We stood under the dome hangar in Lyon, France, wide-eyed and gape-jawed. The mass of metal before us bristled with cannons and barrels protruding from side-firing hatches. Four turboprops turned in the breeze.
Roark’s brogue cut the silence. “Who the hell’s gonna fly this deadly bird?
“Je suis.” A man stepped around the nose gear and made a beeline to me. His long white-blond hair slicked into a ponytail at his nape. The color of his beady eyes matched the plane’s gunmetal armor. His skin clung to his hollow cheeks, crinkled with age and weather. “C’est l’AC-130 Spectre gunship.”
“Meet the pilot,” Jesse hollered as he rummaged in the Humvee.
“Je m’appelle Georges Prideux.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed cracked lips against my knuckles. “Madame Spotted Wing. Merde. Tu es de toute beauté.”
Jesse breezed past us. “Don’t let him fool you. His English is better than ours.”
Georges waved a hand after Jesse. “Ta gueule, Monseigneur Beckett.” Then he tugged me to the gunship, pointing at the black dots painted under wings. “You like it, oui?”
Jesse hunkered over our packs on the rear loading ramp. “Apparently, I didn’t keep you busy enough in Malta, Georges. Is the gunship fueled?”
“Bien entendu. We go to Iceland, non?”
Jesse looked at me, brows arched. Roark and Michio stood at my elbows in silent support. Did I harbor a sliver of hope that the Shard could validate Michio’s hypothesis about my blood? About the cure?
I nodded to Georges.
We transferred the remaining gear and weapons from the Humvee to the ramp. A wave of aluminum soaps and jet fuel hit me in the face as I made my way to the cargo hold. Cliff buckled Roark and me in the jump seats. Michio followed Jesse and Georges to the flight deck.
Cliff handed Darwin’s leash to Roark and shouted over the whine of the propellers, “You’ll have to hold him. It might get bumpy. And whatever happens, do not unbuckle those belts.” Then he settled next to Tallis behind an instrument panel and strapped earphones on his head.
The gunship soared down the runway and launched to the air. Five minutes into the flight, dials and gauges flashed on the panel in front of Cliff. He yelled into the headset, “Incoming. Incoming.”
All the air seemed to rush from the cabin. We dipped, and my stomach landed in my throat. Roark’s hand found mine. The engines screamed, and the plane shot upward, hard and fast. Through the tiny window, the steel body of another aircraft flickered by and dropped from view.
“Are we under attack?” The shrill of alarms drowned my voice.
My body bounced in the restraints and Darwin’s nails scraped along the metal floor. Minutes toiled by as the plane readjusted speed and height.
Tallis shouted over the beeping electronics. “Nineteen thousand feet…twenty…twenty-five…”
We leveled off. Tallis swiveled in his seat and slid his headset off one ear. “Near collision.” He shrugged. “Uncontrolled airspace and Beckett makes a lousy co-pilot. But we’re cool now.” He turned back to the weapons panel.
“Wow, that makes me feel so much better,” I mumbled.
The next six hours were uneventful in comparison, but I didn’t let go of Roark’s arm, even as we came to a stop on the Reykjavik airstrip.
Footsteps clattered down the ladder and Michio was on me, hands framing my face. “You okay? That was…it was rough up there.” He brushed hair from my brow. “I was so worried. Six hours, all I could think about was you. Wondering if you were banged up, hurt, scared. I wanted to get to you so badly.”
The concern in his voice caressed places it had no business touching, especially as I clung to another man’s arm banded across my lap.
Michio flattened a hand on the headrest beside my face and leaned into it as he lowered his mouth to mine. “Nothing can happen to you.”
Of course he didn’t want anything to happen to the potential cure. Something vulnerable flared inside me and I pressed into the seat, putting space between our lips. “Would suck if you had to return to the Shard empty handed.”
A fog clouded his black eyes, dulling the corners, and I wanted to kick myself. But just as quick, the clouds cleared, replaced with an impenetrable glare. “I get it. You don’t trust this.” He thumped the spot above my left breast. “You can fight it, try to push me away.” That determined stare narrowed, seeing too much. “It won’t work, Nannakola.”
Then his mouth covered mine and I had nowhere to go, nowhere I wanted to go. The attack on my lips skipped sensual and went straight to erotic. He kissed me as if trying to embed the truth of his intentions into my taste buds. Our tongues rolled together, drenching our lips, spiking my pulse, and the arm in my grip hardened. Oh damn, Roark. The heat from his gaze cooked my face.