With that thought, Nivea leapt from her seat. She moved over the console, planted her legs on either side of Eli, and lowered herself to a straddling position in about ten seconds flat. The shock combined with a slightly annoyed look on his face said he wasn't impressed. That was fine because she wasn't finished yet.

"This morning was about you, in your time, and on your terms." She cupped his face in her palms as she spoke. "That was cool, but I'm a take-charge type of female. When I hunt I don't settle for not catching my prey."

He opened his mouth to speak and she dove in, taking his tongue into her mouth and sucking deeply, until she felt his hands at her lower back, going even lower to cup her ass. She loved that feeling, loved how his fingers dug right into her skin, squeezing, owning. She lifted slightly, giving him the access to move his hands deeper, so that even as he gripped her cheeks, the tips of his fingers rubbed along her center, causing her pussy to pulsate with need.

"I said," he mumbled when she let her head fall back, absolutely loving the feel of his hands on her. "We are not doing this."

Nivea nodded, rotating her hips over the finger he'd now moved to rub right along her clit. "Yeah, you said that," she whispered, wanting desperately to step out of those damned mission pants so she could feel him, skin on blessed skin.

She leaned in once again, nipping his lip before reminding him, "But we are."

Her tongue found his again and Nivea felt like she was drowning. He tasted like peppermint, probably because he always kept some type of mint on him.

She moved her hands down to grip his shoulders, strong and rigid, which she'd already known from all the sparring they'd done in the last few weeks. Eli had a great body, all chiseled and muscled, glorious to look at and even more enticing to feel. Nivea pressed against him then, pushing her breasts into his chest, her pussy into his dick. He held her there, thrusting upward as the kiss deepened, their moans filling the interior of the truck.

Then the gunshots sounded and they both jumped.

Her face stayed poised just a couple of inches from his, her mouth still parted as she panted out her breath. His hands stayed on her ass but his gaze immediately went to the left, hers going in the opposite direction, their bodies taut. In the next second they were both out of the Jeep, weapons drawn as they made their way to the next sound of guns being discharged. Eli had yelled "shots fired" into his com link, the sound of his voice exploding in Nivea's ear. Breaking out into a run, they stopped at the back entrance of the second cabin, backs plastered against the wooded walls, arms up, guns in hand.

Every guard on duty would be patched in and would hear the call. They'd check with the controllers at Havenway for the location and head this way as soon as they confirmed. In the meantime, Eli nodded at Nivea. She took the sign and fell to her knees, coming up right beneath a back window. There was a light on so she could look inside. She held back a curse and held up two fingers indicating that there were two men, lying facedown on the floor, blood pooling from their heads.

They were just about to move again, possibly to gain entrance through the back door when there was noise and voices. In seconds, three others joined the party. Agent Wilson entered with his gun drawn, along with the two men that had accompanied him out here. They entered the room of the cabin where the dead bodies lay.

"Let's go."

Nivea heard the words but still did not move.

"Now, Cannon!" Eli said louder. "This isn't our party."

"They're dead," she told him as she got to her feet. "Those men are dead and we're just leaving them."

Eli stopped, turning so that he was now in her face. He grabbed the front of her shirt, pulling her up on tiptoe so that his nose was practically touching hers. "They're humans. Let them take care of their own. We have to move before more of them arrive and question why we, ones that Wilson will already know are connected to Rome and Nick, are here in the first place."

He was right. She knew it. But those men were dead. They'd been killed and Nivea wanted to know by whom. She wanted to know why. Mostly, after seeing the familiar tattoo on one of the dead men's wrists, she wanted to confirm that it had nothing to do with her father and the people he'd been working with for the last ten years.

CHAPTER 4.

Eli was pulling out of the driveway before Nivea had a chance to put her seat belt on. Whoever had been doing the shooting inside that cabin had come running out just seconds after they'd moved from the window. Their guns were immediately raised and even more shots fired.

Did he want to pull his own weapon and shoot back? Hell yes! But Cannon was with him and if he pulled his weapon she was likely to do the same thing. Then they'd both be up against who knew how many flying bullets and if one hit her ... he clenched his teeth at the thought.

"Why are we the ones running? We have guns too!" she exclaimed about ten seconds after he'd pressed his foot so hard on the gas pedal he thought he might actually break it.

"We're also all the way out here with no backup!" Eli yelled back at her, simultaneously looking into the rearview mirror to see that not only had the guys shot at them, but they were now chasing them in their car.

"Fuck!" he yelled, making a quick turn off the main road. If he could keep them in the mountain terrain, cutting through the worn paths in and out of the trees, maybe he could lose them.

He cut the lights to the Jeep and spoke into the com link. "Being pursued, can't get back onto main road. I repeat, being pursued."

The first shots to hit the Jeep cracked the back windshield, which meant they had to be using a hell of a powerful gun or rifle. The windows to all the Assembly vehicles were lined with one-and-a-half-inch bulletproof acrylic. It didn't break completely but there was an indentation with spidery cracks instantly breaking away from it and the force rocked the vehicle as they sped over rocky terrain.

"To hell with this!" Nivea yelled.

"No!" Eli yelled right at her, but to no avail.

She'd already drawn her weapon and lowered her window. In the next second she was hanging out of it, aiming and pulling the trigger, bullets firing in rapid succession.

"Get your ass back in here, guard! Cease your fire! That's a direct order!" he yelled.

Nivea kept right on firing while Eli continued to swerve from hitting trees, fallen branches, and all other woodland paraphernalia that he wished like hell weren't in his way at this very moment. There was another direct hit to the back window and the Jeep faltered once more. Eli knew if they sustained another assault like that the window would completely shatter and they'd be vulnerable. Either something had to stop them from shooting or he had to find somewhere to hide. The odds of either one were slim.

Except Cannon continued shooting, and as much as he hated to admit it, whatever she aimed at, she hit. They were going downhill now at an extremely fast rate of speed. He pressed gently on the brake and yelled to her once more. "Either kill them or get your ass back in this truck, Cannon!"

She didn't acknowledge him in any way, just kept shooting until there was a loud noise and an explosion of light behind them. Eli swerved at the sight of the burning car twenty feet from them, his heart hammering in his chest. He turned the wheel so hard this time the entire vehicle jerked and jollied down the mountain. The vehicle was swerving now, going whichever way it wanted as Eli had lost full control. Because he had no headlights on, he saw nothing through the front windshield but darkness and heard nothing from behind but the remnants of the burning car falling to the ground, the flames cracking against the night air.

He reached across the seat, grabbing Cannon by her waist and pulling her back inside. Of course she couldn't come quietly, or limply, for that matter. She kicked and screamed and yelled and he ignored every second of it, opening the driver's side door and rolling out with her wrapped tightly in his arms, only seconds before the Jeep crashed into a tree, creating another loud noise and burst of fiery light on the mountaintop.

She was beneath him again.

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Nivea Cannon's strong, athletic body with all its barely there curves that enticed him more than he wanted to admit, was flush against his harder, tougher body, wreaking holy hell all over the place.

The tall licking flames coming from two downed vehicles had already invaded the mountaintop range. Eli moved, spreading his legs wider, grabbing the back of her neck and tucking it tightly into his chest. The heat surrounding them was palpable, sweat rolled down the back of his neck and spine prompting him to hold onto her even tighter. There was a crash and he figured tree limbs were burning and breaking, falling to the ground where, if unattended, this accident might actually turn into a catastrophe. But he couldn't think about a forest fire right now, couldn't think along the lines of being trapped between the flames and the night elementswhich were quickly turning chilly. His truck was gone and with it, backup clothes, weapons, and a first-aid kit he thought he might need soon.

Still, he didn't let Cannon go.

Until she squirmed.

She moved beneath him and goddammit, Eli felt like she was gyrating, like she was pushing her pussy up to meet his raging hard dick in an effort to join the two forevermore. His temples pounded at the thought. His temples and his dick throbbed while inside, his cat hissed.

They weren't safe. They were definitely not safe enough for him to be lying here thinking about fucking his trainee when he should have been thinking about how to get them out of here sooner rather than later.

"... me."

The solitary word broke through his thoughts and he looked down to see the top of her head. Her hair was mussed, he thought with a frown. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw flames reaching higher into the evening sky and cursed.

"... off!"

It was the next word he heard before he felt something rising between his legs. Something that wasn't what he wanted to rise down there at this particular time. He moved the lower half of his body to the side just in time to avoid the knee she had raised.

"What the hell?" he asked, looking down at her again.

This time she pushed at his chest until she was able to lift her head and glare back up at him.

"Get off me, you idiot! I can't breathe."

"You can't breathe because there's fire and smoke all over the place and if you hadn't noticed, I'm trying to protect your ass from that."

In reply she pushed at him again, this time with much more force. Cannon was not a weak woman. In fact, she was stronger than a lot of the guards Eli had trained. He'd always known that about her, just hadn't liked admitting it too much, and never to her. She was still no match for him, but he did move a bit to oblige her efforts. She let out a whoosh of breath and squirmed a little more, until he could swear he felt the tight buds of her nipples moving across his chest. But that was just TMItoo much imaginationon his part.

"They're dead," she said solemnly, her dark eyes looking up at him.

There was no emotion there and he hadn't expected to find anything. Cannon was, above all else, a professional at what she did. She took her job as a guard more seriously than he thought he did sometimes. With any other woman he would have expected tears or fear or whichever emotion she chose to cope with what had just gone down. But not Cannon.

Her eyes were focused, her hands steady as they pushed at him again, her voice clear and concise. She was right at this momentaside from wanting him to get the hell off herassessing the situation to see how they could get out of there before anyone showed up to ask questions.

"I gave them our location when we first heard the shots," he began. "They would have pulled up the Jeep's tracking immediately."

"The Jeep's gone," she said, coming up to a sitting position and looking around.

Eli looked around too. He glanced at the side reflection of her faceno cuts or bruises. Farther down his eyes raked over her body looking for blood or burns, anything to say that he'd been off in his protection and she'd gotten hurt anyway. A lump formed in his throat as he waited for the final results.

She was saying something but he didn't hear her, he was too busy grabbing her jaw and turning her so that he could see her whole face at once. Smooth caramel-toned skin, thick eyebrows arched perfectly, long lashes, high cheekbones, thin lipsthe lower one plumper than the top, long neck ... she was unharmed, he thought with a blink or two to get his mind back in the right place.

"I'm fine," she said with a little bite. "We can't sit here. The smoke's getting thick and the police and rescue units will be here soon. We weren't far enough away from the resort for no one to have seen or heard anything."

Eli nodded. "You're right. Can you walk?" he asked as he got to his feet.

She stood, reaching behind to pull her backup gun free from the band of her pants. "Can you?"

He removed his gun from his side, trying like hell not to notice how totally sexy she looked just now. "Highway's this way," he told her, turning his back on her and walking in the direction he wanted her to follow. "They'll come through the main roads to find us."

"Yeah, but they'll find the cops first. We should call them and give them an alternate route," she was saying from behind.

"You know an alternative route?" he asked.

"No," she replied after a few hesitant seconds.

"Then we'll head for the highway."

It seemed like they were walking forever and getting absolutely nowhere. The terrain consisted of branches and dirt-impacted leaves riddling the ground. It was rough going downhill, up a winding incline, and then back to level ground once more. Yet Nivea wasn't tired. Adrenaline buzzed through her body with a uniform rhythm.

Her muscles were bunched, her senses heightened, her steps sure and purposeful while moving through the night. Above, the trees weren't as thick and tangled to create a canopy like in the Gungi, but they were full and mature, standing like guardians to the area, protecting what wildlife it could. Only they weren't humans and the hike to the highway was much longer than they'd anticipated.

Eli the Great would never admit that, nor would he stop to regroup or possibly ask her thoughts on which way they should go. He was following his instincts, she knew, but her instincts were telling her something else. They were warning her that this little escape was about to turn bad, quick.

"Stop!" she said finally, halting her own steps, knowing that if he chose to ignore her words, he'd hear that she wasn't crunching along the ground behind him.

It was well-known that Eli's and his brother's senses were much more acute than any of the other shifters. Nobody was really sure why, and the twins weren't the type to wear their secrets on their sleeves. Yet they were renowned for their added awareness and much more powerful shifters because of it. Nivea didn't think that made a difference in how she felt about Eli ... until he kept walking.

"Eli?" She yelled to him once. "Eli!"

He finally turned, already about fifteen feet away from her.

"What is it?" he asked. "Why are you stopping?"

Even through the night she could see his features plainly, the sharp cut of his jaw and the light sprinkle of his goatee. His eyes were blocked as usual, but the wrinkle in his forehead told her he was worried. The muscle ticking in his jaw said he was angry on top of that worry. And the rigid stance he took when he was looking at her with nothing short of irritation said that now might not be the best time to question him.

Still, Nivea had never been known to take the easy way out.

"I think we might be lost," she told him.

"I don't get lost."

She nodded, knowing that was what he was going to say.

"I didn't say 'you' were lost, I said 'we.'"

He frowned.

"Look around you, there's no road in sight, nor is there any illumination from a streetlight."

"No streetlights on the highway," he corrected her grimly.

"Fine, but when's the last time you heard a vehicle driving by, saw some headlights?"

"In case you failed to notice, we're in the forest," he told her. "How would we hear cars or see headlights, if we're in the goddamned forest, Cannon? Think!" he yelled at her.

Nivea didn't speak, she was thinking, and not because he said so. She was very aware of everything around them, down to the creaking of the crickets pouncing about on the forest floor and in the trees. She could still scent the burning of the gas in the truck that had crashed, hear the crackle of fire that wasn't too far behind them. She could taste the rain as a shower was imminent and she hadn't heard any vehicles on the road or seen any headlights. If she was aware of all those things, why wasn't Eli?

She walked to him then, feeling the rage and something she couldn't quite name surrounding him like a barrier.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He huffed. "I'd be better if we weren't standing here having a futile conversation. There's an extraction team on their way for us. We should keep moving."

"Maybe we should take a rest. The team will be able to locate us through our e-bands. We don't have to keep trekking around this forest, going in circles. I think we're deep enough in to have sufficient cover. Besides, nobody's following us."

"How the hell do you know that?" he asked, gritting his teeth.

"Because I don't smell them," she said slowly, eyeing him carefully. "Do you?"

Eli remained quiet, his lips tight, shoulders strained. "If you were tired of walking all you had to do was say so," he told her roughly, pushing past her and heading back to where they'd just passed a grouping of trees with protruding roots.

"Come," he demanded. "Sit here and rest."

Nivea didn't like his tone and might have considered arguing if he weren't her commanding officer. Her mind was also whirling around the possibility that Eli's senses weren't working as well as they should be, and what that might imply.

She walked over and lowered herself to the ground, folding her legs beneath her as she sat. Eli still stood, staring down at her like she was a disobedient child.