Arden smiled. “Amazing.”
Indy grinned. “I am so damn happy for you, Ard. You snagged yourself a sexy berserker.”
Then the two of them burst into giggles and it felt so good.
Dom’s chair creaked as he shifted. He was back in a conference room, poring over more footage.
He was trying to focus on the image in front of him, but all he could think about was Arden—the sound she made when he slid inside her, the way her hair smelled, the taste of her skin.
“Dom? Earth to Dom? Hey!”
Dom looked up and saw all of his squad mates staring at him. “What?”
Griff shook his head. “You’re a million miles away.”
Dom just grunted.
“He needs to get laid, I tell you,” Hemi said.
Dom shot Hemi a look. “The only thing I need is to find this bomb. There’s no need for you to worry about my sex life, Rahia.”
Hemi snorted. “Especially when you don’t have one.”
Levi set a file down on the table. “We’ve found dick-all. I say we get back out there. There’s nothing in these pictures.”
Tane rose and started pacing. “We can’t cover the entire Blue Mountains on foot. We need to narrow things down. Where would the Gizzida take this bomb?”
“Somewhere well hidden,” Ash suggested. “And they can’t have taken it too far, or we’d have noticed.”
The team started spitballing, tossing out theories, each one wilder than the next, but slowly, every single idea was discarded.
The fact of the matter was, they didn’t have one fucking clue.
The door opened and Indy entered. Their comms officer was juggling a large coffee mug and her portable comp. She moved over and dropped a kiss on Griff’s lips before she sat down. Then she looked straight at Dom and smiled at him.
Shit. She knew.
She winked at him.
As his team continued to brainstorm, Dom focused back on the discussion. Indy joined in, offering her own theories and opinions.
“We’ve got nothing.” Tane pressed his hands to the table. Frustration throbbed off him.
Then the door flew open.
“Lunch,” the redhead in the doorway called out.
“Hey, Spitfire.” Levi grinned at his woman.
Chrissy smiled as she carried a large box. She had some grease stains on her tank top, no doubt from her maintenance job. A cute blonde wearing glasses appeared beside her, carrying some drinks.
Chrissy dropped the box of sandwiches on the table and sauntered over to Levi. The man pulled her into his lap and kissed her like there was no one else in the room. Marin Mitchell from the tech team shot a wide-eyed smile at Ash, her blonde curls bouncing. The tattooed berserker rose, pulling her into his arms.
Dom watched the men’s faces light up.
He could have that. He could have that with Arden. Someone who was solely his, for the first time ever in his entire life. Someone who made crawling through the darkness worth it.
As his team mates reached for the sandwiches, Dom realized that he finally had something worth fighting for.
But before he and Arden had a future, he first had to protect her and ensure their survival.
“How’s the search going?” Chrissy asked.
Levi groaned. “Don’t ask. If I have to look at more drone footage, I’m going to let the Gizzida kill me.”
Sitting beside Ash, Marin leaned forward, nibbling on a salad. “The tech team is doing more tests on the samples you guys brought back from the town.” Her shoulders slumped. “But nothing new so far.”
“How are the other squads doing?” Tane asked.
Marin pulled a face. “Same as you guys. Slow and frustrated.” She nibbled on some lettuce. “Holmes is working with the other bases. He’s talking to Groom Lake right now. Everyone knows we have to find the other two bombs.”
A sour mood fell over the room and everyone picked at their food.
When the door opened again, Dom leaned back in his chair and glanced over. Arden rushed in, her hair mussed.
“Ard?” Indy said.
Dom leaped to his feet. Arden’s gaze hit him and she circled the table, making a beeline straight to him.
“I found something!” She was breathless. “The rest of my squad has gone to lunch, but I had to tell somebody.”
“Calm down, bella.”
She slapped a hand to his chest. “I think I know where the bomb might be.” She went up on her toes, pressing her mouth to his.
It was Arden, so naturally, Dom’s brain short-circuited. He wrapped an arm around her and kissed her back.
He sensed the mood in the room change. He pulled her close to his side and looked up.
Griff was flat-out grinning. Ash, Levi, and Tane were looking on with raised eyebrows. Chrissy was elbowing Marin, Indy looked smug, and Hemi appeared shocked.
“What the fuck, Santora?” Hemi said. “You’ve been holding out on us.”
Arden blinked, as though she was suddenly realizing that there were other people in the room.
“Ah…” Pink filled her cheeks.
Dom just held her tighter. “Tell us what you found, bella.”
“This.” She slapped the printout she was holding onto the table. Everyone rose, leaning over to look at it.
It was an image. Dom recognized the remnants of the test bomb, sitting among a bunch of track marks in the mud.
“Okay.” Tane frowned. “The test bomb. We’ve all seen it.”
“Not the bomb. Here.” Arden pointed to a smudge on the image.
Dom frowned. There was a faint smear of blue-green color in one of the track marks.
Everyone traded confused looks.
“We need more, Arden,” Dom said.
“The blue-green mark. Here, I enlarged it.” She set another picture down on the table.
There was some more detail to it now. Dom’s frown deepened. It wasn’t really clear, but it looked like a string of pearls.
“What is it?” Indy asked.
“It’s a glow worm larva,” Arden said.
Glow worms? That didn’t mean much to Dom.
Hemi grunted. “Tane, remember that family vacation?”
Tane nodded. “Back in New Zealand. Our parents took us on a boat tour through Waitomo Caves when we were kids.”
“The glow worms were amazing,” Hemi said. “Like stars.”
“Glow
