One for Three [Elite Dragons 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Elite Dragons 1

  One for Three

  Brooke Marsh is at death's door and suffering from exposure when she is rescued by Special Force operatives Coulter, Trace, and Corbin Thornell.

  Coulter, Trace, and Corbin are members of the Elite Dragons, working and living together under the cover of running a horse stud with nine other operatives.

  The three brothers are called in to rescue three women who have been abducted and carried over the border into Canada. They find the women, and even though Brooke is unconscious, they are all drawn to her.

  They vow to protect her and find the leaders of the black market organ traders and take them down. But that isn’t the only threat to the woman they have feelings for. Can they find the spies amongst them and keep the women safe? Or will they be too late and lose everything?

  Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 37,312 words

  ONE FOR THREE

  Elite Dragons 1

  Becca Van

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  ONE FOR THREE

  Copyright © 2012 by Becca Van

  E-book ISBN: 1-61926-602-4

  First E-book Publication: April 2012

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  ONE FOR THREE

  Elite Dragons 1

  BECCA VAN

  Copyright © 2012

  Prologue

  “Oomph,” Brooke Marsh groaned as she tried to get her cold, trembling, uncooperative limbs to obey her brain’s command to get up off the hard floor. It was just too much effort. An impossible task her body was incapable of achieving.

  She had never been so cold in her life. She sat in the corner of the icy, damp stone basement and shivered as her gaze skimmed over the numerous pools of water about the floor. She pulled her legs in closer to her body and hugged her knees. The freezing temperature permeated her bone-deep, and she knew if she didn’t get warm soon, she would die from hypothermia. She looked over to the three other women as they huddled together trying to get warm. Brooke knew she should be over the other side of the room with them, but she was nearly frozen and didn’t think she would ever be able to move again. The room only had one low-voltage lightbulb, and there were no windows. There was a toilet in an enclave, for which she was thankful, but it didn’t have any window either. When she had first been pushed inside, Brooke had looked over every inch of the room, especially the door, but there was no way out. Even picking the lock with a hairpin had got her nowhere.

  Brooke had been in this basement for a little over a week, and she was tired, hungry, and freezing. The other women had been brought in after her, one by one, and still none of them knew who their kidnappers were, what they looked like, or what they wanted with them. She didn’t have any family, so if her abductors planned to put her up for ransom they were in for a rude awakening. She had heard the other women talking and knew their families would be worried sick for their safety. But only one of the women had family with money enough to pay a ransom, if one was demanded for her release.

  Brooke had been on her way to the bus stop in her hometown of Bismarck, North Dakota, when she had been accosted from behind. She’d tried to fight, but her kidnapper had been too strong. She had been shoved into the back of a van, restrained at the wrists and ankles, and blindfolded. She hadn’t been able to identify her abductors as they had worn ski masks which covered everything but their eyes. And they had worn sunglasses to hide those. There had been two men, one to drive the van and the other to kidnap her. The other women suffered the same cruel fate she did.

  She knew their first names, but that was all. Janie and Katlynn were the youngest of them at only twenty-two. Then there was Alicia, who was twenty-four, and Brooke, the oldest at twenty-five. She didn’t know their last names, and even though she had interacted with the other three women at first, she didn’t have the energy to do so now. Her whole body shook with the cold, and she was struggling to keep her eyes open. If she didn’t get warm soon, she would slip into a coma and never wake again.

  She stared at the stone walls and floor, her vision blurring, and she had to push herself to focus once more. The constant drip of water was almost hypnotic with its regularity. Her stomach growled with hunger, and even though she and the other women had been fed once a day, the small roll of bread and cup of water they were each given was never enough to appease her hunger. She was lethargic from lack of food and liquid, and the freezing temperatures. She didn’t even have a coat to wrap herself up in.

  She had stupidly forgotten to take her coat that morning, so long ago, when she had headed to work. She hadn’t been too worried since her bus stop was right outside her small apartment and stopped only about a hundred yards from her place of employment.

  She wondered if her boss, Neville, had alerted
the authorities to the fact she was missing. Probably not, she thought, and shuddered so hard she nearly fell over. Neville’s disorganization was such that if breathing weren’t automatic, he would forget and fall over dead from lack of oxygen. She was probably on her own.

  Brooke saw the other women rise to their feet, and they began to walk. She wanted to tell them they would only lose body heat more rapidly if they moved about, but she couldn’t get her mouth to cooperate. Her eyes closed, and no matter how hard she tried to open them, it was a losing battle. She slipped into sleep, and her last thought was of her own death.

  Chapter One

  Dragon Leader Coulter Thornell saw the lights of Oxbow ahead. Four hours of driving the military-issue four-by-four through the slush and snow had finally brought them across the Canadian border and close to their target.

  He glanced across the cab of the truck to his brothers, Trace and Corbin. Both men looked alert despite the drive from the Elite Dragons’ headquarters in North Dakota. Coulter expected no less of them. Likewise, he felt sure that the remaining nine members of his team, stationed in the back of the truck, were ready for action.

  Nevertheless, he touched his microphone to speak to the others in the back.

  “Showtime is in about ten minutes. Keep your eyes peeled. We don’t know how many we’re up against. I think if the women haven’t already been moved, they will be in the basement. Have you all got your medic kits?”

  “Yes, sir,” his team replied as one.

  Satisfied, he turned off the microphone. As the leader of the Elite Dragons, Coulter oversaw the running of the highly trained squad. Currently, their station was in middle-of-nowhere North Dakota, between the towns of Langdon and Belcourt along the Canadian border. He and his men were in the elite Special Forces and did whatever needed to be done. They usually took the hard, badass jobs. His group of warriors was a secret weapon the US government had trained, and as far as the normal civilian and most politicians knew, they didn’t exist. The Elite Dragons were Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Marines, and Rangers all rolled into one, plus a little bit more.

  They’d had years of training and were often called in to help fight against terrorists. All had worked in the Middle East taking out radicals and terrorists and saving innocent people. His team hadn’t failed in a mission yet, and as far as Coulter was concerned, they never would. His men were that good at what they did.

  Though he had debriefed the men back at the farm, he spared a glance for his brothers as he made a right turn. “The house is small but old. The blueprints show a basement, and it’s my bet that is where the women are being held,” he said.

  Corbin nodded. “How many?”

  “We don’t know. The police sergeant in Bismarck told me that the kidnappers are wanted in several countries for abducting women and selling them so their organs can be harvested and sold on the black market.”

  “Yet these guys are only puppets,” Trace inferred.

  Coulter nodded. He hoped they could eventually find out who the bigwigs of the operation were. He had dealt with this type of syndicate before and one day hoped they would find out who was the ringleader of the organization.

  His boss had immediately called for his team’s help in the rescue. He and his men were to continue working quietly with the law to help shut down the fuckers.

  These innocent women were being kidnapped and killed, or worse, sold off alive only to find that they would soon be killed for their organs. Coulter ground his teeth at the sickening notion. He, his brothers, and his teammates loved women of all shapes, sizes, ages, and looks. Compared to them, women were so soft, sweet, and lovable. The violence and destruction he’d witnessed alongside his men had jaded him. Thankfully, most women would never be exposed to such atrocity and would retain their innocence.

  He slowed the truck and pulled up a block away from the property. Once more, Coulter glanced through the window into the back of the truck. He saw the precise, controlled movements of weapons being checked and readied.

  He, his brothers, and his teammates were stronger than a normal human male. They had volunteered for experiments for the safety of their country, and though they weren’t superhuman, their strength was more than the average man’s. The men could hear and see better and also had the ability to feel what others felt as well as being stronger than the average male. They were empathic, but could also tune out most people’s feelings and emotions. The Elite Dragons only called on their abilities when absolutely necessary, hence the earpieces. They didn’t intrude on each others’ privacy if they could avoid it.

  The scientists who worked for the government had injected him and his men full of chemicals he would not even be able to name. From the first he had been more in tune with his body and felt strength, stamina, and a nearly never-ending supply of energy strum throughout his body. His strength still had the ability to amaze him, even years after the metabolic changes had been made to his body.

  As the months of experiments had progressed the scientists had taught them how to utilize their brains to almost eighty percent of their capacity, instead of the supposed ten percent the average human used. The masterminds of the operation had taught them how to feel what others were feeling, but also how to build a wall and block emotions so they wouldn’t be inundated all the time.

  There was no one better prepared for whatever they might find in that basement, yet Coulter, checking his own semiautomatic, had to take a moment to brace himself.

  The truth was that he was tired. He was thirty-five years old and this was his and his brothers’ last mission with their team. They’d had enough of taking orders, but they all planned to see this mission through until the end. It could take years to eventually get the bosses in the black-market organ trade behind bars, but they would finish it.

  Once their time had been served, he and his brothers planned to take over running the stud farm that provided cover for the Elite Dragons. His brothers weren’t going to renew their service contracts when he retired, for which he was grateful. He loved his brothers and wanted to know they were safe at all times. He was a control freak, but since he’d had to be in order to make sure he and his men survived, he was okay with that.

  Maybe that would have to change when he was out of the service. His brothers were as arrogant and dominant as he was, but he was the most controlling of them all. Yet he wanted to settle down with a woman and start a family. He wanted to be able to cuddle and enjoy a warm, soft, loving woman for the rest of his life. He wanted to have children and help to nurture them. He loved his men nearly as much as his brothers, but he was sick and tired of only having testosterone to deal with and no estrogen, besides his mom and her friend May, who both cooked for them all.

  He put those thoughts aside. Maybe once this mission was over he could think that way, but not while there was still a job to do.

  Coulter turned his attention back to the small-town street and the job ahead of them. He spoke again into his microphone. “Okay. Seton, you and your brothers can move in first and break down the door. Ward, you and yours are to back them up. Bryden, I want you, Linton, and Codi to cover the sides and backyard. No one is to get by us. Keep an eye on the windows on either side of the house. Trace, Corbin, and I are heading straight for the basement,” Coulter informed them.

  He slowed the truck and pulled up a block away from the property. They didn’t talk at all as he and his team exited the vehicle. They each knew what they had to do, and he wouldn’t have wanted to work with anyone else. He knew if there was trouble they would cover each other’s asses and would still get the women out safe and sound.

  Coulter, Trace, and Corbin followed the two teams who would breach the house and secure it. He steeled himself for the coming battle and knew he probably looked as cold and mean as his brothers did. He just hoped they were in time to rescue the women and they weren’t hurt.

  He opened his mind to his surroundings and felt the fear and cold of the three women in the basement. He a
lso felt the two men inside the house, as they portrayed good health and carelessness. That was about to change. He wondered if they would put up a fight or if they would give in without even lifting the weapons they must surely have for protection. He closed his mind off to them and gave the signal to invade.

  Seton, Wolfcot, better known as Wolf, and Lander Garman crept into the yard, keeping to the shadows. The house was run down, and Coulter was thankful the front porch was concrete. If it had been timber, the house’s occupants might have heard the creaking as they mounted the steps. Ward, Stedman, and Bronsin Tilton had their weapons ready and checked the tear-gas grenades attached to their belts. All the operatives were packed full of weapons, from semiautomatic rifles and pistols, to knives and tear gas. They never went on a mission without being fully loaded.

  Coulter watched as Bryden, Linton, and Codi Healy slid around the sides of the house and disappeared. He waited a few seconds and gave the signal to go when he received a light click in his ear.

  They stormed through the house. Coulter laid his mental blueprint over the rooms before him. He ran unerringly to the basement door and encountered neither of the two kidnapers on his way. His brothers were behind him, but the other men had disappeared into the house. Through the walls, he heard brief skirmishes. Before he reached the kitchen, the rest of his team had secured the upstairs and incapacitated the two men.

  Coulter found the door to the basement off the kitchen and kicked it in. He held his semiautomatic rifle in front of him at the ready and raced down the stairs. He saw three women huddled in a corner but didn’t stop moving until he knew the room was clear. Empathy had its limitations, as Coulter had drilled into his men often enough. Only after he’d made his visual sweep of the room did he feel it was secure. Some people had the unconscious ability of blocking their thoughts. He had encountered this ability a couple of times on missions. The first time he felt like he was trying to penetrate a brick wall and had ended up with a god-awful headache, but nothing he had done had been able to get through that barricade. Since then he made sure his brothers and team didn’t just rely on their empathetic senses.