“The coat is ruined.”
She could barely find her voice. “Is…is this my blood.”
“It is ferleicht some of mine as well.”
Her head shot to his direction. “Yours?”
“Yes, well, one does bleed when shot in the chest with an arrow.”
Shot in the…Her mouth gaped. She looked again at his boots and fatigues. There was a sense of familiarity tickling her mind. She thought back to the man in the woods. He had worn similar clothing. But she shot him. She saw the arrow sink into his chest and blood flow out from the wound. He died. She frowned with confusion. She never did check his pulse, but…
She looked at the man in the shadows. His chest was unscarred. Had she dreamt the whole thing? Then why was she here? She thought hard and pressed her fingers into the sockets of her eyes as she sensed the start of an ocular migraine. Rubbing her temples, she tried to recall exactly what had happened.
She had been in the woods when that thing jumped at her. First a branch had fallen. She ran. He hit her in the back with something. She really needed to get to a hospital. She probably had an infection, and she didn’t want to think about the scars she would have.
Then the man had come out of nowhere and attacked the thing. She was distracted with images of the beast in the woods. It resembled a man, standing upright with long matted hair. Was it bigfoot?
She shook her head. The man had fought the bigfoot thing, and then it roared and fled. That was when the man came at her. But it wasn’t a man. It had fangs and eyes like a cat that glowed in the night. Suddenly unsure of her safety, she turned and faced her rescuer.
“Let me see your face.”
His chest puffed and deflated with a sigh, and then he leaned forward, out of the shadows, resting his heavily muscled arms on his knees. It was him, but not. Jesus, he was pretty. She fought to reconcile her memory of the man with fangs and the beautiful chiseled face she saw before her.
They were one and the same, but not. His eyes were set in a cruel and intolerant expression that was very much the look of the exasperated man in the woods. His dark hair fell to his shoulders, no longer in a ponytail. But still her mind told her it was impossible. She had shot the man in the chest. That’s when it hit her. Twins!
“You’re a twin.”
Her words had definitely surprised him. His jaw ticked, and she sensed his anger growing as he scowled at her. “Well, this complicates things. I hadn’t realized you would be this thorough.”
She didn’t understand what he meant. “I’m really, really sorry. I…he…I was only trying to protect myself. I think your twin may have been bitten by a rabid animal or something. He wasn’t…right.”
His brow crinkled and he scowled at her. “What do you kenn of my twin?”
She choked on her answer. “Nothing. I swear. I recognized him from a while ago. He talked to me once at the base of the mountain after a shoot a few months back.” She paused. “Or was that you?”
“It was me.”
“Well, then you remember me. I thought your twin was you when I saw him. I didn’t intend to harm him. He just…I was terrified. That t–thing in the woods…it was horrible, but your brother…he wasn’t normal either. He had the eyes of a demon and teeth like an animal.”
He shook his head quickly as if he found everything she said unreasonable and make-believe. “You are not speaking of Adam.”
“Who’s Adam? This man seemed to care a great deal for a woman named Anna.”
Before she even saw him move, he was on top of her. Her head slammed back into the stone floor of the cave, and her migraine exploded in her skull. His thumb pressed hard into the soft flesh below her jaw, and she could barely breathe.
“What do you know of Anna?” he growled.
Her eyes watered from the throbbing pain and the burning sensation of her cut back. Warmth spread over her skin, and her flesh pulled and was bleeding once more. Blinking back tears, she looked into his eyes, and terror took hold of her. Cat eyes. There was no white showing, only sparkling blue silver with long black pupils. She tried to struggle out of his hold, but he was too strong.
“Nothing,” she wheezed and his hand loosened. He briskly stood, his movements too graceful for how agitated he was.
“Get your stuff. We’re leaving.”
Destiny was paralyzed with fear. Her tense shoulders lifted slightly off the ground as bits of dirt pressed into her wounded back. “I—”
“I said we are leaving!” he barked, and she quickly scrambled to her knees.
The warmth of the cave evaporated as cold gusts of wind began to howl past the opening of the grotto. Thick black clouds began to roll in from the north. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Such a choking sense of foreboding took hold of her, she had to look away. She reached for her coat, and her hand touched on something cool and solid. Pulling the pocket aside, she spotted her phone.
The man was pacing and speaking in a language she didn’t understand. His body was taut with anger. She carefully slipped the phone out of her ruined coat and squeezed it into the small denim pocket at her hip.
Destiny shivered as the temperature continued to drop. She stood on shaky legs and attempted to fit her arms into her shredded coat. The movement made her hiss in pain, and she decided it was better to freeze.
She folded her coat over her arms and stood. Her mind raced. Where would he take her? She didn’t know what was worse, the idea of leaving with the brother of the man she killed, who was also not normal, or staying in a cave with no food or idea how to get home.
She wouldn’t be able to move quickly in her condition. Her light blouse gaped in the back. Her bra straps draped uselessly over her arms, hindering further movement, the supportive back strap ruined.
She didn’t understand what was happening. Maybe this large muscled man with the strange eyes was some kind of mountain person, a genetic freak forced to hide away in the wilderness rather than endure society’s narrow-minded position on anything different.
He turned swiftly and faced her. His anger somewhat banked, but not enough for Destiny to lower her guard. Someone would come looking for her. She looked at him, trying to hold his eye contact as she carefully pressed the print of her UGG into the soft floor of the cave.
Her fingers found the hole of her pocket, and she pulled out a piece of trash that had the waxy feel of a cough drop wrapper. She squeezed it tight in her hand. That was when she realized her purse was missing.
The man moved to the shadows and gathered the canteen. Destiny’s breath ceased at the sight of Vito’s crossbow. He then picked up the arrow and a bloodied rag. Dear God it was his twin’s shirt!
He faced her and snapped, “Come. We will walk while it is still light. Don’t make me shoot you with your own weapon.”
Her lips parted, but only a squeak came out. He gestured with his chin toward the opening of the cave, and she turned. The moment she stepped over the threshold of the covering, she froze. They were literally at the top of the mountain.
The wind whipped at her clothing and her hair blew across her face. She swatted it away and tried not to look down. Her ears popped from the altitude, and she gritted her teeth as her headache began to radiate into her neck and arms. As she dropped the cough drop wrapper, her clue for anyone who might venture this far looking for her, she was dismayed to see the wind pick up the offering and carry it away as if it never existed. Would she cease to exist after today?
The man moved past her without a word and began taking confident steps down the steep rock path of the mountain. When Destiny spotted her purse hanging from his large hand, her feet kicked into gear. She awkwardly reached for branches and jutting bits of rock to steady her climb down the hill. He was moving too fast for her.
Within ten minutes she was winded and really wished she had kept up with her Zumba classes. Her lungs burned from the cold air. Her scalp began to sweat which only chilled her body more. Although she couldn’t turn enough to survey the damag
e done to her back, her shirt had been rendered nothing more than a thin smock.
She slid on a smooth layering of slate and reached awkwardly for a branch that wasn’t there. Realizing too late that she was going to fall, she did her best to protect her back and turned quickly. Rock cut into her palms, and her knees smacked painfully into the ground. The way her body had twisted saved her back from taking the brunt of the fall, but still caused her a sharp stab of pain. Enough. She couldn’t take any more.
Her face crumpled as she sniffled and batted her sore palms over her thighs. She pushed her useless coat aside and stubbornly pulled her feet in front of her. She began to pick out bits of gravel from the fleshy part of her hand. She was bleeding again. Her knuckles were chapped, and she was pretty sure her fingertips shouldn’t be white. She was going to get frostbite and die here.
“Why are you stopped?” the man demanded from about twenty feet ahead of her. She ignored him. He huffed and turned, his heavy footfalls pounding into the earth with each exasperated step. She refused to look at him. “Destiny, what are you doing?”
“Sitting,” she said petulantly as she spread her ragged coat over her legs.
“I know you’re sitting. Why?”
“Because I’m not going any farther. I’m freezing, weak, and hurt. I need to get to a doctor, and I need to talk to the police.” She reached into her pocket at her hip and pulled out her phone. Hoping she could manage some sort of signal, she removed the back, slid the battery out of its place and inserted it back in. Sometimes if she did this, she could trick the phone into thinking it still had a little life.
“Get up, Destiny.”
She ignored him. She held down the power button and tried to steady her fingers as the phone turned on. She just needed to get a signal enough for the call to go through. If she heard a 911 dispatch operator pick up, she would simply shout that she was in Jim Thorpe trapped at the top of a mountain. Maybe there was GPS stuff they could use to find her call location.
As the power came on, she focused. Her settings loaded, and she quickly dialed 9-1—
The phone was suddenly ripped out of her hand. It flew into the oppressive gray sky, traveling like a hummingbird over the trees until it faded into a black speck and likely landed on the floor of the forest.
“Hey!”
The man stared down at her angrily. “I said no calls.”
“I don’t care! I’m not moving! Do you know how much that phone cost? You’re replacing it!”
His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. His jaw ticked. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, yet he didn’t seem to be bothered by the freezing temperatures or the wind. He was much bigger than her and at the moment quite formidable. Destiny swallowed.
“I am only going to tell you one more time. Get up.”
She straightened her shoulders and gritted her teeth through the pain crawling up her back. Chin held high, she said, “I’m. Not. Moving.”
“That’s it.”
A squeak hiccupped past her lips as she suddenly found herself being hauled into the air and thrown over his shoulder. Destiny had no illusions of the kind of woman she was, and she certainly knew her rounded curves categorized her as the type not meant for carrying.
She struggled as his broad shoulder dug into her midsection and her blouse flopped forward off of her back. His right arm banded around the back of her knees as she tried to kick free.
The sharp sound of his hand smacking down on her ass was followed by an even sharper sting blooming under her jeans. “Stop it.”
Her breasts jostled as he began to move. She twisted and stared longingly at her forgotten coat. She deflated over his shoulder. Her hair spilled down and dangled just at the waist of his pants. Fighting him was useless.
As he carried her down the mountain, several things occurred to her. She was no longer cold. His body was like an oven. He also smelled good. For a caveman type of guy, he certainly didn’t smell like he lived in the woods.
Then there was his stamina. Even a football player would be winded by now. Destiny had never been a slight-figured girl. Her hips had always been a little too wide and her breasts ridiculously big. Even when she was a size twelve, she appeared larger. Her short stature didn’t help much either.
She was five foot one and a quarter inch, and that quarter inch counted. She thanked the fashion gods that designers now realized that not just grandmothers and maidenly women were plus-sized. Destiny loved clothing. She loved sexy shoes and feminine fabrics.
Growing up not fitting into the American stereotypical blue-eyed, blonde-haired, perfect B cup, size six had really messed with her head, especially when any clothing beyond a size ten was made out of discarded table cloth prints for women in their forties.
The arrival of curvaceous beauties in Hollywood really did something phenomenal for plus-sized fashion. She now could buy trendy clothing just as easily as a petite girl, well maybe not as easily, but it was definitely easier than shopping was years ago. However, the ease of finding something pretty that fit might have added to a few additional curves she otherwise would have tried harder to avoid.
She was currently a mildly confident, only sometimes self-loathing, size sixteen. She liked to think of herself as a modern-day Marilyn, but with some Latin flavor and bigger boobs and a slightly thicker waist. She sighed.
She was being effortlessly toted off to some hidden location by a stranger, and she still somehow managed to poke at her self-esteem. And the question that started this line of thinking still remained. How the hell was he carrying her so far without ever getting winded?
She folded her arms along his back and under her cheek as she dangled upside down. Her head was still throbbing, and her back burned, and she was pretty sure her ass bore a sizable handprint. But she was warm. Wherever he was taking her, she needed to be prepared for anything once she got there. So she shut her eyes and tried to rest until that time came.
Chapter 2
A door slammed, and Destiny came awake. Before she opened her eyes, the musty, unfamiliar smell of her surroundings filled her with trepidation. She groaned as she hoisted her head off of the flat pillow and opened her eyes. She was in a dark room, the walls nothing but wooden panels.
She strained to lift her head and awkwardly squinted at her surroundings. A utilitarian table was pressed into the far corner, and a lantern sat dimly flickering on the surface, casting a small pool of golden light over the room. There was a black-brimmed hat hanging cockeyed off the tall back of one of two wooden chairs. Curtains hung sparingly from the solitary window, and she realized it was nighttime.
Her neck was stiff, and she turned. The cabin appeared to consist of one room. She was on a bed. Her confusion grew as she realized she was alone. Where had her captor slash hero gone? The sound of heavy footsteps had her dropping her head back to the pillow and sliding her shoulders lower under the quilt that covered her. She remained flat on her belly and feigned sleep.
The door swung open, and she shut her eyes. A chair scraped along the pine floor, and the mattress dipped. When the blanket pulled off of Destiny’s shoulders, she gave up her pretence of sleep and reached for the covers. A heavy hand pressed into the back of her head and forced her back down to the pillow.
“Stay put. I’m going to clean out your cuts.”
He removed his hand from her head, and she heard the soft trickling of water. Turning her face to the side, she watched him ring out a wet cloth over a steaming pot placed on the chair he had pulled next to the bed.
“This may be a little warm, but I need to get any dirt out of your wounds and hot water is all I have. Hopefully the scrape isn’t infected already.”
She hissed through her teeth as the hot, wet cloth touched her tender skin.
“Sorry.”
His apology took her off guard. Why was he suddenly being nice to her? She wished she could find comfort in his nurturing, but it only made her more suspicious of his motives. What if he was preparing her for
some sort of sacrifice to get even with her for killing his twin?
He bathed her back in silence. The longer he continued his ministrations, the cooler the water became. Her nipples pulled tight against the mattress, and she began to relax much like one does while getting a massage. The dried dirt and blood washing away was like heaven. The slight sting was worth feeling somewhat clean again.
The blanket pulled lower, and he shifted his weight. The cool air of the room touched the V at the top of her ass and, with the realization that she wasn’t wearing any pants or underwear, came a wave of mixed sensations. Had he removed her clothing? Who else would have? Unless she had, but she had no memory of doing so. The last she recalled she was being carried through the woods.
Water trickled over her rounded hip, and he brushed the damp cloth over the soft curve of her behind. She was suddenly very aware of her nether regions. She should have been having anxiety about this stranger, possible-serial-killer-slash-mountain-man touching her, and she was, but that didn’t negate the reaction her body was having from the intimate contact. Destiny blamed her recent, unwanted bout of celibacy. Nothing like a thirteen-month dry spell to heighten the attractiveness of a kidnapper. Stockholm’s anyone? She just prayed that she didn’t lose her head and moan.
“This really isn’t too bad. I wondered if you would need stitches, but it’s really just a couple scrapes.” It hadn’t felt like scrapes.
“Is this helping with the pain?”
“Mmm…” The drowsy moan filled the back of her throat before she could stop it. His hand stilled, and she cleared her throat. “Yes. Thank you.” Blessedly his hand continued to move, and he seemed not to notice the reaction he was causing.
The weight of the quilt covered her back again. “Stay here. I’m going to grab the other pot of water from the fire and dump this dirty one.”
He was back in a matter of minutes, but she was so relaxed she had almost dozed off again. He sat beside her once more and pulled the cover off of her shoulder. He carefully reached for her arm and began washing the dirt away from her fingers and her palm. She sighed, too relaxed to care what he thought.
Destiny Calls Page 3