“I am sick of you treating me worse than a dog!”
“Want something better? Earn it!”
She drew onto her feet. “I should not have to do anything for you to act with honor.”
“Why would you expect that from me?” His words faltered, his heart jamming into his throat.
She lifted her chin. “Your bravado and anger do not scare or fool me. Already I have seen honor from you, Rage.”
He scowled. “Why do you keep calling me that?”
Eyes darting around, she frowned. “It … It is your name. I heard the men call you that.”
Sniffing, he should not be surprised that’s what she’d heard. He wasn’t interested in correcting her either. It was better that’s what she thought of him.
“And I may be the monster you believe me to be, but I am not stupid,” she growled, shoving hair from her face. “While you may have the intel to get us to where we’re going, it would be poor strategy to have me completely ignorant of what we are doing.”
“Not really.”
Please,” she said with a thick breath, “I thought you were supposed to protect me, get me to the Secondary place?”
Range gritted his teeth, irritated that she had paid so much attention to what they called that location. “As I said, plans change.” In fact, he was thinking of changing them again. How much did they really need this HVT?
Looking down, her breathing finally normalizing, she seemed… sad. Broken. Then she jutted that jaw again and all her defiance returned. “What is the new plan?”
Range worked his jaw. Tried to rein in his frustration. “Get a vehicle. Head west till dawn, then bank north.”
Side-eyeing him from where she stood, she sighed. “Why did the plan change?”
“The goat farmer—”
“No.” She swallowed. “I … I could not sleep. Saw you check your phone. Your expression … changed. You looked upset, worried.”
He really did not like that she could read him and he didn’t want to tell her anything she didn’t have to know. The less she knew the better for OpSec. “Rendezvous time has been pushed back. That’s all I know.”
She frowned. “But that means we’re …”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I have supplies for two days, but if we don’t get clearance to head to Secondary by then, we’ll have to consider our options.”
The one at the top of his list? Making sure he brought her in, alive or dead. He was leaning toward the latter.
* * *
Ouroptions. As if he includedherin those.
Now Kasra almost regretted going on full attack, but it had seemed the only way this man listened. Allure and candor had no effect on him. He was all that his name, Rage, implied—and now, she wondered if that wasn’t his name. The way he’d scowled and asked why she kept calling him that …
“Look,” she said, trying to calm herself. “I am sorry for attacking you.”
His jaw muscle worked.
“I just … you do not listen when I talk to you, when I ask—”
“The only thing I want to hear come out of your mouth is that name.”
It surprised how easily his words hurt her. Abuse and violence had been her existence for most of her life … Yet one little sentence from him was a well-placed dagger to the remnant of her soul.
She recalled awaking in the tent and finding a man over her. Her instincts had kicked in, though dulled a fraction by awareness, and then she realized it was him. The weirdness of him being atop her. The way he’d had to lay there as the goat herder lingered outside the wall. How his breath skated along her cheek.
