Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
A week ago, Steel would have laughed in the person’s face if they told him he would be cradling a woman so tenderly in his arms.
Now holding Rose close to his chest felt like the most natural thing in the world.
But it didn't ease the knot of nausea sitting heavily in his gut.
After he’d burned the soles of Rose’s feet, he’d harshly shoved her off his lap, depositing her on the table in front of him, then stormed down the hall to the closest bathroom where the contents of his stomach had quickly evacuated themselves.
Hurting people had never been something he enjoyed.
When he enlisted in the military, it was something he was prepared to do, knowing it came with the job.
After Dr. Gardner had messed with his DNA, it was something he did without conscious thought.
It didn't negatively affect him in any way, and he never felt an ounce of guilt or remorse after he and his team had tortured someone for intel or ended the lives of those who didn't deserve to live.
Even when they’d taken Rose, knowing she was innocent, he hadn't expected to feel a drop of regret for what they planned to do with her. She had been deemed a necessary sacrifice, and all six of them had been good with that, their eyes fixed so firmly on their revenge that they’d been blinded to anything else.
Then Rose’s defiant attitude changed everything.
It jarred him out of his single-minded objective, made him see her as a real person and not an object of value to achieving his goals. Her bravery and determination, her sass and strength, made him aware of things he hadn't thought possible.
For a decade, he had believed himself to be a monster incapable of loving another person, not safe to be around, and a danger to humanity. Knowing he’d thrown up because he’d laid his hands on a woman who was firmly lodged in his heart told him the truth.
He’d never been a monster.
Always been capable of connecting with people, even if his conscience had been badly damaged by the experimental drugs he’d been given.
If he wasn't still capable of normal human emotion, he wouldn't have been down on his knees vomiting, his stomach painfully cramping, because he’d hurt the woman who owned him.
In the end, it had been Rose’s small hands stroking his back that had him looking over his shoulder. The look in her eyes, the understanding, the acceptance, had almost been enough to bring him to tears.
Instead, he’d shoved to his feet, yanking her into his arms and holding her tight while he washed out his mouth, then he’d shoved her up against the wall and taken her hard and fast. His bruising pace must have hurt her, but she’d clung to him, her nails digging into his skin as she screamed out her release loud enough that Blade would have heard no matter where he was in the house, even if he didn't have enhanced hearing.
To keep them all safe, Rose included, Voodoo had given her a sedative before they left the mansion. The plan was to get to Rose as soon as her brother was with her, but in case anything happened to delay them, he couldn’t allow her to have intel that could potentially be tortured out of her.
His girl was strong, but she was still human, and it was better for her if she didn't know where she’d been kept for the last week.
That was changing afterward though.
Rose was his, and he had no intention of letting her go even if he had to lock her back up in his room until she agreed to stay with him. The mansion would be her home, and she would learn its location.
None of them had spoken on the drive to the private airfield.
No one had spoken as they loaded onto the small private jet.
Neither had anyone said a word when they landed a few states over and piled into a rented SUV.
It was almost time to drop Rose off, and Steel found it increasingly difficult to be okay with the idea of leaving her behind.
How was he supposed to drop her off alone and unconscious in the woods, knowing her brother was going to come for her?
She’d wake up groggy and in pain, no idea where she was, and call her brother to come and get her. She was walking straight into the lion’s den, and she was doing it in large part for him.
“Rose can do this,” Thunder said softly, shifting in the driver’s seat to look at him as he stopped the car deep in the forest.
That wasn't even a question. Of course she could. Steel believed there wasn't a thing on this earth the woman cradled in his arms couldn’t do.
But that didn't erase the darkening bruise around her eye or clean away the blood that had dried and crusted around the split in her cheekbone. Knowing he’d been the one to put those marks on her body filled him with a shame he hadn't thought himself capable of.
“She knew you had to do it,” Lion said quietly from beside him.
Again, Steel knew that, and it was only Rose’s words that hitting her was the only way to protect her that had him doing it, before that, he had been adamant that no one was putting any other bruises on her gorgeous body.
“She’s doing this willingly,” Blade added.
Finally tearing his gaze away from Rose’s sleeping face, he met the worried gazes of his teammates.
“We kidnapped her, held her captive, she wasn't in a position to consent to anything,” he reminded them. That was the truth of the matter. Rose may have said the words, might have told them she’d work with them and play bait, but what else was she supposed to say?
They’d held her freedom over her head and coerced her compliance.
Maybe he really was a monster after all.
“Too late to back out now,” Dragon reminded him, although not unkindly, and he knew his friend was right.
Rose had called her brother. He’d already hit her, they’d already put her on a plane and flown her to a remote mountain range. What else was there to do? He damn sure hadn't hit his little ladybug, burned her, just to back out and have it been for nothing.
With a nod, he indicated Voodoo should open his door, and once the man had climbed out, Steel slid across the back seat with Rose still in his arms. The temperature drop was immediately noticeable once he was no longer in the vehicle, and he knew the thin—now dirty and tattered thanks to them making the material look like it had survived an escape—pajamas were no match for the cold.
“How long until she wakes up?” he asked as he scanned the area, looking for a somewhat protected spot to lay Rose down. If she stayed out there unconscious for too long, then hypothermia would claim her. At least awake and moving she stood a chance against it.
“I’ll give her a shot of adrenaline before we go,” Voodoo assured him. “She should wake up quickly.”
“And she has a tracker on her?” Although he already knew the answer, he needed the reassurance of hearing it spoken out loud.
“Eight of them,” Blade replied, shrugging when Steel quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Maybe a little overboard, but we need to be able to find her. This way, if they check her for trackers, they’ll find one and think they’re done.
Even if they’re suspicious and find another, they’re not going to keep checking long enough to find them all. ”
They would have to pray Blade was right.
The tracker leading them to Rose was the only thing that would save her life.
Reluctantly, Steel carried her over to a small bush and set Rose down beneath it. Voodoo picked up her wrist to check her pulse before uncapping a syringe and pulling Rose’s pajama top down enough to inject it into her bicep.
Knowing he had to go, because if he was there when Rose woke up there was no way in hell he would be able to leave her behind, Steel leaned down and pressed his lips to Rose’s forehead.
“You’d better come back to me, little ladybug,” he murmured.
Getting attached to their captive should never have been an option, but looking back, he knew it had been destined to happen the moment she opened her eyes in her bed, and he looked down into those deep forest green depths.
Now he needed her to survive, needed her to come back to him, needed her to submit to him and give him every inch of herself.
He wanted to soothe all her old hurts, erase all her past pain, and give her the freedom to live her life however she wanted with an army at her back that would kill anyone who ever looked at her wrong.
To do that, she had to survive the man who had left deep scars on her soul.
With a last look, Steel shoved to his feet and walked away without a backward glance, knowing he was leaving his heart, his soul, and his sanity behind, lying unconscious on the forest floor.
January 2nd
12:04 A.M.
Rose woke to the lingering feel of Steel’s lips on her forehead and the faint hum of an engine.
Alone.
That was the first word that ran through her mind. She’d known she was doing this alone, it had been her idea, and at her insistence that she was dumped out there, but still there was a pang in her chest at the knowledge that Steel had just left her behind.
Which was perhaps the craziest thing she’d ever felt.
Or maybe just the next progression in a line of crazy things over the last week.
The man had inserted himself inside her mind, that was for sure. He was a dangerous man, his enhanced strength aside, and one who she knew would kill without hesitation. He’d also been okay with taking her, an innocent woman, and abusing her to get what he wanted.
Yet something about his possessiveness, his claims, the pain in his eyes when she went to him in the bathroom after he’d burned the bottoms of her feet, called out to all the broken pieces of her.
They’d been broken by the same person. Was it possible that together they could help each other put their pieces back together?
Could their darkness bond them, tie them together, or would it destroying them?
There was no way to know the answers to those questions unless she threw herself all in to this crazy … whatever the hell it was between them, and she was terrified to do that.