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 wiggling 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.