The aged human reached out, his grasp surprisingly firm as he gave a nod of acknowledgment.
While the younger Kazakh continued to inspect his wrist and hyperventilate on the other side of the tent, Tegan strode to Micah’s bedside and took out the satellite phone he’d carried with him since leaving the States. He would need to call Elise and let her know he’d found their son.
But first, he needed to make arrangements to get him home.
He punched in the code that connected him to a secured line at the Order’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.
“I have him,” he told Lucan Thorne, the founder of the Order and Tegan’s oldest friend. “I’ve got Micah.”
The exhalation on the other end of the line was filled with relief. “And the rest of his team?”
“Just Micah. He’s in bad shape. It doesn’t look good for the others, Lucan.” He glanced down at Micah on the cot, his slack lips stained with the blood he desperately needed but had barely absorbed. “Ah, fuck, Lucan. It doesn’t look good for my son, either.”
“We’re on it,” Lucan replied, his low voice grim but steady with resolve. “We’ve already got your coordinates. Gideon’s making arrangements to have a medevac team on the ground to pick you up ASAP.”
“Thanks.”
“No thanks required. You ought to know that by now, brother.”
Yeah, he did. Tegan fell silent, unable to express how much he needed to hear his friend’s reassurances. In the background, he heard the traces of Gideon’s British accent as he spoke and the clack of his fingers typing on a computer keyboard.
“Gideon says Lazaro Archer’s already responded to the call,” Lucan said. “He’s dispatching one of his units from Rome as we speak.”
“Okay.” Tegan stole another look at his son. He couldn’t hold back the jagged sigh that tore out of him. “And Lucan? Tell Lazaro to hurry.”
CHAPTER 3
Ash clung to the back of his parched throat.
Micah tried to swallow, but his jaw felt rusted tight. His tongue was thick, his mouth as dry as a desert. He groaned, and was shocked to hear the low sound vibrate deep in his chest.
He was alive?
Fuck.
Pain in his lungs as he choked in a gasping breath wrenched his crusted eyelids open, but only for a second. His retinas felt aflame, still seared from the explosion of light that had come out of nowhere and lit up the ghostly forest brighter than the midday sun.
He could still see his fallen teammates after he’d rushed back to find them. Or, rather, what little had been left of them.
All five Breed warriors who had served with him in their elite unit of the Order, gone.
Nothing but cinders and melted weapons near the epicenter of the unearthly blast.
As their captain, his men would have followed him into any battle—and had—no matter the risk. Instead, the impulse that had pushed Micah to command the team deeper into the wastelands of the Siberian interior had led them into a trap he never saw coming.
He should have stayed on course.
They’d had their orders. They had carried out their mission with flawless precision. When it was done, he should have taken his team back to base. Instead, he’d felt a prickling at the back of his neck, as if the harsh forest terrain whispered to him. Beckoned him deeper. Kept pulling him forward until the taiga gave way to a woodland of skeletal, lifeless trees that seemed to stretch on for miles and miles.
He knew the place, even though he’d never stepped foot there. It was crazy. Hell, maybe he was fucking crazy.
That’s what he’d thought when he spotted the white doe that had emerged out of the charred trees. He’d seen it before, but this time it was real. So was the woman accompanying the ethereal animal. She, too, had materialized amid the barren woods like a vision. Tall and slender, yet mouth-wateringly feminine, she’d stopped him dead in his tracks.
He, the skilled warrior, the disciplined captain who had earned his rank through punishing training and unflinching focus on his orders and his duty, had left his men to run after her, curiosity only part of what drew him to her. Then, after he’d caught up to her, like an idiot he’d stood frozen in confusion—and in pure primal response—to the chestnut-haired beauty who seemed to have dropped into the center of his world like something out of a fantasy.
Right up until the moment when he saw her glowing hands and realized what she was.
Atlantean.
The immortal race whose queen, Selene, had declared them at war with all of the Breed and mankind alike.
Micah and his team had gone willingly to the front lines of that mounting war, but he never expected the kind of ambush that had confronted them in the middle of that Siberian wasteland.
He thought it had all been a dream.
He’d nearly had himself convinced it was all just a terrible, unspeakable dream. A nightmare of shock, agony . . . and guilt.
One that had been followed by a black, bottomless oblivion that had taken hold of him and seemed to last for an eternity.
Now, with his senses slowly coming back online, he realized it was worse than a nightmare.
It had been real.
His team was dead.
Their mission had ended in disaster.
And him? He’d rather be ashes on the ground along with his Order comrades than live and have to carry the weight of failing them so unforgivably.
Groaning again, he cracked open his lids and breathed through the sensation of hot daggers piercing his eyeballs.
Maybe this was hell. Maybe he’d finally reached the floor of the pit that had been sucking him down and this was where he’d spend the rest of forever, reliving his shame and agony.
His vision was bleary at best, even in the cool darkness of the room where he lay. Dim memories of musty tent walls and the stench of livestock and campfires seemed out of place as he tried to take note of his current surroundings.
A soft pillow cushioned his head. Underneath his battered, depleted body was a narrow bed with a comfortable mattress and crisp white sheets. Monitoring wires were taped to his chest, arms, and hands. Next to the bed, medical equipment beeped and hummed.
Not hell, then.
A hospital room.
But that didn’t seem right, either. No hospital was of any use to one of the Breed. The only thing that could heal his kind was blood. Fresh red cells, taken from an open human vein.
And Christ, he was starving.
Pushing himself up off the mattress felt like trying to move through hardening concrete. His limbs felt as though they hadn’t been used for a year. Every muscle in his body screamed with every inch of movement he managed.
How long had he been in this place?
How the hell did he get there?
In the back of his mind, he could almost hear his father’s deep voice urging him to hang on, reassuring him that he would be all right.
Impossible, considering Tegan was back in the States with Micah’s mother, Elise, and the rest of the Order. Micah hadn’t seen any of them for some long weeks. Not since he and his unit had deployed to Budapest. The way he felt right now, that black ops assignment could have been years ago.
Micah slowly swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and paused to catch his breath. Someone had been taking care of him, as much as they could, anyway. His combat gear and weapons had been removed at some point. Barefoot and bare-chested, he was dressed only in a pair of loose-fitting gray sweats. His skin had been cleaned of the blistering and the blood and the sweat that clung to him as he’d dragged himself out of the Siberian taiga.