Chapter 7

Mia checked her weapons one more time, and then she rose with the rest of her team, rocking with the turbulence in the plane. The Alphas were blind night jumping into a hot zone. Their orders were to find a group of Americans that had been cut off from escape. They had to find them and get them out of the hot zone.

Mia felt the usual rush of adrenaline that night jumping always had zinging through her system. It was the most dangerous kind of jump, jumps that even the most prolific of skydivers would never consider taking on. It was drifting blind with no hope of knowing what was beneath you until you were too close to correct your path. It had her adrenaline pumping through her veins and she couldn't sit still. Maybe it was a good thing that this case had come in. It was what the Alphas had been created for.

She sighed and kept her eyes on Demon, not looking around the small plane that held the team. She knew Aidan was watching her, she could feel his eyes and they made her even more twitchy. They hadn't spoken more than ten words to each other since that morning a week ago when she'd lied to Aidan. Now it felt like her heart was going to break every time she looked at him.

Demon rose from his seat close to the pilot. He said something to the man and then turned to look at his team. "It's time!" He had to shout because even Demon's rough, gravelly voice was drowned out by the vibrating roar of the plane.

The Alphas rose, checking their gear. Mia hitched her chute a bit higher on her back, tightening the straps and then checked her weapons again. She didn't want to jump and find herself suddenly surrounded by the enemy and her weapons not ready to do the most damage possible.

The pilot did something on his control board and the side of the plane almost seemed to fall away. Air rushed into the cargo hold, air that felt like a hand pushing at Mia's back. She tried to brace herself, to keep her feet but felt herself losing. A second before she would have been sucked out of the plane, she felt arms come around her, holding her until the air pressure in the plane stabilized.

"Thanks." She shouted the word and then turned her head. Seeing Aidan behind her was a shock. She'd sat next to Digger and Aidan had been as far from her as he could actually get in the small plane. Now he was behind her, his golden eyes fixing her to the spot.

He nodded, but his eyes never left hers until she turned away. Even then, she could still feel them. They made her itch; the heat of his gaze sending a wave of need through her that made her miss Demon's next words. When Aidan reached around her and grabbed the clip on her chute, she jumped. He lifted the clip and hooked it on the line, in front of his.

Mia closed her eyes, willing herself to be able to handle being this close to Aidan without throwing herself into his arms and telling him that she'd lied. That she'd do almost anything to feel the way he'd made her feel that night. It wasn't just the sex even though that had been incredible. No, he'd made her feel loved, as if the stigma of her father and everything he'd done to her had disappeared under Aidan's hands and she was good and pure again.

It was because of her father that she'd joined the Alphas, because of what he'd done to her that she lived and breathed what Demon said, wanting to learn from the best. Demon was the best and he had the best crew. When he'd chosen her to be a member of that crew she could have floated. Demon made use of her talents, even some she didn't know she had. She'd do anything for the man, for letting her have this victory. He allowed her to feel good about herself.

But that wasn't even in the ball park of what she'd felt that night with Aidan. Even now, she could imagine the heat of his body between her spread thighs, the touch of his fingers on her pussy, his tongue. A shiver ran through her, a shiver that was a reaction to the memories she savored from that night. She'd held those feeling in check for so long that just knowing he was behind her, his strong thighs brushing against her ass was driving her crazy.

He leaned over her, tipping his head to the side so that he could speak in her ear. "I want you. God, do I want you ... You're driving me crazy, Mia. I need to have you in my bed again. Please, Mia. I need you."

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore what he was saying but it was impossible. She wanted him too. Before she could change her mind, she nodded her head once, hearing him groan. "Yes, okay. When we get back."

"I'm holding you to that, Mia."

Demon's eyes were on Mia and she heard him shout..."Go, go, go!"

She was the first out the door, taking that step from the safety and stability of the plane and into nothingness. Night jumps were her favorite. They may have been the most dangerous but the feeling of being adrift into the darkness of the night sky was amazing. Looking up, she could see the stars, so close that she felt she could reach out and grab a handful. Then her chute deployed and she was jerked upward. A sudden pain had her body arching and she felt sick. She reached up to touch her head, feeling the warm stickiness of blood trailing down from her forehead.

Then there was the rush of blackness and she didn't realize that her chute hadn't deployed correctly, that she would have to cut it loose to be able to deploy her back up. She went limp a second later; the metal hasp from the damaged chute had struck her hard. She was free falling.

Aidan's eyes tracked Mia's free fall, seeing her body twisting and becoming entangled in the lines from her chute. He grabbed his own chute release and then sent his body torpedoing through the air to reach her before it was too late for both of them.

Aidan felt as if he were moving in slow motion as he watched Mia falling. Her arms and legs became entangled in the straps and silk of the chute. As he drew closer, he knew that there was no way to untangle the mess of lines and silk that made her look like a mummy. He would have to find a way to clip her body to his chute so that it would carry the both of them.

Mia groaned, her hand moving toward her head, though she couldn't reach it, not the way she was tied up. She opened her eyes just as Aidan reached her. "W-what... ?"

He didn't answer, quickly undoing an o-clasp and hooking it to the main straps of her chute. "Hold on to me, Mia. Hold on and don't let go!" She nodded, grabbing hold of his flight suit and wrapping her legs around him.

"Ready? This is going to be a jolt, sweetheart. You have to have a good grasp." She nodded again and Aidan pulled the release on his back up parachute. It exploded above them and then Aidan wrapped her in his arms. "Don't do that to me again, Mia."

"My head, Aidan. It hurts." She let her helmeted head rest against his chest. "Why does it hurt?"

"I'm not sure, Mia. It looked like one of the metal hasps struck you when your chute deployed. We'll take care of it when we land."

Mia tried to nod but then moaned again. She felt sick, as if her entire insides wanted to find a way out. She swallowed harshly, but kept her eyes closed.

"Mia, you've got to keep talking to me, baby. Open your eyes; look at me."

"It hurts," she argued weakly. Then she lifted her head, opening her eyes to see his face. Above them was the canopy of his chute, filled with air, it had them floating downward. "Are we ... falling?"

"No, Mia. We're on a night jump, remember? Your chute deployed wrong and I think a hasp hit you in the head. But you're fine. We'll check out your head when we land, okay?" He tried to keep his voice calm even though her words had him even more worried.

Romeo, is she all right?

Demon's voice was loud in his ear and he cocked his head to the side to operate his communicator. She hit her head, Demon. I won't know how much damage until we land.