Chapter 22
Maks stood over the corpses, his breathing ragged. He looked down at the blood-splattered snow. It wasn’t going to take long for wolves to make their way there. They would dispose of the bodies better than anything Maks could do.
He flexed his hands as he turned and started up the mountain.
From the moment he’d left Eden, he’d been worried about her.
He hadn’t wanted to let her go alone, but he hadn’t had a choice.
The Saints had gotten closer than he would have liked.
Too damn close, actually. One had been taking aim at Eden. If Maks hadn’t gotten there in time…
His thoughts trailed off. It was better for everyone if he didn’t complete that thought.
The four-man team hadn’t been expecting him.
That gave Maks an advantage, and he’d needed it because the team was good.
Very good. He’d encountered all manner of trained fighters in his life, and these were some of the best he’d seen. The Saints must be upping their game.
Perhaps he’d been a fool to think they’d kept recruiting others like they had with him. Maybe after their run-in with the Loughmans, they’d changed tactics and began training their own men. If that was the case, there were only a few select people in all the world who could train others like that.
Maks didn’t stop his ascent while his mind turned over this new information.
The thing he hated about the Saints was that he didn’t know what was fact, what was a guess, and what was completely wrong.
All he could do was put the information he had together with the facts he’d experienced and seen firsthand.
So far, he’d been pretty spot-on in his guestimates. How long would that last, though?
His body urged him to rest, but he couldn’t.
Finding Eden was his top priority because he couldn’t be sure that none of the Saints had gone around him to follow her.
Maks tracked her footsteps in the powder.
They were quickly being covered by the snowfall.
The deeper impressions told him where she had stopped to rest before continuing.
Maks plowed through the deep snow, his gaze moving all around, searching for enemies, predators, and Eden.
When the cave finally came into sight, he moved quicker, hoping that Eden was there.
But as he drew closer, he could tell that the cover hadn’t been moved.
No longer were her footsteps visible either.
He halted and turned in a circle, hoping for some sight of her.
He’d told her to keep moving. Maybe she’d been so focused on staying upright that she hadn’t seen the cave.
It wasn’t easy to find in general, and the fact that she was exhausted and cold only made things worse.
There was no movement anywhere he looked.
He wanted to shout her name, but he didn’t dare.
There were more Saints out there. If they hadn’t already found her, then he needed to get Eden out of the weather and warm. Soon.
“Fuck,” he murmured.
Maks turned back the way she’d been headed.
He’d told her to keep moving in this direction, so he was going to look there first. She couldn’t have gotten that far ahead.
Maks plowed through the snow, ignoring the ache in his legs and lungs.
Behind him, he heard the howl of a wolf, followed closely by several others.
No doubt they were already at the bodies.
The last thing he wanted was the pack to track him and Eden.
He hadn’t gone very far before he spotted something through the trees.
He stilled and watched, his gaze narrowed as he waited.
The moment he saw Eden, relief poured through him.
He hurried to her. As he came up behind her, he said her name softly so as not to startle her.
She didn’t appear to hear him, and that concerned him.
Maks put a hand on her arm, but once more, she didn’t stop. He then moved in front of her and stood in her way. She stopped and blinked up at him. When her gaze finally registered him, her face crumpled. His arms came around her, bringing her against him.
“It’s all right,” he told her. While he wanted to stand there and comfort her, he didn’t dare. “We’ve got to get to the cave.”
She tried to walk forward. Maks stopped her and turned her around. Eden didn’t say anything, just started walking. She stumbled twice, but he caught her each time. They weren’t making as good of time as they needed to. Just as Maks was about to lift her into his arms, Eden dropped.
He checked her pulse to make sure she was still alive, then he gathered her in his arms and double-timed it to the cave.
Once there, he set her down and removed the natural covering to check that no animal or person was inside waiting.
When he saw that it was just as he’d left it, Maks got Eden inside and quickly covered the entrance again.
In short order, he had a fire going and pulled out blankets from an airtight box of supplies he’d left behind.
The moment he pulled off Eden’s gloves and felt her flesh, fear rushed through him.
He moved faster than he’d ever moved in his life, putting a blanket down on the hard ground, then removing Eden’s clothes down to her underwear.
Finally, he covered her with another blanket before stripping himself and getting under the covers with her.
He kept his pack of food and weapons close, but right now, his worry was getting Eden through the night.
She didn’t so much as twitch when he pulled her against him.
He rubbed his hands up and down her arms and back to get her blood pumping.
Then he moved to her legs and feet and hands, repeating the process over and over again.
It felt like an eternity before he felt any warmth in her.
Only then did he pause in his ministrations and simply wrap her in his arms. Maks kept having to force himself to loosen his hold.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to rest. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but this respite could make all the difference in if they lived or not.
An hour later, he woke and got up to put more wood on the fire to keep it burning. He checked the entrance cover. He’d fashioned it so that no light could be seen from outside. On top of that, he’d created a latch on the inside so no one could just open the door if the cave was in use.
After checking Eden’s fingers and toes for frostbite, he took a few minutes to eat a bag of nuts and drink some water.
Only then did he climb back beside her. The moment he did, she turned toward him, seeking his warmth.
The fact that he liked the action made his heart skip a beat.
Growing up, he’d seen the love his parents shared, and he’d wanted that same kind of love.
It wasn’t until he was older that he realized how rare such a love was.
He’d still held out hope that he’d find it, right up until the Saints came into his life.
Never did he imagine someone like Eden. Now that she was here, he didn’t want her to leave.
Ever. But he knew that was only wishful thinking.
He might have been waiting for a woman like her his entire life, but these fleeting moments were all he could have.
It didn’t matter that he felt more alive with her than he ever had, or that, despite the seriousness of their situation, he didn’t want to be anywhere else but with her.
Eden pressed her cheek against his chest. Maks wrapped his arms around her, holding her firmly as he pressed his lips to the top of her head.
This moment, this short flash of time, would stay with him for the rest of his life.
All he’d suffered, everything he’d endured, had been worth it to have a woman like Eden not only in his arms but also giving her trust completely to him.
He wasn’t sure he deserved any of it, but for her, he’d live up to it all.
No matter what he had to do in order to achieve it.
All the while, he tried to ignore the fact that he could feel all of her against him.
He’d dreamed of her for three nights, wondering what it would be like to have her just as he did now.
It was better than any fantasy. She fit against him perfectly, as if their bodies had been made together as a single unit and then taken apart.
It would be so easy for Maks to allow himself to believe that he could have Eden, that there weren’t enemies around every corner waiting to kill her and to hurt him.
That he hadn’t lived a life of lies and blood and death.
He was the monster people only half-heartedly believed was real because their brains couldn’t comprehend how anyone could choose such a life.
It wasn’t the life he’d wanted or the one he thought to have.
But it was the one that had been handed to him.
Sure, he could’ve walked away and let what he was doing fall to someone else, but that wasn’t who he was.
How could he be sure there would even be a next person?
For all he’d known, there was no one else but him.
Thankfully, there were people like the Loughmans, but it was sheer luck that he’d stumbled upon them.
And even then, he hadn’t been entirely certain that he could trust them, not at first. That had come from fighting alongside them and seeing what the family and their friends were willing to sacrifice for the good of the world.
It had been the same fight he’d been in.
The relief that he wasn’t doing it alone had been staggering.
He could’ve given them everything he had and walked away, leaving it up to them to take down the Saints.
And they would’ve done it without question.
He couldn’t, however. It wasn’t just because the Saints had forced their way into his life, taking the woman he’d believed he was going to marry.
It was because of everything wrong with what the Saints stood for and were doing.
Maks lowered his gaze to Eden. The firelight danced across the walls of the cave and cast a red-orange glow over her hair and down the side of her face.
If the Saints hadn’t come into his life, he would never have met Eden.
He didn’t want to thank the organization for anything, but he couldn’t help it. Eden was…amazing.
Intelligent. Brave. Beautiful. Strong.
Could he have been happy with his old life as a Ranger?
Could he have loved his girlfriend and made her his wife?
Yes, he could have. But it wasn’t the same relationship his parents had.
He knew that now. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, a part of him had known, even back then, that she hadn’t been right for him.
And Eden is?
He couldn’t say for certain, nor would he even try. They weren’t in a relationship. But he wanted her. Damn, did he want her. It wasn’t just about desire and lust. It went deeper, to a place he didn’t want to look at, a part of himself he’d thought long dead.
Eden chose that moment to inhale deeply and slowly release the breath as she snuggled against him.
She threw one leg over his, pressing her body against his.
Maks closed his eyes, the temptation too much to resist. His balls tightened as his cock hardened.
Only her bra and panties separated them.
He’d left them on because he hadn’t had the strength to remove them.
It had been sheer torture to see her full breasts covered in red lace and the black cotton panties with the red lace at her waist. His hands had actually shook when he’d taken off her clothes to discover her underwear. Just thinking about it now made his mouth go dry.
He lay there in exquisite torment with the woman he desired above all others draped over him as his body throbbed with a craving only she could quench.
Maks didn’t dare move. He barely breathed.
His control was holding on by only a thin thread and even that was unraveling by the second.
There were hours left before dawn, and he wasn’t sure he could last that long.
All the times he’d been tortured, all the training he’d undergone to withstand the cruelest types of punishment, and all it took to break him was Eden half-naked in his arms. The irony didn’t go unnoticed by him.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem to know the hold she had on him.
But that was little comfort at the moment.
It was going to be a very, very long night. The fact that he was conflicted, torn between wanting it to hurry and end and never end, was almost laughable.
Never in his life did he think a mere slip of a woman would be what felled him.