Dom Wars: Round 6 (10 page)

Lucian shhhh’d in my ear, keeping our faces melded tight with one large hand so securely on the back of my head.

“I had no hope,” I sobbed. “You made me hope, you brought me back to life, to happiness and love that I’d never dared to dream of anymore.

“Fuck sweetheart, you’re killing me,” he gasped in my ear. “I love you so fucking much.”

“I don’t want to lose you Lucian. I want to live. I want to live with you and marry you and have kids even if we have to adopt them.”

“We will, love. We will. We’ll have tons of kids and even animals. We’ll live with Gramma and take good care of her, you’ll see.”

Chapter Eleven

“Hey lovebirds,” Preacher called from the bank.

I turned with Tara in the water at what he dangled in his hand. “What is that?” Tara whispered.

“Looks like…some kind of animal.”

“An animal?” Tara discreetly wiped her eyes. “Do I look like I’ve been crying?” she whispered to me.

“More like sobbing.”

“Oh great.” She turned her head and quickly splashed water on her face.

I caught her jaw and made her be still so I could kiss her. “So what, we all cry, love. There’s nothing fucking wrong with that.”

Tara put her forehead on my shoulder and sighed. “I’m tired. And hungry. And scared.”

“I know love. Looks like we can do something about that second one right now. We’ll work on the other two after?”

“Eww what do you think is for supper? The way that man finds things to eat is…”“Fucking awesome,” I said, walking toward them with Tara in my embrace still. “You guys mind giving us some privacy while we dress?”

They both turned around and already I longed for Tara’s intimate touch, anticipating the agony of not being skin to skin with her. And the way she clung to me said the feeling was mutual. All those things she’d just said hit me so fucking hard, I would
never
doubt her feelings for me again. Ever.

We both dressed, me helping Tara first and shielding her from any possibility of peripheral visions be they accident or not. I had no desire to share even the sight of her with animals much less other humans.

“Done,” I announced. “What you got there? My stomach prays food.”

Preacher turned with Becca and held up a dead rabbit. “God has answered your prayer, my man.” His deep chuckle rumbled around us as he handed what looked like a giant hare to Becca who took firm hold of it and approached me with a hand out.

“Knife?” she finally said when I looked clueless enough.

“Oh, right.” I slid it from the sheath on my right and presented her the handle which she snatched with the ease of a seasoned killer. How’d he manage that, anyway? “How’d you kill it?”

Preacher looked up after dumping an armful of dry sticks on the ground about ten feet from the water edge and grinned. “She used the hatchet. Threw it from about twenty feet.” He burst out laughing, no doubt at the drop of our jaws.

“She’s a true hunter, my brother.”

“Wow!” Tara gasped. “You need to show me how to do that.”

Becca looked up from where she skinned the animal like a pro, flashing Tara her perfect teeth, glowing white despite we’d not seen a toothbrush in four days. Amazing. “Come,” she called Tara. “I will show you how to skin a rabbit.”

“Ohhhh, umm.”

“Come on, don’t be afraid, it is very dead.”

“Yes, I see that.” Tara took jerky steps towards Becca. She clearly did not want to be seen as a wuss, but judging by the quirk in her upper lip, it had nothing to do with fear but everything to do with
yuck.

“There’s plenty of water to clean up with, love,” I said, grinning.

“Shit, looks like rain,” Preacher muttered. “Bane, as soon as she’s done with that knife we need to get that flag before dark. And if he’s done something stupid, which I’m pretty sure he has, we need to deal with it now.”

I agreed.

“What do you mean, something stupid?” Potential panic threatened in Tara’s calm question next to Becca on the ground. Becca too had paused in her dissection waiting for that answer, concern on her perfect brow.

“What could he do stupid? It’s under the water. I mean that’s the stupid part. Right?”

“Yeah, that’s the stupid part, Preacher said. “Look away, but I’m keeping my underwear on, they need washing.” Tara looked down when Preacher dropped his pants and stood in the black tight briefs.

Becca lowered her head. “Go on Lucian. You wash your underwear as well.”

I quickly got out of my pants and joined Preacher at the water’s edge. “What’s the plan?” I mumbled. “And what are you expecting down there?”

“Not sure, just some bullshit.”

“We go down and inspect it then we come back up, make a plan, then execute it?”

Preacher rubbed his hands together. “Sounds good.”

“We done with that knife yet ladies?” I called.

“Coming right up,” Tara said. “I’m not looking.” She held the knife toward me, keeping her head turned. “You’ll need to wash that.”

I took the knife from her, and gave her hand a brief squeeze. “We’ll be back with the flag in five minutes.”

“Okay good.” She kept her back turned and her tone aloof. Which meant she was terrified enough to feel the need to practice sanity maneuvers. I wanted to console her more but Preacher was wading into the water already.

I followed him out, cleaning the blade as I went. We headed to the center of the lagoon and made the preliminary dive. Once we located the bright yellow flag at the bottom, we searched for any traps around the flag. The land at the very bottom was the size of maybe a living room then began to gradually slope upward. If it wasn’t for the dangers possibly lurking down there, I would’ve liked to explore the emerald green paradise. Everything was covered in the most brilliant colored green velvety moss I’d ever seen. We swam like sharks around our target, looking for anything odd. Seemed that the flag was merely tied to the rock somehow.

Preacher pointed to the surface and we swam back up. I gave him the knife when he asked for it, we got our wind and we swam back down. Preacher yanked the flag taut and began sawing. When it didn’t cut, he touched the rope and shook his head and began to swim up.

We surfaced with a gasp.

“Did you get it are you okay?” Tara yelled.

I looked over at Tara and Becca who stood studiously watching on the bank. I shook my head.

“It’s a fucking cable man,” Preacher said, keeping his voice down.

I jerked to him. “A
what?
”

“Yeah, there’s the stupid. Let’s go try to work the thing off that rock and if we can’t, we’ll try to pull both of them up.”

“Okay got it.” I looked to the ladies. “We had to scope it out first, make sure it’s safe, we’re going down now to get it.” I pointed at the water and nodded.

They both remained with hands visoring their eyes. “We can help!” Becca called out followed by Tara’s eager agreement.

“We’re fine,” I said. “But if we need you, we’ll let you know.” I looked at Preacher hoping I hadn’t boo-booed. But he nodded in agreement.

The ladies went to pacing in silence and Preacher and I got our breath again and went back under. Down at the flag, we both yanked on the cable and tried to dislodge the giant rock it was tied to. Fucking boulder. It wasn’t budging no kind of way, fuck.

We came up for air and Preacher said, “Need something to dislodge the rock it’s tied to so we can see how the fuck the cable is attached.”

Well shit. I looked around. “We’ll need serious leverage. A long thick branch?”

Preacher nodded and we swam to shore telling the ladies what we needed. We all brainstormed the logistics. The branch couldn’t be too big or it’d be hard to hold under water. And it needed to be freshly cut and not dead. We searched the woods and found what we hoped was the perfect size, cut it and headed back out.

“We should help,” Tara yelled.

“It seems safe enough,” I whispered. “And they could help so we don’t wear ourselves out too bad.”

He nodded. “T-shirt and underwear, ladies. Hurry.”

The anger in his voice said he didn’t like me seeing his Becca. It was hard to imagine he didn’t know how completely blind I was to anybody but Tara. It was damn near mean how little I cared about the body attached to the person he called wife.

We all four went down and finally worked the sharpened edge of the stick between the rocks. We finally got the thing moved and all shot up for air.

“Did you see that?” Becca said, when we surfaced.

“Yes, I saw it,” Preacher said, gasping.

Tara then, “Saw what?” “The cable is attached to the rock!” Becca said.

“Tied?” I asked

“No,” Preacher said, “there’s an iron eyebolt embedded in the rock that the cable runs through.”

Becca nodded. “Then we will have to bring the entire thing up.”

“We can only try,” I said. “We need to pull it along the floor to the edge of the incline and then see how far it is from land maybe.”

We all agreed and went back down, grabbed hold of the metal cable and began pulling the boulder toward the incline. It wasn’t so bad swimming with it in a horizontal direction. The trick would be getting it
up.

We surfaced and treaded water silently while we got our wind. Preacher said, “We’ll try to swim it up the incline first. See if that’s even possible. If not, we’ll have to rig up something to tie to it and get it from land.”

We all nodded and went back down only to discover it was three times as hard going up with that weight, due to the incline being too sharp near the bottom. We surfaced and went down ten times and managed only a few feet. At that rate, we’d have it done in four hours and be fucking exhausted.

I fought for enough air to speak. “Let’s go to land and think a little.”

There were no arguments with that idea.

We made it to shore and plopped to the ground exhausted. Wow. Fucking ridiculous.

“We need to search the forest for the right kind of vine,” Preacher said between huffs.

“Vine for what?” Becca wheezed.

“We need to put that thing in a basket, baby.”

“Ahhhh,” Becca sat up and smacked his stomach. “That is
brilliant.
I can weave a basket in thirty minutes.”

“Yes,” Preacher nodded, “with handles that we can attach vine rope to.”

We wasted no time searching the forest. Becca found something she thought was suitable growing along the trees. Only problem was, we could be allergic to it. Preacher and Becca were apparently immune as they yanked with a ruthless force, stripping the vines away from the tree. It was decided, to be safe, that Tara and I wouldn’t touch it. At the speed they went from tree to tree, yanking off yards in seconds, it’d take them fifteen minutes maybe. But how long to weave a basket, surely she couldn’t do that in thirty minutes.

Once she had the strands she lined them up and wove a sack sized basket in not thirty minutes but maybe fifteen, flat. Preacher helped her and Tara and I stood by, astonished at their speed.

The last thing was tying enough vine to form two strong ropes for the handles of the basket. Then it was time to go into the water.

Preacher paused to give directions. “We get the boulder into the basket and come back. Tara and Lucian, you will move the boulder into the basket, while Becca and I hold it. Then we come back to land.”

We nodded and fifteen minutes and two tries saw the task done and us back on land, once again exhausted.

“Okay, now we pray the vines hold up.”

Tara and I did as instructed and wrapped the vines with a strip cut from my shirt where we’d touch them. She and I tugged one side, Preacher and Becca tugged the other.

“Oh my God, it’s working!” Tara whispered.

Fucking unbelievable.

“This vine is very strong,” Becca said between grunts.

I could hardly believe my eyes when the boulder peeked out of the water. Relief flooded me and I realized how detrimental the situation was for us. We could have very easily
not
been able to get that fucking flag. Very easily. Five more minutes and we had that boulder on fucking land.

“Now what?” Tara said, plopping back to the ground. “How are we going to get the flag off?”

“Make a fire Bane. I’m starving. I’ll burn that fucking cable off.”

Hell yes. We could hack at it with the hatchet, weaken it while it was hot, and the metal would bend and eventually break.

Finding enough dry wood was the challenge and by the time we did, it was already dark. Once we got the fire going, we burned the basket and everything else we could find until we had a huge fire.

“We want a lot of coals for heating that cable,” Preacher muttered, staring at the mini-inferno.

Hunger had me weak and the amount of energy we’d exerted made it worse. I sat next to Tara and she collapsed into my body. “We’ll eat as soon as the fire dies down, ok?”

“I’m so hungry,” she whispered, “I want to eat that rabbit so bad and I can’t believe that. I mean I am really hungry.”

“Yes, me too. We all are.” I stroked her back repeatedly. “Only two more days and we’re done. Are you ready for a hot shower? At my apartment?”

“I was thinking a hot shower at Gramma’s.” She looked up at me. “It’s plenty big enough for two.”

I smiled at her, kissing her forehead. “I would love that. If you are in need of a hired hand for your farm, I’m looking for work in that area.”

She smiled. “I can use a hand around there. But random kinky sex acts will be required,” she whispered.

I shot my brows up and laughed quietly. “Ma’am, I don’t know what kind of man you think I am, but I’m an honorable one. I don’t do that kind of stuff for pay.”

“For free?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “I do it for you.”

Tears filled her eyes, alarming me and I pulled her closer. “Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you.”

She only shook her head and hugged the wind out of me, making me laugh.

We finally got food on a spit and watching it cook was like watching grass grow. “So, where are you guys going after Dom Wars exactly,” I asked Preacher.

“Back to Africa with money.”

I nodded. “You still confident we’re going to win?”