“Well that won’t happen this time,” she said. “This time, you’ll be free.”
“I’ll be free knowing you and Noah are safe with Kedric.”
“You mean we’ll be safe with
you
.”
His heart ached. He wished he didn’t have to shatter the hope in her eyes. “We didn’t bend the bar enough, Addy.”
She looked from him to the cage and then back to him.
“I’m sorry.”
“I can’t leave you behind. I won’t.” The tears in her voice were like weights added to his already heavy heart.
Why was she making this harder than it already was? He didn’t want her to go without him, but she had to. She had to get to the refuge. He needed something good in his life to remember when he returned to the survival races or wherever else he ended up. “You have to. For Noah.” He cupped her cheek and she snuggled into his palm. This would be the last time he’d feel her warmth. “For me. Please, I need to know you’ll be safe.”
“I can’t cross those rapids with the baby. What difference does it make if we drown or die smilodon fighting?”
“You won’t be fighting smilodon.” Cyrus’s tone was tender. “My master will see you safely where you belong.”
“I’m from Earth. The United States of America. Land of the free and home of the brave,
that’s
where I belong. I will not live my life as a sex slave.”
“Freedom always comes with a price,” Red Beard sneered with a voice of experience. “It’s clear yours is your gladiator. Are you willing to trade him for the refuge?”
“She is.”
Addy gazed up at Max, confusion in her eyes, her mouth ready to form a word. He shook his head no to silence her. He’d do anything to free Addy, even listen to Red Beard’s offer.
“Then pay attention, girlie,” Red Beard snapped. “The river collects into a deep pool about a half day’s hike downstream. It’s calmer there and narrow too. That’s where I swam across.”
“Why do you help us?”
Red Beard shrugged. “I had a mate once.” He hacked up phlegm and moved to the other side of the cage to spit through the bars.
“Max, I can’t—”
“Make sure you cross there and don’t get swept downriver,” Cyrus said. “The rapids are like nothing I’ve ever seen on four planets. They’re fast, huge, and treacherous. There is no surviving them.”
“You’re not going to stop me from escaping?” Addy asked Cyrus.
Ouch. Max mentally slapped a steak on his ego. Did she really think this scrawny guy could kill him? Because the only way anyone could stop her from leaving was over his corpse.
“Of course not,” Cyrus said. “My job is to protect you from poachers. Since there are no poachers in the refuge, my job is done.”
Hell, if Cyrus did his job fifteen years ago at the campsite, Max would be in Oregon right now. But if that were the case, he’d have never met Addy. He ought to be shaking Cyrus’s hand, but socking him between those sappy eyes would make him feel a hell of a lot better.
Stop looking at her like that, you asshole.
Stepping between Addy and Cyrus, Max used two hands to brush the strawberry-blonde hair from her beautiful face. God, he’d miss her. And he’d miss the way she made him feel almost human. “Once those two poachers over there finish their lunch, I’ll set you free. Run as far and as fast as you can. Don’t look back.”
“Max, I—” A siren screamed, cutting her off. Noah wailed, and Addy ran to pick him up. “What’s that?” She looked around.
Cyrus clutched the bars and put his face to them. “My master.”
They ran to the edge of the cage trying to glimpse the HGC vehicle they heard moving through the trees. Lights flashed on the leaves and rock.
The poachers—emitting panic—dropped their lunches and ran past the cage and into what sounded like brush.
Max heard the HGC vehicle come to a stop and the scrambling of paws as the agents chased the poachers. A trigger snapped and something landed hard on ground with a thud. Other footsteps continued into the woods.
“This is it.” Max focused on the cage bar. He had never been a kicker, but knew he had to kick hell out of the rail. From across the cage, he ran full force.
Upon impact, shooting pain reverberated through his foot and up his leg bone, then vanished when he saw the white cell bar sailing into the air.
She was free.
Before Addy moved, Max wrapped his arms around her and kissed her sweet lips one last time. He wanted to hold on to her and kiss her for hours, to explore her world, but he couldn’t. He pulled away from her.
Tears slid from her eyes.
“Go,” he said.
She didn’t move. “I can’t.”
Red Beard was on the floor trying to squeeze through the opening. He’d never fit, and Addy would lose her only chance. They’ve come much too far to let that happen.
“You’re too big.” In a heart-pounding rush of adrenaline, he grabbed Red Beard by the hair and shirt, yanked him from the hole and threw him across the floor. He didn’t spare him a second glance. Max was too busy taking Noah from Addy. “Go.” He pushed her toward the opening.
She squeezed between the bars, and got stuck for a moment before finally pulling through. He handed her the canteen, which she slung over her shoulder like a mailbag, then he kissed his son’s fuzzy head and handed him to his momma.
This was the last he’d see of them. His chest constricted. Heat burned behind his eyes.
“Come on, Max,” Addy pleaded with him. “Try.”
He did for her sake so she would know without doubt he couldn’t squeeze his chest through the bars. “I can’t. Now go!”
“Come on,” she screamed. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Hell, woman, run. Get out of here!”
Supporting Noah’s head, she clutched him to her chest like a little football and ran into the same clump of thicket-infested vegetation Kedric had run into years ago.
Kedric had made it into the refuge. Addy and Noah would make it, too. They’d be safe. They’d be free.
So why did he feel so miserable?
“Good bye, Addy.” Drained of all life force, his body slackened against the cage bars. Without her, he was hollow inside. A shell of a man. He sniffled, and wiped the lone tear from his cheek.
From behind the cage, the HGC vehicle door crackled, and he imagined a poacher sitting in the backseat, handcuffed. An agent rounded the cage, eyed Max with his arm still dangling between the cut bars, and examined the rocky ground. He took off in Addy’s direction.
Fear exploded inside him. “No. Get back here, you wooly fuck!” But the forest swallowed the Hyborean.
“Dammit.” Max punched the rail until his knuckles bled. He should be out there running interference for her, not stuck on the sideline, completely useless.
He closed his eyes. Although the Almighty’s ears didn’t reach this planet, he prayed anyway.
Please, God, let them win this race.
I
f it weren’t for Ferly Mor’s sudden blast of excitement, Regan would have ignored the musical tune of the tech-ring. He jumped down from his lookout point on the subaquatic’s railing and moved to where the Hyborean set down the tech-ring.
The incoming hologram wavered before it played a clear, full-color video. A Human Gaming Commission officer was chasing a Hyborean—a poacher, no doubt— into thick forest vegetation. Another HGC officer was crouched over a second poacher lying on his stomach. The officer removed a tranquilizer dart from the poacher’s back.
Regan paid them little attention. His focus was on the corner of the hologram where a human had run into the woods. He knew that body. He’d recognize those curves anywhere.
Ferly Mor must have noticed her, too. He rewound the hologram and then played it again.
Sure enough, his little pet had run into the forest clutching a baby. Ferly Mor fell back into his chair, and Regan sensed the Hyborean’s relief.
His broodmare and the whelp had survived. And appeared to be in at Great Pele Falls. The HGC would capture them, and in a manner of hours he would be back home and in Xanthrag’s good graces once again.
And then he’d teach his little breeding bitch a lesson or two she’d never forget. He would dominate her. He would break her. And when her kid was old enough to hold a wooden sword, he’d beat the crap out of him, too. He’d—
Duncan’s sniffles interrupted his fantasies. The old man wiped his nose and cheeks. A sad little smile crossed his face as he watched the hologram replay once more.
“She doesn’t know you’re her father, does she?
Grandpa.
”
Duncan neither confirmed nor denied his suspicions. He didn’t have to. The truth rang clear in his pitiful, teary eyes.
Love made slaves of free men. And he’d enjoy manipulating Duncan’s love to torment the whole family. “You must feel like shit knowing two of your kids would rather die in the wilderness than be with you.”
* * *
Addy hid behind a large redwood-type tree, looking and listening both with ears and with feelings trying to sense the Hyboreans. She saw nothing. Heard nothing. Felt nothing.
Curled against the base of the trunk, veiled by the surrounding brush and thickets, Addy laid Noah on her lap and tore the sleeves from her shirt. She could no longer flee through the forest barefoot. She wrapped the sleeves around her scraped feet, all the while images of hinges appeared in her mind.
Not hinges. Clasps.
Clasps like those on lunch boxes or brief cases. Like those she was sure she saw beneath the Hyborean’s cage-vehicle when she had climbed out.
If she could unhook them, she could free Max.
He’d be mad as hell if she returned, but he’d get over it. Unless she got caught.
She had to risk it. She had to save Max. They would break him again. And she couldn’t bear the thought of it.
Satisfied with her makeshift footwear, Addy repositioned Noah and made their stealthy way back to the vehicle. She stopped behind bushes to scope out the area. The only Hyborean visible was a poacher sitting in a hovercraft, arms bound and hanging from a chain in the ceiling. Where did the agent who captured him go? More important, how soon until he returned?
She crossed the clearing to the cage, ducked down to examine the clasps.
“What the hell are you doing?” Max whispered.
“There are clasps under here. They appear to lock the cage to the truck bed. I think I can release them. You two,” she addressed Cyrus and Red Beard, who had moved near Max to better observe her, “go to the sides and keep a lookout.”
“Addy, you’ve got to leave. The Hyboreans will be back any second. One ran after you.”
Nothing he could say would make her leave now. Not when she could free him. “Then I’d better hurry. Here.” She handed him Noah. “Hold him.”
Addy pulled on a clasp. “It’s stuck.” She scrambled to a rock that fit nicely in her hand and used it to bang open the clasp. “I did it.”
“Well don’t just stand there, girlie, do the next one.”
Addy ignored Red Beard’s comment and quickly worked on the other clasps.
After the sixth and final clasp popped, Max passed her Noah. “Hide in the woods. If we can’t lift the cage, you two can’t be seen.”
She’d hide but she wouldn’t go far. She ran behind the thicket again and watched the three men straining as they pushed the heavy cage off the truck bed. It crashed against the rocky ground. Her heart lept...from relief, from joy, and from nerves.
“Go quickly, they’re sure to have heard that,” Cyrus said, but Max was already racing toward her. She took off into the woods knowing he’d catch up soon enough.
When he did, he scooped the baby from her and they raced downstream.
“Where’s Cyrus?” she asked.
“Stayed behind.”
“And Red Beard?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
She followed him, trying hard to ignore the sharp pains from rocks, sticks, and other spiky forest debris penetrating the thin material wrapped around her feet. Apparently, the jagged terrain didn’t concern Max, for he pressed forward without a downward glance or hop of pain. They hurdled fallen logs and climbed down rock. Countless times she stumbled and caught herself. Thorns grabbed her clothes, her hair, her skin. She yanked them free and kept going, hoping she didn’t leave too obvious a trail for the Hyborean agents to track.
They’d been on the move for hours, running when they could, but mostly walking now. They’d stopped only once to make shoes by tying pieces of bark to their feet. As they trekked through the woods, the sun trekked across the sky.
After descending a steep and rocky slope, they discovered at its base a small nook they could fit inside together if they sat with their legs curled up.
“Stay here,” Max said. “I’ll scrounge up some food.”
“What about the agents?”
He looked skyward, surveying the sun through the tree canopy. “We’ve been gone for over three hours. I’m sure they gave up the search. I doubt they’d care about capturing some humans as much as arresting criminals.”
Whether or not that was true was anyone’s guess, but the thought helped quell her fears until he disappeared into the woods. Now she feared for his safety.
By the time Noah was fed and burped, and had fallen asleep on Addy’s chest, Max had returned carrying his shirt tied up like a hobo’s bindle. Water dripped from the canteen slung over his bare chest. With every step, his muscular thighs contracted beneath taut black pants that had been ripped off at calf height. He’d used the material to tie the bark shoes to his feet. Not only was he a magnificent-looking man, but a clever one, too.
He sidled up to Addy, unbundled the shirt, offered her the green berries he had picked. “It’s not a freezer full of blackberries, but they should hold us a while.”
She shoved a handful into her mouth in order to hide her grin. The tart flavor of unripe fruit puckered her tongue. “They’re perfect,” she said with mouth full.
“As soon as we cross the river, we’ll make camp. I’ll find us some real food we can actually cook.”
“That would be great. I can’t remember the last hot meal I had.” She popped in another handful and leaned against his shoulder. The heat radiating off his solid form brought her comfort and contentment. Not to mention it stirred her desire.