He knew she loved her family, but how could she ever feel she belonged, with her strange psychic gifts, her tortured past, scarred body, and white hair? Just as he never quite belonged anywhere until he became a GhostWalker.
"You belong with me, Azami. Your family will be my family. My family--the GhostWalkers--will be yours."
"You're a very dangerous man, Sam Johnson," she whispered. "You stand there, tempting me with your pretty words of a future together, the devil in his blue jeans, so good-looking you're impossible to resist. I don't know why I can't say no to you."
His grin widened. His arms slid around her, pulling her tight against him. He didn't want so much as a breath between them. "That will stand me in good stead in the future." He bent his head once more to the temptation of her angelic mouth.
CHAPTER 9
Kissing Azami was as close to paradise as he was ever going to get, and Sam allowed himself to get lost in her, but he was a soldier--a GhostWalker--and there was always that part of him that never rested. He felt the whisper of energy rather than heard footsteps, but he knew they were about to have company. Reluctantly he lifted his head and saw the same regretful knowledge in her eyes. He would never have to worry that his woman wouldn't see danger coming. Her hand had already dropped to the dagger she carried inside the loop of her intricate belt. It was unseen, but he'd felt it the moment he'd pulled her tight against him.
Sam stepped slightly in front of Azami, an instinctive move, not to protect her from danger--he knew by the energy field that Ian McGillicuddy was coming down the hall to check on him. All the members of his team had taken turns dropping in, but he wasn't certain if she wanted to be seen with him or if she wanted the chance to disappear.
Her hand slid over his bare back, the lightest of touches as she tended to do, but he felt the wave of warmth she poured into his mind.
I am not ashamed of being with you, Sam.
Sam found himself smiling like an idiot as Ian pushed open the door. The Irishman stopped abruptly when he saw Sam standing, his jeans carelessly buttoned, shirt off, exposing his wounded abdomen and bare chest. Sam knew instantly that Ian was aware of Azami by the way he inhaled and frowned, confusion in his eyes.
"You can't be in here." Ian stated it as a fact.
Sam sank back onto the bed. He was definitely growing stronger, but standing could be troublesome on shaky legs. The pain of his wound had definitely receded. "Why not?" he asked a little belligerently.
"She can't; it's impossible. I was standing guard at her door." Ian's gaze met Azami's. "To protect you of course."
"Of course, because there are so many enemies creeping around your halls," Azami said, her voice soft and pleasant, a musical quality lending innocence and sweetness.
Ian's frown deepened as if he was puzzled. She certainly couldn't have meant that the way it came out, anyone listening would be certain of it. "Just what are you two doing in here anyway?" he asked, suspicion lending his tone a dark melodrama. He even wiggled his eyebrows like a villain.
Sam kept a straight face with difficulty. Ian was a large man with red hair and freckles. He didn't look in the least bit mean or threatening, even when he tried.
"Azami was just telling me how when she left her room to inquire after my health, there was a giant man with carroty hair snoring in the hallway beside her door."
"There was no way to get past me," Ian insisted.
Sam grinned at him. "Are you saying you did fall asleep on the job, then?"
"Hell no." Ian scowled at him. "I was wide awake and she didn't slip past me."
"You say," Sam pointed out, his tone mocking as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back casually, pleased he could tease his friend. "Still, she's here and that proves you were looking the other way or sleeping, just like that time in Indonesia when we parachuted in and you fell asleep on the way down. I believe that time you got tangled in a very large tree right in the center of the enemies' camp."
Azami's lashes fluttered, drawing Sam's attention. He almost reached out to her, wanting to hold her hand, but she'd mentioned a couple of times she didn't show affection in public.
"You fell asleep while parachuting?" she asked, clearly uncertain whether or not they were joking.
Ian shook his head. "I did not. A gust of heavy wind came along and pushed me right into that tree. Gator told everyone I was snoring when he shoved me out of the plane. The entire episode is all vicious fabrication. On the other hand, Sam here, actually did fall asleep while he was driving as we were escaping a very angry drug lord in Brazil."
Azami raised her eyebrow as she turned to Sam for an explanation. Her eyes laughed at him and again he had a wild urge to pull her to him and hold her tight. Primitive urges had never been a part of his makeup until she'd come along; now he figured he was becoming a caveman. Her gaze slid to his face as if she knew what he was thinking--which was probably the case. He flashed a grin at her.
"It is true. I did fall asleep at the wheel. We nearly went right off a cliff down into a gorge. But there were extenuating circumstances."
Ian snickered. "Are you going to pull out the cry-baby card? He had a little bitty wound he forgot to tell us about, that's how small it was. Ever since he fell asleep he's been trying to make us believe that contributed."
"It wasn't little. I have a scar. A knife fight." Sam was righteous about it.
"He barely nicked you," Ian sneered. "A tiny little slice that looked like a paper cut."
Sam extended his arm to Azami so she could see the evidence of the two-inch line of white marring his darker skin. "I bled profusely. I was weak and we hadn't slept in days."
"Profusely?" Ian echoed. "Ha! Two drops of blood is not profuse bleeding, Knight. We hadn't slept in days, that much is true, but the rest . . ." He trailed off, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Azami.
Azami examined the barely there scar. The knife hadn't inflicted much damage, and Sam knew she'd seen evidence of much worse wounds. "Had you been drinking?" she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. Those long lashes fanned her cheeks as she gazed at him until his heart tripped all over itself.
Sam groaned. "Don't listen to him. I wasn't drinking, but once we were pretty much in the middle of a hurricane in the South Pacific on a rescue mission and Ian here decides he has to go into this bar . . ."
"Oh, no." Ian burst out laughing. "You're not telling her that story."
"You did, man. He made us all go in there, with the dirtbag we'd rescued, by the way," Sam told Azami. "We had to climb out the windows and get on the roof at one point when the place flooded. I swear there was a crocodile as big as a house coming right at us. We were running for our lives, laughing and trying to keep that idiot Frenchman alive."
"You said to throw him to the crocs," Ian reminded.
"What was in the bar that you had to go in?" Azami asked, clearly puzzled.
"Crocodiles," Sam and Ian said simultaneously. They both burst out laughing.
Azami shook her head. "You two could be crazy. Are you making these stories up?"
"Ryland wishes we made them up," Sam said. "Seriously, we're sneaking past this bar right in the middle of an enemy-occupied village and there's this sign on the bar that says swim with the crocs and if you survive, free drinks forever. The wind is howling and trees are bent almost double and we're carrying the sack of shit . . . er . . . our prize because the dirtbag refuses to run even to save his own life--"
"The man is seriously heavy," Ian interrupted. "He was kidnapped and held for ransom for two years. I guess he decided to cook for his captors so they wouldn't treat him bad. He tried to hide in the closet when we came for him. He didn't want to go out in the rain."
"He was the biggest pain in the ass you could imagine," Sam continued, laughing at the memory. "He squealed every time we slipped in the mud and went down."
"The river had flooded the village," Sam added. "We were walking through a couple of feet of water. We're all muddy and he's wigg
ling and squeaking in a high-pitched voice and Ian spots this sign hanging on the bar."
Both men turned toward the door and Azami moved back into the shadows as another man entered. Tucker Addison regarded them all gravely from just inside the doorway.
"What's going on in here?" he demanded. "You sound like a pack of hyenas and there're only two of you."
Sam's belly knotted and the laughter faded. The others couldn't detect Azami's energy any more than Whitney had been able to, although she clearly was a GhostWalker.
"Sam got the big idea to tell Ms. Yoshiie all about the time we 'rescued' the Frenchman and swam with the crocodiles," Ian explained. "Of course he's blaming the entire thing on me and he was just as curious."
Tucker's gaze jumped to the shadows, scanning the room. Sam resisted the urge to reach out to Azami protectively. Tucker, like every GhostWalker, was a predator, highly skilled and dangerous. Azami didn't need his protection any more than Tucker did, but still, the need was there.
She shifted, a deliberate movement to draw Tucker's eye to her, her long lashes at half-mast, giving her a deceptive, innocent, and very demure look. "These men are telling me a tale that is very difficult to believe."
Her voice was soft and musical, pleasant to listen to, a tribute to her heritage. Long strands of hair were artfully loose from her carefully pinned hair. It suddenly occurred to Sam that those beautiful, long, decorative pins holding her hair in place were really lethal weapons. Her thick bangs brought attention to her incredible eyes and delicate features. She looked so fragile, not at all the samurai warrior he knew her to be--and there lay her greatest strength.
Tucker visibly relaxed, his mouth curving into a smile as he took up the conversation. "Actually, the story is very true. Sam and Ian really are that crazy. Well, they weren't the only ones. Gator wanted to go in as well, but everyone knows he's completely insane. He spent too much time in the swamp where he grew up."
"You went in too," Sam pointed out. "And I didn't want to go; I had no choice. I couldn't let Ian go alone."
Tucker shook his head. "You were damned sick of the Frenchman and you wanted to throw his ass in the croc pit. He was really fighting going out in that storm. We thought he was just chickenshit."
Sam shrugged. "Later we found out he'd betrayed his country and fed the terrorist cell intel, helping them set off three simultaneous bombs in Paris, so there was a good reason for him slowing us down. Unbeknownst to us, we were returning him to France for trial with the proof. We thought we were risking our lives to bring him out and he was fighting us. We should have known then, by his behavior, that he didn't want to be rescued. We just thought he was a pain in the ass."
"If you were having such a difficult time with him, why would you stop to go into a bar?" Azami asked, clearly puzzled.
Tucker snorted. "Ian said to see the crocs, and Gator said it was to get free drinks. Sam wanted to feed the crocs the Frenchman. In any case, I look back and they're climbing in through the window. It was broken out and water covered a good two feet of the floor. I couldn't just let them go in there without having their backs. And I sure didn't want to face Ryland and tell him the 'prisoner' we rescued got fed to the crocodiles."
Ian burst out laughing. "As I recall, you pushed me through that window and it was a bit small for you so you kicked out the windowsill."
Sam nodded. "Oh, yeah, that's the way it happened and I shoved Mr. 'Fraidy Cat through and climbed in after you both."
Azami started laughing. "I can't imagine what Mr. Miller had to say to you when he found out."
The three men exchanged looks and began laughing uproariously. "He said, 'Pass me a bottle of scotch,' when he came back and stuck his head through the window."
Azami stared at them incredulously. "So all of you decided, in the middle of a rescue mission, during a flood, with hurricane winds, that it was necessary to go into a bar with crocodiles?"
"Well . . ." Tucker hedged.
Azami's gaze flicked toward the door and she moved, a tiny subtle movement that once again had her fading into the shadows. It seemed more a trick of the light than any real desire to disappear, but Sam couldn't help but admire her skill. She was in a room filled with GhostWalkers, yet she disappeared right before their eyes without even a whisper of cloth brushing the walls. There was no footfall, no rustle of clothing, nothing at all. One moment she was there and then she was gone.
"There was 'Smoke,'" Sam said, his gaze lifting to the door and the man filling it. "He wasn't having any of those crocodiles."
Jonas Harper entered. "Always the voice of reason, ma'am. Someone has to be with the number of crazies in this outfit."
Before the words were out of his mouth, the other men began laughing again. Sam noted that Jonas was looking right into the shadows where Azami had disappeared. It wasn't just that he'd heard her voice, he knew where she was. For some reason the fact that Jonas could see her set his heart tripping. He hadn't expected that tiny surge of jealousy that another man might be able to detect her. He had grown used to the idea that he was the only one who saw what a truly lethal weapon she was.
Azami's warmth poured into his mind, filled with a soothing amusement. He sees in the dark and I am part of the dark. His eyes glow like those of an animal on the hunt.
Whitney screwed with our DNA. It's more than probable that he has large cat or wolf DNA somehow.
"Someone must be the voice of reason," Azami said aloud, "but from the snickers of your fellow teammates, I am uncertain that person is you, sir."
Jonas gave the others a long, slow, reprimanding glare. "I told every single one of you that you were nuts to go into that bar. The trees surrounding it were bent over, almost in half. I told you they looked like praying mantises about to swoop in on prey. And was I right?"
Tucker laughed. "Damn right, you were." He nudged Sam. "Those trees came right down on top of that building and took out the wall and part of the roof with us in it."
"I dropped the Frenchman," Sam confirmed, laughing. "Right on his ass."
"The tree smashed the croc barrier and these big mothers come swimming right through the middle of that bar right at us," Tucker said. "I never saw such big crocodiles. Sam and I were swept underwater by the tree branches and those crocs were loose in the water with all of us."
"Jonas there," Ian continued, "he pulls himself inside and sits up top of the windowsill with his knife in his teeth and then does some kind of circus maneuver and the next thing we know he's hanging upside down from the ceiling and telling us to get the hell out of there, that he's got us covered."
"Of course he looked like a chimp swinging on the chandelier, which, by the way, was hanging by one bolt and was nothing more than a couple of lights strung together by a chain," Sam added, doubling over with laughter. "I'm looking up through the water, this heavy branch across my chest, and I could see Jonas swinging like a madman right over the water."
"So the damn thing snapped." Jonas took up the story, as Ian was laughing too hard to continue. "I landed on the Frenchman, who was screaming his guts out. Sam was no help. The crocs were swimming around like they were confused, sort of circling the room. They looked like prehistoric dinosaurs and pretty damn scary."
Sam felt the energy that could only prelude a GhostWalker. He took up the story quickly, laughing as he did. "Then Gator lets loose and starts yelling like a banshee. He was doing some kind of Cajun ceremonial rain dance or something . . ."
"I knew you were in here swappin' lies about me," Gator said. "I could hear you laughin' two houses over. You're gonna wake the dead. And, ma'am, don' believe a single lie these jokers tell you. I saved 'em all that day. It was our darkest hour, with giant crocodiles swimmin' around the room, water pourin' in from every direction, trees fallin' on us, and the bunch of them grabbin' at the liquor bottles and splashin' around, bait for the crocs."
Azami's low laughter was pure music. Sam was fairly certain he was already addicted to the sound of her voice. That lo
w, alluring tone, so pleasant he could listen to it forever.
"I don't know what a ceremonial Cajun rain dance is, but why would you perform such a ceremony if it was already raining?" she asked.
"Exactly," Tucker said. "We all asked him that later and he just insists he saved us by dancing on the bar and performing weird gyrations."
"I've told you all a million times that bar was wet and I was slippin', not performin' some rain dance in the middle of a hurricane," Gator protested. "I don' even know a rain dance."
Gator's statement drew more laughter. Sam wrapped his arm around his stomach, afraid if he didn't stop soon, his wounds were going to rip open just from pure amusement.
Azami shook her head as she slipped closer to the bed, leaning one slim hip against the frame closest to Sam. "Your mission sounds much more fun than anything I've ever done."
"Fun?" Ian's eyebrows nearly met his hairline. "Ma'am. You don't seem to understand the deadly peril I was in there at that bar. The Frenchman was trying to drown me and the crocodiles were circling me, thinking I was their next meal."
"Didn't you say you wanted to swim with the crocs?" Sam asked. "We all heard it. And as I recall, Tucker and I were the ones stuck underwater and you were clinging to the side of the wall like a lizard."
"I wanted to see them," Ian corrected solemnly, "not swim with them. But you know," he added, brightening significantly, "the sign did say if you swam with them and survived, you get free drinks for the rest of your life. Technically, that bar owes me free drinks, because I swam with the crocs and survived."
"Technically, Ian, you didn't swim with the crocodiles. You barely got your big toe wet once they were loose. That was Sam and me," Tucker snickered.
"How?" Azami asked. "How in the world did you all make it out of there?"
The men exchanged glances and then laughed again.
"Tom Delaney," Sam said.