Chapter Three
Three
Keys led the way through the maze of animal paths to get them off the faint track their would-be murderers had used.
It was miserable going. The rain continued to come down in a steady pour.
Not only was it wet, but it was cold. The only shelter was to stay as close to the trees as possible, although he’d managed to fashion a makeshift umbrella out of the lid of the toolbox.
It wasn’t the best, but it did provide a little respite for Lyric.
She limped along stoically, without complaint.
She’d tried to hold the lid over her head, but after half an hour, he could see it was too heavy for her.
She kept her head down and put one foot in front of the other.
She didn’t look at him or give him shit, she just followed him.
He knew she wasn’t going to be able to get very far.
He mostly wanted them away from the dead bodies and the truck.
Keys took the lid from her and held it over her head as best he could as they progressed along the narrow game trail.
He had collected as much as he could to help them.
Weapons, the meager contents of the first aid kit.
Lyric’s scissors. The cell phones just in case he could send out a call to his brothers.
He had them turned off because he didn’t want to chance that the Headed for Hell club might be tracking them.
Lyric’s head wound had stopped bleeding, the congealed blood matting her hair.
He didn’t try to mess with it. He would clean it when he had access to hot water, and he could take his time and do it right.
At the moment, the most important thing was to put as much distance as possible between them and the bodies.
He had no idea how soon someone would come looking, especially since all five phones were turned off.
Lyric was the one with the survival skills in a dense forest, but it was impossible for her to even look around.
She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, her left leg dragging on the ground part of the time.
He detested that he couldn’t just pick her up and carry her, but he had all the survival gear, and they would need it.
He would have to find a place for them to hunker down, ride out the storm and stay warm until they could make their way down the mountain.
Once he found the main road, they could follow it down to civilization, even if it took several days.
If they were lucky, he would find a place where one of the cell phones worked and he could send an SOS to his club.
They’d been walking for nearly two hours.
He kept them heading downhill, and that added to the slick, treacherous footing.
He kept expecting Lyric to ask for a rest, but she didn’t.
She kept going, head down, one foot in front of the other.
She hadn’t seemed to notice when he took the lid of the toolbox from her. She just kept moving.
“I was raised with a group of other orphans,” he said aloud, needing to connect with her. Needing to ensure she was with him all the way.
That revelation didn’t even get him a glance. She kept walking doggedly forward. Now her limp was very pronounced.
“We lived in a hellhole. Here you might call it a group home, although it was a school run by some very brutal instructors.”
That did get him a slight turn of her head toward him, and then she once more looked at the ground. She hadn’t so much as paused.
“Two females survived. I consider them sisters. Thought they were the strongest women I knew, but I think you outshine them, Wildfire.” It was the highest compliment he could pay her.
Lana Popov and Alena Koval had been toddlers when he first met them.
They were the only girls left alive, and his brethren in Torpedo Ink, all graduates of that fucked-up school, had guarded them with their lives.
They couldn’t prevent the ugliness that had occurred, the attacks on the girls, but they’d managed to keep them alive.
Both women appeared to be as tough as nails.
Both women were respected members of Torpedo Ink and had full voting rights.
And yes, they were every bit as lethal as the men.
“Thank you, Keys, that’s a kind thing to say.”
He barely heard the thread of sound, but she had acknowledged his effort.
Polite. She might give him a bad time, but she always had impeccable manners.
They’d gotten coffee together and gone to the diner a couple of times late at night.
She always spoke to the waiter or waitress, asking about their day.
Calling them by name. Smiling no matter how tired she was from being on her feet all day.
She was such a mystery to him. A puzzle he needed to solve.
She dressed in shapeless clothes for work or just doing errands around town.
She didn’t look at men or flirt with them.
He was the one exception, and he’d worked his ass off to find the right way to break her down.
He was excellent at reading an opponent and knowing the exact thing to trap them.
“There,” she said suddenly, indicating a small pile of large rocks covered in needles, dirt and other rotting vegetation.
A steady stream of water ran down the mountain above it, rushing over dirt to cut a silvery waterfall.
It was slender but fast-moving and ran a good distance over the vegetation, continuing to carve itself a path.
Her teeth were chattering, a bad sign. She was very slight in comparison to him, and keeping her body temperature up clearly was going to be a problem, especially in the rain.
“There could be a small cave right there. I don’t know how stable the mountain is, but usually, when you have so many trees and brush, the roots will hold the dirt in place. ”
He could shore up a cave with tree branches.
The most important thing was to get her into a shelter and start a fire.
They could dry out their clothes and shoes again.
He took a good look at her as they neared the area she had indicated.
She was shaking uncontrollably again. Definitely hypothermia setting in.
Keys wasn’t a man to feel desperate. Under ordinary circumstances, if he’d been in the same situation with another woman, he’d take care of her, but he wouldn’t feel the anxiety he was experiencing.
It wasn’t a pleasant sensation and forced him to face a disturbing truth.
When his club came for them—and they would come—he was taking his Wildfire home with him.
He wasn’t leaving her behind, where it wasn’t safe.
He couldn’t protect her in Caspar, his home base, if she remained behind.
This was Headed for Hell territory, and they would be out for revenge.
Bottom line. Lyric was his. She didn’t have to like it, and she wouldn’t.
He had no idea what he was going to do with her.
He didn’t want or need an old lady. But if he brought her home, she’d have to live with him.
She couldn’t stay at the clubhouse. She wouldn’t stay put. She was that kind of independent woman.
He left her standing close to the stream as he clawed his way up the embankment through mud and rotting vegetation.
Damn if she wasn’t right. There was a sharp curved entrance leading beneath the rocks.
A cave, all right. A shallow one, but it was shelter.
He could get a fire going near the entrance to vent it and put her toward the back, where the wind and rain couldn’t touch her.
He went in first. She would be able to stand, but he had to remain bent to keep from hitting his head.
That didn’t matter. The only thing that did was getting his woman out of the wet clothes and getting her warmed up.
She was too weak to climb up the embankment and so in the end, he just picked her up and all but threw her to the back of the small space. Her body was icy cold.
“Can you manage to get your clothes off? Everything. Shoes, socks, strip down to bare skin. I’ve got the sleeping bag laid out.
I’ll make us a fire. The space is small, and it will heat up fast.” He dropped their supplies between her and where he intended to make the fire, not looking at her.
Inexplicably angry with her all over again.
She could do that to him. Make him insane.
He dug out a ring in the loose dirt and went out to find as much dry firewood as possible.
Fortunately, the vegetation was so thick in places that when he dug it out, using the edge of his makeshift umbrella like a shovel, he was able to find quite a lot of dead wood in small pieces that were dry enough.
The rain hadn’t managed to penetrate all the way to the bottom layer in several places on the sides of steep slopes.
Lyric Johansen, with her vivid red hair and emerald-green eyes, most decidedly was not his woman, and if he didn’t stop thinking with his dick, they weren’t going to make it home.
Except…he was pretty damned certain he wasn’t thinking with his dick, and that meant he was in way over his head.
Why in the name of Bog did she get under his skin the way she did?
Why did he want to bury his cock in her for endless hours and then do it again and again?
Because he only did that once and then he walked.
He didn’t think about owning the woman’s body.
Her heart. Her fuckin’ soul. Yeah, that was how pathetic he had become. Because he was thinking just that.
He built the fire carefully, coaxing it to start with shavings of wood for kindling.
He had stacked as much dried wood as he could find away from the fire ring and then the slightly damp wood closer so it would dry out.
The water canteen was full, and he took a few drinks before he moved around the tiny flames to force himself to deal with her.