Damn!Blade had come for her too?
She swallowed an anguished cry as she swept her gaze to Cade’s motionless figure and then to Blade’s slightly moving one.
They had both come for her? Saved her from these horrible men?
And gotten shot for their troubles.
Nausea rolled through her as she finally managed to climb to her feet. Feet that hurt so bad they were on fire. But the hurt was better than being numb and useless. She needed to find her boots.
Surveying the disarray in the camp, she wanted to run from the bloodied bodies crumpled here and there and get far away from this evil. She clamped down on the urge to flee and focused on locating her boots. They lay near the smoldering fireplace. Her gut twisted at the sickening scent of burnt flesh as she spied a man’s arm that had flopped into the fire when he’d fallen after being shot.
She bit back the sour bile rising in her throat and struggled into her socks and boots. Inhaling at the fiery pain burning in her side, she swung her gaze back to the scene strewn with lifeless bodies. She could no longer hold back her anguish at what had almost happened to her.
She screamed. And screamed.
* * * * *
Reena’s gut-wrenching shrieks rocked Cade right to his core. He lay in the snow, on his back, his breath shooting like white flares into the cold air. Through the haze of excruciating pain, he saw Reena sitting on a log, her eyes squeezed shut tight, her hands stuffed beneath her armpits as she rocked back and forth, screaming.
He wanted to get up out of the cold snow and wrap his arms around her. Wanted to reassure her she was safe. Unfortunately every time he so much as moved a muscle, powerful jolts of pain rocked into his right shoulder and chest, making him inhale sharply, which in turn made his head spin.
Warm blood flowed out of him, lacing his flesh, sticky and wet, and his body chilled as he readied himself to meet his maker.
Fuck, he was in bad shape. He opted to just lie there and listen to Reena’s screams, knowing instinctively she was releasing her fear. Physically she seemed to be out of harm’s way and it appeared the men were dead. At least he hoped they were after seeing them drop one by one, compliments of Blade and their surprise attack on the camp.
Icy snowflakes caressed his hot face. Yep, no use in moving, he’d only pass out. For all he knew, he was already dead. Blade was probably dead, too. Cade had seen him go down. At least with Blade out of the way she’d have a fighting chance to reach safety.
He wrapped himself in the comforting knowledge of meeting up with those bastards who’d just hurt her. In heaven or hell, wherever God saw fit to put them, he’d make sure every one of them—whoever had hurt Reena—would pay.
* * * * *
Blade drifted in swirls of searing pain. His left chest area hurt. Every time he inhaled, fire lanced through him. So he tried not to inhale. Tried not to breathe. But no breathing meant death. If he died, he’d never have another night like the one he’d had with Reena all those months ago, and he really would enjoy fucking her again.
Oh man, just thinking of her brought a lash of confused emotions. Up until last night, he’d been able to keep a tight lid on his attraction toward her and concentrate on following through on his kill orders. But seeing her wrists cuffed, her ankles restrained, the need for protection shining in her vulnerable eyes—he’d caved like a sixteen-year-old school boy raging withhormones.
Yeah, he’d like to have her again, but that would mean he’d have to get up. Breathe. Endure more pain.
Suddenly, he became aware of noise. It grew louder and louder until it mixed with his red-hot pain. An engine? But that couldn’t be. They were in the middle of nowhere. No roads. Just trees and snow. He tried to open his eyes. Couldn’t.
He was cold. Icy waves speared right down into his bones like a poison, anesthetizing his mind and chilling his brain. Numbing his senses and crippling his well-honed reflexes. To his surprise, the ground moved beneath him. No, not possible. The ground couldn’t move like this. Or maybe hewasmoving?
His temples throbbed with an excruciating headache. The roar of the engine broke into his mind again, followed by the strong scent of gas. The motion continued and so did the racket.
He drifted off and slept. For how long, he had no idea. A sound…maybe a door closing? Whatever it was woke him. He tried to open his eyelids again. It was hard. But he managed and winced at the blinding glare of the setting sun. No, not the sun. A light? Yes, a porch light. It glowed, stabbing like daggers into his head, thrusting his vision into a world of pain.
He closed his eyes again, welcomed the relief. Waited a few seconds and then opened his eyes, this time squinting and wishing he had a pair of sunglasses.
Behind the painful glare, he made out a building. A big one. A log cabin. One story. A roof covered in snow and lots of snow-drenched pine trees towering behind the building.
He recognized it. Had come across it while tracking Red. This was where she’d been living. He’d gone into the cabin after finding the door wide open. Someone had busted in and vandalized the place.
Despite the mess, he’d found the place rustic. Bookshelves had lined the living room. An old cast-iron potbelly stove was warm to the touch and coals glowed in a nearby fireplace. She’d left an erotic romance novel lying on the couch. A quick glance at the back cover blurb revealed the book contained lots of hot sex and a threesome. He could just imagine what the men who’d broken into the cabin thought about what she’d been reading.
He’d left the building in a hurry, following the tracks until he’d come upon the group of men who’d set up camp. In the nearby bushes, he’d listened to their conversations about tracking down the woman who was staying at that cabin. Blade would have opened fire on them, but there had been too many for him to shoot. He wouldn’t have been able to get away without being trailed by survivors. The last thing he’d wanted was for them to know he was around. So he’d left and gone in search of Red himself. He’d found her and Cade and then the storm had hit.
Blade focused back on the present, to the square logs with cement caulking. Homemade job. With matching stone chimneys on each end. His gaze lifted toward the sky where a spiral of gray smoke puffed into the black night air. Chimneys meant fireplaces and that meant heat. Warmth cracked through the chill encasing his heart and, for a split second, he had the weird sense of “coming home”.
He ripped himself free from that odd homey comfort when someone stepped down the rough-hewn wood-planked stairs. He wondered if the person was a hallucination, but the shadow seemed solid as it moved toward him. Red’s face floated from beneath a black hat and scarf, and just like every time he saw her, his breath seemed to halt in his lungs.
