Unleashing the Storm Read online

“I’m not doing this with you,” he snapped. “Until Phoebe grows a pair and decides to show her psychotic face, you’re coming with me.”

  Panic wrapped around Mel, squeezing until her breath was coming in shallow pants. She wasn’t stupid; she might not be safe right this minute, but at least she was in an apartment she knew, in a building owned by Itor. If she left with him, her chances for survival plummeted. “I can’t. I can’t leave. Phoebe will be mad. I have laundry to do, and I have to eat, and …” God, she was babbling, but at this point, she didn’t care.

  Stryker looked at her like she was nuts. “Phoebe will be fine.” He reached for her, but she wheeled away, knocking dishes off the counter.

  He cornered her near the pantry, and terror ripped through her. “Please don’t. Please don’t make me go. I can help you—”

  “This isn’t up for debate, and begging has no effect on me.”

  Her gaze darted around the kitchen. A weapon. She needed a weapon. Anything. But there was nothing. He was going to take her, and she was going to die. Abruptly, defeat closed in on her like a shroud. Years of living only half a life collided with the knowledge that the only glimmer of hope she’d had—finding Itor’s enemies—turned out to be a letdown. Itor’s enemies wanted her dead, and now she could do nothing but pray for mercy, something that had never, ever worked before.

  “The thing with the knife,” she rasped. “In my brain. Would it hurt?”

  “What?” He blinked, clearly thrown by the question. “I guess I could make it hurt. Why?”

  “Would you do it so it won’t?”

  “Look, if you cooperate—”

  “I’m not going to cooperate,” she said. “So just do it. But … I don’t want it to hurt.” She couldn’t believe she was asking her murderer for a favor. She really had lost it.

  Stryker looked completely dumbfounded, but at least he’d lost that homicidal glaze in his eyes. He stared. Scrubbed his hand over his face. Took a step back, even. As if maybe her crazy was contagious. After a long moment, he made the knife disappear into his leather jacket.

  “What’s your game?” he said gruffly. “Phoebe isn’t going to hurt you. I did a little research into your condition, and from what I learned, alters are formed to protect. Not hurt. At least, not hurt each other.”

  Laughing bitterly, she gestured to the fork-impaled fish near the coffeemaker. “That was punishment for leaving her with no coffee. You don’t want to know what she did to my parakeet.”

  “Well, there don’t appear to be any other pets she can kill, so what else can she do to you?”

  “You can’t even begin to imagine.” She wrapped her arms around her body, mainly to hold herself up. “I mean, I give as good as I get, but she has her creepy colleagues on her side.” Mel didn’t have anyone, and hadn’t since her mother died.

  His gaze sharpened. “Her colleagues? You work for Itor too, don’t you?”

  “Only Phoebe works for them,” she said tiredly. “I don’t really know what they do.”

  There was skepticism in his voice when he said, “So you’re saying you have no idea what was going on in the Amazon when you were there?”

  She shook her head. “The last thing I remember before coming to in the jungle was being on a plane with Itor people who wouldn’t say a word to me. And then I was in the jungle and there was that man … and you were trying to kill me.”

  “Yeah, well, your buddy Phoebe and her Itor henchmen were planning to murder three dozen people, all to gain a powerful weapon.” He paused as though expecting her to deny his accusation, but she knew her sister and father well enough to know that what Stryker was saying was no doubt true. When she said nothing, he continued. “Her team managed to slaughter some innocent people as well as kill my friend, and I’m here to make sure Phoebe answers for what she did.” He gestured at her robe. “So get dressed, and come with me.” When she stood there, paralyzed by indecision, he cocked his head, asked her softly, “Why did you ask me for help?”

  Her heart nearly stopped. She’d forgotten how, in her confusion over what had happened in the jungle, her shock at the death and destruction, she’d whispered a terrified “Help me” to Stryker, even though he’d clearly rather have killed her.

  “Because I was afraid.” She’d been desperate, terrified, and grasping at the first glimmer of hope she’d seen in years. Itor’s enemy could help her, right?

  But then reality had set in at the murder in his eyes, and she’d cut her losses and run.

  “Are you afraid now?” His voice was so deceptively quiet.

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” he said, as he shoved her toward the bedroom. “At least you’re smart. Get dressed.”

  That she was out of options was now obvious. She’d have to go with him and either convince him to help her, or leave their fate to Phoebe. She brushed past him. “Don’t want to kill me while I’m in my pajamas, huh?” Her gallows humor came out in a thin voice that only emphasized the danger of her situation.

  “Behave, and maybe I won’t need to kill you at all. At least, not right away.”

  She stumbled to a halt at the bedroom doorway. “What do you mean?”

  “I might have other uses for you,” he said, sounding almost disappointed, as though he really wanted to kill her, but a smarter though less appealing option had come to mind. “Now stop talking and start dressing.”

  His tone said there was no room to argue, and really, when it came right down to it, Stryker couldn’t do anything to her that hadn’t been done before. And if he wanted to kill her, she’d die. If he was some sort of good guy, she’d probably end up in a mental ward somewhere, and Phoebe wouldn’t have the freedom to torment her.

  So … a mental ward or death.

  Yep, things were looking up.

  Pyschics. Telekinetics. Shape-shifters. Welcome to the Agency of Covert Rare Operatives (ACRO), where each agent has a special talent … and to the sensual world of Sydney Croft, where the passion never ends.

  Riding the Storm

  Remy Benaud is a sexy ex-Navy Seal with a dangerous power – the ability to control the weather. ACRO operative Haley Holmes’s mission is to seduce him and help him harness his extraordinary gift. But how can she control the storm that Remy summons within her?

  Unleashing the Storm

  Animal psychic Kira Donovan has an insatiable sensual appetite, and when a sexy alpha male shows up on her isolated farm, the sparks are instant. But Kira soon discovers that her new lover isn’t what he seems …

  Seduced by the Storm

  They met in a steamy Florida bar, and then shared a night of mind-bending passion. Ex-Navy SEAL Wyatt Kennedy never thought he’d see the woman in black leather and lace again. But his one night stand might prove to be the sole barrier to the success of his life-threatening mission.

  Taming the Fire

  A shape-shifter – part woman and part beast – Rik works as a dominatrix in an underground club, using sex to rein in her anger and desire. Trance’s mission is to capture and control this feral, beautiful woman, and the two are soon thrust into an impossible game of domination and submission.

  Tempting the Fire

  A team of Navy SEALS is almost entirely wiped out by a sinister and superhuman force in the Brazilian rain forest, and it’s Sela and Marlena’s job to find the beast – and destroy it. To do so, they will need to seduce two men, each hiding his own dark secret.

  Taken by Fire

  A product of genetic manipulation, Melanie Milan shares a body with her malevolent sister, a pyrokinetic who commits horrible crimes. When ACRO operative Stryker comes to kill Melanie’s sister, he finds her instead, and their passion is instant. But how can he love a woman who shares his enemy’s body?

  BY SYDNEY CROFT

  TAKEN BY FIRE

  TEMPTING THE FIRE

  TAMING THE FIRE

  SEDUCED BY THE STORM

  UNLEASHING THE STORM

  RIDING THE STORM

  HOT
NIGHTS, DARK DESIRES

  (WITH EDEN BRADLEY AND STEPHANIE TYLER)

  UNLEASHING THE STORM

  Published by Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2008 by Larissa Ione & Stephanie Tyler

  Photograph on Title Page, copyright © 2008 by morguefile.com

  Excerpt from Taken by Fire copyright © 2011 by Larissa Ione and Stephanie Tyler.

  Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Croft, Sydney.

  Unleashing the storm / Sydney Croft.

  p. cm.

  1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Animal communicators—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.R6356U552008

  813'.6—dc22

  2007029275

  www.bantamdell.com

  eISBN: 978-0-440-33751-5

  v3.0_r1