by Jade Kerrion
“And the other girls?”
Zara scowled. “I don’t think the Americans consider them a priority. Don’t leave Baalbek. I might need to call on you if they’re unreliable.”
Nazrol nodded. “Anytime.” He studied her. “It’s not the Americans who worry you, is it?”
Zara expelled her breath in a shaky sigh. “No, it isn’t. Leave the girls with me. Order your men to fall back.”
Nazrol barked an order. His men retreated several feet, but Nazrol remained by Zara’s side as eight Navy SEALs, led by Grass and Klah, approached the temple complex. Stall vendors watched wide-eyed, their bodies angled to run. The quiet sobs of frightened girls were the only sound carried by the arid wind.
Klah and Nazrol exchanged wary glances. Nazrol’s fingers twitched toward the trigger, but Klah’s rifle remained loosely slung over his shoulder. Zara stood between them, her violet-eyed gaze flinty.
Silence trembled.
Nazrol slanted Zara a quick look.
She nodded; peace hung on a single breath.
Nazrol’s hand moved away from his rifle. The two men exchanged nods, acknowledging the other for what he was—the leader of warriors.
Zara beckoned to the schoolgirls. “Let’s go.”
No one moved. Their wide and terrified eyes fixed on Yasmin. Bound and gagged, she struggled in the grip of a grizzled Hezbollah warrior as he handed her over to the American soldiers.
Zara turned to the girls. “Your teacher sold you out to her Nakob lover and schemed to drag Hezbollah into her plans. The Americans have come looking for Lila Forrester, and they will make sure you are safely returned to your families.” Her voice gentled. “You don’t know me. You have no reason to trust me. All I can give you is my word as a woman who has no obligation to any of you, not even to Lila Forrester, but who has chosen to risk her life to bring you home. Come with me; no one will harm you.” She shrugged. “Or you can stay and take your chances with Nakob.”
The low chuckles from the soldiers were masked by the stampede of feet toward Zara.
Klah met her gaze and inclined his head. His lips twitched.
As simply as that, she won the battle.
The entire war still lay ahead of her.
Within the hour, forty-nine girls were ensconced in Zara’s courtyard home, sipping hot drinks and consuming microwaveable meals while waiting for their turn at the shower. Yasmin, however, was not among them. Her absence did not generate conversation. In fact, Zara had trouble generating any conversation. Each girl cocooned in silence—their defense against reality. A particularly attractive girl rocked herself, her arms wrapped tightly around the legs she had pulled against her chest. No doubt she had learned, like Danyael, that beauty was a curse. The trauma seared into the girl’s eyes testified that she had had reality shoved into places it should never have gone.
Zara swallowed hard against the heavy pressure on her chest. She would have preferred physically navigating a minefield than dredging through the aftermath of the kidnapping. She was no empath, but even she could feel the girls’ raw emotions. The edges were jagged like sharks’ teeth. Their anguish was a living, breathing thing with claws that shredded everything it touched.
The baby squirmed, rippling tiny flutters through Zara’s stomach. She pressed against the sensation. Danyael. The girls needed Danyael. She needed Danyael to anchor her. He alone had soothed her turbulent emotions. He had lured her into dreamless sleep when her nightmares would have kept her awake. He took away pain without denying its existence or trivializing the experience.
Those who witnessed his power called him an alpha empath.
They were wrong. Zara closed her eyes against the glare of indisputable facts. Danyael’s power made him a mutant. His hard-won compassion made him an alpha.
Heavy footsteps echoed off the tiles. Every head, but one, snapped up in the direction of the sound. Opening her eyes, Zara shrugged off the palpable wave of anxiety that rippled through the large kitchen. Without turning around, she said, “Get out of here. It’s a girls-only zone.”
“Can we talk?” Grass’s voice rumbled.
The tiny shred of personal space around Zara shrank as the girls closest to her huddled against her for protection. Zara’s throat tightened. What made it worse was the knowledge that the girls were probably not even aware of their instinctive reaction.
“It’s all right,” Zara murmured in Arabic and walked out of the kitchen, leaving behind a petrified silence.
She gestured to Grass, who followed her around the privacy screen and into the living room.
“How are the girls?” Grass asked.
“Everything considered, they’re all right.”
“Was anyone…?” He dropped his gaze and a muscle ticked in his cheek.
“If they were, they’re not telling me. Rape’s a private shame, not a public crime in this part of the world.”
“Hall said no one needed immediate medical attention.”
“As far I can tell, it’s probably true, but pregnancy takes awhile to show. What news do you have?”
“Updated the admiral. He’s…” Grass drew a deep breath.
“Upset? Furious? Livid?”
“Yeah, but glad you’re alive after the stunt you pulled.”
“If you had a plan that didn’t involve storming the temple complex and risking everyone’s life, I’d like to hear it.”
“I didn’t expect it of you. I thought that you, more than any of my men, would be inclined to start a fight, not talk your way out of it.”
“I don’t go through life seeing everything as a target.” Just most things. “What’s the word on Yasmin?”
“Still working on it. Trying to do it without alerting the school.”
“Why?”
“They’d ask where the girls are.”
Zara’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t told the school or the embassy?”
Grass shook his head. “We can’t. If the news breaks that the girls are safe, the people holding Lila will know that we’re coming for her next.”
“You’re crazy. The people holding Lila know someone’s coming for her. Their knowledge isn’t contingent on the other girls’ safety.”
“The timing matters; you know it.”
“I told these girls we would send them back to their families.”
Grass’s face tightened. “And we will. Just not yet.”
She flung her arm out. Self-restraint kept it from making contact with him, but barely. His strength of will likely kept him from flinching from the near miss. They glared at each other. Zara gritted her teeth. “I wish you’d have told me that. I could have left them where they were.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“As opposed to bringing them here to my house? Here, they’re my responsibility. What’s to stop Nakob from mounting an assault on my home and seizing the girls again while you’re off gallivanting?”
“We are not off gallivanting. We have to find Lila Forrester.”
“You act as if she’s the only one who matters.”
“She’s the only one we were ordered to bring home,” Grass said bluntly.
Zara spit out a curse in Lebanese.
“Don’t think I don’t understand it when a woman says I have the face of a pig.”
“You misunderstood,” Zara said sweetly. “I said your face looks like the ass of a pig.”
Grass’s lips twitched, but the humor did not last. He sighed heavily. “Zara, we’re on the same side.”
“Sometimes, I wonder. The girls are not safe here.”
“It’s only until we find Lila.”
“And who’s going to protect them in the meantime?”
“Half the team will stay with them.”
“Four men? Against the hordes Nakob can summon if it ever gets its act together? You’re Navy SEALs, not gods from Olympus—not that those ambrosia-intoxicated drunks were any good anyway.” Zara’s scowl deepened. “Twenty-four hours. I want the girls out of here in twenty-f
our hours whether or not you’ve found Lila.”
“We don’t have a lead on where she is.”
“I bet Yasmin knows. Find a telepath. Have him rip it out of her head.”
“I don’t have any telepaths on my team. I wouldn’t trust any telepath not on my team. Klah’s empathic abilities, however, could—”
“Klah’s an empath?”
“It’s in his file.” Grass smirked. “You didn’t read it, did you?”
“Seriously? Who has time to read all that crap? He’s an alpha empath?”
“Not too many of those around, are there? No, he’s just an empath—a minor one, according to his file—but God knows how the Mutant Affairs Council classifies those things.”
Damn it. She did not have psychic shields and could not have kept her emotions private from even a half-assed empath. She glared at Grass. “Any other mutants in your team?”
“No. Does it matter?”
“Not any more, obviously.” She scowled. “You shouldn’t trust anything you feel when you’re around empaths.”
“Just out of curiosity, Zara, is there anyone you trust implicitly?”
Danyael Sabre. An alpha empath. To silence the traitorous—and completely contradictory—thought, she asked, “Do I look that naïve?”
“Stupid question, sorry.” Grass shook his head. “Back to Yasmin; do you want to question her?”
“The only interrogation methods I know are painful ones.” It was more fact than warning.
“Figured as much, but if you’re asking questions, chances are good she’ll focus almost exclusively on you, giving Klah a chance to probe her emotions to confirm if she’s telling the truth.”
Danyael had been good at that too. Zara scowled at the memory. The last thing she needed in her life was another goddamned empath. “Where’s Klah?”
“Guard duty for Yasmin. Interior room, second floor.”
Zara found Klah sprawled in a chair outside the room. Their eyes met, and he inclined his head but said nothing. If he were an empath worth the name, he would surely have sensed the change in her feelings toward him.
She braced herself to feel something—anything—a softening, perhaps, in her emotions, but she felt nothing. He was probably just biding his time, hoping to catch her off-guard. “I’m questioning Yasmin. You tell me if she’s lying.”
She unlocked the door and strode in. Curled in a corner, Yasmin looked up, her eyes filled with hate. Her dark brown hair was tangled, the hijab tossed aside in a crumpled heap.
“Where’s Lila?” Zara asked.
Yasmin’s lip curled into a sneer.
“Do you know?”
The sneer deepened. Pity, Yasmin could have been almost pretty otherwise.
“Guess not.” Zara shrugged. “No reason to keep you alive, is there?” She reached into her robe for her gun and aimed it at Yasmin. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Yasmin’s eyes widened.
“No, wait.” Zara tilted her head to the side, as if considering. “We could sell you, of course.”
The fixed hatred in Yasmin’s gaze broke for a split second.
Zara continued, her tone indifferent but her violet eyes intent, “It’s a pity you won’t fetch a virgin price—not after spreading your thighs for Yusoff and Hakim—but some men, particularly those with few choices, aren’t too discriminating. They’ll settle for anything alive. Human is a plus. Female is even better.”
Yasmin’s face paled, but she said nothing.
Zara leaned against the wall and affected an indolent pose. “The thing about men is that, whatever they say, they’re not too excited about women who fight back. If you could fire a gun, I’d take out your hand, but you’re obviously not much good around weapons, so I think I’ll do the men a favor and make sure you can’t run.” Zara pushed away from the wall and stalked toward Yasmin.
Yasmin scrambled to her feet. Her gaze raced around the windowless room. Her shoulders hunched as she recoiled from Zara, but she had no place to run. Zara closed her boots on either side of Yasmin’s right ankle, grasped Yasmin’s hips, and wrenched them sharply to the left.
Yasmin’s scream, a thin, piercing cry, did not drown the sound of bones dislocating and muscles tearing. She collapsed, folding in like a broken marionette.
Klah cursed aloud. “What the hell are you doing? We can’t do shit like that.”
“You can’t do shit like that,” Zara clarified. “You’re bound by the laws of the U.S. government and other international treaties. Terrorists aren’t. Fortunately, neither am I.”
“Zara, you can’t just hurt people—”
“You sound like someone I know.”
“Danyael Sabre, perhaps?”
Zara’s head whipped up. “You know him?”
Klah looked at Yasmin, his jaw tight with tension. A muscle twitched in his smooth cheek. “Danyael would never—”
“I’m not Danyael.” Zara’s violet eyes narrowed. “Are you going to preach at me, or would you rather interrogate her?”
“You might as well finish. The damage is done.”
“Not entirely. She still has another knee, and two elbows.”
“You can’t. She’s just a woman—”
“Who rallied Nakob to kidnap her class, including an ambassador’s daughter, and then brought Hezbollah into the mix to defend her against the SEAL team sent to retrieve the girls? Stop looking with your eyes and start using your head. You’re blinded by age and gender; just look at what she has done.”
“Get out of here. I’ll handle it.” Klah knelt in front of Yasmin. “Look, you need medical attention. I can help you. Just tell me, where is Lila Forrester?”
Yasmin looked up, her face tear-streaked. “You American whore!” she screamed at Zara between sobs of pain.
Zara’s smile was thin and devoid of humor. “I’m not, but you will be.” She shoved Yasmin to her knees, wrenching another wail out of her. Zara leaned down to whisper in Yasmin’s ear. “Those girls were your responsibility; they trusted you, and you sold them to Nakob. Do you have any idea what Nakob did to those girls? Do you know how many lives you’ve shattered? Many of them will never regard a man with trust ever again.” Zara’s tightly leashed fury unwound like a cobra coiling to strike. She twisted her fingers through Yasmin’s hair and yanked the woman’s head back, baring her neck. “There is no curse word in any language for what you’ve done.”
“They deserved it!” Yasmin screamed back. “Their fathers, their guns, took away my father.”
“I don’t care what your reasons are. Nothing can justify what you’ve done. Do you have any idea how many people hate Nakob? How much pain do you think you can handle when your enemies force themselves on you like rutting animals?” She locked her legs around Yasmin’s left ankle, and she gripped Yasmin’s hips. “I promise, you won’t even feel the agony of your dislocated knees, not when you’re naked and filled with your rapists’ seed. You’ll know, intimately, how rape breaks you on the inside. You think your father’s death broke you? This time, you’ll shatter.”
“No!” Yasmin screeched. “I’ll tell you. No more, please.” Her voice cracked over a sob. “I’ll tell you where Lila is. Alhassan. Alhassan. He took her.”
11
Klah closed the door on a sobbing Yasmin and turned to Zara. “What the hell were you doing?”
“Getting answers.”
“It would have hurt her less if you’d just killed her.” His voice shook, as if on the verge of breaking.
“Dying’s easy. Living’s difficult.” Damn it. Had she just quoted Danyael? Zara scowled, furious with herself. Why couldn’t the alpha empath’s influence over her die like he had been condemned to die in prison? The answer to the question “What would Danyael do” was obviously, “Nothing that you would do.” Guilt clenched her heart, but willpower kept her chin lifted and her face impassive.
The Navy SEAL shook his head. “You don’t know what you put her through. You don’t care.”
“Oh, I can imagine what I put her through, but you’re right, I don’t care.”
“You’re a heartless bitch.”
“I’m a heartless bitch for threatening her and letting her imagination do the dirty work? She’s the mastermind behind the kidnapping and selling of fifty girls into sexual slavery. What does that make her?”
Klah blinked hard and straightened. “I don’t think she’s the mastermind,” he said quietly. The fury had melted out of his voice.
Zara drew a deep breath. The rapid pounding of her heart slowed enough to allow her to match his calm tone. “Then what is she?”
“I don’t know. Feelings are…hard to interpret, especially under stress, but I don’t think she’s running the show. There’s too much going on. I can’t make any sense of it; too many layers are peeling back.”
So, he had sensed it too—the certainty that there were more powers at play than they had uncovered. Zara arched an eyebrow. “So, you think it’s Alhassan?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see what Grass thinks.”
Zara slouched in a comfortable wicker chair in one of the inner rooms, content to watch as Grass paced the room with the grace of a panther. Klah sat across from her, still as a statue.
“Alhassan?” Grass growled and spun around. “Isn’t he the Iranian businessman who owns those all-inclusive resorts by the Mediterranean?”
Zara nodded. “Egypt. Lebanon. Israel. He’s practically a household name in Dubai’s tourism industry.”
“He’s the closest damned thing Iran has to a money-grubbing capitalist. Why would he jump into bed with Nakob?” He looked at Klah. “Could Yasmin have lied to you?”
Klah and Zara exchanged a glance. “Unlikely,” Klah said. “Emotionally, Zara hit a raw nerve. She wasn’t really in any shape to lie.”
Grass frowned. “We’re still waiting on reports from Naval Intelligence. Until we have them, there’s no way to verify her story.” He glanced at Zara. “Anything from the girls?”
“Only that Lila was separated from the group about two days after they were taken. Nakob took her away. They could have turned her over to anyone, including Alhassan.”