Tamsyn
It had taken her longer than she thought to get away from the cabins without being seen. Sneaking from building to building was hard in broad delight, especially when the usual humdrum of people milling about was absent, replaced with club security.
After spending far too long hunkered down behind a bush, she finally got the nerve to break cover, darting across the path into the forest where her journey here first began.
Almost three months on, everything was different. The world wasn’t cold and white with snow, but coming alive with greenery. Spring was on its way, bringing new life with it, only—as was the way of things—something needed to die for others to live and thrive.
She wondered if Violet knew she was gone yet, or if she just believed her charge was locked in the bathroom, sulking over tiny unimportant issues like writing exercises in a book.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered anymore.
Running away from the community had been freeing, terrifying, exhilarating in a way.
Running away from Merrick left a gaping hole in her chest where she’d left her heart in his possession. Even though it hurt, there was a strange sense of comfort knowing that her father would never be able to trade away any of the vital pieces of her, not when they belonged to Merrick. She would live on through him until they found each other again.
Trying not to exhaust herself in the first five minutes, Tamsyn maintained a steady pace as she cleared the sparse section of forest near the cabins. If her survival depended on her fitness level, she was doomed.
The first body she stumbled across was dressed all in camouflage. Head to toe, except for a window of clarity across his eyes. Wide, wide eyes staring blankly up into the trees, already obscured with the film of death she’d seen before, more than once.
The fabric around his neck was gaping, exposing a thin sliver of flesh sliced open. Blood stained his skin, soaked into his clothes, pooled on the ground beneath him.
She sidestepped around him, exhaling shakily to keep herself calm, and continued heading back toward the mountain. Death wasn’t a stranger to her, but here and now, it was a reminder of what she faced.
It could be her in that position, anytime now. An arm around her chest, a knife to her throat, and slice . She might not even see it coming—a bullet fired from a distance could end her before she heard the shot.
She didn’t see the man until it was almost too late. A tall, living, breathing man adorned in black, a belt of weapons strapped around his waist and a very sharp knife in his hand. The blade was wet with blood, a thick droplet clinging to the tip.
Tamsyn froze, meeting his eyes as his face lit with recognition.
“Well, shit. Tamsyn, right?” he asked in a low voice. “I’m a friend.”
She took a step back. She wasn’t taking anyone’s word on whether they were friends, not when she didn’t know who was the enemy. If there were friends and foes out here, she had no way of discerning one from the other, but both sides would know her face, her name, and they could be used against her.
“Don’t run. You’re not supposed to be out here.” He glanced around, looking mightily displeased. His head jerked up as a gunshot rang through the forest like a bell. “Come with me, I can get you back to safety before anyone realizes you’re not where you’re supposed to be. It’s fucking dangerous for you right now.”
As if to emphasize his point, a man screamed as though someone was tearing his heart out with their bare hands.
She didn’t wait, didn’t hesitate, she just bolted away from the man in black, away from the screaming. Legs pumping, she veered diagonally through the trees, praying it would make it easier to travel uphill.
Another gunshot cracked the air, louder and more ominous than the first.
Tamsyn cried out, gasping for breath, and tripped over a tree root, skidding on her hands and knees. In a horrible case of déjà vu, she felt herself topple and roll in that same awful tumble that had brought her to Merrick’s doorstep.
She slid to a stop on her belly, bruised and shaken, but thankfully without broken bones. Catching her breath, she lay there for a minute, hearing nothing but the pulse of blood in her ears until she caught the rumble of a man’s voice.
“Found her. Orders are to keep her alive for Drake. Meet at the extraction point in twenty.”
She whimpered as a hand fisted in the back of her hoody, lifting her off her stomach. Kicking and swinging, she managed to land a few ineffective blows to her captor’s legs and abdomen; so ineffective, in fact, he laughed before his other hand slammed across her face hard enough to rattle her brain.
“Might as well stop fighting, little bitch. There’s no escaping a second time.”
Pain throbbed through her jaw and cheek, her teeth and neck. A second blow distorted her vision, then she was dropped to the ground with a boot lodged in her gut for good measure. She retched viciously, her lungs revolting in unison with her stomach.
“Drake said alive, he didn’t say undamaged. Been searching for you for weeks, praying I’d get the chance to have some fun. Weeks of traipsing up and down this motherfucking mountain, but I’ll be damned if I know why you’re so fucking special.” He flipped her over, staring down at her with a curious kind of revulsion. “Just another carcass to toss over the edge for the scavengers.”
She recognized him now—Jason, one of Jedidiah’s most loyal security guards. A vicious predator in uniform, always watching the community women as though they were a menu, choosing what suited him. He’d been with her father for years, never wealthy enough to elevate himself into the elders, but it wouldn’t surprise her if Jedidiah gave him a taste to keep his loyalty right where he wanted it.
“Should’ve been traded when you came of age,” he told her nastily, crouching down to grip her throat in a merciless hand. “A few quick fucks and a slow, painful death would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble.”
She clawed at his hand, his wrist, to no avail. Writhing, she kicked and bucked, digging her nails into whatever flesh she could reach. His fingers were bruising her, closing off her airway, bringing her perilously close to passing out.
Something flew over her, smashing feet-first into his leering face. It landed on her as he sailed back, knocking the remnants of air from her lungs, then rolled and sprang to standing. She barely had a chance to notice the stark shock of blonde hair before the thing—the woman —leaped forward to tackle Jason as he tried to gain his feet.
They went down in a tangle of limbs, fighting for supremacy. Fists flew in a cacophony of flesh striking flesh, hard grunts and yelps of pain.
Tamsyn blinked her vision clear, horrified to see the woman disappear beneath Jason’s bulk. There was nothing she could do to help, yet she forced herself onto hands and knees, crawling toward the seething mass of limbs.
Before she made it two feet, Jason screamed. Back arching, he scrambled away, taking a boot to the face for the second time. The woman kicked again, angling her foot this time so the sole of her boot slammed into his throat, sending him sprawling onto his back.
One hand cradled his throat, the other gripping the hilt of a knife buried into his lower gut.
Tabitha—broken, bleeding Tabitha—flashed a grin as she straddled him, her teeth red with her own blood. Slapping his hand off the knife, she regained control of it, wrapping both hands around the handle and shoving the blade up. It sliced through his flesh like butter, carving him open almost from crotch to sternum, apparently immune to his inhuman screams.
Blood welled and spilled like a waterfall while his screams became…
The blade raked over his throat, turning his last breaths into dying gurgles.
“Well, that was fun.” Swinging herself off the body, Tabitha rose and shoved her knife back into her belt. Swiping her hair away from her face with a blood-slicked hand that was as steady as the damn mountain, she scowled at Tamsyn with blue eyes alive with manic energy. “ You are not supposed to be here. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“S-Saving Merrick.”
Tabitha laughed. “Might want to leave that to the professionals. Better let the boss know you’re safe before he sends a chopper out to search for you.” Digging into a hidden pocket in the side of her pants, she pulled out her cell phone and pressed a button. “Have you lost something, mighty Master?”
She listened intently. “I have her secured. What’s the body count? Mmm-hmm. Add another eight from me.” She kicked Jason’s body. “Alpha team took down the extraction point? Damn it, they get all the fun.”
This was fun? She hadn’t been joking?
“I… well, fuck.” Those blue eyes turned on Tamsyn again, and she swore a flash of pity glowed in the depths. Even Tabitha’s tone changed. “Yes, Sir. Is my brother… well, there’s a chance then. Heading back now. Yes, Sir.”
The call ended, the phone disappearing again.
“What’s wrong?” Tamsyn rasped.
“Can you walk?”
“I-I think so?” She tried to get to her feet but her knees were weak. “What’s wrong?”
Tabitha gave the body one last kick, then walked over and grabbed Tamsyn’s stronger hand, hauling her up onto her feet. When she almost went down again, she sighed as if the weakness was an inconvenience, then looped her arm around Tamsyn’s waist for support. “Seems like running didn’t save Merrick.”
“I—what?”
“He got shot.”
What little strength she had left plummeted, buckling her knees. The forest went white, her head ringing with those three devastating words delivered in such a blasé tone. She thought of the gunshot, the one that seemed so loud and personal, like it was aimed at her. Was that the one?
Cursing, Tabitha lowered her to the ground. “Sorry, my brain is still in work mode. That was inconsiderate. Grit will be mad—he’s been in your position, I haven’t. I was the one dying.”
“ Dying? ” The word was a quiet wail of despair.
“Fuck. I’m doing this all wrong. Probably why Grit told me to let him do the talking,” she muttered to herself under her breath. “Look, I get it’s hard. Not knowing how he is or if he’s going to make it. But what you do know is that he needs you, right? He loves you, and if he loves you half as much as Grit loves me, we need to get you home.”
Before it’s too late .
She heard the words in her head even though Tabitha didn’t speak them.
How many times had she thought about how much he’d given her since she appeared in his life? How much he’d given up for her on this journey? Was she really going to huddle on the forest floor, unwilling to haul herself back down the hill for fear of what waited at the bottom?
The fact he’d been shot destroyed her. Her heart—the heart she’d left behind for him —was in pieces and her soul was cracked in two, but if procrastination cost her the chance to be there for him when he truly needed her most, or God forbid, the opportunity to say goodbye, she would never forgive herself.
Some things were bigger than her secluded little universe.
Merrick was the whole of it.
He was just it .
Shoving aside physical aches and mental anguish, Tamsyn exhaled roughly through her tender throat and summoned the strength to stand shakily. Clamping her hand on Tabitha’s arm, not missing the woman’s flinch, she gave a firm nod. “Take me to him.”
“Hah. Knew there was some fighting spirit in there.”
“Are you hurt?”
Inelegantly, Tabitha turned her head and spat blood. “He got in a couple lucky shots, that’s all. Mine weren’t luck.” When Tamsyn’s eyes slid down to where her hand was on Tabitha’s rigid arm, the blonde shuddered slightly. “Oh, that. No. I have issues with people touching me. Grit is trying his best to desensitize me, so don’t worry about it.”
It was apparently the end of that particular conversation, as Tabitha set off walking, towing Tamsyn along at a speed she wasn’t sure she could keep up with for long. Her bones were aching, her muscles crying, and her limited supply of energy was about to blink red.
Merrick, she reminded herself. “He’d do it for me.”
Blue eyes glanced in her direction. “Make it back to you?”
“Yes.”
Tabitha snorted loudly, shaking her head. “I’m pretty sure he almost died trying to protect you. It’s safe to say that man would do anything for you.”
Almost died wasn’t the same as dead , Tamsyn reminded herself when her insides wilted with grief again. He would hold on if he could, would stay with her if the damage to his body allowed him.
The problem was, she more than anybody knew how fragile the strongest body could be. Too many vulnerable places, so many organs and arteries that surrendered when injured. No amount of muscle or fat could stop a projectile traveling hundreds or thousands of feet per second.
“Can we go faster?”
*
She concluded it was probably a very good thing Tabitha found her, seeing as her internal compass had been thrown off during her desperate run through the trees; she never would’ve found her way back to Serenity’s grounds on her own, or at least, not for a day or two.
By the time they reached the boundary line, Tamsyn was sweating, trembling, exhausted, and on the verge of collapsing. It was surprising to discover how far she’d gone, how far from safety she’d been.
As they headed down toward the club, her heart stuttered every time she caught sight of the men dressed in black. There were so many, some standing guard, some patrolling, as though they weren’t convinced the threat was over. Weapons pointing at the ground, ready to rise the moment the men sensed something amiss.
When she saw the huddle of men gathered around a single spot, her feet broke into a ragged run before her brain caught up. Some of the faces she recognized—Evander, Elias, Fordham—and some she didn’t, but they were all somber. Grim.
She raced toward them, fatigue forgotten as images of Merrick dying on the floor at their feet flashed through her sluggish brain. One frame at a time, in graphic detail. From a gaping gunshot wound in his chest to a slick lake of blood pooling around his body, and every horrible possibility in between.
For the first time, she noticed the body in front of her, just a few feet away from the men. Dismissed like so many of the others in camouflage gear scattered through the trees until someone deigned to drag them onto the growing pile in the forest where they couldn’t be seen.
There wouldn’t be funerals or memorials for the dead; no love lost for the enemy.
But this body… Tamsyn skidded to a halt, her head cocking. The face was nothing but swelling on top of swelling, the flesh misshapen and bruised. Parts of the cheekbones were sunken, likely caved in by the weapon that caused the most damage, and the nose was flattened.
She’d grown up with that jawline though, had stared at that hard profile every day for the whole of her life. The mouth twisted open in an expression of pain and terror had been a source of anguish and shame, a commander of evil and unfairness.
The small portion of unmarred skin carried the gray pallor of death; she’d seen it often enough she recognized it, and the stiffness of his body, for what it truly represented: freedom.
The last living son of one of the community’s founding families was dead.
The man who reigned over all the demons in her life was gone.
His existence snuffed out as painfully and undignified as the women whose bodies occupied the dark, empty chasm at the bottom of the mountain. Hundreds of women and girls, generations of them tossed like trash into a landfill, by him and his ilk.
Instead of grief, there was simply relief.
Jedidiah held no power in her court anymore; Merrick was her Master, her lover, her Dom, her one and only. He was the only thing she needed to be thinking about now, because her father’s demise was justice. Long awaited justice, sweet and bloody.
Tamsyn kicked the body once as her contribution to his violent end, even though one kick to a corpse didn’t make up for anything he’d put her through or what he’d stolen from her. But that swing of her foot, the thud of her sneaker connecting with his ribs, felt glorious after so many years of silent, internal rebellion.
She stepped over him then, leaving him behind as she rushed forward, only to be caught around the waist by a strong arm and dragged to a halt again. “Let me go!”
“Shush, sweetheart.” Fordham pulled her against him as she fought to advance the few steps to where she could see a glimpse of white blond hair at waist height. “Jasper’s doing his best to keep Merrick alive, but we have to give him space to do his job. Are you hurt?”
“I don’t matter, I—” She yelped when a hand smacked her butt sharply.
“Don’t ever say those three words again, Tamsyn.” There was a biting quality to his tone. “You matter to him . You matter to us, but to Merrick, you’re everything he’s been waiting a lifetime for; you are what he almost died to keep safe. If Jasper can’t stop the bleeding, Merrick will die in his effort to save you. So don’t ever let me hear you say you don’t matter again.”
Her indignation at the spank fizzled out.
“I’ll ask again—are you hurt?”
She dropped her chin. “No, Master Fordham. I’m okay.”
“Hmmm.” The note of disapproval hummed through her as he went to lift one of her hands; she curled them into fists to hide the dirty scrapes across the palms from her fall.
“Ford, bring her over here,” Jasper called out before her white lie could be revealed.
“We’ll discuss this later, Tamsyn. I’m not your Dom, but fibbing to me isn’t wise.” Gently, Ford grasped her stronger wrist and led her toward the sadist. “Prepare yourself, okay? I know you’ve seen some shit already, but this is going to hit you where it hurts most.”
How exactly did one prepare herself for something like this? She tried to think what Merrick would tell her to do, how he would calm her down and encourage her to focus on her breathing, on keeping her heartbeat steady.
That wasn’t easy when the first thing she saw when the men parted at her approach was the soft, silver sheen of his hair glinting in the late afternoon sun, and the splatters of blood clinging to the strands.
Her breath caught, hitched, then exploded on a sob when she laid eyes on his face.
Pale and waxy, clammy, but thankfully not the cold gray of death.
“Need you to listen carefully, Tamsyn,” Jasper said in a terse voice. “He’s alive. I’m doing my best to keep him that way, but I need your help.”
“W-What can I-I do?” she whispered.
“He keeps regaining consciousness.” Jasper’s hands were working a mile a minute, doing whatever it was that held Merrick on the plane of the living. “Sit by his head, talk to him. Let him know you’re here and alive, that he has something to fight for. The bullet went straight through his gut. I don’t think it hit anything major, but it nicked an artery.”
There was a lot of blood. Pouring from a small hole that Jasper’s long fingers were attempting to plug, pooling in Merrick’s navel and dribbling down his sides.
She jumped when Jasper shouted, “Where the fuck is that damn med kit?”
Afraid he might turn that angry voice on her, Tamsyn pushed herself beyond the fear swamping her for Merrick and staggered forward to drop to her knees by his head. Hands hovering over his face, fluttering with the urge to touch, she didn’t know what to do.
“Touch him, sweetheart. It’s the little things like the heat of your hands and the feel of your skin that make a big difference, even if you think they don’t.”
She wasn’t entirely convinced about that. Merrick’s eyes were closed, the green hidden away. His face was slack, the muscles free from pain. Surely if her touch and her voice were going to make a difference, there should be some kind of… reciprocation wasn’t the right word. Reaction, response?
Some sign that he wasn’t lost in the darkness, far beyond her reach.
Shutting out the people around her, closing out Jasper’s voice as he barked orders and fought to stop the bleeding, Tamsyn set her shaking hands on Merrick’s cheeks, tears stinging her eyes at the prickle of his beard against her skin.
While he wasn’t cold, she noticed a distinct lack of warmth. Unsurprising really, what with all the blood vacating his body through that tiny hole in his belly.
She tried to speak, to give him the words she knew he’d offer if their roles were reversed, but her vocal chords were trapped in a chokehold again. How was she supposed to talk when the man she loved, the man who’d saved her and showed her who she was, how to love, how to be so much more than her father ever wanted for her, was dying in front of her?
So she didn’t speak. She didn’t use words to connect with him.
Instead, she let her hands converse with him, the way he often did when they laid in bed with her back to his chest and his arm around her waist. She loved how his palms stroked over her, how he told her what he was feeling simply through touch alone.
Caressing the contours of his face, the soft lines at the corner of his eyes, Tamsyn silently willed him to stay with her. Not to leave her here alone, navigating this scary world without him. Not to ask her to exist with her heart broken and soul in pieces.
Someone came running, sliding to a stop beside Jasper, but their presence barely registered on her radar. If she thought about what the sadist was doing to Merrick, the measures he was resorting to in order to keep him alive, she didn’t know if she’d be able to maintain her tremulous composure.
I need you, Merrick.
Please don’t go.
Take me with you.
Bending forward, ignoring the aches and pains in her weary body, she kissed his forehead before resting hers against it.
I don’t want to live without you .