“Smith, with me,” Lachlan ordered. “Axel and Callie, you check the other dome.”
Lachlan and Smith found a dark-skinned, older man next to a destroyed communications system. He matched the photo of Dr. Malu. Lachlan stared numbly at the man’s face. It had been a long time since death had made him react.
Shit. Maybe he’d been doing this too long? He remembered his dad. A Marine to the bone, Douglas Hunter had come back from Vietnam and never been the same. He’d had a numbness in his eyes mixed with pain that could explode into rage without warning.
Lachlan shoved the old memories away and focused. There was an empty office he assumed belonged to the base leader, Dr. Rowan Schafer. He had a grainy, black and white picture of her that was particularly unflattering. They hadn’t found her yet.
Smith opened the door to the attached storage room. Nothing.
Lachlan touched his earpiece. All the team wore state-of-the-art microdot communicators. So tiny they were barely visible to the naked eye.
“Clear. Whatever did this, it isn’t here now.” Lachlan glanced at Smith and the man nodded.
“Clear.” Axel’s voice.
“Clear,” Blair added. “We’re starting work on bagging the bodies.”
Lachlan nodded at Smith. They moved back through the tunnels and into the main lab dome. Benches and shelves had been tipped over and torn up. Glass crunched under his boots.
As they moved to join the others in the rec dome, something danced along Lachlan’s senses. He turned in a slow circle. The lab was silent and cold. Nothing moved.
“Boss?” Smith asked.
“Go. I want to take one last look around. See if I can find this object they discovered in the ice.”
Smith nodded and tapped his ear. “Just holler if you need me.”
After he’d left, Lachlan carefully traveled the perimeter of the dome. There had definitely been a struggle in here, and something had rampaged through the lab. He reached the back wall and noted several boxes on the floor, and a shelf leaning against the wall. A shelf?
He studied the waist-high cabinet. The shelf looked like it would fit inside. He spotted another one tossed on the floor.
His eyes narrowed. The cabinet doors were ajar the tiniest bit.
Something moved inside.
Lachlan whipped his CXM rifle up and aimed. With his foot, he kicked the door open.
A woman sprang out with a yell and rammed into him. She was tall and solid, and he staggered back into the bench behind him.
She struggled wildly. Lachlan tried to contain her flailing arms without hurting her. Then he slipped on ice and they went down.
“Fuck,” he bit out.
The woman managed to straddle him and lifted a Glock. Her hands were shaking, her blue eyes a little unfocused, but there was a look of determination on her face. Her teeth were clenched together, tightening an already strong jawline. Dark-red hair escaped from a black, knitted hat on her head.
“Hey.” Lachlan held his palms up. “I’m here to help. My team was sent to find out what happened here.”
She blinked pale-blue eyes rimmed with darker blue that looked strangely familiar. “You’re not the…thing?”
Thing? “No. Just a man.”
“You’re wearing all white…I thought…” She shook her head. “They’re dead.” Her blue-tinged lips trembled.
Lachlan realized her shaking wasn’t all fear or shock. She was dressed in dark cargo pants and a green sweater—which he was man enough to notice clung to very nice curves. However, the clothes clearly weren’t enough to keep her warm in the cool temperature.
“I know,” he said quietly.
Damn, he wasn’t usually the one calming down victims and witnesses they encountered. He usually left that to Seth or Axel. Both had enough charm to make anyone feel easy with them. Well, Seth only turned his on when it suited him, but for Axel, it was like breathing.
But for some reason, Lachlan wanted to comfort this woman.
He reached up and touched her arm. “Let me help you?”
The pistol stayed stubbornly aimed at his chest. Lachlan weighed the odds, then in a lightning-fast move, he gripped her wrist and reared up. He spun her around until her back was flush against the front of him, her curvy butt resting in his lap.
She gasped, bucking against him. She tried to wrench her arm and the gun out of his grip.
His lips brushed her ear. “Just relax. You don’t need the gun.” He didn’t want to hurt her, but he tightened his hold until the gun clattered on the floor.
Her shaking increased. “They’re dead.” A tortured whisper.
“You’re cold.” Lachlan wrapped his arms around her, sharing his heat. “We need to get you warmed up.”
She held herself stiff.
“Let me help you,” he said. “I’m not going to let anything hurt you.”
She was stiff for another long second, then she relaxed into him. She turned her head, their faces only inches apart. “Okay.”
He nodded. “Okay.” She had a faint smattering of freckles he found pretty attractive.
They stayed there, him wrapped around her, for a full minute.
“I’m going to find you some warmer clothes and blankets.” Lachlan moved to stand.
Her hands gripped his wrists. “Don’t leave me.”
There was fear buried deep in her quiet words. Lachlan felt an insane need to protect this woman. “Okay.” He touched his ear. “Callie? Can you find some cold-weather clothes and blankets, and bring them to the lab? We have a survivor.”
“Roger that, boss,” was Callie’s steady response.
For now, Lachlan kept his hold on the woman. He focused on keeping her warm, and not on the curvy ass nestled against him.
“What’s your name?” she whispered.
“Lachlan.”
“They’re all dead, Lachlan.” Her voice hitched.
“Yeah, they are. I’m sorry.”
She swiveled to look at him again and those blue eyes hit him. “They’re dead, and it’s all my fault.”
Chapter Four
Rowan sat on a chair in the rec room, wrapped in a blanket.
Someone had finally shut off the door to the damaged dome, and the air was starting to warm up inside. She finally felt like she was thawing out. Unfortunately, as her body lost its numbness, so did her head.
She couldn’t believe what had happened. Emily, Isabel, Samuel…
Rowan cleared her throat. “I need coffee. Really strong coffee.”
She glanced around at the white-suited team, all holding futuristic-looking rifles slung over their shoulders. None of them were smiling, and they all looked like they had badassness running through their veins. She sighed. She wasn’t sure badassness was a word.
“Here.”
She looked up and saw that her rescuer had brought her a steaming-hot mug of coffee. It wasn’t topped with chocolate, but it would do.
Rowan wrapped both hands around the mug and took a sip. It was heavy on the sugar, and to her caffeine-starved system, it was heavenly. Her gaze moved back to Lachlan’s face as he sat across from her. Okay, this man might be easy on the eyes, but he didn’t just have badass running through his veins, she was pretty sure it permeated his cells.
Luckily, Rowan didn’t scare easily. He was handsome, in a rugged way, with dark scruff on his cheeks and jaw. From what she could tell, under the bulky, cold-weather gear, he was big and muscled. She looked at the other soldiers lining the rec room. They were all big and tough, except for the two females. They just looked tough.
“Dr. Schafer?”
Her gaze came back to the man in front of her. He had scary eyes, flat and assessing, and they were an unusual color—gold, like a tiger’s eyes.
She froze. It couldn’t be…
“What?” He tilted his head, a move that unlocked memories from a long time ago.
“Lachlan?” she whispered.
He went still.
“Lachlan Hunter?”
He blinked slowly, his face still impassive, but she got the impression that she’d surprised him.
“It’s Rowan,” she said. “Rowan Caswell.”
Now his eyes widened. “Little Rowan?”
She set her drink down. “Not so little anymore.” Without stopping to think, she moved, cupping one of his cheeks. This was the boy next door, who’d snuck her chocolate and made her childhood bearable. “God, it’s been years.”