Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Aaron's Honor (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Men of Mercy Book 8) (6 page)

For that one heartbreaking second he completely forgot about his surroundings as he peeled back the blue veil to reveal Celine's beautiful face. His breath caught. She was alive. Celine was alive.

A bullet pinged into the car over his head and Aaron dropped to the ground and shoved Celine between him and the back tire.

A man stumbled around the front of the SUV, running to the side of the road. Aaron heard the sniper round a nanosecond before the man flew backwards, dead. The fight ended quickly after that. The two SF teams had set up a near perfect death trap for the swap.

“Clear,” Jared said from his position with his brother at over watch.

“Clear,” Beatle said.

Aaron holstered his weapon and pulled Celine back into his arms, carefully brushing his fingertips across her cheek. A dark puffy bruise marred the right side of her face. Her bottom lip was swollen. He'd seen worse, much worse, but on Celine...Mr. J was a dead man.

“Caroline's not in any of the vehicles.” Hunter stepped into his line of vision

“I need to check her for injuries. They've got her covered in this damn thing.” The blue burka was a sacrament to her.

“You try to wake her?” Ghost asked.

Aaron drew in a steady breath. “Celine, sweetheart can you hear me?”

She didn't move an inch.

Someone touched his shoulder, and Aaron glanced back to see Ethan standing right behind him. “If they use the same stuff on her as they did on Kate, she'll be out for a while.”

Fucking bastards. At the first kidnapping, in the states, the men had used a heavy dose of opiates to knock the women out. Ethan's girlfriend, Kate, was the only one TF-S had managed to rescue and she'd been out for over twenty-four hours from the drugs.

Aaron gently brushed his fingers through her hair, attempting to hide the fact his hands shook from the rest of the team, and checked her skull. “I don't feel any injuries. Give me an ETA on the helo.”

“Big bird, what's your ETA?” Ghost had pulled a small com radio from his belt.

“Ten minutes.”

“Roger.”

“Ethan, pop the hatch on that SUV, I want to check her.”

Aaron stood with Celine in his arms and the group of big Delta Force and TF-S men moved back to give him room. Ghost and Ethan let the back seat down, giving him the whole back end of SUV to gently lay Celine down.

“Riser, come help me,” Aaron said. He and Riser had the most field medical training in their group.

Riser came to lean in the back of the SUV beside him, effectively blocking Celine's body from the rest of the group. They would have to undress her to check for injuries. Aaron reached for the burka, his hand fucking shaking like a baby.

“Hey, let me.” Riser pulled out his knife and Aaron moved his hand back as his teammate lifted the collar of Celine's gown and sliced through the material.

Aaron blew out the breath he'd been holding when he saw that she had on jeans and a blouse beneath this one. They finished removing the burka and Aaron forced himself to stop thinking like a wounded husband and instead act like the trained soldier he was.

Careful for hidden injuries, he tugged the loose jeans down to her knees and froze. His hands went numb. His mouth went numb. His chest went numb. Nearly black bruises in the pattern of finger prints spread out over her inner thighs.

Aaron started to shake.

“Fuck,” Riser muttered.

He tried to swallow but his throat wouldn’t work. She’d been…dammit. He couldn’t even finish the thought.

Riser gripped his arm. “You don’t know for sure yet, brother. Why don’t you let me finish checking her? We need to evac pronto.”

It was all Aaron could do to rasp out, “No. I need to do it.”

Fighting back the rage, he finished removing her jeans. The only other injury to her legs was covered by a bandage around her left ankle. He left it alone, knowing on some instinctual level, that if he saw her skin rubbed raw from a shackle he might puke.

Riser resumed position, his back to Celine and Aaron slowly lifted her shirt, her bruised and battered breasts a gut wrenching twist of agony to his heart.

Aaron threw his head back and bit his cheek to keep back the scream of fury. He tasted blood.

Riser didn’t turn until Aaron had lowered her shirt once more and replaced her jeans. Two full weeks she'd been held captive. Two weeks she'd been at the mercy of a monster.

He'd seen what men could do to a woman. Leave them broken and bloody and a hollow shell. Goddammit. Nausea crawled up his stomach with razor sharp claws at the thought of seeing Celine's exotic green eyes all empty and scared when she woke...

“Everything okay?” He heard Ethan’s voice from a distance, but couldn’t talk.

Riser seemed to sense it and answered for him. “She’ll be okay for now, but needs medical attention.”

Aaron lifted her back into his arms and lowered his head to her neck, shuddering. He had to lean against the SUV for support.

Mr. J was a dead man walking. Aaron would slit his throat himself.

“We'll handle cleanup. Ethan, go with Aaron. Make sure they get taken care of at the hospital,” Hunter said.

“Roger,” Ethan answered.

“Aaron, stay with her, make sure she makes it back to the States.”

Aaron glanced up to see his team leader’s face full of understanding and sympathy. Here they were, coming down off a deadly firefight in the middle of Afghanistan and all he could think about was the girl in his arms. “I’ll get her to a hospital, make sure she’ll recover, but I’m coming back. That bastard is gonna die.”

“We got it covered. You don’t have to come back here, you should take care of your woman.” Ranger said.

Aaron glanced down at Celine, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest, telling himself she was alive and would be okay. Physically at least.

The man he and TF-S had been hunting for nearly two years. Mr. J was responsible for the death of Shane Carter, Cord's cousin and former TF-S sniper. He'd tried to have TF-S ambushed and murdered, twice. Now this...

Was he willing to give up his chance at revenge for Celine?

The helicopters loud roar filled the valley, touching down and throwing up a small sand storm. There was a hospital in Germany, he could drop her there, have her watched and come back. He might even be able to get back to her side before she woke, if he was lucky.

“If we find Mr. J before you get back, I'll give him a nice hello from you.” Merc, the biggest bad ass on their team, the guy who never spoke - hell Aaron didn't even know what unit the guy was in before TF-S.

“Thanks, brother, but I’ll be back.”

“I've got you headed to the nearest SF medical facility. It's just over the border in Uzbekistan. The doctor there has worked with us a few times, I trust him,” Ghost said. “Good luck with your woman.”

“Thanks.”

Aaron followed behind Ethan, shielding Celine's skin from the sand blast thrown up by the helicopter blades. Ethan pulled the door open, hopped inside and then held out his arms. Aaron reluctantly passed Celine to him, launched up into the interior and settled back into one of the seats. Ethan gave Celine back without a word and slammed the door shut.

As they lifted off and headed north west, Aaron focused on Celine and the bruise on her cheek. She’d been struck hard. He'd taken punches to the face, knew the feeling of a blunt fist slamming into your bones and he was a full grown man. Celine was a foot shorter and at least a hundred pounds lighter.

He closed his eyes and leaned back, trying to concentrate on the fact that she was alive more than the need to torture who'd ever laid his hands on her.

Or the cold hard fact that Aaron was the reason she ended up here in the first place. He needed her to wake up more than anything else so he could tell her he was sorry. He should've been there, it was his fault she was kidnapped and nearly sold into slavery.

When he thought about how close he'd come to losing her – Aaron swallowed, he couldn't think about that. He didn't really understand his obsession with Celine or why he needed her like he needed air. He didn't truly know her. They'd only spent a few weeks together. But maybe it was like his grandmother, Noni, had said, she was his soul mate, the one that would change his life.

Before Celine had been kidnapped, he’d been training her along with Ethan and Kate in self-defense. Those last two weeks they spent every day together sparring and fighting and their attraction growing.

He thought he'd have all the time in the world to get to know her better. Even after she'd taken him to his knees with that soul scorching kiss, he'd fought the attraction. Unable to focus on the mission and Celine he'd chosen the mission, ignoring her after Col Grey caught him off post making out. Foolishly thinking he'd have plenty of time to pursue her later.

Only later had never come.

“Hey man, you've got her. She's safe and alive because of you.” Ethan leaned in close from his seat next to them.

Aaron's throat burned and he squeezed her tighter. “I should've never put her in this position in the first place. It's my fault.”

“Hey man, that's total bullshit and you know it. I was there too – remember? Neither one of us suspected a man on the inside. No one on the whole team did.”

“Yeah, but I should've never had her there in the first place. She was a civilian, she wasn't trained.” No he’d been thinking with his dick instead of his head. They'd needed a second female to stand in on what should have been a cake babysitting mission.

“You do remember Kate right? My girlfriend? She was trained, crap she could take me down, and they still nearly got her, too.” Ethan's voice took on a rough edge.

“I can't stop thinking about what they could've done to her. What if we hadn’t found out about the meet? I would've never found her.” Aaron rocked forward and closed his eyes.

“You can't think about it like that, you know that as much as I do. You found her that's all that matters.”

“I know you're right, I know I should be thinking that, but I can't. Not when I know it's my fault.” And not when he knew he'd hurt her at the wedding when he purposefully ignored her.

Ethan shook his head, his blue gaze unreadable. “You’ve just been handed a second chance. After being in the Teams so long, you know that people don't get second chances. You better figure it out before she wakes up and if you really did hurt her – you better work your ass off to win her back.”

Every single word Ethan spoke rang true. His whole life he’d had it so easy with girls, he’d been raised with five sisters, and a stern and stubborn grandmother. He knew women and their idiosyncrasies, their quirks, knew how they could be as unbending as iron one second and then soft as a feather the next.

But Celine took all that knowledge and turned it upside down. She made him feel out of sync, off key – and for the first time in his life he honestly didn't know what he would do.

The helicopter dipped and turned off course and Aaron sat up in alarm. “Where are you going?”

The copilot turned and said, “Been ordered to take you to a different medical facility.”

“Where? You're heading west – I'm not aware of any major medical facility in this region,” Ethan said.

“I know, me either, but command just redirected us.” The copilot turned back around.

Aaron glanced at his teammate, who silently slid his hand down to the weapon at his waist. They had no choice except to go along for the ride, but they would be prepared. An hour later the helicopter landed outside of a low-lying adobe building on the edge of the mountains. Two nuns led by a priest pushing an empty gurney rushed out.

Ethan disembarked first, stopping the group before they reached the helo as Aaron climbed out with Celine.

“Who are you?” Ethan asked with his rifle gripped in his hands.

The priest, a weathered old man about as thick as a bean pole, handed over a small phone. Ethan took it and put it to his ear, leaving Aaron hovering near the helo, ready to launch inside if needed.

“Yes, sir.” Ethan disconnected the call and gave the phone back to the priest. And then he slung his gun over his shoulder and turned to Aaron. “That was Colonel Grey. The command wants her tended to here, they don't want anyone to find out we rescued her.”

“You mean that we rescued Celine and not Caroline.”

“Probably. Grey said we can trust them here.”

The priest spoke up, “I know Mack Grey. I've stitched him up more than a couple times. I am a doctor and the sisters are trained nurses. I promise we will take very good care of her.”

Could he trust them? This could be another trick, another elaborate scheme set up by Mr. J to kill off the one witness to his kidnapping of Caroline Cotter. But this could also be the only facility that could properly take care of Celine and ensure her health. What if J had drugged her with some type of poison? Or she had a bad side effect – he couldn't save her life in an army combat helicopter over the Afghanistan desert.

“What wounds did you stitch up on Colonel Grey?”

The priest answered without hesitation, “A through and through bullet in his right shoulder, a small knife wound you've probably never seen on his left flank, and then a gash on his left thigh that nearly took his life.”