IMPOSSIBLE CHOICES

Twenty-four hours wasn't enough time.

Anya stared at the photo of her sister, real Katya this time, not whatever decoy they'd used, and felt the walls closing in. Alaska was 3,500 miles away. Six hours of flight time if they had a plane. Which they didn't.

"We can't make it," she said quietly. The safe house was different now. Smaller. They'd lost four of her contacts in the port battle. The SAS operator. Two others. "Even if we left right now, even if we had transport, we'd never..."

"We'll make it." Dimitri's voice was rough. Exhausted. But certain.

"How? We don't have a plane. We don't have..."

"I know someone who owes me a favor. Private airfield. He can have us in the air in two hours."

"That's still eight hours total. That leaves us sixteen hours to plan and execute a rescue on a CIA black site." Anya looked at him. At the burns on his arms. The way he favored his left side. "You're hurt. Your brothers are hurt. We're down four operators. We don't even know the layout of the facility."

"So we improvise."

"Dimitri..."

"Anya." He crossed to her. Took her face in his hands. "I know the odds. I know what we're up against. But I also know what happens if we do nothing. Your sister ends up in the program. You live with that guilt. The bond fractures. Everything we've built...everything we are...dies."

The bond pulsed. She felt his certainty. His determination to save her sister even if it killed him.

"This isn't your fight," she whispered.

"Yes it is. You're my mate. Your family is my family. Her fight is our fight." He kissed her forehead. Gentle. "Now stop arguing and help me plan the impossible."

She almost smiled. Almost.

Alexei walked in, phone pressed to his ear. "Da. Da, I understand. Spasibo." He ended the call. Looked at Dimitri. "Marcus can have the plane ready in ninety minutes. But he wants payment upfront. Fifty thousand."

"Done."

"And he wants to know why we're flying into Alaska in winter with tactical gear and enough weapons to start a war."

"Tell him it's personal."

"I did. He laughed." Alexei sat heavily. He looked like hell, face swollen, cuts across his forehead. "He also said Eleanor Voss has people at every major airport in the state. The moment we land, she'll know."

"Then we don't land at an airport." Anya was already pulling up maps on her phone. Her tactical brain kicking into gear. "We jump."

Three pairs of eyes locked on her.

"Jump," Nikolai repeated. "As in... parachute."

"As in HALO insertion. High Altitude Low Opening. We drop from 25,000 feet, freefall to 2,000, pull chutes, land five miles from the facility. They'll never see us coming."

"I've never done a HALO jump," Dimitri said slowly.

"Neither has Alexei," Nikolai added. "Or me. We're smugglers, not Special Forces."

"I have. Thirty times. I'll talk you through it." She looked at each of them. "It's dangerous. It's insane. But it's our best shot at getting in undetected."

Silence. Then Dimitri smiled. Sharp. Feral. "Fuck it. Let's jump out of a plane."

They moved fast. Ninety minutes to prepare. To pack gear. To say goodbye to the decoy-Katya, a plant Eleanor had used to draw them out, and secure her somewhere safe.

Anya found herself alone with Dimitri in the bathroom. He was trying to change the dressing on his burns. Failing.

"Let me." She took the gauze. Gentle. Careful.

He hissed. "It's fine."

"It's not fine. You have second-degree burns. You should be in a hospital."

"Hospitals ask questions."

"Dimitri..."

"I'm going with you." His voice was alpha-hard. Final. "Don't try to talk me out of it."

"I wouldn't dare." She finished wrapping. Looked up at him. Really looked. "Thank you. For this. For risking everything for someone you've never met."

"I'm not doing it for her." He cupped her face. "I'm doing it for you. Because you're mine. And I protect what's mine."

The bond flared. Heat. Want. Desperation.

Wrong time. Wrong place. They had an hour before they needed to leave. An hour before they jumped into hell.

Dimitri's pupils dilated. He felt it too. The need. The bond demanding they claim each other properly. Completely.

"Anya..."

She kissed him. Hard. Claiming. Poured everything into it, fear and love and desperate need.

He growled. Grabbed her hips. Lifted her onto the counter. Stepped between her thighs.

"We don't have time," he said against her mouth.

"Then we'd better be quick."

His laugh was dark. Dangerous. "Quick isn't what I want to do to you."

"What do you want?"

"Everything." His hand slid under her shirt. Found skin. "I want to taste every inch. Want to make you come so hard you forget your name. Want to fuck you until the only word you remember is mine."

Heat. God, she was burning. The omega in her responding to her alpha, to her mate, to the man who'd become everything.

"Show me."

He did.

Shirt gone. Bra torn away. His mouth on her breast, hot, demanding, making her gasp. His hand between her legs,.expert, ruthless, finding exactly where she needed him.

"Wet already." His voice was pure sin. "My pretty omega. So ready for her alpha."

She couldn't speak. Could only hold on as he worked her higher. As pleasure built. As the bond sang between them.

"Come for me," he commanded. Alpha voice. Impossible to resist.

She shattered. Crying out. Trembling. Perfect.

He didn't give her time to recover. Pants gone. His cock, thick, hard, perfect, lressing against her entrance.

"Tell me you want this," he said. "Tell me you're mine."

"Yours. Always yours. Please..."

He pushed in. One hard thrust. Filling her. Claiming her. Making good on every promise.

It was fast. Desperate. The coupling of mates who might die tomorrow. She wrapped her legs around him, took him deeper, met him thrust for thrust.

"Mine," he growled. "My omega. My Luna. Mine."

"Yes. God, yes. Yours."

A sound was torn from her, not from her throat, but from the very pit of her being. A low, guttural "unnnh," that was more vibration than voice, a primal acknowledgement of being filled, of being known. Her head fell back, her mouth a soft 'O' of wonder, as the moan stretched into a breathy, trembling sigh. "Ah... ah, ah..." ...a tiny, rhythmic litany that matched the slow, deep roll of his hips.

Her consciousness frayed at the edges. Thought dissolved into pure sensation, and every sensation had a sound. The scrape of his stubble against her neck drew a sharp, sweet hiss. The clench of her own hands in the sheets brought a desperate whimper. And with every deep, claiming stroke, a new moan was forged in the furnace of her need, deep, resonant, and wet with promise.

"You... you feel..." she tried to speak, but the sentence crumbled into a choked-off cry as he angled deeper, striking a place that turned her bones to liquid gold. Her moan then was a sob of pure, unraveling pleasure... "Ohgod, ohgod, oh..." high and tight in her chest, breaking on a shudder.

She was babbling, a stream of consciousness moaned directly into the charged air. "Yes, there, right there, don't stop, please, please..." Each word was a moan in itself, drenched in a yearning so profound it bordered on pain. Her voice became a stranger's, ragged and raw, climbing a scale of bliss she didn't know existed.

And at the peak, when the tension snapped, her moan was not a single sound, but an entire symphony of release. A sharp, shattered scream that immediately fractured into a cascade of sobbing gasps..."Ah! Ah! Ah!", each one wrenched from her core, until finally, blissfully spent, it all dissolved into a long, trembling, utterly sated exhalation. A soft, continuous "mmmmmmm..." that hummed through her body as she floated back to earth, the echo of the storm still trembling on her lips.

The bond exploded. She felt him, not just physically but everywhere. In her mind. In her soul. The connection so deep, so complete, that she didn't know where she ended and he began.

He came with a roar. Buried deep. Marking her.

Claiming her. Making her his in every way that mattered.

They stayed like that. Connected. Breathing hard. The bond humming with satisfaction.

"After," he whispered. "After we get your sister. After we survive this. I'm keeping you in bed for a week."

She laughed. Shaky. "Promises."

"Guarantees." He kissed her. Soft. Sweet. "I love you, Anya Volkov. My mate. My Luna. My everything."

The words broke her. Remade her. "I love you too."

They cleaned up. Dressed. Walked out to face the others like they hadn't just claimed each other completely.

Alexei took one look at them and rolled his eyes. "Really? We have an hour before we leave and you two..."

"Don't be jealous," Nikolai said cheerfully. "Just because you're not getting laid..."

"Shut up. Both of you." But Dimitri was smiling. The stress lines around his eyes softer.

They piled into the van. Four fighters. Sixty pounds of gear each. Enough weapons to siege a small country.

The drive to the airfield took thirty minutes. Marcus, an old associate of Dimitri's, ex-military, built like a brick wall, had the plane ready. Hercules C-130. Cargo plane. Perfect for a HALO insertion.

"You're insane," Marcus said by way of greeting. "You know that, right?"

"Been told." Dimitri handed him a duffel full of cash. "Fifty thousand. As promised."

Marcus counted it. Nodded. "Where we dropping you?"

"Coordinates will be transmitted once we're airborne." Anya was checking her gear. Parachute. Altimeter. Oxygen mask. "You'll get us to 25,000 feet. Hold steady. We'll jump at the marked coordinates. Then you bug out. Don't wait. Don't circle back. Just go."

"And if you die?"

"You keep the money."

He laughed. "I like her, Volkov. She's practical."

They loaded. Gear stowed. Weapons secured. Anya ran them through HALO procedures, how to maintain altitude, how to track each other in freefall, how to avoid mid-air collision.

"This is insane," Alexei muttered.

"Yes," Anya agreed. "But it's the good kind of insane."

The plane took off. Climbing. 10,000 feet. 15,000. 20,000.

At 25,000, they put on oxygen masks. The temperature dropped to minus forty. Anya could see her breath even through the mask.

"Five minutes!" Marcus called from the cockpit.

Anya stood. Started helping the brothers into their rigs. Double-checking connections. Making sure altimeters were set.

"Remember," she said over the roar of engines. "Exit clean. Arch your back. Spread your arms and legs. Track toward me if you start to drift. Pull at 2,000 feet. Not higher. Not lower. Exactly 2,000."

"And if we fuck up?" Nikolai asked.

"You die. But try not to. I like you."

He grinned. Insane. They were all insane.

The door opened. Wind roared. Cold that stole breath. Darkness absolute.

Below,.Alaska. Wilderness. Somewhere in that frozen hell, Katya was waiting.

"One minute!" Marcus called.

Anya moved to the door. Checked her altimeter one last time. 25,000 feet. Five miles of empty air between her and the ground.

This was it. Do or die.

The light turned green.

"Go! Go! Go!"

She jumped.

The world fell away. Free fall at 120 miles per hour. Wind roaring. Earth rushing up. The brothers somewhere behind her, she couldn't see them, could only trust they'd followed.

Fifteen seconds. Twenty. Thirty.

She tracked. Arms tight to her sides. Speeding up. Falling faster. The ground coming up fast, too fast...

2,500 feet. Almost time.

2,000.

She pulled.

The chute deployed. Perfect. She grabbed the toggles. Started steering toward the landing zone, a clearing five miles from the facility.

Above her, three other chutes blossomed. The brothers had made it. All alive.

They landed hard. Snow and ice. Anya tucked and rolled. Came up unclipping.

Dimitri hit thirty feet away. Then Alexei. Then Nikolai. All intact.

"Everyone good?" Anya called softly.

"Define good," Alexei muttered. But he was moving. Stowing his chute. Checking his weapon.

They cached the chutes. Covered them with snow. Then started moving. Five miles cross-country. Through snow and darkness and cold that wanted to kill them.

Anya took point. Night vision goggles. Rifle ready. Behind her, Dimitri, Alexei, Nikolai. Her pack. Her family.

They were a quarter mile from the facility when Anya's phone buzzed.

She stopped. Pulled it out. Another message.

TIMELINE MOVED UP. HYBRID PROCEDURE STARTS IN 12 HOURS. NOT 24. TICK TOCK, AGENT VOLKOV.

No.

"What is it?" Dimitri at her shoulder. Feeling her fear through the bond.

She showed him.

His face went hard. "Then we move faster."

They ran. Full sprint. Through snow that sucked at their boots. Through cold that burned their lungs.

Twelve hours. They had twelve hours to plan.

Execute. Extract.

Twelve hours to save her sister.

Or lose her forever.