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She stood, shoving her cap into her belt. Bella brushed against her. “I’m okay, girl,” she said to her partner.
EMTs had arrived and were surrounded by cops for protection. A couple of them pushed past her to see what they could do for Danver. They would soon discover their attempts to resuscitate him would be in vain.
Others were already working frantically on the other guy. Skye maneuvered around them with Bella right beside her and stood looking over the shoulder of a crouching EMT. This victim was dressed in a SWAT uniform, but most of his gear had been stripped away, laying bare his torn neck and bloody chest.
The pounding rhythm—the chanting, the keening—started once more inside Skye’s mind.
There was another decision to make. Was he yet another fallen hero she needed to help to the other side?
The cop was apparently breathing…barely. Fortunately, they’d already taken the first steps to stop the bleeding and were now busy setting up their medical equipment. Not watching her.
She took the man’s hand and stared at his face. Owens. She recognized him, too. Not that they’d often gotten within twenty feet of each other. In Angeles Beach, the SWAT team trained alone.
His features were strong and masculine—so appealing that she had an urge to stroke his slack cheek.
Get real, Rydell. She had work to do here. Fast.
As she continued to grasp Owens’s limp hand, a sensation pulsed through her, startling her. There was something this officer had left to accomplish—needed to accomplish.
She had felt it in the other injured people whose lives she had determined to save. It was an important factor in her split-second decisions.
Those she had saved had never been so far gone. But, with this man, there was something utterly critical yet to come in his future. That was what she felt. What she knew. And there was more. Something disquieting. Something important to her? A bond of some kind between them?
She sensed some intense emotions inside his mind as well as a determination to survive.
“You’ve got to move, Officer,” an EMT shouted. She ignored him for an instant.
This cop could not die. She would not permit it even though she felt his spirit approach the bridge where Danver had crossed.
You will live. It is not yet your time. Open your eyes. The unspoken voice issuing commands was hers, and it was inundating him with a life force that flowed intentionally, excruciatingly, from her.
Officer Owens groaned and his eyes opened. They were dark, the deep brown of polished mahogany, and stared straight into Skye’s.
“Holy shit,” said one of the EMTs. “I thought this guy’d had it. But look at those vitals. Atta way, sir!”
They’d hooked Owens up to some monitors. Apparently whatever showed there looked promising.
Yes, Skye thought as she stood up and got out of the way. You will live.
That didn’t make up for helping the other officer to die, but it lessened her pain, a little.
Although utterly exhausted, she managed to smile down at Owens, soothingly and encouragingly.
And when he gazed faintly back at her while lying there with blood covering his badly injured body, a sensation she could not identify rolled through Skye. Recognition? Pleasure? Satisfaction? Anticipation?
All of them?
Time to get out of there. Bella and she had work to do, and it didn’t involve daydreaming.
And yet, she couldn’t help watching as Owens’s eyes closed again. Slowly. Peacefully.
He was going to live.
Skye hoped that whatever she’d sensed he’d needed to do was worth it and that he would in fact accomplish it.
She nearly stumbled over her own shuffling feet as she took Bella’s collar and made her way out of the warehouse.
In the chaos outside, she was handed a shirt by another officer. “Suspect’s still at large. Got this from his automobile—ran his plate. See if Bella can find this bastard.”
Skye led Bella back inside to where officers who’d witnessed the shooting said the suspect had stood to shoot the two downed men. She held the shirt out, and Bella sniffed it.
She immediately picked up the scent. Skye followed—until Bella lost track of it in the parking lot outside. She couldn’t pick it up again.
The suspect must have stolen a different vehicle.
He was gone.
Chapter 2
“That’s why you feel so tired,” said Hayley Sigurd. The willowy ice-blonde who’d been Skye’s friend since childhood smiled sympathetically. Although she’d kept her voice low, it was unnecessary. Bernardo’s at the Beach wasn’t only the favorite dinner hangout of Skye’s group of transplanted Minnesotans, it was also Angeles Beach’s most popular restaurant, and the boisterous crowd around their table of four was noisy enough that no one could be eavesdropping.
“Yeah,” agreed Kara Woods, at Skye’s left. “Helping the first guy pass over was draining all by itself. And if that second guy was as gone as you say…” Kara was the most curvaceous of them. Her straight black hair belied her mother’s Nordic ancestry, but her dad’s side of family was Native American, and her strikingly sharp features had come from him…just as her powers, like Skye’s and Hayley’s, had come from her mom’s side of the family.
“Of course he was.” Ron Gollar jutted his broad, smooth chin out belligerently as if expecting the women to contradict him…as usual. Like the others, Skye sometimes enjoyed giving Ron a hard time for fun, but not today, when she felt utterly serious and drained.
Although Ron was also twenty-seven, he was like Skye’s little brother. He’d been in the marines for a while and now was a rookie ABPD cop. He had been at the warehouse, but not close enough to the victims to see how far gone they were. At the moment, he was just being supportive of Skye, which made her want to hug him.
Skye sipped her peach margarita, feeling the sweet alcohol drink slip through her, relaxing her even more. She stared out at the golden sky. The sun was just setting over the Pacific, a beautiful, peaceful twilight that also helped to mellow her mood. As exhausted as she’d felt since her work at the crime scene that afternoon, she’d also been edgy. Worried. Had she made the right choices this time?
And what was that odd sensation she had felt about the second victim, Owens? Since she’d left his side, she’d ached to see him again—to assure herself he really would be all right, to try to understand his unassailable need to survive, and why she had felt so compelled to save his life.
“It’s the first time I ever took on two victims at the same time,” she said to her friends. “How do you two handle it?”
Kara was an emergency medical technician. She faced multiple casualties nearly every day. And Hayley, who was on her way toward becoming a trauma surgeon, did as well. As a male, Ron did not share their unique abilities and never had to engage in the life-and-death decisions that Skye shared with her female friends. Friends whose mothers, like hers, were all descended from Valkyries.
The waitress came to the table balancing delectable-looking salads containing greens with nuts and fruit, smothered in raspberry vinaigrette. “Here you are,” she said. “The rest of your food will be up shortly.”
Skye used her fork to play with a piece of arugula. The others dug in right away, though, even Ron.
“You’ll get used to it, honey,” Kara eventually said. Her piercing, hazel eyes had gone as sympathetic as Hayley’s blue ones. “It is exhausting, though. Drains our own life force. I’ve even managed to bring back a couple of guys from a motorcycle accident at the exact same time—although neither was as far gone as the officer you described.”
“Doesn’t it help when you can also use regular lifesaving medical stuff, too?” Ron took a piece of bread from a basket. He’d curved his broad shoulders beneath his white T-shirt as if waiting to be criticized. “You two have it easier than a cop like Skye, don’t you?”
“How would you know, twerp?” Hayley asked good-naturedly. Then she frowned, creating lines on her high forehead that the wispy bangs of her pale hair didn’t quite conceal. “But you’re right, Ron. Kara and I always use whatever resources we can and Skye has her Bella, who helps her find the bad guys. But we’re all stuck with making tough decisions about which people should live and which should die.”
All were silent for a moment, and Skye felt the weight of what Hayley had said.
They could have stayed in the familiar environment where their families had resided for over a century. There, in a small Minnesota town, their mothers and their mothers’ mothers, only had to use their special life-preserving powers on rare occasions when those who were young and healthy and not ready to head toward the afterlife suffered accidents or other life-threatening situations and needed to be brought back from the brink. No need for the split-second decisions that had to be made in other circumstances. Most of the time, their mothers merely held the hands of the elderly and infirm—those clearly at the crossroads between life and death—easing them to the other side.
Over the years, a few with their powers had left the area, intending to partake in a broader mission, but it hadn’t been the majority.
Until now. Skye’s generation was different. Many chose to leave so they could use their powers to reach out in secret and help people in other communities whose females did not share their powers.
Skye and her three closest friends had often talked about moving to where trauma was an everyday occurrence, to maximize the number of lives they saved and those whose ends they eased. Ron could not actively participate, but he’d made it clear he wanted to join them and help however he could.
Eventually, they’d settled on Angeles Beach. Near L.A. and growing almost as fast, it had more than its share of violence. And by the time they’d arrived, they each had decided on what path to take to achieve their goals.
Skye had already trained in law enforcement at home and was a K-9 cop. With a caring, nonhuman partner, she could achieve what she needed to with as much secrecy as possible.
She had already assisted quite a few people to the other side and had brought others back. But not fellow cops. And not anyone like Owens.
“You okay, Skye?” Hayley reached her slender hand over and patted Skye’s arm. “If you’re too tired to eat, we’ll get our dinners to go and I’ll drive you home.”
“No way!” Skye yanked her thoughts back to where they belonged. “I’m fine,” she said. “Hey, there’s our food.”
The waitress was back with their mostly seafood entrées, and Skye joined in with the good-natured banter and sharing of bites that followed.
But in the back of her mind, she wondered about the man whose life she had snatched from certain death.
What was it about SWAT Officer Trevor Owens that now intrigued her?
Trevor felt as if he’d been run over by one of the Robotic Offensive Bomb vehicles used by the ABPD’s bomb squad.
He lay still and exhausted in his hospital bed, knowing it was only the drugs being sucked into his bloodstream via the IV needle in his arm that kept him from hurting like hell.
The room was tiny, but it was all his. There was no one to fight him for control over the TV mounted overhead, but he didn’t even have enough strength to push a button on the remote. All he could do was wonder how—and why—he’d survived.
He’d thought he was dying. Dead. Killed in the line of duty, protecting the public from a suspect who’d taken down yet another civilian victim and now a cop, too. Danver, damn it! His team leader didn’t deserve that.
Trevor had always figured that would be how he’d go. On his own time, though. Up against a guilty suspect who’d gotten away with murder before Trevor was on him. A suspect about to be stopped from doing it again, even if Trevor had to die to take him down.
But Trevor hadn’t had a chance to do things his way. He’d had to play by the book this time, and what had it gotten him?
Shot in the neck. The kind of wound that’s usually fatal. But he hadn’t died. Instead, he’d heard someone telling him to get his ass in gear and get back to the world of the living.
Then he’d opened his eyes to find that hot blond female K-9 officer staring at him. It seemed as if she was the one hollering in his head to wake up.
Rydell was her name. She was relatively new to the force—not that his guys fraternized much with the rest of the department. He’d met her, seen her around, definitely noticed her. But had he ever talked to her?
Not that he remembered. But—
The phone rang. It was on a little table right beside him, and it took all his concentration to swivel and pick up the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Owens, that you?” It was Greg Blanding, a fellow SWAT officer and Trevor’s closest bud on the force.
“What do you want? You were here only a few minutes ago.”
“Try a few hours ago. And I’m just about to go into the captain’s debriefing about your big show yesterday.”
“Say hi to them all for me.”
“Yeah. Will do.” Blanding sounded as if he was getting misty-eyed. Hell.
“Any word on Marinaro?” Trevor asked gruffly.
“No, but I’ll let you know if I hear of anything at the meeting.”
“Good.” He paused. “We gotta get that SOB.”
“Yeah.” Blanding’s tone was icy now. “Gotta run. I’ll call again later. You okay?”
“Sure, if feeling like my neck’s been run over by an R.O.B. vehicle is okay.”
Blanding laughed. “Got it. Talk to you soon.”
“Hey, do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“That K-9 officer, Rydell? If she’s at the meeting, tell her I need to talk to her. Right away.”
“Why?”
Damned if he knew. But it felt urgent. Like his life depended on it.
He had to give Blanding some explanation. “She must be my lucky charm. I opened my eyes after I was shot, and what did I see? Her face.”
“Not a bad face, either,” Blanding said, sounding as if he was getting all worked up just thinking about Rydell.
“Go screw yourself, Blanding. And her, too.” Now, why the hell had he said that? It only made him wild to think his friend might even consider getting it on with that gorgeous, sexy woman whom he now had one hell of an urge to talk to.
“I’ll leave that to you, sir,” Blanding said with a laugh as he hung up.
Blanding’s remark peeved Trevor even more, but it gave him a sudden surge of strength, which made it possible for him to pick up the remote and push the button to turn on the TV news.
“Easy,” Skye whispered to Bella, whose head kept turning as more people entered the roll call room. Captain Boyd Franks had called a late-afternoon debriefing after yesterday’s warehouse situation. Everyone who’d been on duty yesterday was to attend, except for those patrolling beats right now.
Skye, still tired but functioning, sat uncomfortably on a chair at the end of a row. She had chosen a place in the middle of the room, which was now filled with the pulsing hum of dozens of conversations.
Ron slipped in beside her and lifted his hand in greeting to a couple of the guys.
It looked like her pal was fitting in well—maybe even better than she was even though she’d been in Angeles Beach for about eight months. Skye hadn’t spent a lot of time getting to know her fellow cops. Getting too chummy with them might make it harder to do what she had to, when she had to do it.
Bella whined, and Ron gave her a rough pat. “How you doin’, girl?”
Skye smiled. “Her or me?”
“Both.”
