Chapter Fourteen
Natalie screamed Ren’s name as he fell from out of her sight and she heard a splash below. She turned and ran as fast as she could to a place where she could slide down to the riverbank, praying the whole time that he was okay and she’d be able to find him.
At the bottom she saw the cat running in the opposite direction, thank God, limping more severely.
“Ren!” she screamed again, looking for him in the sea of white. His head popped up out of the water just a few yards away.
“Oh, my God, Ren!”
Natalie grabbed a branch and skimmed across the edge of the river until she got to a large flat rock that cut into the water, that would put her within just a few feet of him.
She wasted no time crawling out on her belly, careful to keep her balance.
If she fell in the water, they would both die out here.
There’d be no way they’d be able to get back to the cabin.
As she got to the edge she could see Ren’s green eyes looking back at her, conscious but in agony as he swam toward her, cold making him sloppy. She threw the branch out to him. He grabbed it as best he could and she pulled him in.
She hooked her arms under his armpits and pulled, using gravity and her own weight to help hoist them backward, and was finally able to drag him out of the water and on top of her.
Violent shudders racked his frame and she had to wrap her arms and legs around him to keep him from falling off the rock.
They subsided a little and she got herself out from under him, ignoring the discomfort of her now-wet clothes turning icy. It had to be much worse for Ren.
And if she didn’t get him to the cabin and warmed up quickly, his body was going to go into shock. Then shut down.
Reaching under his arms again, she hefted him until they both were on the shoreline.
“Ren!” She rolled him over onto his back and tapped his face with both hands when his eyes began to close. “Come on, solider. I need your help to get you to the cabin.”
“Na-Natalie...”
She kissed him hard on the lips. “Yeah, it’s me. Now we’ve got to move before you lose all control of your body.” His eyes started to close again. “Ren! I need you to stay awake. We’ve got to get you on your feet.”
Those green eyes looked back at her, glazed with pain.
“I know it hurts,” she whispered. Oh, how she knew. “I know everything hurts. Damien used to leave me out in the snow naked, as punishment.”
She knew exactly how god-awful the burn was from freezing. Like your whole body had been lit on fire with no chance for relief.
“Ba-bastard.”
“He was. Trust me, he was. But I survived and you’re going to also. Now I need you to stand.”
He nodded jerkily, and she got him to a sitting position. She wrapped one of his icy wet arms around her shoulders, her other arm gripping his waist.
“On three, here we go. One, two, three!”
She used every bit of strength she had, pushing through her legs to get them off the ground. Ren groaned but made it to his feet. She immediately began walking them in the direction of the cabin.
A half mile never seemed so far away.
Ren’s face was colorless after just a few steps and she realized he was bleeding from where the mountain lion had mauled him.
They walked slowly but steadily toward the cabin, Ren leaning heavier on her with every step. He wasn’t shivering anymore, which she knew was a very bad sign. Natalie was using all the strength she had just to propel them in the correct direction.
“Come on, solider,” she said through choppy breaths. “Left. Right. Don’t you give up. I’m not leaving you here, so if you stop, we’re both going to die. Keep going.”
She had to give it to him; he moved one foot in front of the other for a long time. But about halfway there she felt him collapse. It was all she could do to keep him from falling face-first into the snow.
“Ren!” She crouched down and tapped his face lightly again and again but he didn’t move. She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. Panicking, she ripped off her gloves and held her fingers to his icy neck, nearly sobbing with relief when she felt his pulse, thready but there.
They weren’t far from the cabin but there was no way she’d be able to carry him the last couple hundred yards. They might as well be miles away.
She put her gloves back on and yanked off her jacket, rolling his torso onto it. Then she grabbed it by the collar and pulled, once again using her weight and gravity to her advantage. Every time she pulled him forward it was by crashing herself into the ground, but at least it moved him.
The progress was slow and agonizing. She had to fall into the snow each time just to get him to move one or two feet. It wasn’t long before the cold and exertion was stealing all her strength.
She fought to keep her mind in the present as the agonizing burn of the cold tried to throw her back into the past. When she was helpless. At Damien’s mercy.
As the flames of cold licking her skin receded to the blessed numbness, her mind wanted to hide. From the pain, from the exhaustion. To just curl up in the snow and let everything float away.
But if she did, she and Ren would both die. And damn it, she wasn’t going to let that happen.
They were less than fifty yards from the cabin—she could see it, for heaven’s sake—when her coat ripped under Ren’s weight. Sobbing, she stumbled up to the house, grabbed a blanket from the bed and ran back down to Ren.
She laid the blanket out on the ground and used her legs—there was no way she’d be able to do it with her arms—to roll him face-first onto it.
Reaching for an inner strength she didn’t know she had, past all the pain of getting them this far, she got them the last few yards and into the house, kicking the door closed behind them. She fell next to Ren on the floor, breaths sawing in and out of her chest.
She just wanted to lie there, but knew she couldn’t. They weren’t out of the woods yet. Leaving Ren where he lay, she crawled over to the stove. The fire had gone out so she built a new bundle of tinder like he had taught her.
Using the flint with numb, exhausted fingers was even more difficult, but—thanks to Ren and his patience—she knew she could do it. Finally, a spark caught the kindling and a flame began. She built the wood on top of it and opened all the vents on the stove to allow as much heat out as possible.
She pulled off her own clothes, now just as soaked as Ren’s, wincing at the pain down the entire back of her body after throwing herself onto the ground time after time to move him.
She wrapped herself in a second blanket, crawling back to him.
She got his wet clothes off as quickly as her numb, trembling fingers would allow, and wrapped his wound with a T-shirt to stop the bleeding.
She threw all the frozen clothes and blanket she’d used to pull him into a pile by the door, just under her painting.
With the last of her strength she grabbed a quilt resting over the back of the couch.
She crawled back to Ren where he still lay on the floor, pulled his naked body to hers and wrapped them both as best she could in the blankets.
She knew she should try to get him to the bed or closer to the fire, or do more with his wound, but she couldn’t. Her strength was gone.
She pulled his icy hands under her armpits and his toes between her calves. She was so cold the difference in temperature barely registered.
She’d done all she could do. She prayed it would be enough.
Blackness claimed her.
* * *
EVERY PART OF him was screaming in agony. Ren fought back a moan of pain, years of ops kicking in, not sure where he was and if it was safe to make any sound.
Slowly, awareness came back to him. That damn mountain lion and the icy bitch of a river as it had stolen every bit of breath he had.
But now he was in the cabin with Natalie, lying on the ground, naked with her in his arms. How the hell had they gotten here?
He shifted, and pain blistered up his shoulder. He moved cautiously, glancing down at the wound. That cat’s claws had gotten him good. It was going to need to be stitched.
Natalie rolled, moaning, and her blue eyes blinked open.
“You’re awake,” she whispered, before her eyes closed again briefly in relief.
Then she frantically sat up and began examining his fingers and toes. “You were wet for so long. I was worried about frostbite but I didn’t know what to do and once I got you here I just ran out of steam.”
He could feel her poking at his hands and feet as she continued talking. “But they look okay. Thank God.” Her hands moved to his shoulder, her voice becoming more and more distressed. “Oh, no, your wound. I knew I needed to do something about it, but I—”
He put his finger to her lips to stop her stream of words, his body burning. “I’m okay. You did great. How did we even get back here?”
“I got you out of the water and you walked part of the way.” She shrugged. “Then you lost consciousness and I pulled you the rest of the way on my jacket, then a blanket.”
She said it casually as if she hadn’t just gone beyond, way beyond, what most people would’ve been able to do, and saved his life.
He pulled her lips down to his with his good arm. “Thank you. You saved my life.”
“I should’ve done more. I should’ve—”
“You did enough.”
She helped get him up and to the bed. He was barely able to walk, and dizziness assaulted him immediately. Once there, she removed the T-shirt she’d used to stop the flow of blood.
Looking at it, he realized the wound was worse than he’d thought. Skin ripped open and still bleeding. It was already swollen and ugly. Infection was going to be a real worry.
The game was up. He needed to call Omega and get some medical attention out to them. They could have someone here on Jet-Skis within twenty minutes.
Natalie’s concerned face was already going in and out of focus. Hell, how was he going to explain this to her?
“I need my phone,” he croaked out. She’d covered him with a blanket, but he kicked it off, feeling too hot.
“Ren, we don’t get a signal, remember? You’ve already tried.”
He shook his head, the movement causing him to fall back with a groan. “I have to tell you something. But I need my phone first. Pants pocket.”
She moved to the pile of clothes by the door, hanging them over the couch to dry as she came back, but was shaking her head. “I’m sorry, it’s broken. The fall in the river and then probably as I dragged you back to the cabin.”
When she handed it to him, he realized it was true. There was no way to make a call with this phone. Damn it, they were going to need to walk out of here. As soon as possible.
“You’re going to need to stitch this,” he told her, struggling to stay upright as everything pitched around him. “There’s a first aid kit in one of the kitchen cabinets.”
She got it and came back. Ren already knew it was fully stocked, including some supplies for sutures.
She cleaned out the wound, wincing as he bit off a curse at the pain.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered as he showed her what she would need to do and helped her prepare the sutures.
“You can.” He tried to smile at her but everything was so blurry. He could feel fever beginning to course through his body. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. We just need to get it closed before infection sets it.”
Although he was pretty sure it already had.
His breath whistled out his teeth as the needle pierced his already inflamed skin. But he swallowed all signs of pain when he saw the tears leaking out of Natalie’s eyes.
“You’re doing great. You’re the most amazing woman I have ever met,” he told her after what seemed like hours later when she was almost finished.
Her face had long since blurred into an unrecognizable blob as his eyes glazed over from pain.
The sound of her voice—the sound of everything—starting to seem farther and farther away.
He fought every second to stay conscious.
He needed to tell her. Tell her how close they were to civilization. Less than four miles. What if something happened to him and he couldn’t lead her out? She could make it. This wasn’t just about Freihof anymore.
“Nat, you need to know... I have to tell you...”
“Ren?” Panic was clear in her voice.
And then there was nothing.