by Luxie Ryder
“Oh, thank God. You’re alive.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Where are you?”
“On the island.”
“So they haven’t arrived yet?”
Her brain throbbed from trying to make sense of his words. “Who?”
“The rescue helicopter that’s been sent to pick you up.”
“Rescue?”
Richard sighed and spoke again, this time sounding much more like the mellow ex-hippy dude she knew. “Sweetheart, are you sure you’re okay?”
“My head hurts,” she said, wincing as she touched a hand to it. “I think I hit it on something.”
“Damn.” The phone went silent for a long time, forcing her to check he hadn’t hung up. “Yes, I’m here Amber. I could kill that prick David for leaving you alone like this.”
“David’s here…somewhere,” she said, wondering where he had gone. For the first time, she noticed the carnage around her. Their belongings and equipment had been half buried underneath lava-like sludge. “Oh, God, what happened?”
“Don’t you remember?” Richard’s gentle tone did nothing to settle her heightening sense of panic.
Amber frowned. “Not really. But looking at the evidence, I’d say there’s been some kind of rock fall or landslide.”
“Yes, that’s what happened. That’s probably how you hurt your head, sweetheart. But don’t worry, help is on the way.”
“David! Oh my God. Is he trapped? Maybe he’s under all this mud. Richard, they’ve got to help David.” Amber tried to stand but a wave of nausea knocked her back onto her knees.
“David is fine.” Richard’s voice lost its familiar warmth. “He left you there and went off in the dinghy to get help. Or at least, that’s what he’s telling anybody who will listen. Beats me why he didn’t just stay with you and use his phone if you both survived. The Coast Guard picked him up, rowing in the wrong direction in the dark.”
“I don’t remember…” Amber felt the phone slipping from her grasp as the need to sleep overwhelmed her again. She could hear Richard’s voice coming from a long way off and she answered his frantic shouts but couldn’t be sure he heard her. Gradually, another sound drowned him out—a loud mechanical whirring. A strong wind accompanied the noise and she put her hands over her face to protect it from the sand being blown into her nose, mouth and eyes.
She heard voices approaching and then a cold, firm pressure on her forehead that she shrunk back from. Amber moaned at a sudden pain at her temple and tried to push whatever had caused it away.
“We’ve got you, Ms. Kirkwood,” someone said.
A sharp, unpleasant sensation in her arm pissed her off and she tried to tell them to leave her alone and stop sticking things into her, but then a nice, warm feeling of peace settled over her and she didn’t care what they were doing as long as they let her go back to sleep.
* * * *
Amber groaned in protest when she woke again to bright morning sunshine that intensified the throbbing ache in her head. The pain medication had worn off—and that sucked—but at least she knew where she was. She’d woken many times in the night and had been afraid to find herself in a stark, white room she had no memory of. Eventually a nurse told her that she had been taken to a small coastal hospital in Maine, arriving sometime before dawn. A vague memory of a helicopter ride nagged at the edges of her mind but she remembered every bit of having her wound sewn up. Jesus Christ, that had hurt. They claimed she only had six stitches but Amber swore they used a fishing hook to do them.
As the only patient in the small, four bed ward they’d put her in, she’d had nothing to do but sleep, pee or stare at the ceiling all night. The morning brought with it hopes of freedom—she longed to get back to her own home and wash the caked blood out of her hair—but last night they’d said she had to stay a few hours longer “for observation”.
The door to the small room swung open and Amber turned to see David walk through it, carrying a huge bunch of flowers. Swallowing down a groan at the sight of him, she forced a tight smile onto her face. Richard had called again earlier and she understood why he had seemed so angry before. David had run off and left her and, no matter how hard she tried to remember what had happened, Amber just couldn’t imagine any scenario that would involve him leaving her to fend for herself. In fact, the only reason she didn’t kick his ass straight back out the door was that she needed him to fill in the gaps in her memory.
“There’s my girl.” David said, as if he’d done no more than lose her in a busy mall less than five minutes earlier. “How you doing, baby?”
“Not as well as you.” Amber didn’t try to keep the acid out of her tone.
If he noticed the barbed comment, he didn’t let on. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you.”
“Why? Because you wouldn’t want people to know that you ran off and left me to die?”
David’s smiled slipped. “I went for help.”
“Why didn’t you take me with you?”
He spread his hands in an open gesture that she instantly distrusted. “You were hurt. And…and I couldn’t be sure I would make it. I would never put you in that much danger.”
“And leaving me alone with a concussion seemed like a good idea to you? What if I’d started to convulse or swallowed my tongue?”
“Look, I didn’t know how badly hurt you were.” David reached for her. “The important thing is, we are both okay now.”
Amber shrugged him off. “Why leave the island? You could have called for help from there.”
“I was in fear for my life and I panicked. The landslide wiped out our camp, burying everything, including you. I didn’t know if you were even alive by the time I made it to the boat.”
“You didn’t stop to check?” His story got more fantastic by the minute. Something didn’t add up.
David sank down onto the bed, trying in vain to clasp her hand in his. “It wasn’t that simple.”
“Sounds simple enough to me. We were in danger, and you ran without a thought for me. All you cared about was saving your own neck.” She folded her arms, watching his reactions carefully. “I guess I can understand. It’s not like I was ever anything to you. But what I don’t get is why you just didn’t wait at a safe distance and then come back. Did it occur to you as you were rowing away that I could be buried underground somewhere, struggling for air?”
“Fuck, Amber. What do you take me for? I knew you hadn’t been buried alive.”
“How?”
An emotion passed over David’s features that made her stomach clench in trepidation. He dropped her gaze and fell silent for so long that she thought she might lose it if he didn’t tell her what the hell had happened. Finally, he met her stare. “Don’t you recall anything?”
“Not much. I remember stopping on the hill and then realising I was in trouble. I heard you shout for me to run and I did, as fast as I could. I knew I wasn’t going to make it to safety and I remember screaming as darkness closed in over my head…and then the next thing I can recall is when my cell phone woke me.” Confused by his silence, she carried on, voicing the other question nagging at the back of her mind. “How did I get out? I mean, considering the mess I was in before they put me in the shower, I must have been totally immersed in the mud.”
“There’s a lot you don’t remember.” His voice drifted off and she could see him struggling with a decision.
“Like what? Tell me, David. Hopefully the missing part of my memory contains something about you getting a spine and coming back to help me.”
He winced and blew out a long, shaky breath. “Someone did help you but it wasn’t me.”
“What are you talking about? We were the only people on that island.”
“I kinda hoped you’d remember by yourself. It will make things easier when you talk to the press—”
“The press?”
His face lit up. “The news media are lined up waiting to talk to us about our esc
ape from the island.”
Amber’s head flopped back against the pillow. If David didn’t tell her right this minute what the fuck he was talking about, she would scream. “Why would the press want to talk to us?”
“Because of the guy.”
“What guy?”
“The one that saved you,” he continued. Her stunned silence gave him more time to speak and he didn’t waste it. “This guy, Amber, I swear to God he came out of nowhere. And what a big motherfucker—had to be six feet eight and three hundred pounds. He threw himself on top of you as the landslide hit and I thought both of you were dead.”
Amber searched her brain for something—anything—she could remember about the accident. David had to be lying, or covering his ass…or something.
She recovered her voice. “Both of us?”
He nodded, impatient to continue the story. “Until suddenly, he appears again and he’s got you under one arm, throwing rocks and trees out of his way with the other. Then he leaps up—had to be twenty fucking feet in the air—still holding onto you, and grabs onto an overhanging tree branch. That snaps off in his hand and as he is falling, he takes a mighty swing and propels himself across the valley and slams into another tree. I’ve never seen anything like it. Scared the crap out of me.”
David stopped speaking and a look of genuine concern settled on his face. Amber could only guess at her own expression. She could feel the hysteria bubbling up in the pit of her stomach and she knew she had to either laugh or cry. A high pitched giggle erupted before she could stop it and continued until a fresh wave of nausea sobered her up fast. The pain of her injury kicked in with a vengeance—draining her of the last scrap of energy she had left after hearing David’s insane story.
Amber turned her back on him and rang for the nurse. “I think you should leave now.”
“Okay, but we need to talk again soon—get our story straight before the interviews start.” Enthusiasm made his voice rise to a pitch that threatened to split her head and she put her hands over her ears to drown him out. “If we play this right, our lives will never be the same again. I’ve been talking to this PR guy and he says he can get us a book deal. Of course, we’d have to keep something back for that. No point telling everything straight away.”
The nurse came in, giving Amber the diversion she needed. “Please, get him out of here,” she begged.
The woman glanced at Amber’s face and obviously didn’t like what she saw. She gave David a look that would curdle milk and pulled him from the bed by a less than gentle hand on his arm. The fact he was being shoved towards the door didn’t stop him talking. Amber heard one last, rushed sentence echoing down the hallways before his annoying voice drifted away.
“Work on remembering what happened after he saved you, okay?”
But she couldn’t remember anything—and definitely not some freak of a giant who leapt through trees and defied gravity. Okay, so David didn’t want to admit to being a coward, but why come up with some bullshit excuse? She was injured, not terminally stupid. Why in hell had he thought she’d believe him?
Amber knew she’d get the truth out of him eventually, when she was well again and back on her feet. And then, David had some explaining to do—and it had better make a damn sight more sense than the crap he’d just filled her ears with.
Chapter Four
Bane moved back along the ledge under the window to Amber’s room. The nurse hadn’t seen him as she’d dragged David out.
David. Even the thought of his name made Bane savagely angry and the wall lost a huge clump of smooth mortar as a result. The idiot would get them both killed if he didn’t shut up. Solomon had called earlier, not long after Bane had watched the rescue helicopter leave the island, warning him word had got back to Katerina about his heroics.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Solomon had asked in his typical blunt fashion. “You know any exposure puts us all at risk.”
“I didn’t have time to think. I just acted. Don’t you ever have a weak moment?”
Bane had grimaced as he waited for the answer. Solomon’s only weak moment in either of his lives had been when he had allowed himself to be seduced by the beautiful vamp who created him. Alexandra had picked wisely. She’d been looking for a mate when she took Solomon, and the young Marine had proved himself a perfect match. Solomon relished the power and immortality almost more than she did, and they’d been together ever since that day forty years earlier.
“Fuck weak,” Solomon barked back.
Bane had laughed, enjoying the banter with his comrade. The Fratia hadn’t called on their services in a long time. “I’ll rectify my error but I’m sure the woman won’t be a problem. She took a blow to the head and doesn’t remember me.”
“What about the guy?”
“He could complicate matters.”
“Katerina will be pleased. The only thing staying her hand now is that the old man won’t give the go ahead for any action until it becomes absolutely necessary. The guy hasn’t revealed anything too damaging to the press—yet.”
“And I intend to silence him up before he does. If he knows I can find him anytime I want to, it might encourage him to keep quiet.”
Solomon laughed. “Damn Bane. You picked one hell of a woman to piss off in Katerina.”
“She was born pissed off.”
“Well, now she’s looking for any excuse to punish you for leaving her.”
“Then why drag up some ancient law that is never enforced to do so? Why not take it out on me and leave the girl alone?”
Solomon laughed again. “Where’s the fun in that? She knows as well as I do that you don’t give a damn what happens to you anymore, but you’ve exposed a weakness—one she is going to exploit. The woman you saved seems to be the key. Jealousy can be a powerful motivation.”
Solomon had warned that he would give Bane as much time as he could to sort things out himself, but if the order came to act, he would move fast—and it would be best if Bane didn’t get in the way. Bane resisted the urge to remind Solomon that he would be no easy conquest and left the island as soon as the call had ended.
He hadn’t needed to track her far once he’d swum across to the mainland. The small community hospital seemed the logical place to take her. From there, he caught her scent, locating her room easily when he stalked the hospital grounds.
Bane had checked on Amber through the night. She’d fallen into the dreamless sleep of those who thought they were safe and the worst was over. Guilt at putting her in a far greater danger than she could ever imagine gnawed away at him. He’d acted in good conscience—he couldn’t just watch her die on the island.
But he’d done no more than sign her death warrant.
Maintaining his vigil until the first light of dawn sent him to find shelter in the shadows, Bane had leapt the clearing to land in a tall oak beside her window. He’d tolerate the sun later if he had to. His shroud would offer some protection and the burns would heal in time provided he didn’t stay exposed for too long. But he didn’t plan on staying anywhere long. His only chance of saving her, if such action became necessary, would mean thinking and acting fast.
David’s visit had unsettled her but the knowledge that she didn’t remember anything of her ordeal didn’t reassure Bane. Amber would still die if Katerina had her way.
His unease increased after David left. Bane whiled away the morning watching a crowd of journalists gather at the entrance to the hospital. After listening to the conversations going on in Amber’s room, he knew she would be leaving in a few hours and that David would be coming to collect her. He had to be the responsible for the swarm of media waiting for her. The fool had probably called them himself. Their chances of survival were deteriorating by the second. David’s time was running out and if Bane couldn’t stop it, Amber’s would be gone too.
As if activated by his train of thought, the phone in his pocket vibrated, alerting him to an incoming call. He didn’t need to answer it to
know what he would hear.
Solomon spoke only once. “The order has been issued.”
Bane didn’t have time to mutter a thanks for the warning before the line went dead. Solomon had put himself at great personal risk. The Fratia de Sange expected total obedience and loyalty. Any infraction—including defying them—would be punished severely.
His chance to stop the situation from escalating had disappeared, thanks to David’s stupidity. Bane’s hands twitched anew with the now familiar urge to kill him. Venom flooded his mouth as his teeth descended and a low growl tore from his throat. The almost overwhelming desire to bleed David dry stopped Bane’s rage cold. He could never allow that side of him to surface again, no matter how satisfying this particular human’s death would be. Besides, the longer both targets stayed alive, the fewer hunters there would be to focus solely on Amber.
Sounds of an argument in her room drew his attention to the source of his troubles. She refused to leave through the main door despite David’s pleas. “Forget it. I can call Richard to pick me up,” she said.
“Okay, we’ll avoid the press this time. I guess it will heighten the interest some if you are hard to find.” David prowled the room, snapping his fingers repeatedly as if hoping the rapid tempo he was splitting the air with would help speed things up.
The doctor signing Amber’s medical charts handed her a box of medicine, going over the instructions with her, before asking if she felt ready to leave. Her grateful smile satisfied him and then he turned to David, all of his earlier kindness wiped from the doctor’s face.
“You—get the hell out of my hospital.”
David didn’t argue. The colour left his face before rushing back to pool in bright red spots on his cheeks. He couldn’t hold the doctor’s gaze. David turned to Amber as he side-stepped towards the door. “Uh, I’ll meet you out back in a minute, okay?”
Bane slipped from his hiding place to follow David, using the trees as a bridge from Amber’s window to the parking lot. David came into view and crossed the sun-baked tarmac to a light blue sedan. After tossing a small overnight bag onto the back seat, he drove the car over to the exit. David left it unlocked while he ran back inside the hospital to get Amber, and for once, Bane was grateful for his predictable stupidity. The dark shadow cast by the building covered most of the area, providing Bane with the cover he needed to get into the trunk. If he was discovered hiding then he would have to deal with it but for the time being, the trunk offered a perfect solution to the problem of keeping out of the sun whilst keeping tabs on her.