7
Nightshade wrappedthe reins around her arms, creating a cage to keep Merc's nearly lifeless body enclosed between them. If he fell to the ground, she wouldn't have the physical strength to lift him back up, and she knew the Sheik’s absence wouldn't go unnoticed for long. They had to put as much distance between them and the tribe as possible to have any hope of escaping.
After she'd latched Merc’s belt buckle, nothing happened. No alarm, no beep, no light to indicate it worked. She had to operate on the assumption that they were completely on their own.
Using the stars and moon as guidance, a skill she’d learned very early on in her training, Nightshade led the horse north into the Hindu Kush Mountains lining the desert. She knew that would be the most obvious place for them to head, but it was also the only place she could hope to find shelter and defend them if needed. If she went south, back toward the desert, they’d be out in the open with nowhere to hide.
Merc’s body temperature climbed instead of falling from blood loss, and he muttered in his dreams as the fever overtook him. He wouldn’t be able to stay on the horse much longer without some kind of medical attention.
She’d actually gotten lucky and found a well-stocked saddle bag leaning against the corral fence, so she’d only had to scavenge for a few items. She’d managed to easily knock out both guards at the pen and hide their bodies behind the trough. And lucky her, they’d both been carrying small automatic rifles with full magazines, which she’d stashed in the holsters on the back of the saddle. Now, as long as she could hold Merc up on the horse, all she had to do was make good time into the mountain trails, find a decent cave, and tend to his wounds.
Hopefully, she’d be able to stabilize him long enough to make a run to the nearby town on the west side of the mountain range and contact her father. The clock ticked by faster with each passing second, increasing the likelihood of her unit’s annihilation at the hands of their enemy.
Merc’s huge body shuddered in her arms. He wouldn’t make it much further. She kicked the stallion into a full gallop, ignoring the fresh waves of blood tracking down her arms from Merc’s chest.
Dammit, why did she have to hear him taunting Salaam to save her life? She’d known that’s exactly what he was doing, trying to get his captor to go against him instead of her. And the whole time he’d failed to rescue her, she’d believed him incompetent. Weak. Worthless.
Instead he’d been brave and strong and fierce. He’d saved her after the blast and all but offered up his own life for hers. Now she feltlike she owed him even more.
If only she could hate him.
Nightshade spied a break in the brush to her right and turned the horse from the road. The mountain took a sharp upturn, but she’d spotted a dark blot behind some boulders above them. She made for the cave, praying it was big enough to hide the horse and them.
The stallion faltered but she spurred him onward. Merc’s heavy weight on her arms pulled the reins so tight it cut off her circulation. At this rate, she wouldn’t be able to physically support him much longer.
Finally, they crested a small ridge to the mouth of a medium-sized cave, big enough for them all to fit. Her head almost scraped the ceiling, and Merc’s would have, if he wasn’t slumped over to the right.
The shallow cavern ended abruptly about thirty or so feet into the mountain. The floor was hard rock and dirt, seemingly too far beneath them. Nightshade dropped her cheek to Merc’s back, startled at how hot his skin burned. He needed medical attention, but she had no way to safely lower him from the horse.
There was no getting around it - she’d have to let him fall to the ground and pray he didn’t break something. But first she had to dismount.
She carefully peeled the reins off her arms and hands, revealing red raw skin beneath that looked so much worse than it felt. Nightshade flexed her fingers, or at least tried to — they’d gone numb over an hour ago and were now swollen and white. Pain stabbed into her hands as blood flow started to return, and her skin seemed to swell and tug on the fresh wounds down her arms. Merc’s body shifted slightly to the side and she stopped looking at her arms and dismounted, grabbing the saddle when a sharp stab of pain slammed into her side and a wave of dizziness hit her by surprise.
With shaking hands, she parted her tan robe, dread filling her as she saw the stab wound to her side. She’d thought the guard had just nicked her. As if taunting her, the wound seemed to spasm, stealing her breath.
Merc. Get Merc down. Compartmentalize.
She quickly tied the horse to a nearby boulder inside the cave, yanked off a bedroll and unfolded it on the ground. If she was lucky, Merc would fall on the blanket, which offered a little cushion from the rock bottom.
With her left hand pressed to her side, Nightshade withdrew her dagger and sliced the ropes. Merc slid from the saddle and crashed to the ground, landing half on the blanket with a heavy thud. The stallion whined and stamped his foot, and she rounded to his front, quickly settling the beast before it stepped on the unconscious man at his feet.
As soon as he settled, she ripped the saddlebags free and slung them on the ground, rolling Merc to his back, not bothering to hide her gasp at the sight before her. His entire chest was a mass of blood and flesh, obviously not only worked over by the flogger.
Anger welled inside her. If Salaam wasn’t already dead by her hand, she’d go back and finish him.
Working as fast as she could, she shifted him as much as possible onto the bedroll. Then she covered his lower half with the other blanket she’d managed to steal from the camp. She emptied the saddlebags, shoving food and water pouches to the side for fresh strips of linen bandages and the bottle of iodine, silently thanking God that Merc was unconscious. She’d been treated with iodine in the field before and it wasn’t a memory she liked to revisit.
Side throbbing, her hands burning, she tilted the bottle over his chest, careful not to waste any of the precious disinfectant. In his fevered sleep, Merc groaned and flung his arm around, catching Nightshade in the cheek. She flew sideways, ears ringing, and hit the dirt. The bottle slammed into the far wall and spilled.
She lay there, stunned and staring in despair as the only possible way she had to fight Merc’s infection drained onto the ground ten feet away.
What now? How was she supposed to save him now? She’d only splashed a small amount on his enormous chest, barely enough to clean one wound.
With the last dredge of her strength, she got to her feet and stumbled over to the bottle, turning it upright before the last drop spilled. Her head heavy and pounding, she made it back to Merc and collapsed onto her knees. He lay on his side, panting and sweating. She carefully placed the bottle out of his reach and pushed him onto his back. This time, she poured the precious little remaining iodine onto a cloth and blotted his chest, hate for Salaam growing in her belly with each fresh well of blood.
She should have razed the whole tribe. No one, not even her worst enemy, deserved this.
She'd never seen a man so wounded still able to walk, let alone climb up on top of a huge stallion. He was a machine, almost making her wonder if he’d been somehow enhanced in a secret government program led by the senator.
He groaned and shifted but didn’t wake, and for some reason she couldn't explain, despite her father's warnings about Merc’s lethality, she didn’t want him to die.
She’d felt an almost kinship with him and his ferocity after she heard him taunting Salaam even as the man beat him bloody.This man was willing to give up his life to save her sister.
Another pang of empathy struck her. He was a fighter, just like her. She owed him her life, but if he ever found out her real identity...
A sound penetrated her awareness — the faint click of a stick breaking. Normal for the outdoors, but not normal for the side of a mountain.
They’d been found. Already.
