Page 30 of Radar (Iniquus Certified Cerberus Tactical K9 #2)

Elyssa

Sunday

Lumberjack, Alaska

The lodge had cleared the snow that had fallen overnight from the parking circle, but they were still on the far end of the sidewalk, working their way toward the lodge. Every time her foot went into the snow, it filled Elyssa’s short boots.

There was a man on his snowmobile, and Elyssa wished he’d come over and offer her a ride to the car. Her legs felt like lead.

It isn’t that far. This is fine. Elyssa encouraged herself.

The guy on the snowmobile fixed an unwavering, calculated gaze on her.

And suddenly, Elyssa’s intuition yelled for her to get out of there.

But the jolt of frigid air had sapped her of energy.

She felt so weak and so tired that she wasn’t sure what to do.

This was the reason she needed to leave Alaska.

The cold froze her veins. While her heart was pumping with all its force, blood just wasn’t circulating, and her eyesight was getting fuzzy.

If you sink into the snowbank, you’ll die of hypothermia.

She turned to the lodge to see if it was closer than the car; either would be okay.

She didn’t even think she had enough power to call for help, though she needed it.

The man on the snowmobile was heading her way. And Elyssa knew he meant her harm.

Knew it.

But Elyssa didn’t have the capacity to move.

Coming closer, he revved his engine, then shot forward. As he drove by, he reached out and grabbed the wrist of Elyssa’s free hand and kept going.

Elyssa’s bags dropped from her shoulder. She was on the ground sledding along, thinking this guy was going to get her into the woods, and she’d never come out again.

Something in the self-preservation part of her brain kicked in.

She heard herself thinking in big, fat orange letters. It’s rugby. Get out of the hold.

Adrenaline was her rocket fuel, and Elyssa morphed into her former self, a formidable athlete.

Pulling her knees to her chest, Elyssa reached her free hand up and clasped her trapped hand. Using that grip, she was able to pull her knees to her chest and swivel her hips to the side. With her feet on the side of the snowmobile, she shoved into her heels with all her might.

The man came flying off, landing on top of her, scrambling up, never releasing his grip on her wrist.

The snowmobile continued unmanned, coming to a stop yards away.

As the man dragged her toward his machine, Elyssa spread her legs wide, then she pulled them together as quickly as she could in the snow, using the momentum to twist her over to face down. Her own clasped hand created a joint lock that broke his grip.

The man’s face was a red snarl as he reached down to grab her again, and Elyssa pulled her leg to her chest to kick him away.

Suddenly, a streak of caramel and black flew through the air. Teeth clamped down on the attacker’s forearm. Despite the heavy padding of his snowsuit, the man screamed in agony.

Barefoot and bare-chested, Xander scooped Elyssa’s backpack and purse onto his shoulder, then reached under Elyssa’s back and knees where she lay sprawled and spent in the snow.

“Jeezis, Elyssa, are you hurt?” He rolled her into his chest as he stood.

“Radar, detain,” he barked the command as the guy got a knee underneath him.

Elyssa hadn’t answered Xander. She had no idea if she was alright or not. This was all so alarming. In horrified fascination, Elyssa watched over Xander’s shoulder as Radar dragged and shook the attacker until he was down in the snow, still screaming for help.

Xander scanned toward the parking lot. His focus landed on a black car, where a man stood with his hands on his head and his mouth wide in astonishment. “We’ve got to get you out of here.” Xander slogged through the snow in that direction. “Elyssa, is that your ride?”

All Elyssa could manage was a nod, then she let her cheek land on Xander’s shoulder.

The driver popped the back door open. “Wow, man, is she okay?”

Xander ignored the question. He laid Elyssa gently inside. Pushing her pack onto the floor at her feet, he said, “Elyssa, check, are you sure this is the right driver?”

The driver, standing wide-eyed, looked like he hoped he had failed the test, and Elyssa would be pulled back out of his car.

With a shaking hand, Elyssa handed Xander her phone from her zippered coat pocket.

Xander scanned the screen, then scrutinized the man, checked the license plate, and returned to her side.

He’s barefoot and bare-chested, and it’s negative ten.

Xander put the phone back in her pocket and zipped it shut.

The attacker was screaming in pain, but Xander’s focus was only on her. He pulled her bottle from the side pocket on her pack, took off the top, and pressed it into her hand. “Drink it all.”

She nodded and followed his command, so he would hurry up and get out of this weather.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elyssa saw Xander reach into his pants pocket and toss something surreptitiously onto the floor. He caught the driver’s eyes, “You will get her to the airport safely and help her inside. If you don’t, I will find you. Do you understand?”

There was a snarl of such blatant impending danger in Xander’s threat that the man stuttered, “Yes, sir.”

Screaming sobs of, “Help! Someone, please, help me!” rode the air.

And Elyssa was glad the attacker was suffering.

“I’m tracking you.” Xander pointed a no-shit warrior finger at the guy, and all Elyssa could think was that he was going to get frostbite, and it would be all her fault.

Xander turned the power of his focus on her, swept her from head to foot, gave her a nod, then shut the door, tap-tapping the roof to let the driver know it was time to pull off.

She turned and watched Xander head back toward Radar and the assailant.

Who the hell was that Xander morphed into?

What the hell just happened?

When Elyssa spun back to face front, pulling the safety belt across her lap and somehow stilling her shaking hand long enough to slide the clasp into the slot, the driver stammered out, “Ma’am, it happened so fast.” He shoved his car into drive.

“I thought I was watching a kidnapping. That he’d pull you behind his machine like that?

Shit, if he got you over the berm, you’d be gone.

I got out of the car. I was coming to help, but then that guy came tearing out of his room.

And that dog. That was some crazy shit.” He pulled off his beanie and clawed his hand through his hair.

“And his finger and that warning. He’s tracking me? This is insane.”

In the mirror, Elyssa could see the guy flushed bright red.

“That kind of thing doesn’t happen.” His laughter was a bubble of anxiety.

“The only thing that’s ever happened before is some lady’s water broke, and I had to turn around and take her home so she could get her hospital suitcase.

” He glanced over his shoulder. “Should I go to the police department? The hospital? Do you need a doctor? There’s a clinic about forty minutes from here. ”

“No, the airport,” Elyssa’s teeth were chattering, and she desperately wanted Radar.

“But you’re okay?”

“I’m.” She put her hands together as if in prayer, then breathed into her palms. “Wow, that was a lot. He was a lot.”

“That he just buzzed over to you and grabbed you from his snowmobile? You must have been terrified.”

Elyssa caught the guy’s gaze in the rearview mirror and nodded.

But she had been thinking of Xander when she’d said that.

That feeling in his arms. The sacrifice of running out into the subzero temperatures. The sensation of being deeply cared for as she was cradled against him.

Elyssa had needed him, and he was there.

Her heart failed her, and she thought she was going to pass out. But when she didn’t trust her body, she had oddly trusted Xander. Behind the orange words telling her how to save herself had been the conviction that she wasn’t alone; Xander would be there.

Strangely, it seemed unfathomable that he wouldn’t protect her.

But with Xander, it was like the temperature on the water tap running hot, then cold, then hot again.

That had started after they’d had sex.

She was in his arms, feeling perfectly content.

She’d gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom, and when she’d crawled back in bed expecting the same sense of warmth, and—well, they were strangers, so what would she call that?

Companionship maybe? The feeling was one of connection, but something had shifted.

There was a sense of distance between them.

Did he regret saying he wanted to see her again? Regret asking for her contact information?

Just ghost me, then, whatever.

But then he raced onto the scene barefoot in only a pair of pants. It was ten below .

In his arms, she was safe.

When he was threatening the driver, all warrior-energy, scaring this poor stick of a man—Look at him, driving, Elyssa thought, with a constant flick of the eye to see if anyone was following them, hands so tight on the steering wheel that his knuckles were white.

What was that threat about?

She was, by anyone’s definition, a one-night stand.

It was all she’d expected when she asked to see his room.

He was the one who asked for more.

She didn’t need another pendulum relationship. She’d tried that. Married that. Divorced that.

Of course, Xander Belov was very different than Glenn Landers.

Elyssa needed to stop comparing everyone to Glenn and then running away.

This was all so confusing. Elyssa had never felt the things she’d experienced over the last twelve hours before in her life.

Xander was dangerous as hell. She felt his force at the moment of the attack, both his physical strength and the power he held over her heart.

This hot-to-cold business?

The hot was addictive, so the cold felt brutal. Not quite punitive, but something close. Is that how abusive relationships started off?

Well, Elyssa wasn’t going to find out.

She wouldn’t answer the text when it came in, she decided.

She was done. “I’m done,” she whispered to her backpack.

Even with her abiding gratitude to Radar and Xander for her safety, that wouldn’t change Elyssa’s decision.

Xander Belov was quite literally in her rearview.