A life without blackberries wouldn’t be bad, if only she could live it with Max.
F
erly Mor sublimated the hovercraft door, and Regan sprinted in the direction he had seen Addy run in the hologram. He was the lone hunter. Ferly Mor and Duncan didn’t know crap about tracking, and the HGC were on their way back to their headquarters.
They had encountered the vehicle two hours ago. Apparently, the HGC agents were required to cease their search for the humans after a poacher became violent with an officer. Law mandated that he be brought to trial immediately. The powers that be never tolerated violence of one Hyborean against another. Euthanasia was certain punishment. If he had sired any offspring, they too would stand trial to determine if they inherited their father’s aggression.
If so, one Hyborean’s crime could mean the extermination of his entire family.
When Regan discovered the broken branches and footprints, his focus clicked into warrior mode. Adrenaline pumped through him.
It wouldn’t be long before he captured her.
And when he did, he wouldn’t just break her. He’d shatter her.
M
ax and Addy stood at the base of the thirty-foot rocky cliff they had descended, watching the river plunge straight into the pool below before the rushing current raced downstream.
This must be the place where Red Beard had crossed.
“I’d bet its 250 feet wide,” Addy said above the pounding of the waterfall. “If we start here, we should be able to reach the other side before we’re swept into the rapids. I’m a strong swimmer, Max, but I’m not sure I can do it with Noah. Can you take him?”
“Uh...”
“What?”
“Remember when I told you I drowned?”
Addy’s heart dove into her stomach. “You can’t swim.”
“I can doggy paddle.”
“Not across this. You’ll be in white water before you make it halfway.”
“Here.” He handed her a rock with a sharp edge. “Cut me as many vines as you can. The longer the better.”
“A raft won’t take us across any faster.”
“We’re not building a raft.”
She scowled at him.
“Trust me.” He gave her a wink before walking into the brush.
She did trust him. Wholeheartedly.
She settled Noah on a soft patch of ferns away from the rocky bank but still in her sight from the vines Max wanted her to gather.
“What are we going to do?” she called to Max as she sawed through a vine. “Swing across like they did in
Romancing the Stone
?”
Max picked up a stick and, unsatisfied with it for whatever reason, tossed it aside. “Never saw that movie.”
“You’ve seen Tarzan, right?”
He grabbed another stick, weighed it in his hand then tossed that, too. “I’ve
lived
Tarzan.”
Hopefully her pile of vines was enough for whatever plan he had in mind. She wasn’t going to ask him what that plan was. She’d said she trusted him, and she did. With arms full, she made her way to the bank.
Noah’s eyes focused on his daddy’s as Max murmured something. She thought she heard the word
disemboweled
, but wasn’t sure and figured it best not to ask. “Is this enough?”
“We’ll see. Can you tie them into a long rope?”
“Of course.” She made herself comfortable on the ground next to Noah and began twisting and braiding the vines, while Max used a sharp rock to scrape the end of a thick, straight branch about five feet long.
She could get used to this—them sitting together doing domestic chores. Only she wished she were doing them on the “free” side of the river. Something gnawed inside her gut. Would they even do chores together on the free side? She assumed he’d want a relationship with her and Noah. But assumptions weren’t truths. She had to hear it from him. “Max?”
“Yeah?”
“What happens after we cross the river?”
“We’ll search for the clan.”
“I mean what will happen to
us
? To you and me and our son?” There. The question finally came out. They’d been in survival mode for so long, she never had an opportunity to ask him. There’d never been a right time.
“Noah and you are my responsibility. I’ll protect you until we reach the clan.”
“Not after?”
He stopped whittling and turned questioning eyes on her. “What are you asking, Addy?”
“I want to know how you feel. I want to know if you...if you…”
“If I love you?”
Her fingers went numb and fumbled the knot she’d been tying. God, to hear him say it made her sound pathetic. “I need to know where we stand.”
“I am an alpha gladiator trained to fight, kill, and survive. I am not husband and father material.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, willed her fingers to continue braiding. How could he say that? He was an awesome father. And as far as his being husband material went, she wouldn’t mind exploring that avenue. But Max still saw himself as an animal. He needed more time to heal. He wasn’t ready for the dreams that she had, and maybe he never would be. “Right. I understand.”
Max took hold of her hands, stopping her from her task. She refused to look at him, refused to let him see her anguish. The touch of his fingers tilting her chin upward engulfed her sensibilities.
“No, you don’t.” His lips, a breath away from hers, invited her to taste them. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. He pulled back. “Look at me.” When she did, she saw pain haunting his green eyes. “I can’t be the man you deserve, Addy.”
“So just be the man I want.”
He closed his eyes as if savoring the moment. When he gazed into hers once more, he said, “We’re not free yet. Let’s slay one beast at a time.” He went back to work on his project, leaving Addy to ponder the possibilities of their future.
He wanted her. That was plain. But did he want her for a while or forever?
When Max finished tying one end of Addy’s rope vine around a notch he’d carved into the stick, he yanked on it to test its strength, then rolled it up around his hand and elbow like he was wrapping up an extension cord. He placed the coil at the river’s edge and handed Addy the rope’s tail. “Hold on to this and don’t let go.”
“Why?”
“See that V over there?”
On the opposite bank, two trees grew from the same point on the ground making a narrow V with their trunks.
“Yes.”
“Keep your eye on it.” Max counted off several paces from the water’s edge. He stretched out his neck, rotated and stretched his shoulders, took in and blew out a few quick breaths. Raising the stick—which looked more like a double-ended spear—shoulder high, his fingers loosened and tightened around its middle until he found the proper balance.
The spear steadied.
Slowly, deliberately, he raised his left hand out in front of him. Max sprinted toward the water and released the spear, yelling the entire time it sailed across the river. Its point dove between the “V” of the two trees and stuck into the ground.
“Yes!” Both fists punched the sky in triumph. “Told you I was Olympic bound.”
“Would you like to take the podium for your gold medal and national anthem or should we just cross the river?”
“So much for my victory lap.” He tugged on the vine until the javelin came out of the dirt and braced crossways in the “V”. He yanked harder to be sure it was secure then moved to an old, sturdy tree to secure the end. It didn’t reach. “Damn. We need one more vine.”
Tying it off to a sapling, he said, “Keep an eye on the line. I’ll be right back.” He took the rock used for whittling the javelin, then disappeared into the forest.
“Just a few more minutes and we’ll be safe,” Addy said to Noah. She cradled him in her arms. His fuzzy head moved back and forth, rooting on her shirt. Her breasts prickled like pins and needles, so she sat down and bared one for him. He latched on, sucking greedily.
“Well, aren’t you a hungry boy.”
“You’ve no idea, pet.”
Addy shot to her feet, making Noah cry. She clutched him to her breast. Though she couldn’t see where the voice came from, she knew from the chill in her marrow Regan lurked only feet away.
She scanned the woods for Max. Where was he? Did Regan find him first? Had he been captured? Or killed?
Her pounding heart drowned out the slapping waterfall and Noah’s wails. She glanced over her shoulder at the rope hovering just above the water’s surface. If she crossed, would the sapling hold her weight?
A twig snapped. Regan emerged from the woods. “Hello, pet.”
She held back her scream. This can’t be happening. Not now. Not when they were so close. If Regan was here, either Xanthrag or Ferly Mor was, too. She would not let those bastards take her son to HuBReC. She had to get Noah to the refuge.
Addy splashed into the river. Ice water, like shards of glass, stung her body. With one hand clutching Noah to her shoulder and the other on the vine, she shimmied and kicked toward freedom. She prayed that the vine would hold, that the current wouldn’t pull Noah from her arm, and that she’d have the strenth and speed to make it before—.
Heavy legs wrapped around her body. “Going somewhere?”
Addy twisted and wriggled but couldn’t break Regan’s hold. “Let go of me.”
“Most women enjoy my legs around them.”
“That’s ’cause they don’t know any better.”
His crushing thighs forced the breath from her lungs. When would she learn not to antagonize this brute?
“Where’s the loser?”
“Gone.”
“You’re lying.” His legs straightened, squeezing her, dragging her and Noah under the water.
Not her baby!
In an explosion of power, she broke to the surface, bicep straining as her one-arm pull-up brought Noah’s head above the river. “Get off me, you bastard.” She kicked and squirmed to free herself from his vicelike grip.
“Where’s your beta gladiator?”
“I don’t know. I swear. He went to get another vine but hasn’t come back.”
“So he’s abandoned you again.” Regan’s sinister laugh pierced her soul. “First at the Tuniit village and now, as I close in on him, he escapes, leaving you for capture.”
Bull. Max wouldn’t desert her. Something must have happened to him. Before she could imagine what, her palm burned across the vine as Regan hauled her toward the shore.
Her strength was no match for his. Her muscles burned from straining against him. They wouldn’t last. She needed a new tactic. Quick. Oh hell, she wasn’t above pleading. “Let us go, Regan.”
“And face Xanthrag’s punishment? Not on your breeding life.”
Hyboreans couldn’t enter the refuge. If Regan had no need to fear Xanthrag, he wouldn’t have to take them back. “Xanthrag can’t hurt you in the refuge. Come with us.”
“Warming up to me, pet?” A sly smile came to his lips. “You like the feel of me around you. My power excites you. You want to get fucked by a
real
alpha.”
“Max is more alpha than you’ll ever be.”
“You won’t be saying that when he’s dead and you’re writhing beneath me.”
She let go of the rope to punch his groin but he moved his hips and she caught his inner thigh. His legs crushed her, cold water rose around her mouth, her nose, the top of her head. She lifted Noah straight up to get him above water.
Regan yanked him from her hands.
No
! She kicked and floundered for the surface, grasping for the vine, seeing nothing but water splashing. Submerged again.
Too long.
Need air.
A precious breath rushed into her lungs.
“I can take you back dead or alive.” Regan dragged her coughing and gasping onto the bank. “Makes no difference to me. Except in this.” He rolled his heavy weight on top of her, pinning her to hard rock. His hair and nose drooled river water over her face.
Noah wailed somewhere to her right. Her baby was in pain, but she couldn’t move to get to him. Violent and uncontrolled anger raged inside her, fueled her with the strength to struggle, yet Regan’s rock-solid, massive body wouldn’t budge. She strained to see him, but Regan’s hot mouth on her neck kept her head from turning.
She clawed and bit and squirmed.
Regan pulled back so his eyes were inches from hers and laughed in her face. “Go ahead and fight. Today, tomorrow, and the next day. Just remember this, one day you won’t fight. On that day, you’ll know I broke you.”
He ripped her drenched shirt down the center, before capturing her wrists and pinning her arms over her head.
“Max! Help!”
“That’s it. Scream. Let’s see if he comes before I do.” He thrust his hips into hers for emphasis before his mouth assaulted her breasts.
* * *
Max opened his eyes to spinning ground above him. Correction, below him. Ten feet below. Shit. He was hanging upside down by one leg.
The vine—now embedded in his skin—had come out of nowhere, grabbing his ankle, flipping and pitching him against the tree.
Pressure from pooled blood throbbed in his sinuses. His head ached where it whacked the trunk. Pain like a Hyborean blade sliced through his ankle.
How long had he been out?
There was no reaching his rock on the ground below. He needed Addy.
“Max! Help!”
Addy?
He twisted himself toward the direction of her cry. About eighty yards away, through branches, leaves, and hanging vines, he saw them. Regan on top of Addy, restraining her, forcing himself on her while she struggled in vain.
“Get the fuck off her!” Writhing in midair, he’d never felt so helpless.
Regan’s head popped up and their eyes met. Max cursed the stupidity of his tactical blunder. By giving away his location, he’d lost the element of surprise.
As if he watched it in slow motion, the bastard smirked a come-and-get-me smirk, then licked her nipple as she fought beneath him. He backhanded her across the jaw, drawing blood.
“Addy!” Feral rage exploded inside him, obliterating his senses. No more headache. No more pressure. No more ankle pain. Only wild gladiator fury. “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch.”
Max grabbed the noose, but couldn’t loosen the damn thing enough to force it over his foot. He yanked on the vine. It didn’t break. He’d need more weight to snap it.