by Lori Austin
“Either shoot the can,” Beltrane said in a voice that chilled Mikey even more, “or I’ll peel every last bit of skin from his bones. Your choice.”
Fedya must have agreed, because the guards twirled Mikey around again. His back was to the wall, with the can perched atop his head once more. The man doing the perching had to stand on his tiptoes to manage it. Mikey was tempted to shake his head, toss the thing to the ground, and stomp on it. But his shoulders—burning, bleeding—reminded him of what would happen if he did. Besides, this was Fedya. He never missed. Even with the rifle they’d given him—a muzzleloader, so long and heavy—Mikey didn’t believe Fedya would miss now.
Mikey met Fedya’s eyes, trying to tell him without words that he trusted him; he could do this. Fedya paled and bobbled the gun.
Mikey stood taller and threw back his shoulders, holding steady. They handed Fedya a bullet; he loaded the gun. Were his fingers trembling? No. It didn’t matter that the gun was not his own. Fedya was the best of the best.
Lifting the weapon, Fedya sighted down the barrel. Mikey held his breath. This would be over in an instant, and they could go back to Ethan with a new story to tell.
Mikey frowned. They should keep this one to themselves. Though Mikey didn’t like to have secrets from Ethan, he didn’t want him upset either. Maybe he and Fedya would make it their secret. It would bind them together like Alexi and Mikhail Romanov, the brothers they’d pretended to be in one of Fedya’s recent make-believes.
“Shoot,” Beltane ordered. “Now. Do it.”
Still Fedya hesitated. Was he hoping that Ethan would come looking for Mikey? It was too soon for that. Even if he did, would Ethan be able to stop this?
The avid sparkle in the guards’ eyes told the truth. Nothing would stop this. When the guards played their games, they played until they won. The longer Fedya succeeded, the longer he would have to play, until sooner or later one of his pedestals would—
The whip whistled. Sharp pain slashed Mikey’s chest. He bit his lip, attempting to keep the moan from breaking free, but he couldn’t.
“I won’t hurt you,” Fedya said. Mikey met his friend’s gaze. “I promise. Everything will be all right.”
Fedya pulled the trigger.
And the whole world changed.
• • •
When the guards crowded into Ethan’s infirmary, shouting and laughing, carrying a litter on which lay a very bloody body, Ethan thought he’d gone mad. What could possibly be amusing about that? Then he saw the size of the body, the clothes that it wore, and he knew he had gone mad.
“Mikey?”
Annabeth, who’d been dispensing what medicine they had—mostly cold cloths and a kind word—lifted her head. Even with all the commotion and the noise, she sensed his distress and started toward him.
He should have stopped her, should have sent her away right then, but he could think of nothing other than his brother lying on that stretcher, bleeding from the head.
“What happened?” He beckoned the guards to cross the open, looming space, dotted with the sick, the wounded, the dying.
He pointed to the table. As they lifted his brother onto it, he wanted to slap at their filthy fingers and order them not to touch. Instead he glanced at Annabeth; she was already gathering what he needed.
“The doctor asked what happened.” She held a bowl of water. The scent of the alcohol that had been “donated” just that morning wafted upward. Ethan shoved his hands into it.
Someone sniggered. Ethan’s gaze drifted over the men who’d brought his brother to him. “What did you do?” When no one responded, he shouted. “What?”
Annabeth laid a hand on his arm, but he pulled away, stepped toward his brother. There was so much blood, he couldn’t see—
Then Annabeth was there, wiping Mikey’s face, revealing the neat, round hole in his forehead. At least he was still breathing. Picking up a knife honed and sharpened into a scalpel, Ethan determined to keep him that way.
Another snigger. “Best goddamn sniper in the Union finally missed.”
Annabeth’s eyes met Ethan’s, then flicked to the speaker, that brutal excuse for a human being named Beltrane. “Fedya did this?”
“Sure did.” Beltrane fingered the blood – and flesh-flecked whip on his belt.
Ethan glanced at Mikey, but there was so much blood from the head wound, he couldn’t determine if there were lash marks as well.
“Fedya doesn’t miss,” Ethan said.
Beltrane’s grin revealed what was left of his tobacco-stained teeth. Though he appeared to be in his twenties, most of his thin brown hair was already gone.
“No one’s perfect, Doctor. You oughta know that.”
The guards enjoyed playing with the prisoners. The combination of viciousness and boredom meant their games were as evil as they were. For Ethan, they devised a simple torture—feed tainted food to Yankee prisoners, then watch while he tried to save them. He’d failed, of course; then they laughed and laughed and laughed. Was his brother’s injury merely another torturous joke?
“You made Fedya do this.”
“I made him pull the trigger? I made him miss? I think I’d have to break his fingers to get him to do that.”
Something in Beltrane’s voice caused Ethan to look up. “Where is he?”
The guard’s cruel mouth curved. “Gone.”
“You killed him?”
“’Course not. He’s been released.”
Annabeth’s hands jerked so badly, water sloshed over the side of the bowl and onto her shoes. “Released?” she asked at the same time Ethan said, “Why?”
Beltrane’s smirk widened. He lowered his eyes to Mikey, then raised them to Ethan’s as if to say, Isn’t it obvious? before he and his men walked out.
The next several hours passed in a rush of panic. Ethan had no idea what he was doing beyond digging for a bullet in very poor light, under terrible conditions.
He was a surgeon, but he’d never had to operate on someone’s head. He’d never encountered anyone who’d been shot there and lived long enough to reach a field hospital.
“You need to stop,” Annabeth said.
“He’ll die if I don’t remove the bullet.”
“Ethan.” She waited until he was able to tear his gaze from his brother and meet hers. “Neither of you can go on like this.”
Ethan was so tired and scared and lost, he just blinked.
“The bullet’s in too deep,” she continued. “Who knows where it’s lodged. If he hasn’t died with it in there so far, maybe he won’t.”
Ethan knew better. “The body rejects foreign objects with suppuration. Infection.” Which was often more deadly than the injury itself. Certainly he’d done his best to disinfect everything, but here his best was rarely good enough.
Ethan returned to work with a renewed fervor. He had to get the bullet out.
Minutes, hours, years later, Ethan found what he was searching for. He drew the obscenity from his brother’s head and threw it across the room.
“Enough.” Annabeth removed the scalpel from his hand, which ached almost as much as his eyes.
Mikey’s face was unrecognizable due to the swelling and the wash of blood. Head wounds bled fiercely. Digging into them only made them bleed more so. Mikey was ice white, his hand, when Ethan touched it, too cool.
Annabeth held a needle and thread, which was all they had in this hellish place to close a wound. As she made tight, tiny stitches in the raw flesh of his brother’s forehead, Ethan stood there, feeling helpless again.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” she said. “His respiration has increased from far too slow to far too fast.”
Head injuries led to slower breathing. Excessive loss of blood produced something akin to a pant. Right now, Mikey’s large chest pumped like a stray dog that had run after a rabbit in July.
“You did all you could,” she murmured. “Let him rest.”
Ethan wasn’t sure if Annabeth meant rest
in the sense of eternal, or just for the night. Either way, she was right. Ethan had done all he could for the moment. He could barely stay on his feet; his fingers had cramped from holding the scalpel for so long; his eyes burned; his head ached.
“You should rest.” Finished with her stitching, Annabeth pushed him toward the storeroom where he spent his nights. That small room was the one privilege he’d been given for all his hard work.
“I need . . .” His words drifted off. Ethan stared at his bloody hands, not quite sure what to do about them.
“I’ll finish in here.” She pushed him again. “You wash in there.” He walked in the direction she’d urged him. “I may be gone when you come back.”
Ethan turned. “What?”
“It’s past the time when they usually put me out.”
Every night before sundown, the guards escorted Annabeth to the women’s section of the prison. Every morning at sunrise, they escorted her back to his. He still wasn’t sure why.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Nine? Ten?”
He should have known that by the flicker of the lanterns. Someone had lit them; it hadn’t been him.
She spread hands as bloody as his. “Either they forgot, or they’re being reprimanded.”
Ethan laughed—just once, which was all he could manage. “For what?” She glanced at Mikey, whose only movement continued to be his puppylike panting. “This is Castle Thunder, Beth. One less Yankee prisoner is a good day.”
She flinched. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry about?”
She moved to Mikey’s side. “They’re Confederates. Like me.”
Ethan thought of all he had to be sorry about. When he’d been shoved into Palmer’s Factory, he’d thought he would never see her again, and that had bothered him almost as much as being here.
Ethan’s chest went tight. Words of love trembled on the tip of his tongue. He almost allowed them to tumble free.
But not here.
His gaze went to his brother and stuck there.
Not now.
CHAPTER 7
For an instant, Annabeth thought Ethan might take her in his arms at last. Then he turned away and disappeared into the storeroom where he slept.
A foolish longing. He was a spy; she was a liar. That didn’t mean she loved him any less. That didn’t mean she didn’t dream of his kiss, his touch, and more. Who knew what might happen. Just look at what had happened today.
Mikey dying on a makeshift table in a Confederate prison. Fedya forced to hurt his friend, most likely in as much agony as Ethan because of it. Ethan would be inconsolable if his brother died.
She should console him. Tomorrow was a mystery. But it appeared they, at least, had tonight.
After scrubbing the blood from her skin, she found a clean bowl and filled it with fresh water; she even managed to find a cloth that wasn’t soiled. Then she quietly opened the door to the storeroom and slipped inside. A lantern swayed, casting golden sprays of light across the floor.
A cot sat behind several empty barrels. Before the barrel he’d fashioned into a washstand, Ethan scrubbed his chest. Annabeth had never seen a man’s chest while he was conscious. Considering the way her body warmed and her hands itched to touch, her lips to taste, that was probably a very good thing.
He turned, saw her, and froze. “Is he—?”
“He’s alive. Still breathing.” She lifted a hand. “Slower. Better. But . . .”
“What?”
“There are lashes on his chest and back.” The sight of them had made her want to bloody someone in exactly the same way.
“I doubted Mikey would agree to let Fedya shoot at him without encouragement.” Awkward silence ensued. “Beth, I should—”
“Wash.” She lifted the bowl.
She tried to keep her gaze on his face, but she was distracted by the beautiful, naked expanse just below. So much smooth, olive skin.
He reached for his stained shirt, grimaced, and dropped the garment back on the floor. He peered around for another.
“You traded it for some thread,” she reminded him. The last of which they’d just used on his brother.
Annabeth crossed the room, set the bowl of clear water next to the bowl of red. After wetting the equally clean cloth, she turned. The back of her hand slid across his stomach.
He snatched her wrist—to pull her away or to pull her close, she didn’t know. Neither one of them seemed able to breathe.
“Let me,” she whispered.
Releasing her, he stepped back. She followed, pressing the cool, white cloth to his belly. The muscles beneath fluttered and danced. She stroked the material back and forth, back and forth. She wanted to make the same movements in the same place with her tongue. She traced her thumb there instead, and he tensed.
“Shh,” she whispered.
He bit his lip as she washed his stomach, then his shoulders and arms, but he let her. What else might he let her do?
The hair on his chest appeared soft. Slowly, she reached out, tangling one finger in a curl, rubbing it between her fingertips. “It is”—she lifted her gaze—“soft.”
He kissed her. Hard. She thought she might fall. She pressed both hands to his chest, wound her fingers into the softness, scratched her nails across his skin, and held on.
Her mouth opened; her tongue brushed his lips and slid, seeking, within. He tasted of heat and despair; she wanted to heal him as he had healed so many others, and this was the only way that she knew.
“Need . . . you,” he whispered against her lips. “Need you, Beth. Hold me.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck; he wrapped his around her waist as she pressed her body the length of his. The hardness at his center felt delicious, and she rubbed herself against it. He hissed in a surprised and somewhat pained breath.
She smiled, dazzled—his kiss, his touch, his face—so beautiful. “I’m dizzy.” She laughed. She sounded crazy.
Concern flooded his eyes. “Sit.”
He urged her to his cot, the only place in the room to sit. The rickety contraption teetered, creaked, held. That should have been enough to bring her to her senses, if her senses hadn’t been full of him.
The taste of his skin—salt and spice. The scent of herbs, they soothed. His breath, harsh like hers, arousing. His hands both rough and strong, but with her, ever so gentle. The hands of a healer. She pulled one to her mouth and kissed the palm.
“Beth, you should—”
Her tongue snaked out and tasted where her lips had been. His eyes widened. He looked away, swallowed, then looked back.
She patted the cot at her side. He shook his head like a child who did not want his medicine. She merely patted it again. “You wanted me to hold you.” She opened her arms.
He came into them with a sigh of surrender, kissing her with a desperation born of pain. She tangled her fingers in his hair, ran them across his shoulders, down his back, across naked, warm, smooth skin. She had never touched anyone like this, never wanted to. She couldn’t think why.
She’d like to spend a lifetime learning every inch of him, but while they might have tonight, they also might not. Who knew when someone might remember her and come calling.
He freed the buttons of her bodice and everything else that needed freeing—her corset, his trousers, their shoes. Wherever he touched, she burned; wherever he kissed, she yearned. She welcomed his weight; they fit together just right. Though the night seemed theirs alone, the room a place far removed, they knew better.
“Please,” she whispered, wanting him, needing him now.
He kissed her brow, began to lift himself away, and she clutched him tight. “Don’t.”
“This isn’t a good idea. Not now. Not here. There’ll be time enough—”
“Will there?” She locked her fingers at the base of his spine, pressed him ever nearer. “I could walk out the door and be hit by a cannonball.”
He lifted a brow. �
��In Richmond?”
Despite the constant movement of the armies in the area, the city itself had remained relatively unscathed. Because it was the capital of the Confederacy, the troops protected Richmond as if it were made of gold.
She brushed her lips across his jaw, relishing the tingle brought about by his beard. Still nestled between her thighs, Ethan’s hips moved forward on their own. Her head fell back, her neck arched, her breasts pressed into his chest, and he clenched his teeth.
“Don’t,” he managed.
She cupped her palm beneath the jaw she’d just kissed and left it there. “I don’t want to die without knowing this. I don’t want to live without loving you.”
“Don’t talk about dying.”
“Death is all around us, Ethan. Not a cannonball? Fine. Then a runaway carriage. A stray bullet. A deserter.”
“Don’t,” he said again, and his voice broke.
She understood. The idea of a life without him devastated her, too.
“Anything could happen to you,” she whispered, leaving unsaid what they were both thinking.
Like it happened to Mikey.
“Make me yours, Ethan. So I can never be anyone else’s.”
She waited, holding her breath, hoping, praying, and when he closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to hers, whispering her name with anguish, she believed she had lost. She lifted her mouth for one final kiss, and when their lips touched, everything stilled.
Then he was kissing her as he never had before. As if she were already his, as if she always would be. His teeth scored her chin, tasted her neck; his lips closed on a breast and drew deep.
“Please.” She begged again for the unknown.
She was so empty, she wept. When he filled her, something broke with a tiny ping of pain.
“Oh,” she murmured, more fascinated than afraid. Understanding bloomed with her smile. “I’m yours.”
“Yes.” He kissed her brow as he began to move within her. “Mine.”
She wanted to examine that statement further; she wanted to kiss and touch and cuddle, but what he was doing was so delicious. The rhythm of their bodies echoed the beat of their hearts. She’d never felt so enveloped, so loved, so chosen.