Apollo and Val: #5.5 (Luna Lodge Book 0) (7 page)

“Two men seem to be on patrol,” he said quietly. “You get those men, and I’ll take out the others.”

Val nodded slowly and looked around.

“Hey,” Apollo said and turned her to face him. “This goes bad, you run for the woods. Radio Sol on channel four. He’ll keep you safe.”

Her stomach turned at the idea of running. Without thinking, she pulled him in for a deep kiss. She poured all the feelings she had kept bottled up into the kiss and only hoped he could feel how scared for him she was.

When she pulled back, he seemed slightly dazed.

“You make me run in the jungle, and I’m so going to kick your ass,” she said with a smile.

The corner of his mouth cocked into a slanted grin.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

Focusing on the mission at hand, Apollo scanned the area and then looked back to her.

“Remember, fast and unseen.”

She nodded. He moved into the darkness of the village. Val watched until he had disappeared into the night.

She sat in silence, watching the light around the village. Movement to her right caught her eye, and she moved closer. One of the guards came into view. His green garb was not that different from her own. Her heart leapt into her throat.

This was it.

Moving in even closer still, she was nearly on top of him when he stopped moving. For a moment she thought she’d been spotted and placed a hand on her gun.

Val frowned when the man leaned his large gun against the hut near them and stepped to the line of darkness surrounding the village. She heard rather than saw that he’d chosen that moment to urinate.

She might have laughed at his timing if she hadn’t been so scared.

As quickly as she could, Val slipped out and lifted the man’s gun to sling over her body. She stopped just behind him, her hands still holding the large gun. She wasn’t trained for this. This wasn’t something that she’d been forced to confront.

With all her strength, she cracked him in the back of the skull with the butt of the gun. The man crumpled to the ground.

She sighed. She hadn’t been able to do it. Not like this at least. Val grabbed his feet and dragged him behind a bush. They would just have to deal with him later.

A scream echoed in the night.

“The girl,” she whispered.

Val ran with everything she had and stopped when she found the girl from before being pulled from her hiding spot. Her nails scraped the earth as she tried to find some sort of hold.

“Hey,” Val said, pulling his attention away from her.

An older man looked up. Much like his friends, he was also in dark green military garb. He gave a toothless menacing grin that shook her to the core.

Unlike before, this man was trying to do them harm and wouldn’t get the same lenience his friend had received.

Already sure the whole village had heard the girl scream, Val pulled out her gun and fired three shots. Before he could even draw, three red spots blossomed on his chest.

He fell to the ground in front of the panicked girl.

Val ducked next to the girl and helped her to her feet.

“We don’t have time,” Val said. “I need to know where the other men might be. Apollo might be in trouble thanks to us.”

After the gunfire ripped through the air, Apollo groaned inwardly. He’d only been able to take out two of the men. That meant there were three still in the village and two on the outside if Val hadn’t been successful. Right now, all he could hope was that she wasn’t hurt.

With an urgency unlike any he’d ever known, Apollo tore through the tiny village to where he’d left them. He had to know before he did anything.

Apollo stopped when movement caught his eye. Val and the girl were just a few huts away. They were peeking around the corner of a hut when something else caught his eye just between the huts behind them: a shadow moving slowly along the wall.

Without thinking, he rushed toward them, desperate to keep the woman he loved safe at all costs.

Apollo was on the man before he’d even had time to think. With a loud crack, he snapped the man’s neck. Val jumped and spun around at the sound. Their eyes met in the darkness, and he heard her sigh of relief.

“Apollo,” she whispered.

Val took a step toward him.

Gunfire erupted all around them. He scanned the area to find the source. The shooter from behind would be easy enough to finish. The flash of the gun gave a clear marker where to aim. He waited for the gunman to empty his round before taking aim and squeezing the trigger.

The man howled in pain. Apollo fired four more times until the man stopped making any noise at all.

Gunfire on the other side riddled the side of the hut, and he just hoped no one was in there.

The young girl screamed.

Apollo held up a hand for Val to wait but stopped when she fell to the ground, pain filling her face. She held a hand to a bleeding wound on her leg. Her pant leg was soaked with blood. Apollo’s heart thundered. He had to stop that man and quickly.

He crept around the hut. From the back, he could just make out the location from around the corner.

With no time to waste, he moved swiftly between the huts. If he wanted to end this without anyone from his side getting killed, he was going to have to use everything at his disposal.

The side of the hut came into view, lit by the bright illumination from his eyes.

The animal in him roared to protect what was his, and at that very moment, he was going to give the beast just what it wanted. Vengeance.

With speed even he didn’t know he had, Apollo ripped across the village to the gunman. Not bothering to hide, he found himself directly in front of the man. The face illuminated by the glow of his eyes was contorted in equal parts surprise and horror.

Apollo let out yell that was more beast than man.

The man brought his gun up but wasn’t fast enough. With one swift move, he lifted the man and threw him into the wall. He landed with a thud. Apollo lifted him again and tossed him into the other hut. When he lifted the man for a third time, his body hung limply in his arms, but Apollo didn’t care. That bastard had to pay for what he did.

“Apollo,” Val said weakly.

He stopped with the man still held high overhead.

“That’s enough,” she said quietly and placed a hand on his arm. “It’s over.”

The man fell with a thud as Apollo reached out to catch the frail woman collapsing next to him.

Apollo looked down at her ashen face and shook inside. No matter what, she couldn’t die.

Chapter Ten

When she awoke, her head hurt.

Before she could even open her eyes, someone shoved medicine and water into her mouth. At least, she assumed it was medicine because of the taste.

Val groaned and opened one eye. A young teenage girl smiled back at her.

She blinked a few times before sitting up quickly in the bed.

She was in a small one-room hut. Or at least a hut by her definition. There was a wood frame, but the whole place had been covered in leaves and sticks to block out the elements.

She looked down at the bed. It was a pallet of some sorts with a nice cushion inside. The blanket looked hand-woven. She ran her hands over the bright, intricate designs.

“More,” the girl said and thrust the water to Val’s mouth again.

Parched, Val drank like she’d hadn’t had a drink in days. When the cup was empty, she handed it back to the girl.

For the first time since waking, she took in the young girl. Her hair was long but bound back in a thick black braid. Her hair was glossy, almost like she’d stepped out of some hair commercial.

“Apollo?” she said, only realizing that he wasn’t anywhere in the room.

The girl nodded and pointed to the door, smiling.

With a grunt, Val turned and placed her feet on the floor. It was only then that she felt the throb from her thigh pulse through her leg.

“Fuck,” she groaned and touched the spot.

Her pants had been removed at some point, likely to check the wound. Now it was bound in gauze.

She pulled it down slightly and saw the black thread that laced her skin together. It didn’t look like she’d been shot outright. Likely if she had, she’d need more than stitches. A little further over, and it would have hit an artery.

Val looked up to the girl and then pointed to her leg.

“Did you do this?” she asked quietly. The girl’s bright warm emotions flowed from her like a stream. She was like a spring of happiness.

The girl shook her head. She held out a dress.

Val held it up. The beautiful dress was handcrafted, likely woven by one of the women in the village. The vibrant green fabric was soft to the touch. She stared at the lovely stitching along the breast of the dress of little white flowers that she’d never seen before.

She looked back to the girl and raised a brow.

“For me?”

The girl nodded and walked to the door. She could only assume to give her privacy.

Val waited till the girl was out of the room before rubbing her hands along her face. She’d been nearly drowned by mud, eaten alive by bugs, shot at and now she was going to put on a dress. This trip couldn’t get any more fucked up if it tried.

* * *

Apollo paced back and forth near the outskirts of the village as Sol yelled at him through the earpiece. He’d expected this.

He turned to look as another villager placed something on the already mounting pile of crap. Over and over they came, praising him in a language he couldn’t understand and calling him Bochica. He was starting to hate the sound of that word.

His breath caught as in his throat as Val stepped around the corner of the hut. They’d given her a dress to wear. The color only made her eyes sparkle like emeralds.

“Goddammit,” Sol shouted at him through the earpiece, pulling Apollo’s attention away from her. “Did you hear a fucking thing I said?”

“Yeah,” he said absently. Val’s eyes met his across the way, and his heart skipped as a smile lit up her face. “You’ll break every bone in my body if I take a risk like that again.”

“No,” Sol ground out. “I’ll break every bone in your body if you risk her like that again.”

Apollo couldn’t hide the surprise that spread across his face.

“Only reason I didn’t beat your ass before is because it’s clear how much you love her,” Sol said and sighed loudly.

Apollo ran a hand through his hair. Hearing his boss talk about love in such an open way made things awkward.

“I’m sure she’d be happy to know you feel that way,” he said quietly.

They had been working on their relationship, but Val and Sol weren’t exactly great with their feelings.

“Yeah, well,” Sol said and cleared his throat. “Just be at the fucking rendezvous by tomorrow, or I’ll hang you by the balls.”

With a click, Sol was gone.

“Are you going to have them make a shrine next?” Val asked loudly.

Apollo frowned at her.

“They won’t stop bringing me things,” he said, now even more uncomfortable.

As if he spoke and made it happen, an old woman stepped up to him and handed him some sort of sweet. She smiled warmly and patted his hand.

“Bochica,” she said.

Val snorted but stopped when the older woman came to stand in front of her. He watched as she handed her a sweet as well.

“Bachue,” she said warmly and walked away.

Val looked to him, surprise etched on her face.

“What’s that all about?”

Apollo shook his head and then frowned.

“Should you be out of bed?” he asked.

Val touched her wound through the dress.

“I’m fine,” she said with a shrug. “Just a scratch. How long was I out?”

His frown deepened.

“Seven stitches isn’t fine,” he said and gave a pointed stare and then looked to the sky. “Only a few hours until nightfall.”

Val blinked at him several times. She had slept nearly all day?

“We’ll never make it in time,” she whispered. “It’s all my fault.”

Apollo stepped forward quickly and turned her chin up to look at him.

“We will,” he said and stared hard at her. “You did what you had to and saved the people of this village.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. She didn’t deserve his love. She’d ruined everything. The mission, his love, all of it.

“Besides,” he said. “Your buddy in the bush was nice enough to show me where we could get a ride.”

Apollo gave a wide and predatory grin.

Val frowned for a moment, only vaguely remembering something about a bush.

Her eyes widened.

“The one I knocked out?” she asked.

He grinned back at her. “He was very helpful. Michua, the head of the village was able to translate.” He rolled his shoulders. “It was his daughter that we saved.” He nodded to the girl that had been in the hut when she woke.

She opened her mouth to ask about the captive’s fate but decided she didn’t want to know. Just knowing that her mistake hadn’t cost them everything was enough.

The girl from before ran over, grinning at them both. Like Val, she wore a bright orange dress. The colors stood out boldly against her black hair and tanned skin.

“Come,” she said, grinning and gesturing.

Apollo’s large hand closed over Val’s, and she held it back. His worry flowed through their connection. The farther they went into the village, the greater his concern grew.

They stopped in the center of the village. A large circular area had been cleared like a city center. People lined the area all along the edges of the circle. Tables were set up all over with mounds of food filling the plates.

Val’s stomach rumbled as she looked at the flat breads, sausages, smoke fish, soups in clay pots and fruit, some she’d never even seen before.

Two special chairs, woven with lush flowers and slightly larger than the others, had been placed at the table laden with the most food.

“Bochica. Bachue.”

The girl gestured to the table where an older man stood.

Val sat quietly in her seat. The man smiled warmly down at her.

“This feast is in your honor,” he said.