Her eyes widened. “God, you’re right. I never thought of that. I could have endangered—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips. “That’s not the point. I don’t want to see you run yourself into the ground. No more all-nighters, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “So, did you find anything?”

  She huffed out a breath and twisted her long, dark hair into a knot at the base of her neck. “No. There are just too many letters we don’t know.” Frustration, raw and sharp in her voice. “I need a Rosetta Stone.”

  “A what?”

  “A Rosetta Stone. It was a stone discovered in Egypt in 1799 by a French solider. It had engravings of Ancient Greek on it, and parallel words in another Egyptian script called Demotic, as well as hieroglyphs. It allowed scholars to finally decipher Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The original stone is probably destroyed now.” A flash of sorrow in her eyes. “I know London was decimated in the first wave and it was in the British Museum. But the point is, if I could find something like it, that had our language and the raptor language on it, I could use it to decipher more raptor text.”

  Marcus’ jaw tightened. “Or we need a translator.”

  She snorted. “I’m the best we’ve got—” her shoulders slumped “—and apparently that’s not good enough.”

  “We have a raptor prisoner in the cells.”

  Her eyes widened. “But he doesn’t speak English.”

  “No, but the Interrogation team got enough out of him to find out about the map to the comms hub. We might be able to get some more info out of him.”

  She jumped to her feet. “Then let’s go.”

  Whoa…what? “You aren’t coming.” He wanted her nowhere near the raptor, even if the alien was chained up.

  She lifted her chin. “And how well do you know the raptor language?”

  Shit. He recognized a couple of words, at best. The damned dinosaur-like aliens spoke mostly in grunts and roars and wrote in a scrawl that looked like scratches to him. “It isn’t safe.”

  She waved a dismissive hand at him. “He’s chained up and locked in a cell. And with you there, I can’t get much safer.” She snatched up a tablet. “I have everything here. I can show the raptor some of the words I want translated.”

  “Elle…” Jesus. Marcus didn’t want her near the alien, but he also didn’t want her to see what had to be done to get the creature to talk. The sad fact was that survival wasn’t pretty. “He isn’t going to just have a chit chat and offer you what you want. Interrogation…it isn’t nice or neat.”

  Her voice lowered. “I know, Marcus. It’s them or us. Tough choices have to be made.”

  Marcus scraped a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

  She gripped his arm. “I’ve been your comms officer for six months. I know this is war and it isn’t nice. Now, I’m going down to Interrogation whether you’re with me or not.”

  “Fine.” He checked the urge to kick something.

  They were silent as they navigated the tunnels and took the spiral ramp down to the lower levels. Blue Mountain Base had started life as a little-used military facility. But after the raptor invasion, it had become a home. Because of its excellent defenses, hidden location, and the fact it had the essentials like a power source, running water and a comp system, it had turned out to be the perfect haven they’d so desperately needed.

  It also had a section of reinforced cells in the lower levels.

  They reached a heavy metal door guarded by a solider in fatigues.

  “Steele,” the man said with a nod.

  “James. We’re here to talk to the prisoner.”

  James nodded. “Captain Bladon’s in there. Talk to her first.”

  “Will do.” Marcus pushed Elle through the door with a hand on the small of her back.

  “Staff Sergeant Steele. What have we done to deserve the presence of Hell Squad’s leader here in our humble environs?”

  Marcus nodded at the tall, redheaded woman blocking their way. Laura Bladon, once a member of the Coalition’s Navy Intelligence Unit, was young but she ran the prison area with an iron fist. Behind her, the tunnel was lined with thick, reinforced glass windows that looked into the cells.

  “Elle is working to decode the map for the comms hub your raptor prisoner gave us intel on.”

  “But we can’t decipher it all,” Elle added. “There are too many raptor words we can’t translate.”

  Bladon’s eyes narrowed. “You think he’s going to help you? It took my team an entire month to get anything out of him.”

  “We have to try.”

  Bladon caught Marcus’ gaze. “You sure you want a civvy in there?”

  Elle straightened. “I’m Squad Six’s comms officer. I’m not a civvy.”

  Bladon raised a russet brow. “All right. Come on, then.”

  As they followed the captain down the hall, Marcus cursed the choices he kept being forced to make.

  ***

  Elle dragged in a breath and stepped up to the glass.

  Her gaze settled on the raptor chained to a metal chair and her pulse tripped.

  He was big. But they were all big. Over six-and-a-half feet, the alien had a humanoid body that was all packed muscle, and covered in thick, gray-mottled, scaly skin. Prominent brow ridges and a heavy, elongated jaw dominated his frightening face and large, hairless head.

  Sensing them, he looked up and stared at them. His eyes glowed deep red. Elle could almost see the hatred and a vicious desire to kill within them. She shivered. Then he opened his mouth in something resembling a snarl, baring razor-sharp teeth.

  Everything inside her shook. For a second, she was back in that dark closet in her parents’ house, listening to her mother’s screams.

  “Elle?”

  Marcus’ gravelly rasp drew her back to the present. She wasn’t that girl anymore and now she was fighting back. “Open the door.”

  She heard Marcus mutter under his breath but he pushed the door open.

  “I’ll be waiting out here if you need anything,” Bladon said.

  As the door closed behind them, the raptor’s hellish gaze zeroed in on them. Elle was grateful for Marcus’ solid presence beside her.

  Marcus crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the raptor. “You scare her…in any way…and I’ll make you hurt.”

  Swallowing, Elle stepped forward, holding the tablet out. “I need to understand these words.”

  The raptor bared his teeth again and let out a hissing noise.

  Up close, she saw blood staining his skin, and ugly wounds that the chains at his wrists and ankles had left. Her stomach turned over. She really didn’t want to know what they’d done to get him to talk.

  “This word.” She pointed at the strange alien scrawl. “I think it means wind. Or air.” She fanned the air with her hand.

  The raptor lifted his chin, looked over her shoulder at the wall, and stayed silent.

  “This word.” She pointed to another. “What does it mean?”

  The raptor lunged against his chains, rocking the chair, and let out a loud growl. Elle jumped backward.

  Suddenly Marcus was there, between her and the alien, slamming the creature and his chair back against the wall. “Do it again. I want to hurt you, you bastard.”

  Marcus’ low words had the right effect, and the raptor dropped his gaze.

  Elle steadied herself. She stepped forward once more. “Let’s try again.”

  They kept at it for over an hour. The raptor did know a few English words, but not many. And despite Marcus getting physical with him, he didn’t share much.

  As they left the cell, Elle’s shoulders sagged. “One word. That’s all we got.”

  “It’s more than we had.” Marcus flexed his hands.

  She stared at the blood staining his knuckles. She hated that he’d had to do that.

  He noticed her looking and thrust his hands in his pockets.

  “Fly. It doesn’t really help much,” she said.

  Captain Bladon met them. “If you leave the words with me, I’ll have my team continue working with him.”

  Elle stared at her tablet. “Working with him” was such an innocuous way to say it. She had a choice to make. To leave her notes, and give permission for that…being to be tortured. Butterflies flitted in her belly. Not pretty, gentle ones, but ones with razor-edged wings.

  The raptor, for all his invading and killing, was still a living, breathing being. She thought again of her mother’s screams, of all the blood soaking into the carpet. Of Marcus and the others going out every day to fight. Elle slowly nodded. “I’ll send them through to your comp.”

  As Elle and Marcus headed back up to the main part of the tunnels, she felt exhaustion dragging on her. “I’ll take another look at the map document. See if I can—”

  “You need to get some sleep.”

  She knew he sometimes did back-to-back missions without much rest. He must think she was weak. “All right.”

  He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair back behind her ear. “Grab a few hours of sleep and then meet me in the gym.”

  “What?”

  “We still have a training session to do.”

  Her chest tightened. Time with Marcus. Alone. “Okay.” She headed down the tunnel to her room, excitement lightening her steps.

  “And Elle?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. With his broad shoulders and muscled bulk, he seemed to fill the entire tunnel.

  “Don’t look at that translation again. Get some sleep. I mean it.”

  Chapter Four

  Marcus blocked Elle’s kick. She came at him again and he knocked her leg away with his forearm. He was careful not to use his full strength. She was lucky if she weighed sixty kilograms and he was twice that.

  “Good,” he said. “Again.”

  She nodded, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Dogged determination was etched on her face. She swiped her arm across her sweaty brow. Dark strands of hair stuck to her damp skin.

  Then she attacked.

  Roundhouse kick. Step, turn. Side kick. That one packed enough strength to make him grunt. A kick aimed at his head that he deflected. Then she moved in close and slammed a fist into his gut.

  He caught her hand before it connected, spun her and yanked her up against him. Her back was pressed to his chest, her rounded ass nestled against his crotch. Dammit. He was going to kill Cruz.

  “Don’t bother trying to punch.” God, he loved the feel of her against him. “You have to get too close. Raptors are bigger, stronger. Kick to incapacitate, to buy a bit of time, and then run.”

  “I suck at this, don’t I?” Her voice was quiet.

  “No.” She was actually getting pretty darn good. “But you aren’t physically strong enough to take on a raptor at close quarters, no matter your training or your armor. Not many of us are. Got it?”

  She nodded. Her hair tickled his face and her scent filled his senses—something with flowers and coconut that was all Elle, mixed with healthy feminine sweat. His cock twitched and he recited a few mental curses.

  He set her away and dragged in some air. “Again.”

  She lifted her chin and rushed at him, her kick aimed for his midsection. He blocked and watched her move. Her kicks would never be powerful enough to do much damage, but damn, she moved gracefully. Like a dancer.

  “Come on, Elle. Quit playing around.”

  “Playing around?” Her jaw set, something flashing in her eyes. Yeah, he’d noted that determination in her before. First, when she’d lobbied to become Hell Squad’s comms officer. He’d fought just as hard not to have her.

  But she’d found ways to prove to him she was the best person for the job. Getting extra intel for their missions. Filling in when their old comms officer was sick. Quietly winning over his squad until he’d had no choice.

  Yeah, he saw her determination every time he was planning a mission or out in the field. Elle bent over backwards to do the best job she could for Hell Squad. He wondered what ghosts drove her burning need to prove herself

  Marcus remembered the night he’d found her. It was a few weeks after the alien invasion. The base had been a chaos of military personnel all jostling for command. But Marcus and his team had kept going out and bringing in survivors. Elle had been with a rag-tag group who’d made it out of the city. She’d been covered in raptor blood and shell-shocked, but she’d still been helping to comfort other survivors.

  His brief foray down memory lane cost him. A sudden, hard kick to his knee took him down. Her slight weight slammed into him and he was enough off balance to hit the mats hard. Elle landed on top of him, straddling his chest.

  “Yes!” She grinned and pumped a fist in the air. “How’s that for playing, Steele?”

  Hell, she was so goddamned beautiful. He stared at her face and realized he rarely saw that free, easy smile on her. He wished he could see it all the time.

  “She got you, Steele,” a voice called out.

  Marcus managed to rip his gaze from Elle. Roth Masters, leader of Squad Nine was doing bicep curls with a couple of members of his team at the free weights in the far corner of the gym.

  “Yeah. She did.” Marcus looked back at Elle and their gazes met. Caught.

  Her smile melted away and Marcus felt the air leave his lungs. The air around them turned charged.

  She licked her lips. “Marcus—”

  “Nice work, Elle.” Roth appeared above them. “Felling an oaf like Steele takes some skill.”

  Elle scrambled off him and onto her feet. “I think I surprised him.”

  A tiny smile tweaked Roth’s lips. “Yeah, I reckon you’ve been doing that from the first day he met you.”

  Marcus shot Masters a scowl, and without bothering to use his hands, leaped to his feet. “Don’t you have a mission to plan or training to conduct?”

  “Nope. Watching you get your butt kicked by a girl is much more satisfying.”

  “Screw you, Masters.” But Marcus knew the ribbing was all in good fun.

  Roth smiled, but then his rugged face turned serious. “I heard you recovered the raptor comms map but the geek squad can’t get a location from it.”

  “You heard right.” The burn of frustration was bitter.

  “There are too many unknown raptor words,” Elle added.

  “And our guest downstairs wasn’t any help?” Roth asked.

  Marcus shook his head. “Doesn’t know enough English to be much good to us. Elle tells me she needs a Rosetta Stone.”

  “The stone used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs?”

  Marcus raised his brows. “How’s a grunt like you know that?”

  “I’m not stupid.” Then a frown covered Roth’s face. “You know, I might have seen something like that on our last mission.” He spun. “Hey, Mac, remember that raptor research center we raided two days ago?”

  Mac was short for Mackenna. The short, petite woman wandered over. Marcus knew more than one man had underestimated the female soldier who had a black belt in something deadly and took no prisoners. “Yeah, boss. They’d taken over a library in the city. Had a load of that damned organic cabling of theirs all over the place.”

  “Do you remember much about the raptor comp screens we saw?”

  “A bit. They had a bunch of raptor gibberish on them but there was English as well. Looked like they’d hacked into the library’s network. Also saw a bunch of those black crystals they use to store their data.”

  Marcus had seen the black crystals before and knew that Noah had had some success pulling data off them.

  “What were they doing there?” Elle asked.

  “Not sure, exactly.” Roth shrugged his broad shoulders. “My best guess, they were trying to decode our data. We went in to investigate, but it turned into a rescue mission. They had a few librarians they’d taken prisoner.”

  “Prisoner?” Marcus frowned. “Never seen them keep prisoners long.”

  Roth shrugged. “Librarians didn’t know why the raptors kept them. They had been locked up in the dark and were lucky to get a little bit of food and water.”

  Marcus didn’t know why the raptors wanted human prisoners, but whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good.

  Elle turned to Marcus. “We need to convince General Holmes to send a team in to recover these crystals. They might just give us enough data to help us translate the comms map.”

  “Yeah—” An alarm blared through the gym. “Fuck.” The squads were needed for something urgent.

  “Got to go.” Roth waved and jogged out of the gym, followed by his team members.

  “Go,” Elle urged Marcus. “I’ll get to the Comms Control Room and if I get a chance, I’ll talk to the general about recovering the crystals.”

  Marcus nodded, his mind already turning to prepping the team. “You tell him Hell Squad wants to go in and get the crystals.”

  “Will do.”

  He started to turn.

  “Marcus?”

  He paused and glanced at her.

  Her blue eyes were direct. “Be careful out there.”

  “Always.” For the first time he wished he had a bit of Cruz’s good looks or Shaw’s charm. “I’m too tough to die.”

  ***

  The Hawk swept in low over the trees, heading back to base. The occupants were mostly silent.

  Marcus touched the button on the side of his combat helmet and the thin, high-tech thermoplastic retracted back into his armor. His shoulder throbbed. A fucking raptor had gotten close enough to take a swipe at him and the damn aliens had bloody sharp claws. It had managed to yank off part of his armor and leave a gouge that was still stinging and bleeding sluggishly.

  He glanced at his team. Cruz sat silently, with his head in his hands. Gabe and Zeke were pacing—as best they could in the confined space—with their carbines clenched tightly in their hands, and Claudia was cleaning her weapon with a maniacal intensity. Even Shaw was quiet. He sat with his head against the wall, staring out the window.

  They’d been sent out to rescue a group of survivors headed for the base.