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  Healing Hearts 1: Warrior Angel

  Kai vows to never love another, and now her life's work is to help every soldier in need, every law enforcement officer, every first responder, so that no one is left behind.

  Kai is known as the warrior angel, the woman who started Guardians help and has been a life saver to those in need. Helping soldiers get the assistance they need--medical and psychological--and transitioning back into civilian life, as well as law enforcement officers and others who suffer from PTSD. Kai want to give them hope for a new life, a happy one, yet she has given up on love and accepted to never love again.

  The last thing she expects is fall in love with three men that represent everything she fears, and yet everything she is drawn to. After losing her brother, a State Trooper killed in the line of duty, and failing to keep her soldier boyfriend alive as he slowly fell deeper and deeper into depression, she doesn't think she could ever be in a relationship with a soldier or a cop.

  Zayn, Thermo, and Selasi have got it all. The emotions, the toughness, Special Forces, law enforcement, PTSD, stubbornness, and then some, but somehow they fall in love.

  She's resistant, and it nearly costs her everything.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Romantic Suspense

  Length: 39,514 words

  HEALING HEARTS 1:

  WARRIOR ANGEL

  Dixie Lynn Dwyer

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  HEALING HEARTS 1: WARRIOR ANGEL

  Copyright © 2018 by Dixie Lynn Dwyer

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-102-5

  First Publication: March 2018

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 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.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at

  [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  Dear readers,

  Thank you for purchasing this legal copy of Warrior Angel.

  I dedicate this series to all the men and women in uniform. Our military, our police, our fire fighters, paramedics and all first responders as well as those that love them and support them.

  It isn’t easy. Just as they have a calling to protect and serve, those that love them have a calling to be supportive, empathetic and proud. God Bless.

  Happy Reading,

  HUGS!

  Dixie

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  People seem to be more interested in my name than where I get my ideas for my stories from. So I might as well share the story behind my name with all my readers.

  My momma was born and raised in New Orleans. At the age of twenty, she met and fell in love with an Irishman named Patrick Riley Dwyer. Needless to say, the family was a bit taken aback by this as they hoped she would marry a family friend. It was a modern day arranged marriage kind of thing and my momma downright refused.

  Being that my momma’s families were descendants of the original English speaking Southerners, they wanted the family blood line to stay pure. They were wealthy and my father’s family was poor.

  Despite attempts by my grandpapa to make Patrick leave and destroy the love between them, my parents married. They recently celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary.

  I am one of six children born to Patrick and Lynn Dwyer. I am a combination of both Irish and a true Southern belle. With a name like Dixie Lynn Dwyer it’s no wonder why people are curious about my name.

  Just as my parents had a love story of their own, I grew up intrigued by the lifestyles of others. My imagination as well as my need to stray from the straight and narrow made me into the woman I am today.

  Enjoy Warrior Angel and allow your imagination to soar freely.

  For all titles by Dixie Lynn Dwyer, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/dixie-lynn-dwyer

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Healing Hearts 1: Warrior Angel

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Healing Hearts 1: Warrior Angel

  DIXIE LYNN DWYER

  Copyright © 2018

  Prologue

  “I love you so much, Edison. We’ll get through this. Together, I know we’ll get through this,” Kai Devaro whispered. She pressed her lips against his head as he rocked slightly against her. He was shaking. She could feel it, and a tear escaped her eye. She was trying so hard not to cry. To not let him know that this was killing her, to see such a strong, amazing soldier, boyfriend, and future husband feeling such pain. That twinge of fear caused an unsettling in her gut. She tried not to show that either. Afraid of the violent side to these things, and what his hands could do to her when he was out of his mind. She squeezed her eyes tight and breathed softly, remaining calm as she learned to do.

  Edison tilted his face up toward her. She was holding him from behind on the rug, right next to the bed. She pressed her lips to his forehead. He closed his eyes. Held him in her arms as he stared at the wall, having another one of those episodes. An episode? Why did the doctors call them that? How did zoning out, getting lost in thought, turn into episodes? Being violent one minute and the next crying and rolled up into a fetal position. She caressed him, held him close, and he was so much bigger than her. His muscles huge. His body more than a foot and a few inches taller than hers—a masculine soldier, a trained killer—and he lay in her arms like a small child. It upset her, but it killed him inside for her to see him like this. She just knew it. He begged her to leave him. To be free of his abuse, of the emotional and physical damage he had done to her over the year, and yet she remained. She knew it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t mean to strike at her, especially in bed at night when the demons attacked his mind.

  She smoothed her hands along his arm and lay her palm against his chest. His heart raced. He was getting weaker and weaker inside, but on the outside, he still appeared a warrior.

  She prayed for her lover’s return. For him to be whole again. Masculine again. Unafraid of anything or anyone, and a force to be reckoned with. He was sexy, intimidating, powerful and capable. She longed for the love, the desire, the compassion and the care once again. She wanted and needed her lover back. The man she gave her heart and soul to. The only lover she had or would ever have. Why was this happening? Why, when he had been done with the military. Had survived his tours of duty and finally gave it up after nearly dying out there in the Middle East? She thought of the scar along his leg. The battle wounds and the fact that he survived when others hadn’t.

  God brought him back to her, but he wasn’t the same man. He wasn’t whole. Whe
re was her Edison? Where was the man who could hold her in his arms and make her feel safe, protected, and beautiful?

  His words cut through her heart “Move on, Kai. You need a real man. I’m all fucked up. You deserve better.”

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He didn’t respond at first, and that hurt. He would always respond, and quickly, and with a hug, a kiss, a caress along her curves, but not anymore. He was giving up, and she was his lifeline.

  “Why?” he replied.

  “You know why, soldier. We’ve been together since high school. You’re my best friend. My everything. I’m not going anywhere.” She caressed his arm and hugged him against her front.

  “Why can’t he just let me die? I want to die, Kai. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t,” he mumbled, and the tears fell from her eyes.

  He was getting worse, and there was no one to help her or to help him with his Post-traumatic stress disorder. He risked his life for this country, he sacrificed everything, and the doctors did nothing. Edison was heading toward a psych ward, or to his grave. He had been there for her. Held her, comforted her when her brother, Peter, was killed in the line of duty serving as a state trooper. What was she going to do? What more could she do for Edison, the man she loved? The man she stood by through every tour and every injury and near death experience? What? The tears flowed and her heart ached.

  She never felt so helpless and alone in her life, even as she held her lover, her best friend in her arms. She was alone, and life didn’t seem worth living.

  Chapter One

  “It’s quiet,” Selasi Stelling whispered to his brother Zayn. They were hiding in the brush under the trees about a hundred yards from the facility they were about to infiltrate. Their other brother, Thermo, along with a few soldiers from another troop, were being held prisoner inside the building. A secret mission gone badly, and the government wasn’t sending anyone in to rescue them. So Selasi and Zayn called up their friends, used their connections, and decided to do their own secret mission. They weren’t letting their brother die.

  The building, a two-story shit hole that looked like it could collapse at the next big windstorm, was heavily guarded. Thermo had been assigned to a special operations unit six months prior. It was supposed to be the last assignment for their brother and then he was retiring from the Corp. Same for Zayn and Selasi, who already got things started with careers after the military. Zayn with the state police as a special training officer and investigator, and Selasi assisting with intel and operations for their buddies who were mercenaries. Zayn and Selasi were done eight weeks ago, and then they got word that Thermo had been captured by a small terrorist cell in Baghdad. It took a lot of finagling and favors to get the info they needed, never mind resourcefulness and a bit of muscle to find the location. They did it though, and without government support, without funding or assistance, except from friends of theirs who were mercenaries.

  Selasi swallowed hard, and Zayn exhaled.

  “No matter what, don’t get dead, bro. We get Thermo out and we never have to come to a shit fucking country like this ever again.”

  “Agreed.” Selasi heard the signal.

  “Game time,” Zayn whispered, and they got up, pulled their weapons to their shoulders, and slowly crossed the darkness of the open area before the building. Mike, Turner, Fogerty, Watson, Dell, and Phantom were on the move and infiltrating the area. A moment later, gunfire erupted, and Zayn and Selasi hurried to the door where they believed their brother was being held. As men came running out firing their weapons, they returned fire.

  “We’re coming for you, bro. Just hold tight, Selasi and I are here. We’re gonna take you home.”

  Pop, pop, pop.

  * * * *

  Thermo barely registered the sound of rapid gunfire. He was left to bleed out, like the others before him, his fellow soldiers and prisoners to these monsters. He heard the guards yelling in their language, and it was obvious the fire wasn’t friendly. Could someone be coming in to rescue them? Well him. He was the last one left. All six-feet-five of muscles, steel, had held up against the brutal abuse and starvation. He closed his eyes, his face against the dirt floor as blood dripped from his nose and lips. His chest burned with scars from the blades of knives and the sharp snap of long sticks like whips against his flesh. His nostrils no longer burned from inhaling dirt and the stench of death. His eyes were heavy, not glossy, because he was beyond dehydrated. He was dying, his kidneys failing, and could smell death coming.

  His head felt fuzzy, and it was beyond the results of getting knocked around with the butt of guns, slapped, punched and even kicked by heavy, black military boots. His will to live and to fight on was hanging by a thread. As he listened, trying to determine if it was real or a hallucination, the shots came through the door and took one of the guards out.

  He watched, still not able to lift his head, still feeling like he was dreaming and this wasn’t real, or willing to put what last bit of energy he had into a hallucination of his mind.

  More yelling. Thermo felt about an ounce of hope and attempted to move. He slid his palm along the ground to gain leverage, then lifted his aching cheek up off the floor, but he was so damn weak his head fell back to the hard, dirty surface. His nostrils flared. More gunfire, an explosion, and one of the guys fell back into the area where Thermo lay. He was bleeding from his neck and chest, the gun he held lay right there inches from Thermo. That hope he had grew.

  He stared at the weapon. The weeks or months that passed never gave him the opportunity to come this close to a weapon, a means to fight and escape. Now it was here and he was so fucking weak from injuries and abuse, he couldn’t fucking move.

  “Mother fucker. I’m not dying without taking some of these scumbags with me. I’m not.” He grunted. He thought of the others. The men who came on the mission with him and who died here. He growled and fought against the pain, the exhaustion, and reached for the AK 47. I’m a fucking Marine. Special fucking Forces. Death before dishonor. Semper Fi.

  More yelling, then men flooded back into the room. They were shooting through the open windows and the doorway, and he knew this was it. Kill them and die knowing he took the enemy out. Nothing else mattered but seeking revenge so that the other U.S. soldiers’ deaths had meaning, and to make those friends proud. Bullets snapped around him, hitting the dirt, ricocheting against the walls inside the room. Whoever was returning fire might wind up killing him by a stray fucking bullet. He had to take these men out.

  Thermo shook terribly, and barely had the strength to hold the weapon the right way and place his fingers on the trigger. He cursed and dug deep. The sound of the “pops” echoed in the building and the enemy soldiers dropped one by one. When they were all dead, weakness overtook the will to do more and to just live. His face fell against the gun and the floor. He was breathing slowly.

  “Thermo! Thermo?” He blinked his eyes open and he thought he was dreaming. Selasi and Zayn? My brothers?

  I’m dead. I must be dead.

  Chapter Two

  Two years later, South Carolina

  “Hello?”

  “Wow, I actually got you on the phone. Holy shit. Is everything okay?” Afina Stelling asked her friend, Kai.

  “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny, Afina. What is going on?”

  “You tell me? It’s been over a year since you moved out here, and we haven’t gotten together to hang out much at all. I thought the whole point of leaving New Jersey was for us to be closer.”

  “I know, I know. We did coffee several times and even dinner,” Kai replied.

  “Which you sneakily took off as soon as some of my other friends came around.”

  “I didn’t sneak off. The job is demanding. I’m up to my neck in contracts and negotiations, and having to go to these damn dinner parties to smooze the board members to get money for the facility.”

  “Oh how dreadful, to have to wear ball gowns, eat caviar, and dance among the wealthy and famous. If I
didn’t know you so well, I would think their snobbiness had rubbed off on you and you don’t want to be seen with us simple folk.”

  “Cut it out.”

  Afina chuckled. “I’m just busting your chops. I know you’re a workaholic. So, you’re finalizing the deal this week, how about meeting me at Corporal’s tomorrow night? It’s going to be a fun night. All the girls are going, plus, not that you care, but a lot of hot guys hang out there.”

  “Afina, I think I’ll pass.”

  “No, no, no, you have to come. My brother Mike is going to be there and he hasn’t seen you at all.”

  “Mike? I thought him and his buddies were on another secret job or something.”

  “They were and just returned. Turner was a little messed up.”

  “Bad?” Kai asked, instantly feeling nervous and sick to her stomach.

  “No, just a black eye and bruised cheek. Mike said it was no big deal.”

  “I bet. I don’t know if I want to go.”

  “Oh come on, you always have fun with us, besides, Amelia needs us.”

  “What’s wrong? I only saw her for a few minutes yesterday at work in the office at the hospital.”

  “Cavanaugh, what else.”

  “Oh no, please don’t tell me that she wants to get back together with him.”

  “I think she is considering it. He’s breaking her down. Calls all the time, sends things to her apartment.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “We do, so bring her to Corporal’s tomorrow night. Hey, that surgeon still hitting you up?”