeke.”

It would be easy to mistake Zeke for simply
a bartender and not the soldier he was. With his brightly colored
Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and dark skin topped with a lazy
smile, he didn’t look like a man who could battle through raptors
with focused ease.