He nodded slowly and sat down next to her. “I’m worried too,” he admitted.
“God,” Sawyer groaned. He watched her run a hand through her thick hair. “I left them together, at least, but…I asked Sombra to get us back to them and she brought us here. Blame her.”
He looked at the jaguar, who just rolled on her back in the sun, ignoring him.
“Quinn, I just want to pretend for a moment that it didn’t happen,” she whispered it like a secret. “That we didn’t see what hell on earth looked like. That I didn’t fail in saving some poor fucking soldier who got hung from the trees. That I didn’t see you dying under those vines, waiting for her to finish the job.”
“Camp was that bad?” he asked softly, laying back to get next to her.
“It was horrifying. Snakes fucking everywhere. Vines were pulling people away. I’m sure there was more. I helped Varya save her bear from some jaguars.”
“I met a soldier on watch that night. Young man named Peters,” Quinn told her. “He was nice to me. I liked him. He wanted me to get some rest. He was the one screaming first, when I ran out of camp.”
Quinn closed his eyes and saw the scene he’d found. The good soldier being eaten alive. He had done the only thing he could and killed him faster. Mercy.
“Fuck.”
He heard Sawyer’s voice catch and pulled her to him. Her shoulders were shaking, and he just let her cry silently on his chest. He didn’t blame her. It didn’t make her weak.
They had survived hell and there was a very real chance they were the only ones. He didn’t blame her for not being ready.
When she stopped, he lifted his head and kissed her forehead. He’d never done something like that.
“Quinn?” She looked up at him and he knew what the awful clenching of his heart was. He was an idiot and he was in love with her.
“Yes?”
“I learned something, and I hope…you’re willing to share.” The hesitancy in her voice meant it was about him.
“What did Yasmin tell you?” He wouldn’t be angry. Yasmin didn’t know that Sawyer knew nothing. Something had to have slipped.
“Rogue Wolf,” she whispered. “What’s his story?”
Was he ready to tell her that? Quinn pondered the question for a long time. They were out in the Amazon because of his past, because of what he was known for. Something that only Druids should have known, until his mother let that bitch know and got him roped into this.
Would she still want to kiss him if he told her?
He had a feeling the fears were for nothing. Sawyer, assassin, a woman who had fought harder battles than even his own. She would understand exactly why he’d done what he had.
“Do you want to know who named me Quinn? Elijah and Vincent. They thought it fit and I didn’t care. Judge? I never had a surname before it. We were in a courtroom. I wanted to know the title of the most powerful man in the room. Vincent told me he was a judge and he meted out justice on those caught for crimes.” Quinn took a deep breath. “I liked it. So, I became Quinn Judge. Rogue Wolf is the name my mother gave me when my abilities manifested.”
“You had to be a teenager when that happened, so what were you before that?”
“Boy. I had no name because she thought I wasn’t worthy of one.” The memory of her telling him that over and over still made him a little bitter.
“I’m sorry.”
“It was years ago.”
“Really?” Sawyer frowned, confused with him.
“I’m infamous because at sixteen, I mated with a Druid and left my mother’s home to live with her. I was the Tez to a Yasmin, but not husband.”
“You were in a relationship?”
The shock that radiated off his favorite female almost made him chuckle, but the answer he was going to give her wasn’t one that was humorous. “No. Mate, and that was all she wanted from me.” Quinn could remember it. He’d been excited to be with this Druid closer to his age, away from his mother.
She’d never kissed him, not like Sawyer had. She’d never really cared about him. He was a strong, young, healthy male willing to help her have children and raised to listen to the Druids around him, having had it beaten into him by his mother.
“Oh.”
“Yes,” Quinn sighed. “I did my job well.”
Sawyer coughed and tried to sit up, but Quinn just pulled her back down on his chest. He wasn’t ready to lose the contact.
“You’re a dad?”
“I was.” His voice cracked minutely.
“No,” Sawyer gasped, soft. He could feel her pulse begin to race. “Oh, baby, I’m…”
“I didn’t know I couldn’t trust her with our one-week old son.” Quinn stared at the canopy above as he remembered. “Females in the wild have the right not to raise young that won’t survive. Natural. Acceptable. It carries on healthy genetics and keeps the population healthy. No lost resources.”
“Quinn…”
“He’d had a…I think it’s called a cleft palate. I did research on it later. He hadn’t been perfect, but he’d been mine. When I found out, she didn’t think I would find it a problem, having been raised by Druids. I would fall in line with her decision and give her another child, try again. One that was…perfect.” Quinn pulled Sawyer higher up against him, so their eyes met. “She was tending the fire. I walked up behind her, broke her neck, and began a long trip south. I stumbled on some people, killed them too, then Vincent and Elijah found me. They convinced me not to kill them.”
“She…”
“My Druid mate killed our son because it wasn’t perfectly healthy and she didn’t want to try and find modern human help. She didn’t even give me an option to have him and leave, try on my own to raise him. Who was going to tell her she couldn’t? Druids can’t be trusted, Sawyer. You like Yasmin, but in the end, they’re all mad.”
He pushed her off gently and sat up. He got to his feet, brushing off the dirt and twigs. He didn’t look at her as he began to walk away. Scout whimpered, following him. Shade howled up at the sky. They were the ones who had witnessed it, had found the buried beautiful body of his child.
He thought he’d been a strong male who could have strong children. The whore had only wanted girls, in hopes they could be like her.
He stumbled on his path and Tez was there. “You need more healing,” Tez told him roughly. “Come.”
“I’m fine,” he growled. His body was fine. He didn’t need to be healed.
“Come.” Tez grabbed his arm and pulled. Quinn followed. He could defeat the healer, but he wouldn’t. They were the same, but different. Both children of monstrous women.
They were going back towards the tribe’s village when Tez diverted them down a trail.
“Our home,” Tez said, pointing to a set of huts away from the others. “Watch.”
Tez whistled and Quinn waited.
Two young children ran out of one of the huts, laughing. Tez grabbed the younger one, a small boy, and swung him for a moment. Quinn’s heart ached at the smile on his face. The older one was a little girl that looked like the Druid. She smiled brightly at him, and he looked away.
“Mine, with my heart, Yasmin,” Tez informed him.
“What are you trying to say, Tez?” Quinn was tired of mystery.
“Not all humans out there destroy nature and our homes, or poach animals. Not all animals are venomous. Not all Druids go mad. Some are just women, doomed to have powers that make others misunderstand them. It drives them to run from their lives and their families. Some can’t handle that and get twisted along the way, others just want to reclaim what their own magic drove them to lose. Family, home, friends, a life. Druids here are wilder, but they are not insane because of it. They just are.” Tez put his son down. He tapped Quinn’s chest. “Your body doesn’t need to be healed, Wolf. Your heart does. That is why I will not let you leave. I will not see you leave my home carrying the poison the Druids you once knew put there. I will not see you feel the ur
ge to kill the next one on sight just because she was born. You must heal.”
Quinn shoved the hand away and stormed back down the path. He didn’t know what to think, but Tez’s life made him curious.
He passed Yasmin on the way. Instead of growling at her like he had before, he stepped out of her way on the path and lowered his gaze.
“I don’t like that. I’m not a goddess. Stop it,” Yasmin snapped. He flinched. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was softer, saying that. “I’m just…I wish Druids like Camila and your mother didn’t exist. Your mate was a…monster. I love my children with everything I am, yet you look at me like I’m a threat to them. We Druids…they say we don’t have it in our nature to be anything but peaceful. We do. We’re as fierce as the animals around us, but we are also just human. Just human. We’re susceptible to the same problems, the flaws. I wish people remembered that too.”
Quinn didn’t say anything. Yasmin must have realized he wasn’t going to say anything, since she just continued the walk to her home.
Her home with her husband and her children. A boy and girl.
Shade and Scout met him back where he had left Sawyer. Shade sent him an image of her leaving, wiping her face. They thought she had gone to the bathing pool.
Quinn went to find her. He needed her. He needed her in that moment more than he needed breath.
29
Sawyer
Sawyer stripped her body to match the feeling in her heart. Stripped. She was raw.
Quinn had been a father and his newborn son had been murdered. The story echoed in her head, refusing to let up.
Then he’d stormed away from her, leaving her reeling. She had wanted to hold him, comfort him. Tell him that it was all going to be okay, but it wasn’t. She knew what it felt like to be comforted when the comfort changed nothing.
Nothing would bring Henry or Midnight back. Nothing would bring back his son.
She’d always wondered why he seemed so passionate about Henry. She’d thought it had just been Midnight, but looking back on that day in the bank with her lockbox, before she told them her story…
He’d been asking about both. He probably saw Henry and thought she killed him or something.
She waded into the water and sank. Sombra was leaving her to this, to process.
She rubbed her temples and forehead, wondering what in the hell she was supposed to say or do. How does someone comfort a friend who lost something so dear? She knew from experience the comfort just didn’t help. Nothing would ever make a senseless act of violence seem like less of a nightmare. Nothing would lessen the pain except time and distance, and those were both band-aids. They were temporary. Anything could rip the wound back open.
She traced her new scars while she soaked in the pool. Her shoulder had been torn open. She hadn’t realized it was so bad, but the places where that jaguar had sunk its fangs were telling.
“I’m sorry for running off,” Quinn called out softly from behind her. “I shouldn’t have. We were talking about something.”
“I understand the need to run from a discussion like that,” she replied, not turning to look at him. She decided on a lighter topic. “I have a myriad of new scars, it seems.”
Water splashed behind her. When he didn’t respond, she turned around. He was within a foot of her, so close. She tapped the sore scars on her shoulder.
“You have claw scars on your back as well,” he told her, stepping closer. Sure enough, his arm went around her and traced those new ones on her back.
“We’ll match,” she teased softly, tracing one of his new ones over his abs. The jaguars had nearly gutted him.
“The ones on my back…” She watched something uncomfortable flash over his face.
“Are similar to the one on my face?” She posed it like a question, but she had always known what scars like his meant. He’d been beaten or tortured, probably both.
“My mother wanted a strong child. She wanted a disciplined child. When I failed in a task, I was disciplined for it.”
“Why?”
“Because the strongest survive,” he answered softly.
“Why…” Sawyer looked for the question. “You hate Druids because they’ve treated you badly, and I completely understand that, but then what is Yasmin? Or the Druids that are famous in Yellowstone National Park? They live peacefully with others.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t. It seems, for an expert on them like me, I can be very wrong.”
“I would kill them for you if I could,” she murmured to him. “I would hunt them down and make them pay for what they did to you. So would Elijah, and the guys.” The team. She desperately hoped they were alive.
“I know.”
She blinked, trying to hold back more tears. She was crying a lot now and she was beginning to hate it. She was tired, confused, and desperate. Lost in the jungle with a tribe most people probably didn’t know existed, with a man who confused her and broke her heart. The one she was on this mission to protect - and she’d failed to protect any of them.
“Sawyer?” Quinn leaned down slightly to look in her eyes. She waved a hand and began to turn away from him. He grabbed her, and she stopped, breathing at the contact. His hand on her hip, holding her to look at him. Too close. She was too emotional for this. She pulled away. “Are you scared of me?”
The desperation in the question made Sawyer jerk to a stop. She shook her head, trying to figure out where that came from. “No. Quinn, your power is both fear-inspiring and awe-inspiring. There was a time when I was scared of you. But not anymore. You power is fear-inspiring, but you’re just what the world made you and it’s beautifully unique.” She shrugged. “Once I figured out what you and I could be, friends and teammates, I stopped being scared of you. Why would you think that I am?”
“You pulled away from me,” he whispered. She saw sadness in those blue eyes she would have never expected.
“I pulled away because I’m feeling emotionally raw and vulnerable. This was very heavy and I’m tired.” She wiped her face. “What else do you want to talk about?”
“Nothing,” he answered. He reached out for her again. “If you aren’t scared of me, I don’t feel bad for doing this and I need to do this.”
“Excus-”
He yanked her back to him and the rough, unpracticed kiss he gave her left her shocked and dazed. It was possessive. It was needy. It was desperate. One of his arms wrapped around her waist and held her against him. She could feel his cock hard against her lower abdomen.
“Quinn,” Sawyer gasped, pulling her mouth from his. “What?”
“You kissed me earlier,” he reminded her softly. “Did you know it was my first one? I was too shocked to keep going, too shocked to respond.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t breathe anymore. She’d been his first kiss? She’d figured…
She didn’t know what she figured but it wasn’t that.
“I want you,” he growled softly. “I’ve wanted you for a long time.”
She could tell.
“I had…” Sawyer shook her head. “No idea…”
“I thought it was just physical. I thought it was the normal attraction a male should have to a female. But…” Quinn placed his lips to her neck, still holding her against his body. She could feel her pulse race, erratic and wild. “I think it’s more than that.”
Sawyer’s mind raced. There was something she needed to remember, to make sure of. Her brain was not cooperating though.
“I know about the deal. I would never compete with my brothers for you.” His eyes met hers again. That was it. That was the thing she’d forgotten about for a moment. “Strong females deserve their choice in strong males.”
“Oh,” she sighed, giving up. She pulled him back down for another rough kiss, delighting in the growl that erupted from his chest. Possessive and dangerous.
Hers.
She was just as possessive as he was, and he was hers.
He lifted her,
and she threw her legs around his waist. She was glad there was no clothing in the way.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he moved them. She figured it out as they went under the waterfall and laughed. “Romantic much? I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I know a couple of things,” he told her. “Now…let me do this for you. We have the time, trapped here until they feel we can leave.”
That sent shivers down her spine. He laid her on some rocks just behind the curtain of water. She felt like a meal from the way he looked her over. She was finally the hare that had been caught by the wolf.
“A good male knows that his female’s pleasure is the most important,” he began softly, leaning down to nip her right nipple. It sent fire through her.
His long hair fell over her chest and stomach. It was beautiful, and she couldn’t stop herself from running her hands through it for the first time. Soft, silken, a dark cascade.
Her back arched when he bit down harder on her nipple and swiped his tongue over it at the same time.
“Quinn,” she moaned out as his surprisingly soft hands moved up her sides.
“Sh. Enjoy it. Let me do this,” he told her again. “Let me prove myself.”
“You don’t need to…”
“A male should always prove himself,” Quinn whispered huskily to her.
He rolled her over onto her stomach and she erupted in goosebumps as he ran his hands down her sides again and kneaded out tightness in her muscles. He was careful and gentle, picking up the pressure as he continued. She was aching for him, and he took his time.
She was spaced out when she heard him growl and felt him pull up her hips. She pushed herself to her hands and knees, enjoying the feeling of his hands holding her hips hard, the feeling of his erection against her ass.
“Sawyer?” Quinn growled in her ear, nuzzling his face to her hair.
“Yes,” she whispered airily back to him.
He pulled back and slammed into her without a moment’s hesitation. She cried out. She’d been ready, but damn she hadn’t expected that. He leaned back over her, thrusting relentlessly. He braced on a hand while his other wrapped around her and rubbed one of her breasts.
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 94