Chapter 1

      Staggering a little as she ran, Tessa Wilkes spied the finish line maybe a half mile ahead through waves of heat and dust. Whatever bastard had decided to call a twenty-mile run carrying a forty-pound rucksack a “sprint” should be shot. Right now. She volunteered to pull the trigger.

      Her body hurt in every way it was possible to hurt. Three months of grueling, around-the-clock physical training had taken its toll on her. She’d reached the end of her rope, and her fingers were slipping off the last bit of said rope with every agonizing step.

      She’d known going in that just because it had become legal for women to begin Special Forces training, it didn’t mean any were going to be allowed to finish the program and play with the big boys. The male instructors would keep doing BS like this run until they broke her. They were never going to back off.

      Only she could make the pain stop. By quitting. By giving in. By accepting that she was never going to be one of them. She was sorely tempted to give up on her futile dream when she reached this one last finish line.

      But no sooner had the impulse come to her than a wave of sheer, cussed stubbornness slammed through her. She was that horse who would die in the harness, still straining to pull its load.

      Her face was on fire. Her lungs were self-combusting. The heavy pack hammered her feet into the ground with every step she took. But onward she staggered. Step after miserable step. At this point any reasonably fit person could walk beside her faster than she was running.

      But she. Did. Not. Stop.

      She’d asked for this insanity—begged for it, even—which made her misery even worse. It stripped away her right to complain. All she had left was anger.

      She reached for her old friend, Fury. Born of rage at being powerless to control her life, it rose from her determination someday to become a strong, independent woman whom no man would ever push around.

      Her steps stabilized. Her stride stretched back out into a full run. Less than a quarter mile to go now.

      “Damn. Thought we had you there, Wilkes,” a male voice said sardonically from behind her.

      She didn’t bother turning around to look. Lambert. A recently arrived instructor, he always wore mirrored shades and a baseball cap, which meant she had no idea what her latest tormenter actually looked like beyond that lean, chiseled jaw. And a physique modeled after the great masters of sculpture, of course. He never participated in harassing the trainees. He just watched. Mostly her.

      He’d been hanging around pretty much continuously the past few days. Either he was studying her for who knew what inscrutable reason, or he was stalking her. Whatever. They could throw their best head games at her and run her till she dropped. When she got back up, she would just keep on going.

      “Ahh, well. We’ll break you next time,” he murmured from just behind her. “Or the time after that. If you won’t quit coming after us, we won’t quit coming after you.”

      His lightly delivered comment sent a chill through her. He was not lying. They would keep coming after her until they