Samurai Game

CHAPTER 9

Kissing Azami was as close to paradise as he was ever going to get, and Sam allowed himself to get lost in her, but he was a soldier-a GhostWalker-and there was always that part of him that never rested. He felt the whisper of energy rather than heard footsteps, but he knew they were about to have company. Reluctantly he lifted his head and saw the same regretful knowledge in her eyes. He would never have to worry that his woman wouldn’t see danger coming. Her hand had already dropped to the dagger she carried inside the loop of her intricate belt. It was unseen, but he’d felt it the moment he’d pulled her tight against him.

Sam stepped slightly in front of Azami, an instinctive move, not to protect her from danger-he knew by the energy field that Ian McGillicuddy was coming down the hall to check on him. All the members of his team had taken turns dropping in, but he wasn’t certain if she wanted to be seen with him or if she wanted the chance to disappear.

Her hand slid over his bare back, the lightest of touches as she tended to do, but he felt the wave of warmth she poured into his mind.

I am not ashamed of being with you, Sam.

Sam found himself smiling like an idiot as Ian pushed open the door. The Irishman stopped abruptly when he saw Sam standing, his jeans carelessly buttoned, shirt off, exposing his wounded abdomen and bare chest. Sam knew instantly that Ian was aware of Azami by the way he inhaled and frowned, confusion in his eyes.

“You can’t be in here.” Ian stated it as a fact.

Sam sank back onto the bed. He was definitely growing stronger, but standing could be troublesome on shaky legs. The pain of his wound had definitely receded. “Why not?” he asked a little belligerently.

“She can’t; it’s impossible. I was standing guard at her door.” Ian’s gaze met Azami’s. “To protect you of course.”

“Of course, because there are so many enemies creeping around your halls,” Azami said, her voice soft and pleasant, a musical quality lending innocence and sweetness.

Ian’s frown deepened as if he was puzzled. She certainly couldn’t have meant that the way it came out, anyone listening would be certain of it. “Just what are you two doing in here anyway?” he asked, suspicion lending his tone a dark melodrama. He even wiggled his eyebrows like a villain.

Sam kept a straight face with difficulty. Ian was a large man with red hair and freckles. He didn’t look in the least bit mean or threatening, even when he tried.

“Azami was just telling me how when she left her room to inquire after my health, there was a giant man with carroty hair snoring in the hallway beside her door.”

“There was no way to get past me,” Ian insisted.

Sam grinned at him. “Are you saying you did fall asleep on the job, then?”

“Hell no.” Ian scowled at him. “I was wide awake and she didn’t slip past me.”

“You say,” Sam pointed out, his tone mocking as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back casually, pleased he could tease his friend. “Still, she’s here and that proves you were looking the other way or sleeping, just like that time in Indonesia when we parachuted in and you fell asleep on the way down. I believe that time you got tangled in a very large tree right in the center of the enemies’ camp.”

Azami’s lashes fluttered, drawing Sam’s attention. He almost reached out to her, wanting to hold her hand, but she’d mentioned a couple of times she didn’t show affection in public.

“You fell asleep while parachuting?” she asked, clearly uncertain whether or not they were joking.

Ian shook his head. “I did not. A gust of heavy wind came along and pushed me right into that tree. Gator told everyone I was snoring when he shoved me out of the plane. The entire episode is all vicious fabrication. On the other hand, Sam here, actually did fall asleep while he was driving as we were escaping a very angry drug lord in Brazil.”

Azami raised her eyebrow as she turned to Sam for an explanation. Her eyes laughed at him and again he had a wild urge to pull her to him and hold her tight. Primitive urges had never been a part of his makeup until she’d come along; now he figured he was becoming a caveman. Her gaze slid to his face as if she knew what he was thinking-which was probably the case. He flashed a grin at her.

“It is true. I did fall asleep at the wheel. We nearly went right off a cliff down into a gorge. But there were extenuating circumstances.”

Ian snickered. “Are you going to pull out the cry-baby card? He had a little bitty wound he forgot to tell us about, that’s how small it was. Ever since he fell asleep he’s been trying to make us believe that contributed.”

“It wasn’t little. I have a scar. A knife fight.” Sam was righteous about it.

“He barely nicked you,” Ian sneered. “A tiny little slice that looked like a paper cut.”

Sam extended his arm to Azami so she could see the evidence of the two-inch line of white marring his darker skin. “I bled profusely. I was weak and we hadn’t slept in days.”

“Profusely?” Ian echoed. “Ha! Two drops of blood is not profuse bleeding, Knight. We hadn’t slept in days, that much is true, but the rest…” He trailed off, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Azami.

Azami examined the barely there scar. The knife hadn’t inflicted much damage, and Sam knew she’d seen evidence of much worse wounds. “Had you been drinking?” she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. Those long lashes fanned her cheeks as she gazed at him until his heart tripped all over itself.

Sam groaned. “Don’t listen to him. I wasn’t drinking, but once we were pretty much in the middle of a hurricane in the South Pacific on a rescue mission and Ian here decides he has to go into this bar…”

“Oh, no.” Ian burst out laughing. “You’re not telling her that story.”

“You did, man. He made us all go in there, with the dirtbag we’d rescued, by the way,” Sam told Azami. “We had to climb out the windows and get on the roof at one point when the place flooded. I swear there was a crocodile as big as a house coming right at us. We were running for our lives, laughing and trying to keep that idiot Frenchman alive.”

“You said to throw him to the crocs,” Ian reminded.

“What was in the bar that you had to go in?” Azami asked, clearly puzzled.

“Crocodiles,” Sam and Ian said simultaneously. They both burst out laughing.

Azami shook her head. “You two could be crazy. Are you making these stories up?”

“Ryland wishes we made them up,” Sam said. “Seriously, we’re sneaking past this bar right in the middle of an enemy- occupied village and there’s this sign on the bar that says swim with the crocs and if you survive, free drinks forever. The wind is howling and trees are bent almost double and we’re carrying the sack of shit… er… our prize because the dirtbag refuses to run even to save his own life-”

“The man is seriously heavy,” Ian interrupted. “He was kidnapped and held for ransom for two years. I guess he decided to cook for his captors so they wouldn’t treat him bad. He tried to hide in the closet when we came for him. He didn’t want to go out in the rain.”

“He was the biggest pain in the ass you could imagine,” Sam continued, laughing at the memory. “He squealed every time we slipped in the mud and went down.”

“The river had flooded the village,” Sam added. “We were walking through a couple of feet of water. We’re all muddy and he’s wiggling and squeaking in a high-pitched voice and Ian spots this sign hanging on the bar.”

Both men turned toward the door and Azami moved back into the shadows as another man entered. Tucker Addison regarded them all gravely from just inside the doorway.

“What’s going on in here?” he demanded. “You sound like a pack of hyenas and there’re only two of you.”

Sam’s belly knotted and the laughter faded. The others couldn’t detect Azami’s energy any more than Whitney had been able to, although she clearly was a GhostWalker.

“Sam got the big idea to tell Ms. Yoshiie all about the time we ‘rescued’ the Frenchman and swam with the crocodiles,” Ian explained. “Of course he’s blaming the entire thing on me and he was just as curious.”

Tucker’s gaze jumped to the shadows, scanning the room. Sam resisted the urge to reach out to Azami protectively. Tucker, like every GhostWalker, was a predator, highly skilled and dangerous. Azami didn’t need his protection any more than Tucker did, but still, the need was there.

She shifted, a deliberate movement to draw Tucker’s eye to her, her long lashes at half-mast, giving her a deceptive, innocent, and very demure look. “These men are telling me a tale that is very difficult to believe.”

Her voice was soft and musical, pleasant to listen to, a tribute to her heritage. Long strands of hair were artfully loose from her carefully pinned hair. It suddenly occurred to Sam that those beautiful, long, decorative pins holding her hair in place were really lethal weapons. Her thick bangs brought attention to her incredible eyes and delicate features. She looked so fragile, not at all the samurai warrior he knew her to be-and there lay her greatest strength.

Tucker visibly relaxed, his mouth curving into a smile as he took up the conversation. “Actually, the story is very true. Sam and Ian really are that crazy. Well, they weren’t the only ones. Gator wanted to go in as well, but everyone knows he’s completely insane. He spent too much time in the swamp where he grew up.”

“You went in too,” Sam pointed out. “And I didn’t want to go; I had no choice. I couldn’t let Ian go alone.”

Tucker shook his head. “You were damned sick of the Frenchman and you wanted to throw his ass in the croc pit. He was really fighting going out in that storm. We thought he was just chickenshit.”

Sam shrugged. “Later we found out he’d betrayed his country and fed the terrorist cell intel, helping them set off three simultaneous bombs in Paris, so there was a good reason for him slowing us down. Unbeknownst to us, we were returning him to France for trial with the proof. We thought we were risking our lives to bring him out and he was fighting us. We should have known then, by his behavior, that he didn’t want to be rescued. We just thought he was a pain in the ass.”

“If you were having such a difficult time with him, why would you stop to go into a bar?” Azami asked, clearly puzzled.

Tucker snorted. “Ian said to see the crocs, and Gator said it was to get free drinks. Sam wanted to feed the crocs the Frenchman. In any case, I look back and they’re climbing in through the window. It was broken out and water covered a good two feet of the floor. I couldn’t just let them go in there without having their backs. And I sure didn’t want to face Ryland and tell him the ‘prisoner’ we rescued got fed to the crocodiles.”

Ian burst out laughing. “As I recall, you pushed me through that window and it was a bit small for you so you kicked out the windowsill.”

Sam nodded. “Oh, yeah, that’s the way it happened and I shoved Mr. ’Fraidy Cat through and climbed in after you both.”

Azami started laughing. “I can’t imagine what Mr. Miller had to say to you when he found out.”

The three men exchanged looks and began laughing uproariously. “He said, ‘Pass me a bottle of scotch,’ when he came back and stuck his head through the window.”

Azami stared at them incredulously. “So all of you decided, in the middle of a rescue mission, during a flood, with hurricane winds, that it was necessary to go into a bar with crocodiles?”

“Well…” Tucker hedged.

Azami’s gaze flicked toward the door and she moved, a tiny subtle movement that once again had her fading into the shadows. It seemed more a trick of the light than any real desire to disappear, but Sam couldn’t help but admire her skill. She was in a room filled with GhostWalkers, yet she disappeared right before their eyes without even a whisper of cloth brushing the walls. There was no footfall, no rustle of clothing, nothing at all. One moment she was there and then she was gone.

“There was ‘Smoke,’” Sam said, his gaze lifting to the door and the man filling it. “He wasn’t having any of those crocodiles.”

Jonas Harper entered. “Always the voice of reason, ma’am. Someone has to be with the number of crazies in this outfit.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, the other men began laughing again. Sam noted that Jonas was looking right into the shadows where Azami had disappeared. It wasn’t just that he’d heard her voice, he knew where she was. For some reason the fact that Jonas could see her set his heart tripping. He hadn’t expected that tiny surge of jealousy that another man might be able to detect her. He had grown used to the idea that he was the only one who saw what a truly lethal weapon she was.

Azami’s warmth poured into his mind, filled with a soothing amusement. He sees in the dark and I am part of the dark. His eyes glow like those of an animal on the hunt.

Whitney screwed with our DNA. It’s more than probable that he has large cat or wolf DNA somehow.

“Someone must be the voice of reason,” Azami said aloud, “but from the snickers of your fellow teammates, I am uncertain that person is you, sir.”

Jonas gave the others a long, slow, reprimanding glare. “I told every single one of you that you were nuts to go into that bar. The trees surrounding it were bent over, almost in half. I told you they looked like praying mantises about to swoop in on prey. And was I right?”

Tucker laughed. “Damn right, you were.” He nudged Sam. “Those trees came right down on top of that building and took out the wall and part of the roof with us in it.”

“I dropped the Frenchman,” Sam confirmed, laughing. “Right on his ass.”

“The tree smashed the croc barrier and these big mothers come swimming right through the middle of that bar right at us,” Tucker said. “I never saw such big crocodiles. Sam and I were swept underwater by the tree branches and those crocs were loose in the water with all of us.”

“Jonas there,” Ian continued, “he pulls himself inside and sits up top of the windowsill with his knife in his teeth and then does some kind of circus maneuver and the next thing we know he’s hanging upside down from the ceiling and telling us to get the hell out of there, that he’s got us covered.”

“Of course he looked like a chimp swinging on the chandelier, which, by the way, was hanging by one bolt and was nothing more than a couple of lights strung together by a chain,” Sam added, doubling over with laughter. “I’m looking up through the water, this heavy branch across my chest, and I could see Jonas swinging like a madman right over the water.”

“So the damn thing snapped.” Jonas took up the story, as Ian was laughing too hard to continue. “I landed on the Frenchman, who was screaming his guts out. Sam was no help. The crocs were swimming around like they were confused, sort of circling the room. They looked like prehistoric dinosaurs and pretty damn scary.”

Sam felt the energy that could only prelude a GhostWalker. He took up the story quickly, laughing as he did. “Then Gator lets loose and starts yelling like a banshee. He was doing some kind of Cajun ceremonial rain dance or something…”

“I knew you were in here swappin’ lies about me,” Gator said. “I could hear you laughin’ two houses over. You’re gonna wake the dead. And, ma’am, don’ believe a single lie these jokers tell you. I saved ’em all that day. It was our darkest hour, with giant crocodiles swimmin’ around the room, water pourin’ in from every direction, trees fallin’ on us, and the bunch of them grabbin’ at the liquor bottles and splashin’ around, bait for the crocs.”

Azami’s low laughter was pure music. Sam was fairly certain he was already addicted to the sound of her voice. That low, alluring tone, so pleasant he could listen to it forever.

“I don’t know what a ceremonial Cajun rain dance is, but why would you perform such a ceremony if it was already raining?” she asked.

“Exactly,” Tucker said. “We all asked him that later and he just insists he saved us by dancing on the bar and performing weird gyrations.”

“I’ve told you all a million times that bar was wet and I was slippin’, not performin’ some rain dance in the middle of a hurricane,” Gator protested. “I don’ even know a rain dance.”

Gator’s statement drew more laughter. Sam wrapped his arm around his stomach, afraid if he didn’t stop soon, his wounds were going to rip open just from pure amusement.

Azami shook her head as she slipped closer to the bed, leaning one slim hip against the frame closest to Sam. “Your mission sounds much more fun than anything I’ve ever done.”

“Fun?” Ian’s eyebrows nearly met his hairline. “Ma’am. You don’t seem to understand the deadly peril I was in there at that bar. The Frenchman was trying to drown me and the crocodiles were circling me, thinking I was their next meal.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to swim with the crocs?” Sam asked. “We all heard it. And as I recall, Tucker and I were the ones stuck underwater and you were clinging to the side of the wall like a lizard.”

“I wanted to see them,” Ian corrected solemnly, “not swim with them. But you know,” he added, brightening significantly, “the sign did say if you swam with them and survived, you get free drinks for the rest of your life. Technically, that bar owes me free drinks, because I swam with the crocs and survived.”

“Technically, Ian, you didn’t swim with the crocodiles. You barely got your big toe wet once they were loose. That was Sam and me,” Tucker snickered.

“How?” Azami asked. “How in the world did you all make it out of there?”

The men exchanged glances and then laughed again.

“Tom Delaney,” Sam said.

“Tom Delaney,” Tucker and Ian agreed simultaneously.

“We call him Shark,” Gator confided.

“The new guy. We had a new addition to our team and he’d come along to learn the ropes, so to speak,” Sam explained. “He’d been a GhostWalker for some time and had an impressive record, but none of us had worked with him before. We thought it was a get in and get out, no problem mission.”

“Never been on one yet,” Tucker said, “but I’m always hopeful.”

“If it can go wrong,” Jonas added, “it does.”

“So we’ve got this new guy none of us are sure of,” Sam continued. “He’s leery. We’re leery. We all think we just grab this Frenchman and get out of there fast, right? Except the Frenchman starts yelling and fighting. He kicked me. And he bit Tucker.”

Instantly laughter erupted again.

Tucker looked wounded. “Seriously, ma’am, that bite hurt. He was truly vicious. Lily insisted on giving me a tetanus shot or something. With a needle.” He shuddered dramatically.

“Poor baby,” Sam soothed. Tucker had been wounded several times and he’d never made so much as a whimper. The idea of him whining over a needle was ludicrous-but funny. “Quit interrupting. We’d gotten into the house without anyone knowing and the idea was to get out the same way-like ghosts. That’s what we do. But that Frenchman-and the weather-had other ideas. Apparently he’d been recruited in high school and once he’d gained a position in the government allowing him to feed the terrorists intel on the movement of money and weapons, he began to work in earnest. From what I understand, someone became suspicious and cut off his line of communication. Immediately the terrorists ‘kidnapped’ him, hoping that by doing so, they’d throw the government off the scent and they could use him if France ransomed him. Of course, we didn’t know any of that; we just were sent to get him out.”

“Freaky little bastard,” Gator commented.

“The next thing we know, we’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest and we’ve got everyone and their mothers shooting at us,” Sam continued.

Azami raised her long lashes and looked at Sam, her eyes laughing and a little challenging. “So why did you really go into that bar?” she asked. “Because I don’t believe you would do so unless you had no other choice.”

There was a brief moment of silence. The men exchanged long, knowing grins.

“She’s not so easy to put one over on, is she, Sam?” Ian asked.

Azami smiled at him, looking as serene and composed as ever. “You may joke all you like, but clearly you are professionals, and in the middle of a rescue mission during a hurricane, something very compelling would have to drive you to stop what you’re doing and get trapped in a bar that was being decimated by the storm.”

“True,” Sam agreed, “but Ian really did notice the sign and we’d stopped for a second because the river had flooded and our escape route was cut off.”

“The Frenchman made a run for it,” Ian took up the story. “Straight into that bar. Bullets were flying, the river rising, and we had to make a quick decision-let him go or get him back.”

“Hell no, he wasn’t getting away,” Sam said emphatically. “I thought about shooting him in the leg. But that little bastard was coming back with us, even if I had to carry him every step of the way.”

“I can see you have a stubborn streak,” Azami observed.

“Ha!” Ian agreed. “You don’t know the half of it. He was going in after the Frenchman no matter what anyone said. I sure wasn’t going to let him go alone.”

Gator flashed a cocky grin. “Sam really did nearly shoot our runaway, but Ian jumped through that window after him and then it was on.”

“And you all followed him, of course,” Azami said.

“Well, ma’am,” Jonas said. “There was liquor in there and no one was minding the bar. Ian is Irish. We had to make certain there was something left.”

“We all had a mighty thirst after all that runnin’ from those bullets, ma’am,” Gator added.

“How did you get away from the crocodiles, or is that part of your embellishments?” Azami asked.

“Embellishments?” Ian said, astounded. “She’s casting aspersions on our story, gentlemen. There were crocodiles swimming around inside and Gator was gyrating on the bar. Jonas managed to fall on the Frenchman, and I was in the water, my life in deadly peril. I hadn’t even managed to grab hold of a bottle of good Irish whiskey and there I was about to die. No self-respecting Irishman would die without at least one drink.”

“How terrible,” Azami murmured in sympathy.

Ian nodded, much more pleased with her reaction. “Now you’re beginning to understand the seriousness of the situation.” He glared at his fellow teammates as they burst into laughter again.

“Tell me who this Shark is that came to your rescue,” Azami prompted.

Sam started to reach out to take her hand and stopped himself. He had not asked for permission from her brothers and she’d told him a couple of times about public displays of affection. He sighed. He was going to have to find it in himself to keep his hands off of her, even when he seemed to need to touch her.

His eyes met hers and she smiled at him. Just for him. Her eyes warmed slowly, going from that cool darkness to molten heat.

I want to touch you. Skin to skin. The admitting of his secret need, even if it was only a whisper in her mind, made him feel closer to her.

Azami shifted again, a slight, subtle movement that put her even closer to the bed where he sat. Her bare arm slid against his, the merest of brushes, yet he felt her touch all the way to his bones, branding him hers.

“We call him Shark because he’s good in water, ma’am,” Tucker said.

Azami smiled at them, leaning against the bed, making the movement so natural Sam was certain no one would think twice about it. “Enough addressing me as ma’am. My brothers and I are quite fine with using the more personal first name. We don’t find it insulting. Please call me Azami; I will consider it an honor.”

Sam couldn’t help but stare at her. She sounded so demure and sweet, her long lashes veiling her eyes, her lips both fascinating and alluring as she spoke.

Tucker nodded. “Azami, then. Shark’s name is Tom. He recently joined our team and like we said, it was his first mission with us. We were still feeling our way with him. He didn’t hesitate at all. He was in that water, swimming under the water to Sam and me. Ian was splashing like crazy and Gator was doing his wild Cajun thing to keep the crocodiles’ attention focused on him while Shark worked to move that tree off of them.”

“He had to breathe for us underwater. I’m good in the water and can stay down a long time, but not like Tom. He was all over it. Give us air, work on the tree, and give us more air until he had that sucker off of us. Ian kept splashing around and Gator kept up his crazy antics as bait and Jonas and Rye worked above the water to help lift the tree.”

Azami pressed her lips together tightly, regarding Sam without speaking. She knew, in spite of all the joking and laughter, just how dangerous the situation had really been and how close Sam and Tucker had come to losing their lives.

This is the kind of work you like?

Sam nodded slowly. Does it bother you?

“What happened to the Frenchman? Did he get away?” Azami asked aloud.

I am samurai. I have chosen a life of honor. It’s only fitting that the man I am considering sharing my life with would do so as well. I do not fear death and clearly you do not either. My father taught me never to fear death, but to live my life to the fullest, to embrace every moment as if it might be my last. My choice for a partner is one who lives his life in this way.

“Hell no, he didn’t get away,” Ian said. “We dragged him back with us and handed him over to the French. They were very glad to get him, and I believe they put him on trial for treason. He deserved whatever they threw at him.”

There is no doubt in my mind, Azami, we belong. He no longer needed to touch her to know she was committed to him. Her warmth was in his mind, filling the lonely places.

He had lived on the streets, scrounging his way, one step ahead of the gangs and the pedophiles until he’d tried to steal a car with the idea of getting out of the city. He had no plan at the time, only a desperate need to get away from where he was. General Ranier told him it was providence that he had tried to steal Ranier’s car, allowing them to meet. Secretly, Sam didn’t care what it was, only that they had met and the general had given him an education and a direction. Now there was Azami. She was his direction and the path seemed very clear to him.

“Uh-oh,” Ian whispered, overly loud. “We’re about to get busted.”

Azami moved even closer to Sam, protectively, her body shielding his from the door. He had to smile. His woman wasn’t going to sit peacefully in a corner in the face of a threat.

“It’s Ryland,” he said softly.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. The movement was graceful, a whisper of silk and sin, temptation in the form of long lashes and serenity masking fiery passion. His heart jumped toward hers. Azami smiled at him. Intimate. Only for him. Such a brief exchange, but it was enough to know she was his. All that she was, was his.

Ryland filled the doorway, his broad shoulders so wide they nearly took up the space entirely. In his arms, Daniel snuggled against him, alert, bright, ready to join in the fun with all of his uncles.

“Do you think you’re making enough noise?” Ryland demanded. “It’s the middle of the night, in case no one’s noticed.”

“Did we wake Daniel?” Ian asked, instantly concerned. He held out his arms to the boy. “Come here, my little man.”

Daniel looked past Ian, his gaze clearly settling on Azami. He broke into a smile and instantly took his index fingers and hooked them together, signing “friend.” He held out his arms toward her and nearly launched himself from Ryland’s arms.

Azami took the boy and hugged him to her. “Hello, my little friend. Did we wake you up? Your uncles were just telling me some exciting stories about things they’ve done.” She spoke to him as if he were an adult, not a toddler, looking into his eyes as she held him close.

Sam could imagine her with their child, a protective mother for certain, he could see it in the way she held Daniel.

“You’ve met?” Ryland asked.

His tone put Sam on edge. He sat up straighter and swung his legs over the edge of the bed in preparation-for what, he wasn’t certain. Ryland had sounded more than suspicious-he’d sounded accusing as well. More so, his team had gone onto alert. This was Daniel-the most protected member of their family-and a stranger had gotten to him right in their midst.

“Daniel has been telling us all about his new friend. We thought he had made up an imaginary friend to play with.” Ryland’s gaze shifted to Ian’s face. Ian-Azami’s guard. If she’d met Daniel, where had that meeting taken place, and how?

Ian squirmed uncomfortably. It didn’t matter that they’d all been laughing with Azami moments earlier; every man was looking at her as if she was the enemy. Sam slid to his feet, steadying himself against the bed for a brief moment before he found his footing again.

This time there was no mistaking Ryland’s accusation, and Sam understood. Lily had been upset over the idea that Daniel would have to have an imaginary playmate. More than that, Daniel was to be protected at all times from outsiders and yet the child had greeted Azami as an old friend, which implied multiple meetings. He was always naturally suspicious of strangers.

“He’s a wonderful boy, and so very bright,” Azami said, as Daniel snuggled against her. She rocked him gently. “He came into my room on the first night. I heard a small noise in the fan and a screw dropped out onto the floor. I looked up and he was looking down at me, laughing. He was quite curious that you had company and didn’t introduce him. I explained that not all strangers were good people and some could be dangerous to him and that you were protecting him. He signs quite well.”

Azami never raised her voice, or appeared in any way as if she recognized the heightened tension in the room. She seemed relaxed, her attention focused on the toddler, but Sam wasn’t deceived in the least. She was a force to be reckoned with and for some reason, his teammates didn’t feel her energy as he did. That continued to worry him.

There was a long silence. No one expected that explanation, but they shouldn’t have been surprised. Daniel was definitely an escape artist. He liked small spaces and already he was using tools like a pro.

Ryland glared at his son. “You went to our guest’s bedroom, Daniel? Do you think that’s appropriate behavior?” He signed as he spoke.

Daniel shook his head and pressed closer to Azami. He signed back to his father.

“I don’t care if she didn’t mind,” Ryland sounded gruff. “She is our guest. Her bedroom is a sacred place, a sanctuary for her. We don’t intrude. Do you understand?”

Daniel nodded his head.

“More than that, it isn’t safe for you to go meet a stranger without our knowledge. You have to have time-out for that.” Now Ryland sounded sterner than ever and Daniel’s face began to crumble, tears swimming in his eyes.

The men exchanged uneasy glances. None of them liked it when Daniel cried and he definitely knew it, playing them easily when he sat in his little chair sobbing.

Azami’s subtle move put her under the shelter of Sam’s arm. Daniel looked up at him, his lip quivering. Sam leaned down and brushed a kiss over the boy’s mop of hair.

“What does one do on time-out?” Azami asked. Her voice was softer than ever, but Sam felt the hair on the back of his neck raise. Clearly she didn’t like the idea of the boy being punished.

“Daniel sits in a chair for two minutes,” Sam explained hastily.

Daniel knew by the way she held him so protectively that he had an ally in Azami. He gave a little sob and pressed his face into her shoulder.

“You tie him to a chair?” Azami glared up at Sam.

Ian burst out laughing. “If you tried tying that boy to a chair, momma bear would come at you with teeth and claws.”

“And a very big gun,” Ryland added. “I don’t know what they do in Japan, but we don’t tie our children to chairs. He sits in it because we tell him to. It’s safe and doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t like the isolation and understands there are consequences for naughty behavior. In this case, he also violated a safety rule.”

“What happens if he gets out of the chair?” Azami asked. “Before the two minutes are up?”

“He is placed back in the chair and we go at it all day if necessary,” Ryland said. “Raising Daniel requires patience as well as love.” He looked around the room. “I think it requires all of us. We work together. Clearly we dropped the ball. I’m sorry he disturbed you on your first night with us. Thank you for being so gracious about it.”

“I rarely sleep at night. I needed to make certain my brothers were safe and had all they required. I felt better seeing they were assigned guards as well.”

Ian regarded her with a clear frown. “Are you saying you left your room last night?”

“Well, of course. The baby had to be put back to bed. I wasn’t going to shove him back up into the vent and hope he made his way back to his room safely,” Azami said.

“That’s impossible,” Ian denied. “I didn’t leave the door. I didn’t, Rye. I didn’t fall asleep tonight, or last night.”

Ryland turned piercing eyes on Azami, waiting for an explanation.

“Your son is an extremely intelligent and curious child,” Azami said. “And very gifted. Perhaps too gifted for his age.”

Ryland reached out and plucked Daniel from her arms. “What do you mean by that?”

Sam bristled at the belligerence in Ryland’s tone. “She didn’t mean anything,” he snapped before he could stop himself.

Ryland’s gaze jumped to his face.

“Sir,” Azami said calmly. “Your son is in the greatest danger possible and not from anyone outside this compound. From himself. Like Sam, like me, he is a teleporter.”