Page 39 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Chapter thirty-two

It was pitch black outside the window as Aiden jolted up in bed—his heart jackhammering, his breathing shaky, sweat slicking his back and chest. The nightmare, or dream, or whatever the fuck it was, clung to his mind like tar, hanging on much longer than he appreciated.

It took actual mental effort to banish it.

He forced Benioko, the shadowy, mystery woman, and those strange, elongated creatures with their twisted faces and ebony eyes out of his mind.

He flopped back on the bed, his head sinking into the pillow, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

From the other side of the mattress, a low, feral growl unfurled.

He scowled. Unless Demi had been possessed by a demon, that pissed off rumbling was coming from Trident.

Somehow, that damn cat had gotten inside the room again.

Even though he’d double-checked the door, making sure it was closed.

Time to eject the devil. Christ knew he didn’t want another feline cock block like the morning before.

Still scowling, he rolled his head to the right. A pair of glowing green eyes glared back over the hump of Demi’s shoulder.

What was going on with the damn thing, anyway?

During the day, it hid down in Cosky’s basement, only emerging from its hidey hole long enough to eat and drink or use the litter box.

It didn’t come out for attention or cuddles or even treats.

Not during the day anywhere. But at night?

At night it broke into their bedroom and joined them in bed, where it cuddled against Demi while she slept.

He glanced at the bedroom door. There was a sliver of lighter darkness between the door and the door jamb. He huffed out an annoyed breath. Looked like he’d have to install a dead bolt on the bedroom door. Although, he ought to run that by Cosky first. After all, it was Kait’s and Cosky’s house.

Aiden considered that. Nah.

He sighed, his breathing and heart settling down now that the nightmare had retreated.

“I thought you hated people.” He glared across Demi’s shoulder into seething green eyes.

“All your biting and scratching...You’ve built quite the badass reputation, leaving scars any time someone tries to pet you.

So, what’s with these midnight cuddles?” He cocked his head on the pillow and studied the glittering eyes closely.

“What do you do when Demi’s on base with me? Cuddle up to Cos and Kait?”

Probably not. Cosky would have tossed the cat outside and bitched about the beast for the next decade.

Yawning, Aiden settled back against his crushed pillow, while the most recent nightmare played through his mind.

Talk about his subconscious acting as a backseat driver.

He knew exactly where the inspiration for tonight’s episode of let’s fuck with Aiden’s sleep had come from.

Hell, O’Neill had already brought up the possibility of scavengers feeding on the Harbinger’s crew and infecting the ocean’s food chain.

But Capland had already addressed that problem with his low frequency sound device.

He’d already driven all the ocean life away.

Problem solved. So why had Benioko—aka Aiden’s subconscious—specifically warned him about a fishing boat headed for the Harbinger’s site?

They didn’t need to worry; there wouldn’t be any fish in the area for the fishermen to pluck from the sea.

“Another dream?” Demi’s sleepy voice broke into his frustrated thoughts. She sighed and rolled toward him. Bracing her cheek on her right hand, she studied his face.

He reached out and stroked her cheek, pulling away when a seething growl broke the peace. The last time Aiden had ignored its warning, the damn thing had attacked him, drawing blood.

“You need to have a serious conversation with that beast and set him straight about a couple of things. Like I’m the owner of this bed, not him. And I’ll kiss you when I want to. His style of chaperoning is killing the mood.”

Demi scoffed, but her lips curved until Aiden could see the brightness of her teeth in the dark. “Except you don’t own the bed. Kait and Cosky do. Trident has just as much right to use it as we do.”

Aiden grimaced. “All the more reason you need to move onto the base with me…permanently.” He frowned. “Or at least as long as we’re here.”

Demi just smiled back. “Trident comes with me, wherever I go. I’m not leaving him behind. You know that.”

Yeah. He did. God knew she’d told him repeatedly.

“We should leave the damn thing here when we move. He’s happy.

He’s comfortable. He knows how to find his way back to the house.

” A week and a half ago, during a blizzard, Trident had snuck outside while Demi was bringing in wood for the fireplace.

She’d freaked, certain the cat was freezing to death.

She’d even gone out in the goddamn blizzard herself looking for him, only for the creature to show up at the front door two hours later, screaming to be let in.

No way was the creature taking off. He knew when he had it good.

“No sense in uprooting him. It would be better for him if we just let him stay here.” He tried to sound magnanimous, already knowing it would never happen.

The cat growled again. Aiden glanced over. Those weird feline eyes were blazing with affronted fury. It couldn’t have understood what he’d said…could it?

“Have you given any thought to us building our own place here?” Demi asked.

Aiden frowned, hoping she didn’t mean what he thought she did. “Here?”

“Yeah. In the Neighborhood.”

Damn. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of. She’d become attached to The Neighborhood.

“No.” He gentled his voice. “I’m only working with the Shadow Mountain teams until the current situation is resolved. Once that happens, we’ll move on. We’ve talked about this Demi.”

Her sigh sounded soft and mournful. “I know. And I’m not trying to force anything on you.

But it would be nice to have a house or even a cabin here for when we visit.

It’s so beautiful, and you have family. Plus, I’ve made some good friends.

If we built something in The Neighborhood, we’d have our own place to stay when we came back to visit.

” Her tone sharpened. “Because no matter where we land, we will return to visit.”

“True.” Aiden agreed. He had no problem with visiting.

“You’ll think about it, then? Building a home here, I mean?”

“Sure,” he said, already thinking about it.

She was right. Now that they were both chipped for entry into The Neighborhood, there was nothing preventing them from coming and going.

Besides, Kait and Demi would insist on frequent visits.

In which case, staying with his sister would get old.

Having their own place on standby would be a relief.

“Okay. How about this? We’ll build our own place here.

But it would be for visiting, we won’t be living here full time. ”

Her smile seemed to light up the darkness. “You’ll talk to Wolf about getting us some land?”

Aiden nodded. It shouldn’t be difficult to convince Wolf to assign them a block of land. His brother owed him big time with all this Benioko nonsense. He grimaced. Ask the ghost shaman this…ask him that… No wonder his dreams were so whacked.

“Do you want to talk about this latest dream?” Demi asked as though she’d read his mind.

He hesitated. He hadn’t told her about the Harbinger, or what they’d done to the ship and all those poor bastards on board. He’d been afraid she wouldn’t understand. Most civilians didn’t understand the hard choices that had to be made during battle situations.

Killing in the line of duty was one thing.

She already knew he’d taken lives to protect others or protect himself.

But those deaths had been terrorists, murders, criminals.

The Harbinger was a different situation.

The crew on board were innocent of serious criminal activity.

They were bodyguards and ship staff. He doubted there were even any other Stone Agers on board, other than Oura.

The Stone Agers stayed away from each other.

That was why they were so difficult to identify.

Oura wouldn’t have invited other members to live with him.

Hell, everyone on board that doomed vessel had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Demi murmured, her tone sleepy again.

Considering Kait worked on base, it was likely his sister would hear about the Harbinger’s fate from someone, and Demi would find out soon after. Kait and Demi didn’t keep secrets from each other. He frowned, shifting to face her. It would be better if the news came from him first.

“I’ve got a hypothetical for you.”

“A hypothetical? Demi repeated sleepily. She yawned. “Hypotheticals are best discussed in the morning after a pot of coffee?”

Aiden ignored her protest. “Let’s say you run across a ship full of people who are infected with a fatal, highly communicable virus.

A virus that can penetrate personal protective equipment.

It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing—if you come into contact with an infected person, you get infected, you incubate the virus, and then start infecting everyone around you. ”

Her eyes intent, Demi pushed herself up. “This hypothetical sounds an awful lot like the bot plague everyone is so worried about.” She reached out and gently stroked his cheek. “Is your hypothetical scenario about what happened on your last mission?

Aiden caught her hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles.

“Yeah.” He dropped the pretense. “We had compelling evidence one of the original bot bombs, like the weapon that took out Karaveht, was on a ship anchored in San Francisco Bay. Our plan was simple. Scale the hull, locate the weapon, and disembark. Easy peasy.”

Christ knew he’d done that exact insertion dozens of times in the past.