Excerpt: 'Never Surrender' by Lindsay McKenna

HEA is thrilled to get to share with you an excerpt from Lindsay McKenna's latest Shadow Warriors novel, Never Surrender, out this week.

First, here's the blurb (courtesy of publisher Harlequin HQN):

From Shadow Warrior…to hostage

Despite her sweet nature, Navy medic Bay Thorn's will is unbreakable. It has earned her not only the respect of her team, but also the love of Navy SEAL Gabe Griffin. And as soon as she wraps up the final six months of Operation Shadow Warriors in Afghanistan, she'll have her happily ever after….

Until her deployment goes horribly wrong.

Bay's medical expertise is needed by the Taliban, and she is taken hostage. Her captor is ruthless and cruel, and Bay isn't exempt from his evil intents. All that's left now is her resolve and the too-distant memory of Gabe—her last and only hope for rescue. And to pull Bay from hell, this SEAL will have to break every rule in the book. But will Gabe find the woman he loves…or a woman broken beyond recognition?

Here's the sneak peek of Never Surrender …

Gabe jerked awake, a scream on his lips. Disoriented, breathing hard, sweat running down his temples, he felt as if he were underwater, suffocating, unable to reach the surface for air.

God…what?

His mind tumbled. He looked at the digital red letters on the clock on the bed stand. It was 12:30 a.m. As he gasped for breath, his gut was tied in knots. He lay naked in the bed, feeling a horrible rush of anxiety tunnel and twist violently through him. Another nightmare? Hell, he had them regularly. This one was different. Very different. It raised the hair on the nape of his neck.

He forced himself to sit up, swinging his legs over the bed. The moment his bare feet hit the cool bamboo flooring, it gave him something to focus on, something to ground himself with. His reaction to the nightmare was joltingly different.

What the hell?

Gabe forced himself to control his breathing; something he was very good at because he was a sniper. He could damn near control every bodily function he had, including lowering his heart rate.

Wiping the sweat off his face, he blinked several times. Why was he feeling so damned scared? What the hell was this all about? He stared at the clock, making mental calculations that it was noon for Bay in Afghanistan. Daytime was safer than night-time over there. The Taliban struck during the dark hours.

Had he had a precognitive dream about her? One that showed him something that was going to happen to her? The SEAL chief's phone call last week had made him edgy. Tense. Maybe he was just working that out in his dream state? How the hell did he know? He was no friggin' shrink.

Standing, Gabe walked out of the bedroom, down the hall to the kitchen. He wanted water, his mouth feeling as if it had cotton balls in it. He stood at the sink, filled the cup, tipped it to his lips and slugged down the liquid. Finishing off the glass of water, he set it in the sink, turned and walked into the quiet living room.

Frowning, he felt restless, as if he had something important to do. His mind raced with questions. No answers were forthcoming. Rubbing his face with his hands, he muttered a curse. Dammit, he needed this sleep so badly. The past week, he'd been involved in the swim qualifications down at the SEAL base located on Coronado. He was in the water eight to ten hours a day. If the trained dolphins who protected the ships in the bay weren't trying to bust his ribs as he put a fake limpet mine on the side of a cruiser's hull beneath the water, then they were dealing with harbor seals whose duty it was to protect exactly that: the harbor. SEALs trained dolphins and harbor seals to defend and protect all the ships in the San Diego Bay. Whether they were dealing with nuclear-classed submarines, cruisers, a carrier or destroyer, they had been taught to kill an enemy frogman trying to sink a ship in their bay. His ribs were bruised as hell. His partner, Hammer, had busted a couple of ribs when an aggressive dolphin had taken him head-on yesterday. Hammer had lost that round and would be benched for six weeks while the fractures healed.

Looking around the near-dark condo, Gabe couldn't shake the awful, roiling anxiety roaring through him. He felt his belly tighten, as if he were going to get hit with an unknown fist coming his way. Damn. Maybe a warm shower would help calm him down? It always had in the past.

Just as Gabe emerged from the bathroom, the white towel hanging low on his narrow hips, the phone rang. Looking at his Rolex, he saw it was two in the morning. An unsettled feeling avalanched him. No one called at this time of night. His mind spun with shock as he hurried to the phone sitting on the granite island in the kitchen. The only call he'd receive at this time of morning was…and he angrily shook his head, not going there. No. It wasn't that phone call. It just couldn't be….

Grabbing the phone, he growled, "Chief Griffin here."

"Gabe? This is Chief Phillips."

He felt all the air getting sucked out of his lungs, stunned to hear the SEAL's voice calling from Camp Bravo in Afghanistan. Knees weak, Gabe suddenly sat down. "What's happened to Bay?" he asked, holding the phone so tight his knuckles whitened.

"I'm sorry to call you," he began heavily. "At noon our time, Mustafa Khogani attacked the village where she was holding a medical clinic. There were twenty Taliban riders, and they swept up through the line where she was helping the women and children."

"Dammit, is she all right?" he ground out, his breath choking in his throat. Closing his eyes, he heard the SEAL Chief draw in a deep breath as if to fortify himself.

"No, she's been kidnapped, Gabe. Reza, the terp, saw her shot from behind. Reza told Captain Anderson he recognized Mustafa Khogani on his black stallion come riding up to her. Bay fired at him, hitting him, we think, in the left leg. She was stunned by a Kevlar hit from behind. It threw her forward and to the ground. Khogani leaped off his horse and punched her in the face before she could get a second shot off at him. Reza said she went unconscious at that point. Khogani put her up on another rider's horse, who is unidentified, and they rode for the wadi and disappeared into the underbrush. Khogani then ran over and grabbed her medical rucksack and took it with him."

Gabe couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak. A knot in his throat was so painful, he couldn't pass words through or around it. Gabe's mind spun with the information. He'd snapped awake at twelve-thirty in the morning. That would have been the exact time Bay had been kidnapped.

He rubbed his face savagely. "Chief, get me ordered over there right now. I'll get my commander to let me get over there as soon as possible. I'm coming over as a strap-hanger. I'll find her…."

Find out more about Lindsay and her books at lindsaymckenna.com.