Spirit of a Hunter (18 page)

Out of the old man’s earshot, Sabriel fed quarters into the pay phone. Nora’s gaze kept sweeping the tracks. On the seventh pass, she caught movement along the right side. Oh, God, was that them? Her fingers pulled nervously at the straps of her backpack.

“Hurry! They’re here,” she said, her voice rough from the dryness of her throat. “I can see them coming.”

“I need a minute,” he said.

Standing beside him, her shoulders winged, shrinking her. What price had she paid by playing along and not rocking the boat? Were the last ten years worth it if she couldn’t rescue Scotty? A wave of panic had her turning to Sabriel, her hand reaching for his solid body.

Listening to whoever was on the other end of the line, his gaze rose to meet hers, and he touched her, just a brush of fingers on hers, that for a moment calmed the unrest percolating up and down her spine.

The sound of boots on gravel swept away the calm. “Sabriel.”

He hung up. “Let’s go.”

Angling away to use the shelter of the station for as long as possible, he led her toward the woods.

He would protect her from the Colonel’s men as long as they were in these mountains. He would lie for her. He would take her to her son, and he would scoop him away from the Colonel.

But what happened after? After Sabriel, his debt to Tommy paid, returned to his life? After she had Scotty safe in her arms?

Boggs spotted them and shouted.

Though Sabriel plunged her into the thick trees, nothing could erase the sensation of those hard rings on that imaginary target painted in the middle of her back.

* * *

T
HE
C
OLONEL
’
S MEN
had forced him away from his planned route. But if he headed to Blood Falls he would have several options to deceive and evade before he reached Tommy’s next sign at the more secluded smaller Toby Falls half a mile away. Then back on track to trail Tommy and Scotty.

That Blood Falls tended to buzz with hikers was another plus. Their tracks would be lost among the dozens already there, giving them a chance to confuse the Colonel’s men.

They jogged down the trail past a fawn pool, over smooth slabs along a tributary stream, then up the steeper incline that sported mainly beech, birch and maple trees.

The roar of the falls reached them long before they crossed the footbridge over the Blood River and got their first glimpse of them.

“Wow,” Nora said, in a burst of machine-gun breath, taking in the whole of the spectacle.

Behind them came a shout. Hutt, his thin face twisted in a scream of revenge.

Sabriel swore. They couldn’t outrun. They’d have to outwit. If he could maneuver fast enough, they could hide on the ledge where he and Tommy had made their blood-brother vow.

A whizzing sound flew over their heads. A flare catapulted through the air, then another, and another. They landed on the brittle needles of the hemlocks all around them, setting them crackling into a fast-moving fire.

Chapter Eleven

Nora’s breath struggled to catch up with her body’s need for oxygen as Sabriel hopscotched over rocks to cross the river, where no other hiker ventured. She dogged his steps, hoping she didn’t slip and end up taking a swim.

Ahead, the rush of falling water tumbled over an impressive sheer of reddish-brown granite that towered as high as a city skyscraper. Thousands of gallons of water pulsed through cracks and over ledges in the bedrock and roared into a fall pool that foamed and frothed, bloodred in the late afternoon light, then raced down a series of ledges in a shock that promised to thrash and trounce.

Behind them the ravenous rush of fire rolled down the gorge, chasing them.

“Come on, Nora.” Sabriel scrambled up along a steep rise of hemlocks and birches that tightly wove along the side of the water, climbing until it seemed he would start up the vertical wall of rock. They were going to get roasted alive if they stayed in the trees.

Driven by the flames and the shouts of the men
behind them, she pushed to keep up, staying on Sabriel’s heels. Smoke thickened, made breathing difficult—like one of Scotty’s asthma attacks. She swallowed back the flash of panic.

Partway up the trailless rise, Sabriel veered left and disappeared into the water. Reaching out from his watery perch, he pulled her into a dimple in the rock that perfectly sheltered their two bodies. Gasping, she fell into his arms.

“You’re okay,” he shouted above the roar of water. “We’ll just stand here while the fire burns itself out.”

Her thigh muscles shook from the effort of the climb and from trying to stand still on this slippery spit of rock.
You’re not going to fall. You’re not going to fall
.

Oh, God, her feet were right on the edge and fire was climbing right after them. She was going to fall. The water sprayed her jacket, her hair, her face. She was going to lose her shaky balance, pitch into that boiling roil and die. Or fry in the fire.

Shut up, shut up, shut up
. Falling wasn’t an option. Frying wasn’t an option. Scotty needed her.
Hang on. You have to hang on
. Her grip on Sabriel’s wrists stiffened.

“Okay.” She gulped in air, forcing her pulse to slow and settle. “That was close.”

Too close. Sabriel’s psychological warfare on the Colonel’s men hadn’t shredded their alliance, it had made them only more determined to finish their mission. Kill her. Kill Sabriel. Capture Scotty and turn him over to the Colonel’s cruel hand.

“They won’t think to look up,” Sabriel said. “People rarely do. And the fire will hide our tracks.”

In spite of her clawing hold, he reached to the buckle holding her pack to her body and snapped it open.

“What are you doing?” A note of panic sharpened her voice.

“In case you fall.” He jerked his chin to his own loosened buckle. “You don’t want the weight of the pack to drown you.”

She gulped. Great. Like she needed that image in her head right now.

A smile lightened the grim set of his face as he looked into her eyes. “Water only melts wicked witches.”

A warm glow settled in her solar plexus as she hung on to his wrists with frozen fingers. The slant of sun hit the throbbing mist, shimmering something between them. “I can be wicked.”

“Oh, yeah?” He dipped his head and kissed her gently, so gently, and that gentleness in the roar from the water, eroded at the terror eating her alive. Her hands slid up his arms around his neck, anchored there to hold him close. The kiss settled and her mind spun, dizzy with reasons and logic as to why she should pull back. But she couldn’t find a single word and her muscles refused to obey.

He pulled her in a little deeper, and she let him, needing the heat pouring from him. His mouth, hot and hard, stole her breath, her balance…the sharp edge of her fear. Sensations, like something numb prickling back to life, battered her in a tantalizing torture as powerful as the pounding falls. Closed off behind the curtain of water, nothing felt real, except him.

She hadn’t kissed a man, hadn’t really missed that kind of intimacy, in over ten years. But here in the middle of nowhere, being kissed by a near-stranger, on the brink of possible death, her dormant libido was flaring to full, vibrant life. How insane was that?

She let her head fall limply to his shoulder while every cell of her body hummed for more. Her son was missing, in danger. Hunters intent on killing them were pursuing them. And all she could think of was Sabriel, touching her, kissing her, loving her.

The insanity of it bubbled up in rocky laughter. Sabriel’s heartbeat, hard and strong against her chest, echoed the pulsing of life in her veins. She was alive. She wanted to stay alive. She wasn’t beat. The Colonel might have her scared and hiding, but he hadn’t broken her. She would keep going. She would find Scotty. She would save her son. And he would have the good life he deserved. They both would. Somehow.

“Sorry,” she said. “I haven’t kissed a man in a long, long time. I forgot what it was like.”

“Pretty damn good.”

Oh, yeah. “And this—” She stretched a hand tentatively toward the water. “This is just crazy. I don’t usually go around kissing—”

“Don’t make excuses.”

There were none in his eyes, she noticed. Only the hot gleam of male hunger. An answering stab of female desire rocketed a shot of heat low in her belly.

“When this is over…” she said.

“We’ll finish what we started.”

She swallowed hard against the sensual shudder that fluttered from head to toe. “Okay.”

It—her, him, them—wouldn’t go anywhere. He was Tommy’s friend. He’d see that this was just madness prodded by adrenaline. When they returned to civilization, he’d forget his promise. And she wouldn’t remind him.

They stood there, arm in arm, until the fire’s red light drained and the curtain of water shielding them darkened with night.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “They’ve lost our tracks or they would have found us by now.”

Unable to talk, she nodded.

“Easy, now.” His solid hands guided her. “Turn around, slowly.”

She concentrated on her feet, lifting one, placing it solidly on the narrow shelf, then the other, not on the sheer wall of rock or the spume of water fermenting below. She pressed her back against the cold cliff, hands splayed out for balance.

“You’ve got it,” he said, his voice a soothing murmur above the roar of the falls.

He had to let her go for that last turn of shoulder and hip. The loose pack shifted. The strap slipped on her shoulder. The unexpected drag lurched her to the side. Her boot skated against the slick rock. Her arm pitched out, jacking her upper body. Sabriel steadied her, but the pack’s momentum ripped it off her back. “No! Scotty’s medicine!”

Before she could think, before Sabriel could stop
her, she was airborne, plunging after the pack that was her only focus.

The cold slap of water shocked the breath out of her lungs. The foaming, frothing roil blinded her, rammed up her nose, filled her mouth. The force of the waterfall slammed her deeper and deeper, until she battered and skewered against the granite bottom. She swiveled her head from side to side.

The pack! Where’s the pack? Scotty’s medicine!

She pushed up, seeking light and air and the blue backpack. Something tugged at her foot, wouldn’t let it go. She reached down, to find the heel of her boot jammed between two boulders. The shift and sway of the water spun and swiveled her body.

Her lungs burned. Her head exploded with white light.

* * *

S
ABRIEL DOVE IN
after Nora, desperately searching for her in the opaque churn of water, fighting the current, the cold, the spin of images filling his brain. Anna, her limp hair, her slack body, her mouth open, foaming with bloody froth.

Anna, 503 feet down in the sea, pulling the pin to release the sled, opening the valve on the air tank to lift the bag that would take her up to the surface. But the bag didn’t inflate. Oxygen dwindled. Her lungs expanded, exploded.

And he wasn’t there to help her, he wasn’t there. His vision blurred. His mind fogged.

He’d promised her he’d keep her safe. He’d promised her the Colonel couldn’t get to her. He’d promised…

A flash of something dark, struggling against the water.
Not Anna. Nora. You’re here. You’re not too late
.

He swam.
Hang on, Nora
.

In her panic she was running out of air. Her wild gestures pointed down. Her foot was caught. He grasped her face in both hands, forced her to look at him, then willed her to stop fighting.

Eyes, big and wide, she grabbed on to his shoulders, and he could feel her begging for her life.

Trust me, Nora
.

He dove. His heart pounded. Panic could kill her. He had to free her before the instinctual need for air had her gulping water. Fighting the unrelenting press of the water, its numbing cold, he slashed at her laces with his knife, released her foot, then shoved her toward the surface.

With a hard tug, he yanked her boot from its rocky hold and swam back up.

Gasping for air, he searched the river for Nora, found her sputtering and floundering, sliding with the current. Arms and legs sluggish, he crawled toward her, grabbed the collar of her fleece and tugged her to him.

Floating on his back, he searched the banks, let the current carry him to a bend, let it slam him against the mud. Fighting the muscle-numbing cold, he dragged Nora up the steep bank on the opposite side from the embers of a dying forest fire.

Sitting on the bank, gasping for air, he held her across his lap, one arm around her waist, the other pressing her
head to his chest, and he kissed the top of her head. He thought he’d lost her.

Her kiss earlier under the falls, so sweet and so hungry, had threatened his well-being as much as the predators on their heels. He’d let it distract him, tumble his thoughts. And he’d almost lost her.

She looked ridiculously beautiful wet as a river rat. The sight of her breathing, alive, made his heart ache in a bittersweet way and that was wrong, all wrong for a man who choked on strings.

“My pack!” She fought his hold, aiming for the river.

He refused to let her go. “Forget the pack.”

“I can’t.” Her teeth chattered like a runaway train. “Scotty’s medicine.”

He had to get her warm before hypothermia killed her. “We’ll manage without it.”

“
He
needs it.”

“There are others ways to give him first aid if he needs it.”

“No, it’s not okay.” Distress convulsed through the slur of her voice. “He could
die
.”

“We need to get you warm or
you’ll
die.” He scanned the woods, searching for the Colonel’s men. The bursts of their shouts blitzed through the air, but in this ravine sound carried and bounced, and he couldn’t tell where or how far they were. “We have to get some cover or the Colonel’s men will find us.”

“Scotty…” Her mouth trembled. Her eyes were huge. Her lips were turning blue.

“I’ll take care of him.” Sabriel scooped her tight in
his arms with a desperation that he didn’t want to think about. “I’ll take care of you.”