So why was his heart aching worse than it did the day he killed Cameron?
Surviving isn’t living.
She was right. Without her and Noah, he could survive, but he sure as hell couldn’t live.
He had to fight to get his family back, no matter the cost.
Max sprinted after Addy.
* * *
Thwap.
A spear penetrated the ground cover two feet to Addy's left.
“If you’re going into battle, you’ll need a weapon.”
Her heart burst. She ran to Max, throwing her arms around him, knocking him back. “I knew you’d come,” she whispered into his shirt, taking comfort in his solid, yet banged-up form. Then she hit him once on the chest. “What took you so long?”
His reply was a tight, reassuring squeeze. “It took thirty seconds to catch and tail you, and three minutes to carve the spear. Now, let’s get our son.” He released her and plucked the spear from the ground. “You skilled in the martial arts? Stick fighting? Fencing?”
When she shook her head no on all accounts, Max found a thick branch, about as long as a baseball bat, near a fallen tree. He weighed it in his hand. “Can you swing a bat?”
“Yes.”
“Then take this.” He handed her the heavy branch. “Regan’s head is the ball. Knock it out of the park. Don’t hold back, Addy. We aren’t out to hurt him. We’re out to kill him and anyone or anything else standing in our way. You understand?”
“Yes.” She followed him through the thick forest. She’d have enough motivation, fortitude, and guts to kill Regan and even Ferly Mor, but what about Duncan? She pushed the thought out of her head and prayed it didn’t come to that.
Max stopped to pick up another stick, this one about seven inches long. He handed his spear to Addy and used a jagged rock to sharpen the wood to a point while he tracked the enemy through brush and around enormous redwoodlike trees. “I’m sure it didn’t take Regan long to catch Duncan. Which means by the time we get to Ferly Mor’s vehicle, Noah may already be aboard.”
Long, arching bramble canes pulled on Addy’s clothes as she maneuvered through thickets. “Can you cover me while I sneak aboard the craft?”
“You can’t open the doors, Addy.”
“Then how do I get in?”
“By throwing raw meat into a smilodon den.”
“If that’s a Hyborean idiom, I’m afraid to ask who the meat is.”
“It’s you.”
“Great.” She pulled another bramble from her arm.
“When I lure Regan into the woods to kill him, you gain Ferly Mor’s attention. Hell, knock on his vehicle if you have to. He’ll sublimate the door and come to get you. That’s when you take this and stab him.” He handed her the finished weapon. “We’ll conceal it under your pant leg.”
Max ripped two long strips of material from his shirt, knelt in front of her, and tied one strip around her upper calf and one strip around her lower calf. “You’ve got to kill him, Addy, before he slaps a shock collar on you or cages you. Can you do that?”
She nodded. “But what if I fail?” She tucked the weapon between the fabric and her leg. “What if Ferly Mor takes us to HuBReC?”
“He won’t leave without Duncan.”
“You’re going to hide Duncan?”
“No.” He took the spear from Addy and started tracking again. “I’m going to kill him.”
She couldn’t help gasping. Duncan had taken care of her. He had been something of a father figure to her. He had even aided them by taking Noah into the woods away from Regan and Ferly Mor’s ship knowing he risked punishment. A moment ago she wondered if she would be able to kill Duncan. Now she knew she couldn’t.
“If by chance you get captured,” Max said, “Ferly Mor will have to search for Duncan and then reawaken him, giving us more time to figure out how to get you and Noah off his craft.”
They hiked another ten minutes to where the trees grew thick and the ground cover sparse due to a dense canopy blocking the sunlight. Max halted, putting up a hand to stop her. “Regan’s here.”
“Noah.” Fifty yards ahead, her baby lay at the base of a five-foot-wide tree trunk, alone. Motherly instinct urged her legs to run to him, but law enforcement training overruled the desire. It was too obvious a trap. “Is he alive?”
“Yes. He’s making sucking motions.”
Relief energized her with hope and strength. She was ready to fight for her family, and so scanned the area for Regan.
The forest was quiet except for the buzz-saw sound of insects, distant birdcalls, and the occasional pings of falling nut seeds through the leaves.
Regan was hiding somewhere, just as he had been the day he attacked her on the running trail. Her heart rocketed. Gripping the club with two hands now, she brought it slowly to her shoulder.
“A piece of Ferly Mor’s hovercraft is visible through the trees about two hundred feet straight ahead,” Max whispered. “Get ready.”
Regan stepped from behind Noah’s tree, knife in hand. “I knew you’d come after the whelp, pet. Though I was hoping you’d come alone.” He licked his bottom lip.
“Give us the kid and I won’t kill you.” Max raised his spear. He crept sideways away from Addy, circling Regan as he closed the distance between them.
Addy held her bat at the ready and cautiously moved toward Regan, hoping Max would wait until he was closer before letting the spear fly. If Regan stepped out of the way, Max would be weaponless.
Regan laughed. “Two against one. This should be sporting.”
Duncan appeared several feet behind Regan, a large rock in his hand, and face badly beaten and bloodied—no doubt, his punishment for trying to hide Noah. Duncan raised the rock into a ready-to-throw position. “Seems the odds are no’ in yer favor, lad. Drop yer weapon and let them be.”
“Fuck you, Gramps,” he shouted over his shoulder.
Duncan threw his rock. Max and Addy charged. Regan ducked the rock, simultaneously grabbing Noah. When he stood, his Flesheater hovered over the baby’s belly.
Everyone stopped. Except for Noah, who was wailing.
“No, Regan,” Addy shouted. “Please. I’m begging you. Don’t hurt him. You’re not an animal, for God’s sake.”
“That’s right. I’m a Hyborean alpha gladiator. An immortal.”
“You’re only a man,” said Max. “The same as me.”
“I’m nothing like you, Earthling. I’m free to do as I please.” Regan plunged the knife into Noah’s belly. After one heart-wrenching wail, the baby fell silent. “I bet you’ll take him to Ferly Mor this time,” he said to Duncan before dropping the body. He raced toward Max, who was running full speed and screaming his battle cry.
Addy couldn’t stop screaming. Pain ripped through her chest as if the knife had plunged into it. Her heartbeat thrashed in her ears as she scrambled to her baby. She covered the bloody wound with her hands, red oozed between her trembling fingers. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. I can’t stop the bleeding.”
“Let me take him, lass.” Duncan was at her side. “Ferly Mor will work his magic and the bairn will be whole within minutes.”
She couldn’t hand over Noah. She couldn’t leave her baby, even though she knew she should. Terror had stricken her motionless. She could do nothing but blubber and watch in horror as her baby’s chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.
Until it dropped for the last time.
* * *
Blade and spear engaged in battle. Steal bashed against wood. Splinters flew.
Max thrust. Blocked. Struck. Jabbed.
Hot pain tore his knuckles. Regan knocked the spear from his grip. A side blade kick into Regan’s gut sent him backward, gaining Max enough time to get to his weapon.
Retrieving it, he caught sight of Addy crumpled on the ground, her eyes void of life.
Noah was dead. Their newborn son, gone.
Grief shattered his heart, spewing shrapnel into his soul. Regan was about to meet his ultimortem.
Regan charged, was nearly on top of him when he came up with the spear and thrust. Regan deflected it to his side. The spear ripped through his gladiator shirt, not flesh.
In his peripheral vision, Max saw Duncan running Noah in the hovercraft’s direction. Good. If Addy waited until the kid’s reawakening, they could still execute their plan.
The Flesheater burned across his chest.
Concentrate, dammit! You lose this fight, you lose your family.
On the offensive, Max thrust again and again. Regan stepped back, blocking the barrage. Max moved sideways, changing his angle of attack, backing Regan toward a giant tree trunk. A few more minutes and he’d pin the bastard to that tree with his spear.
What the hell?
Addy—an irate, vengeful mother—was running toward them, fist tight around her club, fire burning in her eyes.
“Stay back, Addy,” Max shouted, though he knew from experience it fell on deaf ears. Rage and hate had a way of coloring the world red, preventing hearing, preventing thinking. She wouldn’t be able to stop until she killed the raping, murdering bastard…or died trying
She swung for Regan’s head. He ducked and she nearly hit Max. “Hell, woman, you’ll get us both killed!”
Regan moved away from the tree trunk, thrust his knife at Max. Instead of countering, Max dove to avoid Addy’s back swing before it caught his temple. A tuck and roll later, he jumped to his feet, spear at the ready. “Get out of the way, woman!”
Addy swung at Regan again and again, keeping him off her but making no bodily contact. Shit. Max couldn’t throw his weapon without hitting her.
In one motion, the bastard disarmed Addy and pulled her struggling against him, using her for a human shield.
Think, dammit.
Max cocked back his spear. Aimed. Then let it fly straight and true.
Into Addy’s heart.
M
ax didn’t know what tortured him more, Addy’s shocked expression, her body slumping in Regan’s arms, or the callous way the bastard tossed her aside. It took all Max’s strength to hide his emotion and turn his back on her and run.
The battlefield had been leveled. Without Noah or Addy, Regan had no more leverage over him. Running faster through trees and brush, in and out of shadow and light, hurdling obstacles in his way, Max lured Regan farther into the woods, away from any chance of Ferly Mor zapping them with a shock rod or shooting them with tranquilizers.
Now it’d be a fair fight to the death. He just had to make sure it was Regan’s death. His ultimortem. This time it would be. This time he had something worth fighting for. It was alpha versus alpha now, battling in the ultimate survival race.
By the time he killed Regan, Addy and Noah would be alive. Max wouldn’t wait for Ferly Mor to come looking for the gladiators. He’d storm the hovercraft and as soon as the door sublimated, he’d kill the Hyborean and free his family.
Strategically out of Ferly Mor’s range, Max pivoted around to see Regan racing toward him, sweat dripping, knife glinting in his grip. Adrenaline spiked. Gladiator mode kicked into gear, annihilating all thoughts except war and bloodshed.
Max engaged his enemy.
* * *
Addy awoke to darkness and the smell of black licorice.
“You missed,” she whispered, before her eyes opened and focused on a hairy, gray Hyborean cradling a wiggling baby in his arms.
“Noah!” She jumped to her feet, arms outstretched, ready to yank her child away from the monster. To her surprise, Ferly Mor bent over and carefully handed her Noah, whom she covered with kisses and tears before pulling up his clean shirt to check his belly. The knife wound was covered with a thin coating that appeared like skin. Was it some kind of bandage?
Did it matter? Her baby was alive and so was she. Thanks to Duncan’s help. She hugged and kissed her son, ignoring that damn woodpecker drilling for breakfast in her head again. At least she felt no pain and minimal dizziness. Perhaps she was getting used to this reawakening thing. She would have checked to see if the cuts and blisters on her feet were healed, but Ferly Mor had shod her in those amazing lightweight Hyborean sneakers. He had dressed her too in the same shorts and T-shirt she wore the first day she awoke in Duncan’s house.
If they weren’t wearing thermal suits, could they still be in Southland? How long had she been out? Where was Max?
As she twisted around to seek an observation wall, Ferly Mor’s fingers caught in her hair. She hadn’t realized until that moment he had been stroking her and purring. His genuine happiness filled the small space around her, suffocating her. She wiggled free from his grasp.
Through three transparent walls, she could see lush forest surrounding them. Ferly Mor’s vehicle hadn’t moved. There was still hope.
Duncan entered the room with a canteen of water. “Ah, yer awake, lass. How do ye fee—”
“How long have I been dead?” A few weeks ago that question would have sounded odd.
“Ten minutes perhaps.”
“Where’s Max?”
Ferly Mor picked up Duncan and sat him next to Addy on the table then began cleaning up surgical instruments. Duncan handed her the canteen. “I dinna ken. After bringing the bairn to my master, I went back and found ye with a...a...”
“Spear through my heart.” Just like Max’s brother. It dawned on her then that Max hadn’t missed after all. It might have been gruesome, but he’d done what he’d promised. He got her to Noah the only way he knew how.
Duncan cleared his throat and harrumphed before continuing, “Yes, well I found ye and brought ye here.”
Right. Now she just had to figure out how to get out. The room was about the size of the poacher’s caged vehicle, only it was enclosed all around. Ferly Mor’s hovercraft might have been a cross between a Hyborean cargo van and an ambulance. In opposite corners of the cargo area sat two small single-person cages she likened to cat carriers.
Duncan always followed Ferly Mor everywhere. He didn’t need to be locked up. So were the cages for her and Max, or for her and Regan?
Ferly Mor finished tidying up and exited the room into what appeared to be the vehicle’s cab. With the back of her hand, she wiped water from her lips. “I’ve got to find Max.”
“Dinna fret. Regan will find him. Ye should rest now.”
“I can’t rest. He needs me.”