How Beauty Saved the Beast (Tales of the Underlight) Read Free

somehow ended on his feet with a machine gun in his hands. More Hands of Atropos came dashing around the corner, only to be mowed down by Hauk’s new toy.
    “Go! Go!” he yelled in his booming Army voice. Jolie had seen it cow people—it had cowed her at first. But after two months of training with him, she’d come to a new conclusion.
    Macho-Hauk was kinda cute.
    But with a bomb and villains flitting about like hornets, she obeyed Hauk’s command. The stairs were crowded, so she jumped for the nearest hook. Coming up had been a pain in the ass; her weight made the hook swing away from the one above it. But the same condition meant coming down was a simple matter of swinging from one to the next, like monkey bars on a child’s playground or some Tarzan of Sinclair’s Jungle . She glanced once over her shoulder to see Brayden shake his head vehemently.
    Brooking no argument, Hauk picked up the comparatively little guy and strapped him on like a backpack. Brayden clung tight as Hauk jumped.
    Back on the ground, Jolie raced for the hole in the wall and out. Hauk put Brayden down and the two of them were just steps behind. About a football field from the compound, Hauk yelled to hit the turf. Jolie dropped and rolled. Brayden dove into a drainage ditch.
    She should’ve done the same. But a heavy weight landed on her, pinning her down. Jolie had a moment to register that Hauk had dived on top of her before the bomb went off.
    The factory exploded, sending brick and shrapnel careening around them. Jolie reflexively buried her head beneath her arms.
    Not that she needed to. A body far larger than her own covered her from head to foot.
    Heat seared around her as a second boom resounded through the desolate field. And Hauk held her down, protecting her until silence filled the yard.
    Hauk was still.
    Was he okay? She struggled around until she faced him.
    He was breathing. Shuddering, he pulled away from her, and those pretty blue eyes—the only pretty thing about him, but dang, they were something else—searched her frantically.
    “Are you hurt?” he asked at the same time as she asked, “Are you okay?”
    His agile fingers, which rarely reached for anyone, searched her body as she patted down his back for new injuries. The contact felt surprisingly nice, a relief, almost. The man had already gone through a firestorm in Afghanistan, and here, knowing exactly what horrible damage a fire could do, he’d put his body between her and an explosion.
    Unnerved, she smacked his shoulder. “Dumbass! You watch out for yourself. You don’t need to get burned again.”
    His features crunched up in exasperation. “You don’t need to get burned at all.” He looked up. “Brayden?”
    “Yo!” he called. “Atropos have cleared out. I’m headed for the car.”
    Hauk took a deep breath as his body weight relaxed onto her and the fingers poking at her became a thumb gently stroking her cheek.
    A gloved thumb. The notion flitted through her mind that she might like him to take his gloves off and touch her skin with his own.
    She shook her head. The physically wrecked drill sergeant? No way. They were friends. Or something. And danger always led to weird lusty thoughts. Or so she’d heard.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked her again.
    Ignoring her reactions to their closeness, she shifted beneath him, stretching her legs and throwing her shoulders back. Other than a rock poking into her side and the gravel stuck to her cheek, she was fine. Could’ve been a lot worse. “I’m good. You?”
    “I’m fine.” But suddenly he didn’t look fine. He looked covetous as raw hunger, the likes of which she hadn’t seen since they’d first met, darkened his eyes.
    Again came the gut flutter and the desire to remove those damn gloves. Oh yeah, and the memory of a kiss that had changed her definition of kissing.
    Hauk had been so professional with her the last two months, so focused on training her to be an asset to The