Sanctuary: Delos Series, Book 9

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Uzan…”

  “He’s gone and won’t ever hurt you again,” he said. Nolan knew her mind wasn’t working well. He couldn’t speak at length because her attention was still wandering, thanks to the powerful drug given to her. “I’ll tell you more later. Are you thirsty?”

  Instantly, her eyes widened.

  “Thought so,” he murmured, releasing her hand and getting off the edge of the bed. “Let me get you some water, Teren.”

  It took another hour before Teren was truly coherent. She was desperate for water and drank almost a quart. Nolan had buzzed the nurse’s station for help. Later, the doctor, a man in his fifties, kind and bespectacled, came to assess Teren’s progress. He spoke fluent English with an Arabic lilt and held her hand, patting it, slowly going over the fact she’d been unconscious due to the drug given to her.

  Nolan had stood on the opposite side of her bed, her other hand in his. He wasn’t about to let her go. No way. Right now, he could see that terror would grip her for a moment, then dissolve, only to return later. He was familiar with drugs and what they did to a person mentally, physically, and emotionally. They were a toxic tide within the body that came and went. And when they washed through a person, the victim would experience all kinds of nightmarish events. Emotions could rip out of their control and make them a puddle of feelings. He could see Teren going through this now. That was why he wasn’t going to leave her alone. He’d be here when her emotions became magnified and tore through her. It was a rollercoaster ride coming off a drug like this.

  When the doctor finished his explanation, he nodded gravely toward Nolan. “It will take several more hours for Miss Lambert to become fully conscious, Mr. Steele. I’ll have one of my nurses bring her in some hearty chicken soup. Perhaps she’ll be up to eating it. You can feed her, yes?”

  “Yes,” Nolan agreed, holding Teren’s murky gaze.

  “She may drift and suddenly fall asleep on you,” the doctor warned. “Do not be alarmed. This is a natural healing cycle for her body. She might sleep an hour or two and then wake up once more. Every time this occurs she will be more aware, stronger mentally, and her brain will work better.”

  Nolan didn’t want to let the doctor know what he knew. As a Delta operator, he’d had his share of times drugging an enemy to capture them and take them to the CIA to be interrogated. “Thanks for letting me know, doctor.”

  Nodding, the doctor bowed his head and then left.

  Shortly after that, Nolan watched Teren slide back into oblivion. It was a waiting game, but one he was more than willing to participate in. Pulling up a chair next to her bed, he sat down, crossing his arms and resting his head against them. Capturing Teren’s listless hand, he folded it gently within his own and closed his eyes. It had been one hell of a day and he was exhausted.

  *

  Dawn was crawling up on the horizon, cleansing Khartoum with a watercolor pink wash as the light increased, highlighting the pencil-thin minarets, the call to prayer echoing across the city. Teren slowly dragged her lids open. She felt almost normal, her strength returning rapidly, her brain coming out of its fog and engaging with her wandering, half-formed thoughts. She became aware of a man’s warm, callused hand around her own, and she moved her head to the right.

  Her heart warmed as she saw Nolan asleep, head buried in his arms along the side of her bed, his massive hand wrapped protectively around hers.

  Joy surged through her and Teren smiled softly, closing her eyes, so grateful that Nolan was here with her. Slowly, she moved her fingers up and down his roughened hand. He was so strong and enduring. She loved him. That thought melted through her like welcoming rain across a dry, thirsty desert, sending tendrils of incredible joy to every part of herself. She had survived. She was alive. And Nolan was here…with her. She slowly recalled what he had told her earlier.

  Nolan stirred as she caressed his fingers. It was a special moment when he drowsily lifted his head, his eyes filled with sleep, his hair boyishly mussed. That unshaven beard of his darkened and emphasized the hard planes of his face. Teren watched him shake off the sleep, saw the deep exhaustion in his murky eyes, saw the love shining in them for her alone. She managed a weak smile.

  “I’m alive…I thought I was going to die, Nolan. But I’m here. With you…” Her voice cracked, tears spilling hotly from her eyes, dribbling down her cheeks. Teren closed her fingers over his, seeing the anguish, the hope, flaring in his expression. His fingers curved gently around hers, and he stiffly eased upward after remaining in one position for so many hours. Then, perching his hip on the side of her bed, he leaned down and whispered, “You’re home.”

  His words were filled with so much emotion—he was barely keeping control. He leaned down and placed his hands flat against her pillow on either side of her head, their faces inches apart. Her lips parted and he drowned in the sight of her coming back to him, her wide gray eyes framed by those thick lashes.

  He placed his mouth against her brow, feeling the natural warmth of her skin beneath his lips. No longer was her flesh chilled and damp due to the drug in her system. He slowly placed light kisses across her hairline, trailing a few more down her temple, caressing her cheek before seeking and finding that sculptured, soft mouth of hers. Nolan groaned as Teren turned toward him, seeking him, hungrily pressing her lips against his.

  Her flesh tingled, reminding Teren she really was alive, that she had escaped from the kidnappers. She didn’t know how yet, but right now all she wanted…all she needed…was Nolan’s strong, skilled mouth curving tenderly against her own, celebrating her life with his own. Drowning in his gently searching lips, feeling her tension melting away as he cupped her cheek, drawing her mouth more surely against his own, Teren made a happy sound in her throat.

  Just his male scent, the way his mouth took hers, worshipped her, his hand eliciting more pleasure as he caressed her cheek, trailing his fingers along the side of her slender neck, pulled Teren back into the present. She was here with the man she loved. And never had she been more clear about her love for him, as his mouth tenderly molded against hers, shared his need of her, than in this scalding moment of coming together. Of welcoming one another back into each other’s life. Because Teren had thought for sure that she was going to die, thought she’d never see Nolan again.

  She made a mewling sound of unhappiness as Nolan reluctantly dragged his mouth from hers, their breathing fast and shallow. Staring up at him, she whispered, “I love you, Nolan…”

  His face crumpled with so many withheld emotions, and she saw tears in his eyes—tears he didn’t try to hide or wipe away. His love was life to her, and like a sponge, she drew it into her widening heart, the joy rushing through her.

  “I love you…you are my life, Teren,” Nolan managed to say gruffly, lifting his hand, smoothing it across her mussed hair. “I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to tell you that. I was sorry I hadn’t shared it with you earlier, but it was too soon…”

  “I understand,” she said brokenly. “I lay in that Land Rover thinking the same thing. I wanted so badly to let you know I loved you. I was so afraid I was going to die and you’d never know…”

  He nodded. “We weren’t sure we could get to you in time after you’d been kidnapped. But we did. It was too close, Teren. Too close. I nearly lost you…”

  She lay there beneath his burning, intense gaze, absorbing him into every cell of her being. Her heart bounded with joy, with love. Teren saw Nolan’s agony from nearly losing her and realized that her kidnapping had torn him apart. Nolan had lost his wife and the baby she’d carried, and had been sure he was going to lose Teren, too.

  “I didn’t want to die, Nolan.” Teren swallowed hard and looked away, struggling to contain her rampant emotions. “I fought to live. I fought to come back to you…”

  “You fought and escaped. We found that out later, after we caught up with you. It was Nazir, who drove the third Land Rover, who told us you had bailed out of the rear of the middl
e Rover, escaped down to the river, and disappeared into the reeds.”

  She sniffled and nodded. “I didn’t know if you knew I’d been kidnapped or not, Nolan. I woke up in the back of the vehicle and looked out the window. There was another Rover behind us, and so many thick, yellow dust clouds that I couldn’t see beyond it. I was trying to see if you were behind us…”

  “We were within a mile of you but invisible to you in that dust,” he muttered, straightening up on the bed, his hip against hers, holding her hand. “Can I get you something? Water? Food?”

  “N-no…just you.”

  “Well,” he said wryly, “you’ve got me, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.”

  She looked around the room, which was now growing lighter as the dawn deepened in the east. “Where are we?”

  “Khartoum. The medical center. The doc says you’re going to be fine. Your knees are pretty well chewed up from landing on them on that gravel road, but he took care of them for you. Your palms have some cuts and scratches and you’re pretty bruised up here and there. Mostly, you’re dealing with a drug overdose in your system, and he said you’ll come out of it within the next twenty-four hours. Do you feel up to me telling you what happened?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, pushing more strands from her brow. “I lost sight of you, Nolan, when that spitting cobra came out of nowhere from behind the hut where I was standing with the doctor and a patient.”

  “Uzan created a distraction by releasing three cobras into the village. He planned it well, because the villagers stampeded in the directions he wanted. He grabbed you by that hut, pulled you behind it, and hit you with a syringe of drugs, knocking you out. I was twenty feet away from you, but I’d been distracted by the cobra. Fortunately, a young boy saw you being kidnapped and ran over to tell me. I then contacted Ayman and his soldiers, and we took off after you.”

  Teren gave a resigned sigh. “Can you help me sit up?”

  Nolan flipped a switch on the bed and it slowly whirred up, moving Teren into a comfortable semi-seated position. He sat down on the bed, facing her, and she curved her fingers into his.

  “I recognized Uzan when he grabbed me and dragged me behind that hut. I saw the flash of the needle, and I remember the pain in my upper arm. I fought hard, Nolan, I really did. I was so panicked. But then my body just went limp on me, and the last thing I remember is being tossed into the back of a Land Rover by two of his men.”

  “Yeah, that’s about right from what the boy told me,” he agreed, smoothing his fingers over hers. “I had to dodge panicking, screaming people and kill the damned cobra that stood between me and where Uzan had taken you. I raced around the hut to see the three Land Rovers heading north. The kid saw it all happen. He didn’t know which vehicle you were in, Teren.” His mouth flattened and Nolan gave her a caring look. “I wasn’t going to shoot indiscriminately at them, because I was afraid I might hit you instead.”

  A nurse appeared and smiled. She took Teren’s vitals and wrote them down on the chart hanging on the end of the bed, stopping their conversation for a moment. Nolan remained patient. There was more to tell her.

  CHAPTER 20

  After the nurse left, Teren drank some cold water that Nolan had poured for her, her mind clearing even more. “Did Ayman and his soldiers come with you?” Teren asked, her voice still hoarse.

  “Yes, we took one of the vans that brought the medical team in. I couldn’t drive fast enough to catch up to you. We were going sixty miles an hour, and that was dangerous because one wrong move and I could have flipped our van over and killed all of us. Uzan and his three Land Rovers were going the same speed, but they had a mile’s head start on us. We couldn’t catch up until we hit that ninety-degree curve where everyone had to slow way down.”

  “I remember getting bounced around a lot,” Teren recalled, her hand over his, feeling his quiet strength feeding her. “I knew my only possible escape was out the rear door, but I didn’t know if the handle was locked or not. I peeked out the back to see another Rover behind us, and I knew I had one chance to make a break for it.”

  “At that ninety-degree corner?”

  “Yes.” Teren rolled her eyes. “I’m so glad I knew this road so well, Nolan. I was hoping we hadn’t passed it yet. My mind was woozy and kept shorting out. They’d left me untied. I don’t know why, but they did. They probably figured I was so drugged up, I would never regain consciousness. I couldn’t just sit up and look around because that would let everyone in front of me know that I was conscious. I didn’t want the soldiers in the seat ahead of me to know I’d awakened.”

  Grimly, Nolan said, “Uzan probably thought he’d given you enough drugs to make you unconscious until they reached Khartoum.”

  A cold shiver moved up Teren’s back. “I figured he’d disappear with me into the slums, Nolan. You’d never have found me again if that had happened,” she whispered, remembering how terrified she’d been at the thought. She felt his fingers tighten around hers, as if to reassure her.

  “You were so damned brave, jumping out of that vehicle,” Nolan rasped, reaching out to touch her cheek.

  “It worked,” Teren whispered with relief. “I don’t remember much because my mind was all over the place from the drug. I knew if I made it to the reeds and the river, Uzan would send his soldiers after me. If that happened, I wasn’t sure I’d survive.” Teren shrugged, lifting one shoulder because she felt stiff, bruised, and sore all over. “I had to try, Nolan, because I loved you…I wanted—needed—a chance to have some kind of life with you.”

  “We’re going to discuss that in the coming days,” he promised her, moving his hand slowly up and down her forearm. “When you feel better.”

  “Good,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes, the drug still making her overly emotional. “Because there’s a lot I need to discuss with you, too.”

  “And we will,” he promised her, caressing the top of her tousled hair. “You managed to get away from Uzan. We raced up to the Land Rovers and slammed on the brakes. They weren’t expecting us and Ayman and his soldiers took most of them down. I tried to find Uzan in the firefight but didn’t. And I couldn’t find you, either. I was afraid he’d captured you and dragged you off into the reeds of the river.”

  “I never saw him, Nolan. I heard a lot of gunfire at one point, so that was probably when you and Ayman arrived and you attacked them.”

  “Probably. One of Uzan’s men had an RPG. After Ayman deduced you weren’t in any of the vehicles, he ordered his soldiers who had hand grenades to throw them at the Land Rovers, destroying all three of them so they couldn’t take off again.” He smiled a little. “Ayman’s one hell of an Army officer. He directed the entire firefight. He’s a good man, Teren.”

  “I’ve never seen him in action until now,” she said, her voice husky with tears. “I felt the blast waves from those grenades, though; they about knocked me over. It was awful and those waves almost punctured my eardrums.”

  “Yeah, it was a helluva firefight, but it didn’t last long. Once we got the goons in flex cuffs, Ayman found Nazir among the survivors.”

  Eyes widening, Teren gasped. “Nazir? He was there? Oh, no!”

  Nolan saw the betrayal in her eyes, the hurt that Nazir would turn on her. “Yeah. He told Ayman that you’d escaped out of the middle Rover and dove into the reed beds of the Nile. He wasn’t sure which way you went after you disappeared.”

  “Oh,” Teren choked out in despair. “Nazir was doing so well at Kitra until he tried to break into my duplex.”

  “He came from Darfur, one of the most torn-up, miserable pieces of real estate on this earth. He was a child soldier, Teren. He couldn’t overcome his past.” He lowered his voice, leaning forward to wipe the tears off her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I know you liked him, and everyone at Kitra had faith that he could succeed.”

  “This—this is just so awful to realize, Nolan.”

  “Well, in his own way he did help us. He gave up the intel on you
to Ayman when he asked where you’d been taken.”

  She pressed her hands to her face. “He had a dark heart, Nolan. No one at Kitra saw it.”

  “The darkness in him overwhelmed the good in him,” he said gently, seeing the regret and grief in her eyes. Teren’s love for people was one-hundred percent. She never withheld her heart from anyone, no matter what their pasts consisted of when they came to Kitra for help. And while it was a weakness she paid for in situations like this, Nolan also knew it was one of her greatest strengths. “Everyone at Kitra did the best they could to help Nazir. It was his responsibility to make healthy choices for himself, and he couldn’t.”

  Gulping, she took a tissue that Nolan offered her, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. Gripping it in her hands, she managed to ask, “But he’s alive? He’ll live?”

  “Yes, just a scratch on his arm. Ayman and his soldiers killed ten out of the eighteen men who were hired by Uzan.”

  She wiped her eyes with a trembling hand. “You said Uzan was dead?” She saw Nolan’s blue eyes glint with feral satisfaction.

  “You were unconscious on the bank of the Nile. Uzan had headed north like you had after he escaped the firefight by slipping into the reed beds. It was a good thing you had lost consciousness on the bank, Teren, because he probably passed within ten feet of where you lay and didn’t spot you.”

  Her hand automatically went to her throat. “No…”

  “Yeah,” Nolan growled. “But the reeds are so thick and because you were lying still, he never caught sight of you halfway up that bank.”

  “He was using the reeds to hide while he worked his way toward Zalta?”

  “Yes, just like you were. Only the drugs wiped you out, and you went unconscious. I don’t know if he was hunting you down or not. Probably was, but he also had to escape us, so he changed his priorities to save his own hide.”

  Teren’s mouth thinned and she shivered. “He’d have killed me if he’d found me.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he would have. Once we spotted you, Ayman and I lifted you off that muddy bank and I carried you to a nearby tree and put you down in the shade. About that time, two of Ayman’s soldiers spotted Uzan south of where we’d located you.” Pleasure vibrated in his low tone. “Uzan was swimming across the river. He was halfway across it when Ayman’s soldiers saw two crocodiles swimming toward him.”