It was an awareness, a warning that something threatened Tehya.
He had, before slipping into sleep, tucked his Glock beneath his pillow rather than leaving it on the bedside table.
Lying on his side, one arm around Tehya, he slid the other slowly beneath the pillow, his fingers curling over the butt of the gun as he felt Tehya shift by just the slightest degree, just enough to slide her arm over the side of the bed, the movement hidden by the blankets.
She was awake and ready to move. He had known that same awareness would awaken her as well. She had been on the run for too many years before she came to the Elite Ops. Those instincts didn’t die.
Senses open, Jordan listened, fighting to determine where the danger was coming from. He’d left the lights on in the front room; the glow beneath the door had given the room the faintest bit of light.
It wasn’t there now. The lights had been turned out, allowing the danger to slip into the room without alerting him by flooding the bedroom with light.
It must have been the click of the door that awakened them.
Rather than moving as he would have at any other time, Jordan paused. Listening closely he opened his eyes just enough to check his peripheal vision. And there they were. The faintest of shadows, not just one. Fuck, there were two.
He had to find a way to take both out at the same time, or to disable the first before drawing the fire of the second and praying he was fast enough to avoid the bullets.
The two shadows shifted, positioning themselves until their weapons were trained on him, not on Tehya.
He almost let his lips curl in satisfaction. They were trying to take him out, to separate Tehya from any hope of support or protection. That wouldn’t happen. No matter what happened to him, his men would never allow her to be taken.
But he had no intentions of allowing himself to be taken out so easily.
He could feel Tehya. She was ready to move, tense, and on the verge of panic. Where her back rested against his chest, he could feel her heart racing furiously, the danger of the moment speeding adrenaline through her body.
His hand tightened on her hip where it had rested as they slept.
It was coming. He felt it. The weapons were trained on him, the assailants were ready to take the shot. But now he also knew where the bastards were. Two. They had come in as a team, one to take him out, the other to go after Tehya. He doubted they had plans to kill her.
He was running out of time.
Jordan watched the shadows shift again from the corner of his eyes and knew his time was up.
He moved.
As though Tehya’s instincts were directly connected to his, she moved with him as the sound and red flares of silenced weapons discharging popped through the room.
He went for the first would-be assassin. Slamming the butt of his weapon into the head and feeling him fall, he turned and prayed the first was disabled long enough for him to deal with the second.
The pop-pop of bullets discharging from a silencer again echoed through the room again as Jordan rolled. They slammed into his pillow, where his head had been.
“Keep the lights out,” he snarled, just in case Tehya was going for the lamp. “Get behind something.”
Protection. Tehya had to be protected. That one instinct, that one imperative thought drove his every movement.
He needed the darkness now. The flare of light would blind his senses, leaving him defenseless for precious seconds. It would give the assailants an advantage, perhaps the chance to do as they intended. To kill him.
Eyes narrowed, his gaze pierced the darkness as he threw himself to the side again, drawing the gunfire his way, rather than Tehya’s.
He was trusting her to take care of the assailant on the floor while he disabled the other. Discarding his weapon, Jordan threw himself at the second assailant. Rage was a fever rushing through his syste
m, burning into mind and lighting a fuse to danger-induced adrenaline.
Stupid bastards, he thought. If he knew he were going into a darkened bedroom he would have worn night vision hardware. He would have never gone in as blind as his prey.
A shift in the shadows alerted him.
Jumping to the side, Jordan rolled as the blood-red streaks of light flared in the darkness. Catching the assailant as he jerked to the side to change direction, his fist slammed into the kidneys, drawing a hard cry from his throat as Jordan took him to the floor his hand going for the weapon coming around on him.