“That’s not an intruder, that’s Daphne,” he said, tossing the phone to his brother and taking off in her direction. To his credit, Mantis didn’t question him, and a few seconds later, he was at Lovell’s side, both of them running the best they could in two feet of snow.
Despite the short distance to Daphne’s location, his lungs and legs burned as he neared her position. The wind picked up, kicking snow into the air, reducing visibility even more, but he pushed himself forward, needing to see her, needing to confirm what he already knew.
The wind died suddenly and the snow settled, giving him his first glimpse of her thirty feet ahead of them.
“Daphne!” he shouted.
She didn’t seem to hear him, so he shouted again. This time, it caught her attention, and she looked up, as if confused. The distraction cost her, and she tripped again, this time going down face-first.
He bolted the last ten feet, dropping to his knees at her side.
“Daphne!” A gray wool blanket covered her head and the top half of her back. Gently, he reached for her shoulder and rolled her over.
Her face was pale, her cheek cut and swollen, but he felt the rise and fall of her chest under his arms.
“You’re safe,” he said, hoping he was right. He turned and barked an order at Mantis to bring the guys in for help. Between the snow and Daphne’s height, it wouldn’t be easy to carry her in, but he and his brothers would do it. In fact, if they made it to the driveway, he’d manage it on his own. It had been plowed earlier that night, and while a layer of snow had fallen since, it wasn’t nearly as thick as the woods.
“Daphne,” he said again, a gentle brush of his fingers across her jaw.
Her eyes shifted under her lids, then fluttered open. She stared at him for a heart-stopping moment, then smiled.
“Oh, good, I made it. I was starting to worry.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Other than taking Lovell’s hand to help her up, Daphne refused the help all the Falcons offered. Not out of any displaced ego or belief that she needed to do it on her own, but out of fear. If she stopped now, if she stopped moving her body, if she stopped putting one foot in front of the other, she feared she wouldn’t be able to start again, not for a good long while. And there were things she needed to take care of tonight. Getting warm was top on the list. Followed by talking with the police. Food and drink were on there, too. So, like most women everywhere, when shit needed to get done, she’d get it done.
Efficiently, too.
As she dragged her feet, step-by-step up the drive, Lovell on her left, Mantis on her right, and the rest of the men either ahead or behind, she asked them to call the police. If she could check one thing off the list before she made it to the clubhouse, she’d consider it a win.
Mantis protested, but Lovell seemed to understand, and without a word, he brought his phone to life and made the call. With Ryan Warwick on speaker, she told him everything she remembered about where she’d been held: the color of the cabin, the name of the street, the address of one of the nearbyhouses she’d glimpsed as she walked by. Since she’d been carried straight into the room where Weeks and Beeks held her, though, and she’d circled behind the cabin when she left, she couldn’t answer all his questions. Still, she answered those she could.
When the lights of the clubhouse came into view, she stumbled at the sight.
Almost. She was almost there.
Knowing that Callie was safe and waiting for her had her picking up her pace. A hug from her sister, and maybe a hot shower, was all she needed before giving up the ghost and crashing. Well, that and food if she didn’t want to wake up in three hours starving. She hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours. Not the worst fate, but she’d burned a shit ton of energy walking through the blizzard. Her trek had been far more than the three as-the-crow-flies miles between the cabin and the club.
Lovell wrapped a steadying hand around her arm, but he didn’t offer to carry her again. It hadn’t gone well for him the first time, and now his big, broody, grumpy self walked alongside her. Her own personal little storm cloud. One that had grown darker and stormier as she’d spoken to Chief Warwick. He could have cracked the shell of a stone crab with the way he clenched his jaw when she relayed her encounter with the Taser.
Aside from her sister, though, needling his royal grumpiness was the only thing keeping her going now that the finish line was in sight. Fair? No. Necessary? Also, probably no. But it helped keep her mind off the way her body desperately wanted to give up.
“Do you have a first aid kit at the club?” she asked. Nice, that question netted three tics of his jaw.
“Yes, and Hawkeye will check you out, too. You should go to the hospital,” Lovell said.
“No, but I’ll definitely need some TLC. My wrists, the cut on my face?—”
“I’ll clean them up. Hawkeye will check you for a concussion,” Lovell snapped. Callie had told her he had a reputation for being to the point and not easily ruffled. She agreed with the former but found it far too easy to ruffle the supposedly unrufflable man. She really shouldn’t egg him on, but they had less than two-tenths of a mile to go before she saw Callie, and she needed all the motivation she could muster to make that final distance.
“To have the best chance of breaking the zip ties, I had to tighten them super tight,” she continued.
Lovell growled. Mantis chuckled. “How’d you know that trick?” he asked.
She gave a Gallic shrug. Lovell’s hand tightened on her arm. “Writers do a lot of research. We learn weird things.” No need to mention her MI6 friend.
“And your location? How’d you figure that out?” Mantis asked.
