AMIDST THE CATS CRADLE - 5

C H A P T E R F I V E - - - - G W E N

“What?! You can't force me to stay here! My goddamn captain will rip you new ones! " Gwen screamed when she found herself in a makeshift bunker with no windows in sight, looking daggers at Jerome, Mitch, and Jordan's wide, resolute figures.

Jordan had positioned himself on one of the bunks, keeping his eyes firmly on Gwen even though it appeared that his hands were working diligently to examine the contents of his medpack. Mitch was blocking the entrance by standing with his arms crossed over his chest. Gwen thought for a wonderful second about how hard she could punch Jerome and whether she could kill the lieutenant before Mitch and Jordan were on her.

"Miss Neeson, I'm sorry, but it is what it is. Your own admission that you were unexpected and seemed to have been planned by someone else was made on the plane. We've been in touch with our personnel, but they have no idea how it happened that you would have found yourself on a plane carrying extremely deadly neurotoxins and headed towards a human research facility in the sky. Because of this, I can't let you go until we can give you to our intelligence division.”

"This is really insane. Did I not bring the plane down? Do you really believe that I fly Boeing 747s at random because I'm so fucking bored? Mitch and Jordan can confirm that one of those blond psychos was attempting to kill me as well, which I doubt they would do if I were one of their employees. I have no idea what sort of garbage was going on in that plane. Right? She murmured, "I just want to go home already," her final words taking on a hint of desperation as she took in Jerome's countenance and the twins' similarly depressed expressions.

"However, we're unable to let you go. You'll have company from Mitch and Jordan. You will be alright, the medical personnel has informed me. Whatever the toxin was, it is quickly exiting your body. I have complete confidence that my squad members can keep you and themselves safe, despite the fact that you may feel more emotional and angry. My apologies, please. It should just take a day to do this.

"A day?! You mean I have to wait till I go to Laguna for a whole day? ”

Jerome's lips twitched briefly before he said, "No. You could have to wait until intelligence arrives to take you up the next day. Evidently, Bicol is a sleepy state. I'm sorry, but I'm unable to estimate when you might return to your house.

Gwen eventually murmured, her voice a strangled snarl, her annoyance rising and falling with the beat of her heart, "Someone's going to have to let my unit know."

Even though she realized there was no purpose in becoming irritated, something inside of her made her want to spit fire and brimstone and be even more enraged than usual. How in the world are they maintaining her in this condition? She had been compliant the entire time! A part of her may have been hoping for a little more respect and dignity than she was receiving at the time when doctors were poking needles into her, a psychologist was asking her how she was feeling, and even when they had taken all of her possessions during one of the admittedly fastest and cleanest disaster clean-ups she had ever seen.

“Don’t worry. I’ll have our colonel call your captain,” Jerome said with a smirk. “I hear they play golf together.”

“Is there anyone Hemingway does not play golf with?” Mitch queried from his stand at the door.

“You,” Jordan said with a snort as Jerome turned around and headed for the door, exchanging a few quiet words with Mitch before heading out.

The heavy click behind him told Gwen in so few words that she’d been locked in with the two men, and there was little she could do about it. She stomped to the nearest cot and collapsed on it with an angry groan, grabbing the pillow and scrunching it between her fingers as if it had done her a grave personal injustice.

“Cheer up, Leatherneck. You’ll be back home in no time,” Jordan said with a chuckle.

“Easy for you to say, Frogman,” Gwen said, twisting on the cot, tossing a glare in Jordan’s general direction, but deciding to share it with Mitch as well for good measure. “Apparently you two have nothing better to do than babysit me, but I do. I have about twenty hours of sleep to catch up on before I have to be back on duty tour.”

“Yeah? Where are you heading to?” Mitch asked, apparently bypassing the whole song and dance about how entirely unhappy she was to be there.

“Afghanistan. Again,” Gwen said with a sigh, figuring it didn’t really matter if they knew or not.

By the sound of things, Jerome or the people he worked for had already pulled her file anyway and scraped up more information on her than she herself probably knew. Always a great bit of fun, finding out that the government and certain covert companies knew more than you’d ever be willing to share about yourself with even your closest friend.

How the hell did I get here? You just had to be a hero, didn’t you, Gwen. Couldn’t just stay down, huff in that sweet-smelling gas and go on a rampage like the rest of them. You’d be on your way home now, not remembering any of this shit!

She’d seen glimpses of the conditioning the football players were getting. After being checked and tagged, they’d been wheeled into interrogation and the ones who seemed to be generally worthless had gotten a nice, long, thorough talk with some people who seemed to know everything about how to twist a human psyche around their pinkie fingers, until the guy who’d gone in bore no real resemblance to the one who came out. They all looked blissfully happy and none the wiser to all the horrible things they’d been a part of that day.

Gwen had to imagine there was some kind of a heavy medical cocktail involved as well, but after the beating their bodies had taken after the one on the airplane, she figured their bodies didn’t give much of a crap anymore.

“Loved that place,” Mitch said, sarcasm dripping from his words.

“Oh yeah. Sand in my ass crack, sand in my coffee, sand in my penicillin and sand in my ammo. Best time of my life,” Jordan said with a chuckle, putting his medpack aside.

Gwen watched with mounting realization that she was stuck in a room with those two guys. The ones that had been flirting with her shamelessly on the airplane and who were now looking at her like she was a doe and they were mighty fucking hungry. She swallowed dryly.

“Um, so, how many missions did you guys do in Afghanistan?” she asked quickly, trying to distract both herself and the twins from the moment of heavy, heady silence that had fallen on the room as Mitch pulled a chair and sat down.

“Two, I think. They sort of blur together. There was that thing in Somalia between them, I think, but…” Mitch said, trailing off as if trying to piece together his own years of service.

“Wasn’t that Chad?” Jordan asked, cocking a brow.

“Could have been. All look the same to me. The bad guys always have guns and we always win,” Mitch said, leaning back on the chair so it rested on just the back two legs, his hands behind his head.

God, they were both huge. She hadn’t noticed so much on the airplane, where everything had looked big and deadly, but here in relative normalcy, their size was all that much more obvious. Tall, of course, but with wide shoulders and muscles that seemed to extend further and look harder than on any man she’d seen before.

The whole team looked like that, she had to admit, but Mitch and Jordan called to her especially. It wasn’t something she was accustomed to at all.

I thought I’d built up a tolerance for hot guys.

“You’re twins, right?” Gwen asked, rolling over on her stomach.

Might as well get some conversation out of all of this, if nothing more. She noted that her blood pressure seemed to be spiking at the mere conversation with them, her eyes raking over them a bit too eagerly. The doctors had said that she might feel a bit off for the remainder of the day, but nothing uncontrollable. Still, it was a tiny bit uncomfortable, feeling her physical attraction to the two ex-SEALs so readily.

“What, related to this ugly mug? Never!” Jordan scoffed, laughing.

“You could do worse!” Mitch parried. “Think of me. I have to be your brother. Wasn’t fate crueler on me?”

Gwen couldn’t help but chuckle at their antics. They seemed to constantly pick on one another, but there was definitely affection between them. And she’d seen the way they’d kept an eye on one another during the fight, helping out where they could. While Gwen had several brothers and sisters, she’s always wondered what it felt like being a twin and having that special connection with someone. As much as the two men before her might have tried to downplay it, it was clear that they were fiercely loyal to one another.

“So I’ll take that as a yes. And… shifters?”

“Cougars,” Jordan said, making her purse her lips slightly.

“Never heard of twin cougars,” she admitted, rustling around in her memory bank to see if she could scare up something.

No dice. In the Marines, they had extensive classes on shapeshifters, their physiology and psychology, and it included shifter twins. A lot of shifters ended up with military careers, as that was the one option that could actually put them to excellent use in modern society. Clan and pack wars were generally frowned upon and bloody shifter politics were getting lessening.

“It seems to be somewhat of a rarity, we know,” Mitch nodded, looking awfully relaxed.

But then again, what was there to be tense about? The dangerous part was over. They probably had a stack of papers to fill out and she had a dozen dreary interviews to live through, repeating time after time that she had no idea why she was on the plane and even less of a clue as to why someone might have wanted her there. And yet, her heart was beating heavily in her chest as if they were still in the midst of battle.

“What’s it like? Being twins and shifters.”

“Complicated,” Jordan said, flicking a look at his brother. “But not without its upsides.”

“Like?”

“Someone always watches out for you. And there’s never a lack of someone to mock,” Mitch said with a grin that showed off his pearly whites, making him seem even more of a predator. “Why do you ask?”

“I think it’s interesting. Having a team within a team, essentially. Tom and Tim are twins too, right?”

“Yeah, our wolfies. They’re thick as thieves now, what with their kids and mate whipping them into shape,” Jordan said, standing up and stretching.

He looked hot as hell in his camo fatigues and tight dark green shirt, the outline of his dog tags just underneath. Unlike Mitch, he didn’t have any visible tattoos and he looked more clean-cut. His expression was almost always solemn while Mitch’s seemed to burn with mischief. She was drawn to both equally though, which was odd enough on top of everything else that had happened.

“Does getting a mate change much?” she queried, not even sure why she was asking.

She knew it changed things for a shifter. She’d learned about it back in boot camp! So why was she so intent on asking for confirmation now? Unless she wanted to know whether the twins before her were single too…

That’s none of your business, Gwen. And what if they are? You’re on a mission!

But she wasn’t. And a very big, vocal part that seemed to be throbbing right at her core was very aware of this. For the time being, she was little more than a civilian. A woman who had had a very long few weeks of festivities and difficult family members, who had almost died on a freak airplane flight, and who was now stuck in a rather small room with two really sexy guys. And her body seemed to be doing all it possibly could to lead her down one heck of a naughty track.

“We wouldn’t know,” Mitch said, but the lightness disappeared in his voice.

Now he was looking at her more intently, and she saw the flash of gold in his eyes as he let the chair fall back on all four legs with a thud. He stood up suddenly, a smile playing on those inviting lips of his.

“Gwen, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were probing us for information to figure out whether we were single or not. Is that what you’re doing, sugar?” he asked, prowling over to her bedside.

That was the exact word she wanted to use for it. Prowl. Because that was what he did, his powerful body suddenly lithe and silent, his steps a mixture of deadly grace and perfect strength. It made her breath catch in her lungs and she was sure he must have heard it. Jordan’s gaze was steadfastly locked on them as well.

“You can just ask, you know. We’ll tell you,” Jordan said, his voice taking on a hint of a purr, something deep and guttural.

Gwen felt adrenaline flooding her veins, rushing through her harder than ever as she got back on her side and then sat up in the bed, very aware of how close Mitch was. He was looming above her. His scent was intoxicating and the way his blue eyes looked at her—like he was about to devour her—made tingles run up and down her spine.

“Well, are you?” she heard herself asking, but she could hardly believe she’d uttered the words.

“Yes,” Mitch said, grinning. “Does that change anything for you?” he asked.

And again, it was like someone else was talking for her, though she knew that the words were as much hers as they ever could have been.

“Yes,” she whispered, hiking herself up on her knees and putting her hands on Mitch’s hips, her touch light as a feather.

Mitch glanced over to Jordan, and the muscular but lithe medic was already stalking over, his eyes burning with lust.

Oh my God, what am I getting myself into!