Outlaw Lovers: The Claiming

by Jan Springer

  He nodded. “To this day I don’t know why it hadn’t registered on the computer, but yeah, I sure stepped on it.”

  A cold wave showered over her as she pictured the explosion that might have ripped him to shreds, left his crumpled body all alone in the desert, his lifeblood draining into the grains of sand on foreign soil.

  “What…what happened?”

  “I could have stepped off of it so easily, and let myself be blown apart so I could forget about you. I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t think about doing it. But then your smiling face appeared in front of me as it always did when I was in danger… Now that I think about it, maybe that’s why I was always putting myself into unsafe situations, so I could see your face.”

  Luke inhaled, and gathered her closer against him as if he wanted to make sure she was really there with him.

  A new kind of fear, one she’d never experienced before, slipped into her.

  “What happened with the mine? Someone must have come along and helped you in the nick of time, because I can attest to the fact that all your important parts are in great working order.”

  “No complaints?” he grinned.

  “None at all, Mister Very Well Hung.”

  “Mister Very Well Hung, huh? I think I like the sound of that,” he nibbled on her earlobe, making sweet shivers shimmy up her spine.

  “So who came along? I want to thank him for saving your life.”

  “Somebody you’d least expect…” He chuckled and continued, “I’d left the radio in the jeep so I couldn’t radio for help. I figured I could wait until the landmine defusers showed up. But later that day I saw the sandstorm in the distance. It was coming in and coming in fast. I had my goggles and mask in my jeep. I knew if I didn’t do something soon that looming sandstorm would choke me to death. So I prayed.”

  Agony powered through her.

  Not a day went by while she was incarcerated in the lab that she didn’t wonder what Luke was doing at any particular moment. She’d heard from the various nurses that took samples from her that many men had gone overseas to fight in the Terrorist Wars.

  She’d prayed so hard that Luke hadn’t been one of them. Instincts had told her he wouldn’t be sitting idly by. Deep in her heart, she’d known he’d be fighting for his country. Until now, she hadn’t realized he’d also been fighting himself. Struggling with the decision of whether he should die because she wasn’t in his life anymore. A love like that was powerful. A love like that would last forever.

  And she would do everything in her power to live up to that love.

  “I prayed like I’d never prayed before,” he continued. “Told the Big Guy upstairs that if he got me out of this situation alive I’d be forever in his debt and then I said something else… I told him that if you were dead I wanted to be dead, too. I told him it was up to him now. Did he want me to die out here? Or, did he want me to live and do something else with my life? So I stepped off the landmine and nothing happened.”

  “The mine was faulty?”

  “It was faulty to a certain extent. I’d walked about ten yards then it blew me right off my feet. I knew the Big Guy was trying to get my attention. Realized he must have something in store for me, and that’s why he let me live. Exactly what, I wasn’t sure, until that night when I got shot.

  “I’d heard the Barlows’ whispering about killing me, and so I knew I had to escape. I remembered how the Big Guy had saved my ass out in the desert. I figured he didn’t want me to have it end at the hands of the Barlows either. They thought I was too injured to run, and so when they turned their backs, I found my strength and hoofed it back to my truck. I thought about our church. I could barely drive there. The preacher found me slumped over in one of the pews, and I guess I was delirious or something. I’d been having visions about you. When I aimed my gun at him and mentioned your name, he spilled his guts. Told me he knew where you were. Told me he’d take me to you if I didn’t shoot him. At first, I didn’t understand what was going on, and then I realized he was serious. He knew where you were. I know it sounds kind of dumb and mushy, but that’s when I realized why He let me step off the landmine and why He let me survive the Barlows. It was because He wanted us married, Callie. So I married you…even though I don’t remember much of it, I was so drunk.”

  “You were a cute drunk, hiccupping all over the place.” Callie whispered, and gently kissed his warm lips.

  “How about I get cute with you right now…unless your pussy is too sore to accommodate me.”

  “Deliciously sore,” she purred, and slipped her hand beneath the sheets to softly scrape her fingernails along his thick erection.

  He inhaled sharply.

  “And I plan on making you deliciously sore, too, before I give you relief,” she promised, and nipped sharply at his bristly chin, giving him a prelude of things to come.

  Then she lifted up the covers and slid her head underneath.

  * * * * *

  It was the distinct sound of a familiar, heavy breathing that she’d been tormented with in the last several weeks of her stay in the government labs that drifted through the layers of Callie’s sleep.

  At first, she thought it was just another dream of Blakely, but when a cool finger trailed up along the side of her neck and settled beneath her chin, she knew it wasn’t.

  Her eyes snapped open and terror filled her as a familiar face hovered above her.

  Blakely! He was here!

  Before she could scream a warning to Luke, Blakely’s hand clamped over her mouth, pushing her head into the pillow.

  More faces hovered into view. She felt hands slip around her wrists and ankles, pinning her arms and legs down into the mattress.

  From beside her she heard Luke’s surprised shout, “What the hell—” It was quickly followed by a sickening thud and a yelp of pain from Luke.

  Then silence.

  My God!

  Luke!

  What did they do to him?

  She tried to turn her head against the death grip clamping over her mouth to see, but the hand wouldn’t let her budge an inch.

  Blakely hovered into view.

  He grinned down at her from beneath that black handlebar moustache she detested. Obvious amusement sparkled in his coal-black eyes as he chomped on a stick of tobacco gum.

  “You didn’t think I’d let my prize bitch get away from me, did you?” he chuckled, and turned his head slightly to spit a stream of tobacco juice from between a wide gap in his two front, yellow-stained teeth.

  She screamed into his hand, wanting to tell him he was a dirty pig, but all that came out was a garbled shriek.

  Blakely frowned his disapproval, and his pockmarked face lowered until it was inches from her, the horrid smell of tobacco splashed sickeningly into her nostrils making her gag.

  “You’re mine, Callie. And that baby those Outlaws put into you is mine, too. You didn’t think I’d let you escape the lab so easily, did you?”

  What?

  “Since I consider myself such a gentleman, I could never force myself upon an X-virus resistant woman to make her pregnant, so I had to let you go. I knew you’d end up here. I knew one of these boys would do the job of mounting you… I didn’t expect all of them to do it before I could get to you myself.”

  Oh, God! She was going to throw up. How did he know the Outlaws had claimed her?

  He lifted his hand off her mouth, but her legs and arms remained pinned by the goons.

  Immediately she turned her head to see what they’d done to Luke, and her breath caught in her throat.

  He lay sprawled on the bed, unconscious. A large, red, horizontal bruise blossomed across his rib cage.

  Standing over him was a man cradling a very large bat.

  “Don’t worry,” Blakely said. “He’s not dead. Just out of commission long enough to allow us to do what we came to do.”

  “What…what’s that?”

  “Take you back to my new laboratory, of course. You’
ll be safe and secure there, while I run more tests on you, and on that fetus you’re sure to be carrying.”

  Panic sliced into her brain.

  Think fast, woman! Think!

  “There’s…there’s no fetus. We used protection.”

  “You’ve forgotten that I have contacts with the government, my little bitch in heat. I got a copy of the Claiming video the instant one of your husbands filed the claim.”

  Callie’s stomach lurched.

  “Mind you, I was quite jealous to see you writhing in pleasure beneath all those well-hung lovers.”

  He ran his clammy fingertips up the length of her naked arm. The feel of his flesh on her skin blew red-hot anger into her.

  “Get away from me, you creep!”

  Once again, she struggled against the two men holding her down. Her efforts proved futile. Their lecherous gazes roved over the tangled sheets that surely must be giving them glimpses of her nakedness.

  “Such endearments will change, my sweetie,” Blakely chuckled. “Especially when you’ve been locked up for months without men fucking you. Then you’ll come to me willingly. By then you’re belly will be swollen with child. Your sex hormones raging through your system. Your orgasms will be unlike any you’ve just experienced with your new husbands. Did I mention that I prefer to fuck pregnant bitches? That’s another one of the reasons I let you go. So you’d get pregnant and then I could come for you.”

  Sick bastard!

  Callie closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness swamped her. God help her, this had to be a nightmare. Blakely wouldn’t dare hurt an unborn child, would he?

  But she knew the answer to that.

  He was a madman. Madmen would do anything.

  A sharp pinprick to her inner arm made her eyes snap open. Her blood froze when she saw the needle in his hand, watched in absolute horror as the pinkish fluid drained from the needle into her vein.

  The urge to scream stopped dead in her throat, and she felt the familiar sleepiness sweep through her.

  “You bastard,” she whispered, as the fast-acting sedative shrieked through her.

  Blakely smiled down at her. “Just like old times, isn’t it?”

  Before she could protest, she was being swaddled into the sheets.

  “You can’t do this. I’ve been claimed! I belong to the Outlaws,” she tried to say, but only a whimper of protest escaped her quickly numbing lips.

  Blakely answered her with a cold chuckle that made shivers of fear crawl up her spine.

  “Come darling, let’s get out of here. I don’t want you to see what Lurch here will do to your lover with his prized bat. It might leave a bad opinion of me when I’m fucking you.”

  He easily lifted her into his arms, his eyes glazed over with satisfaction.

  Oh, God! No! Please help Luke! Her mind screamed her silent horror, as she spied the other man pounding the baseball bat into his palm, the sharp sounds of wood slapping against flesh gave her the distinct impression he was only moments away from using it on a totally defenseless Luke.

  Once again, she tried to yell a warning, but despite her trying to, no sound emerged from her lifeless mouth.

  Then Luke’s helpless figure disappeared from her view as Blakely carried her out the bedroom, down the hall and out of the house.

  * * * * *

  Luke’s ribs ached like a son of a bitch every time he inhaled a breath, but he forced himself to remain stiff as a corpse, as he listened to a person moving at his side of the bed.

  The instant he’d awoken and realized Callie was in danger he’d been hit smack across his ribs. The brutal force had knocked the breath clean out of his lungs, incapacitating him. He hadn’t fully gone unconscious but he’d been close.

  While Blakely had confessed he’d let Callie out of the labs on purpose so she would become pregnant, he’d fought the overwhelming impulse to smash his fists into the mad scientist’s face. But he’d controlled himself, waiting for an opportunity to increase his chances of successfully getting Callie out of this nightmare.

  He didn’t know what Blakely had done to her, but he’d done something or Callie wouldn’t have allowed him to take her so easily from the house.

  He’d probably drugged her.

  Maybe it was best that way. At least she wouldn’t feel the terror of being kidnapped.

  At the sound of her slurred protests as Blakely had carried her from the room, he’d wanted to bolt from the bed, but he’d held tight to the thin fragment of control.

  His restraint had paid off.

  Now he had the element of surprise.

  He could hear the goon whistling softly, and Luke opened his eyes slightly to see what was going on.

  The man was leaning over the nearby dresser picking up Callie’s wedding ring.

  Son of a bitch!

  Now that the goon was preoccupied, it gave Luke the perfect opportunity to make his move.

  Gritting his teeth against the sharp pain searing across his ribs, he swung his legs up and over the bed. Both of his feet made solid contact with his attacker’s hard thigh. Luke pushed with all his might sending the guy flying across the room. He hit the far bedroom wall with a thud and slumped in a daze to the floor, the baseball bat dangling from his fingers.

  For a moment, Luke thought the guy would be out of commission long enough for him to retrieve his gun from the drawer, but the man shook his head then sprung to his feet as if nothing had happened to him.

  The bat was held firmly in his powerful hands.

  Oh, shit!

  “I’m going to knock your bloody head right off you,” the man chuckled as he took a couple of steps forward, readying to swing the bat.

  “Go ahead, make my day.” Luke growled, finding a strange courage in those familiar words from a popular Clint Eastwood classic as he readied himself against his attacker.

  “I’m going to make ground beef out of your face,” the man threatened, and took another step closer. “And I’m going to squash that cock of yours so you can’t fuck Blakely’s woman ever again.”

  “Blakely’s woman, over my dead body, asshole,” Luke growled.

  The man swung the bat, and despite the pain clawing at his ribs, Luke managed to duck the swing giving him the perfect opportunity to sucker punch the guy right in the gut.

  “Oomph,” the goon groaned, and bent over in pain.

  Luke moved in for the kill. Latching his arm around the man’s neck, he gave it a quick jerk.

  The snap of the spine breaking made Luke grimace.

  He hated that sound. Had heard his share of it in the army when they’d eliminated terrorists, one-by-one.

  He dropped the lifeless body to the ground. The man’s hand unclasped and Callie’s wedding ring shone brightly up at Luke.

  Sucking in a sharp breath as he bent over to pick it up, he quickly donned his jeans, retrieved his gun and headed toward the back door of the farmhouse.

  When he got his hands on Blakely and the rest of his henchmen, he was going to make sure they never forgot the name Luke Outlaw.

  * * * * *

  “I paid a high price to buy you for my research project,” Blakely cooed, as he placed Callie into the backseat of his awaiting vehicle and slid in beside her. Her neck felt so numb she couldn’t even keep her head straight. It lulled sideways giving her a perfect view of the bastard who’d just kidnapped her.

  Go to hell! her mind screamed.

  The urge to run was so great she swore she was doing it, yet her limbs could barely move an inch.

  “The instant I saw you when I was first hired at the laboratory I knew I wanted to have you for my very own harem of pregnant bitches. My wife, she’s a scientist like me; she will really enjoy fucking you, too. We love threesomes.”

  Someone actually married this creep? And from what he’d just said she was obviously just as sick and twisted as he was.

  She tried to convey her contempt to him by staring at him long and hard, but he just kept smiling at her, his
frosty eyes boring into her very soul making her feel so cold she couldn’t stop herself from shivering, or at least she thought she was shivering.

  “We have to run some tests to make sure you are indeed pregnant. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be. You are a very healthy woman. Your eggs had been very receptive to my sperm in the laboratories.”

  She closed her eyes against the wash of nausea at his words.

  “But then of course you took care of my experiments when you smashed the vials. When we get back to the lab I’ll extract some more eggs from you, and of course, we’ll have to take some vaginal swabs to make sure those Outlaws didn’t infect you with something dangerous, what with all those women they’ve been with during their stay in the army.”

  At the mention of the Outlaws, Callie couldn’t stop the tears from rolling from her eyes.

  Oh, Luke, I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry. I should have stayed away. I should have left you and your brothers instead of getting you all into trouble. For all she knew Colter, Cade and Mac could already be dead.

  And Luke…

  Oh, God! She couldn’t think about what was being done to him in there.

  “Those soldier boys were very well taken care of by the government while they were away from home. The government knew they’d have to keep those troops satisfied if they wanted the job done right. They even purchased and conscripted women. I sold my very own stepsister to them with the stipulation they turn her into a whore.” His voice turned angry as he looked back out the window. “That’ll teach her for rejecting me.”

  He’d dared to try to have relations with his stepsister?

  He was sick.

  “I’ve no doubt she’s serviced hundreds of men by now. A fitting end for such a beautiful, uptight woman. I’m sure every man in the army enjoyed her.”

  Blakely frowned, and pressed a nearby button on the armrest. The window whirred downward.

  “What’s taking Lurch so long to get the job done?” he called out to one of the two men who stood beside the car.

  “Maybe he’s enjoying himself too much,” came a reply.