by Selena Kitt
They hadn't discussed what would happen afterwards… when—if—they all made it over the border. They hadn't had time, and besides, there had been an unspoken understanding that to do so might be to tempt fate. And Blaze's plan was risky enough already.
Too risky. With a sigh, Lena rested her chin on her knees and wondered for the umpteenth time whether she would make it out of this situation alive. Whether Gregory had believed Blaze. Whether she'd remembered the correct quote.
The Resistance was comprised of people who wanted to escape Saxian rule. It was a blanket term used by anyone whose political leanings made them a so-called 'enemy of the state'. Some branches were extremely organized; others not so much. Lena had met Gregory two years prior—his son had been one of her pupils. Over time, his veiled comments had given her the distinct impression that he wasn't a huge fan of the Saxian government; and one day she had risked her life by letting on that she felt the same way. He had slipped a card into her bag so she would know where to find him.
His was a little group; but it consisted of people who were determined to leave. Recognizing that they were too small, ill-equipped and weak to bring down the government themselves, they instead focused on plan B. Escape. But in all the time she'd known them; they had never even come close to actually formulating a plan. Desperate to get the ball rolling, unwilling to spend the rest of her life working at a school during the day and attending clandestine but essentially useless meetings at night, Lena had been the one to suggest they start monitoring the nearest border base. At the time, she'd had no idea whether she'd even be able to glean anything useful, but doing something was better than doing nothing. But not even she could ever have anticipated that she would wind up getting caught by someone who turned out to be on her side. And a small part of her was worried that she'd been wrong to put all her trust in Blaze. She hardly knew the man. He wore a militia uniform. What if it was all an elaborate trap? What if Gregory suspected it was all a big ploy and didn't believe a word of it?
And even if Greg did believe Blaze; who's to say he'll want to make the escape at such short notice? How can we be sure they'll manage to find—and collect—Sandrine? And how the fuck is Blaze going to get us out of here?
It wasn't a huge base, but there were enough guards that there was no way Blaze could overpower them by himself. Lena shuddered as visions of all the things which could go wrong started to creep through her mind. The horrible guards. The cameras. The dogs. Shit. The dogs. She had forgotten all about those nasty, drooling creatures bred specifically to put the fear of God into escapees. The walls of the base must be well sound-proofed, she mused, as she hadn't heard so much as a yip in all the time she'd been there. Maybe the beasts were kept outside.
A sudden, ear-piercingly loud alarm started shrieking, interrupting Lena's thoughts and making her leap to her feet; every nerve in her body coiled tense like a spring.
This must be it, she thought, fighting to remain calm. It's begun. Not knowing what to expect, what the plan was, all she could do was wait, her gut clenched, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. The alarm screeched for a few more seconds, then it stopped. A roaring silence ensued.
It felt like forever.
Maybe it was a false alarm.
Maybe something went wrong.
When her cell door finally flew open, she jumped back, blinking at the sudden glare of a torch being shone in her face.
"It's me," Blaze hissed in an urgent whisper, flinging some sort of cloth in her direction. "Put this on and let's go. Now."
Trembling, Lena reached for the material, recognized it was some kind of shirt, and tugged it on. Then Blaze took her hand, and they ran.
It was pitch dark, and Lena stumbled several times as Blaze powered on, dragging her behind him.
"Why are the lights off?" she panted, trying desperately to keep up, ignoring the pain in her bare feet as they both tore through the base.
"I killed the electricity," he grunted, not slowing down. "Made sure the dogs were locked up, hid the keys, set a fire in a disused cell, and blew all the fuses. It's the middle of the night, we've only got a skeleton crew; they're now all distracted trying to put out the fire and get everything working again. The cameras are out—for now—as are the fences, but we have to hurry."
Despite their pace, he wasn't even remotely close to being breathless. The man was as fit as he looked, Lena realized. She was having a hard enough time matching him step for step even without talking. Deciding to save all her other questions for later, she gripped his hand harder and kept running.
* * *
"They should be here by now." Blaze was pacing, his breath coming out in little white puffs as he spoke in the frigid night air.
Lena sat, stunned and wide-eyed, gazing at him. "Are you sure this is where you agreed to meet them?"
Panic was making him short-tempered, and he fought hard to control it so as not to take it out on her. "Yes. This is the only barn still standing for miles in either direction."
Huddled on the ground, dwarfed in his huge overcoat, she began to whisper; her lips were moving but he couldn't hear anything. Then he realized—she was praying.
"I knew I shouldn't have trusted you." The words had left his mouth before he could stop them. The resulting pain in her eyes made him regret it instantly.
"Me? This was your idea!" she said hotly. "It was a ridiculous idea in the first place. What exactly did you tell Gregory, anyway? Did you give him precise instructions with regards to how to find and recognize Sandrine?"
"Of course I did! I told him exactly what you told me—word for word. Besides, he knows the school, or at least, he said he does."
"He does," she said quietly. "His son was a pupil of mine."
Blaze craned his neck once again, trying to discern something—anything—in the distance. There was nothing but all-consuming darkness. At least that meant they hadn't been able to restore electricity on base yet. "I'm sorry," he said at length. "I'm tense. I shouldn't be taking it out on you."
"It's okay." She bit her beautiful lip. "I'm scared, too. I'd never forgive myself if anything happened."
Crouching down, he leaned in and kissed her gently. "No matter what happens, you should be proud of yourself. So many people would have given up—shoot, most people wouldn't even have attempted to do what you have."
Lena ran the palm of her hand over the grass by her side. "It feels just like normal grass," she said. "Hard to believe we're actually here. In Vraya."
"Well, we are, and we wouldn't be if it weren't for you." He kissed her once more, then closed his eyes, willing himself to believe… to remain calm. Not to think about the increasing possibility that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
"Still," she began, "what kind of new beginning would it be if—"
"Shhh." Blaze put a finger to her mouth; silencing her instantly. Straining his ears, he listened. Voices. Undoubtedly, they were voices, carrying in the still night air.
He stood up slowly, almost afraid to look in the direction from which the barely audible sounds were coming. Either they've made it; Gregory and the others, or…
No, the alternative didn't bear thinking about.
Lena's sudden whisper by his ear startled him. He hadn't even heard her stand up. "Oh, my God. It's them!"
Sure enough, as he watched, the shapes of several people began to become ever more apparent in the pre-dawn gloom. Adults… and yes, a few children. There was no way these were guards, come to recapture them.
A tiny prickle of hope started deep in Blaze's belly and crept up until all his limbs were tingling with excitement. He was desperate to run towards them; to see whether Sandrine was among them, but he knew restraint was in order. They were walking silently, calmly, just as he had instructed. Hurtling across the field to them would only risk drawing unnecessary attention—the base was still within earshot if the wind direction was right. Besides, his niece hadn't seen him in years. She would have to be introduced to hi
m carefully—snatching her up in his arms and hugging her as he ached to do would merely frighten the poor girl.
Turning to look at the woman by his side, he noticed the tears trickling down her cheeks. "Oh, Blaze," she said in a choked voice as the group came closer. "I see them all."
"Sandrine?" he managed, despite the lump in his throat.
She nodded. "It worked. We're free!"
Epilogue
"It's been a week now, and I still wake up every day thinking it was all a dream," Lena said, snuggling back into Blaze's chest.
"I know. I feel the same way. I can hardly believe we managed to escape."
With a mischievous grin, she pinched his thigh, giggling at his little grunt of discomfort. "Well, you obviously felt that, so it all must be real. And I adore the way you seem so happy to dish it out but you can't take it," she added, coyly.
"Everything you do to me, you'll get back tenfold," he said gruffly. "And you'll love every second of it."
"Says who?"
"Says me."
She rested the back of her head against his shoulder, enjoying the solid, bulky, comforting feel of him. "Well, even if you were right, I wouldn't admit it."
"I wouldn't expect you to."
"You know what? I don't think I've ever felt this happy before."
"Me either. I never would have expected this to happen when my men first dragged you into our base," Blaze said drily.
Lena shuddered. "I'd rather not talk about that anymore."
His arms tightened around her, protectively, reassuringly. "I get that, baby, but I'm still so glad it all happened. Otherwise… we wouldn't have this. We wouldn't be here."
"I guess not."
"And you enjoyed parts of it." His hand slipped down to cup her breast.
"Stop it, people can see us!" She gestured with her chin to the children playing on the lawn beyond the porch steps upon which they were sitting. Sandrine was among them; her golden hair glinting in the pale winter sun.
"You know it's true."
Lena was unable to suppress a chuckle. "Yeah, well, I'm still getting used to all that."
"The wonderful thing is, we now have all the time in the world to get to know each other, without prying eyes, without having to pretend to be something we're not," Blaze said solemnly, pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck.
She shivered, still marveling at the way her whole body tingled at the lightest touch from him. "So what happens now? We can't stay at this shelter forever."
"We'll stay here for a while longer, while we work out a plan. Sandrine is already getting used to me, and she obviously adores you," Blaze said.
"She still calls me Miss Taylor," Lena said wryly.
"Force of habit. She'll come around. Soon she'll be calling you Auntie Lena."
"I like that, it has a nice ring to it." Lena inhaled a deep breath of mild afternoon air. "And I suppose, if I'm seeing her uncle, I am basically as good as her aunt."
"If you were married to her uncle, you would be her aunt!" Blaze said, so nonchalantly that Lena wasn't sure whether she'd heard him correctly.
"Did you just propose to me?"
He chuckled. "Maybe."
"Oh dear, if that's your idea of a romantic proposal, we have a long way to go," she retorted, but she was smiling like an idiot.
His hand slid along the top of her thigh, sending tingles of delight sparking up her spine. "Don't worry," he murmured, "it wasn't the official one. When I ask you to become my wife, I am going to do it right. But I will ask you. I can promise you that."
Lena was saved from having to reply by Sandrine rushing up to them, her plump cheeks rosy, her blue eyes shining. "Uncle Blaze! Miss Taylor! John says they have chocolate milk here. Can I have some?"
The other children were already stampeding up the porch steps beside them. "Of course you can," Blaze said. "But make sure there's enough to go around."
"Yessir!" The child took a step toward the door, then hesitated. "Are we going to stay here forever now?"
"Not in this house, no, but we will be getting one of our own real soon. Why, do you like it here?"
"I do!" She turned to look at Lena, suddenly shy. "Will Miss Taylor be staying with us?"
"Would you like that?" Blaze asked his niece, the joy evident in his voice.
Sandrine nodded happily, then skipped off to join the other kids.
"So would I," he murmured into Lena's ear, pulling her even closer against his chest. "Very much indeed."
The End
Tabitha Black
Tabitha Black has been writing erotic spanking fiction for over a decade, mostly in the ageplay and historical genres. More recently, she's discovered the joys of writing more contemporary, edgier books with a greater emphasis on BDSM – one of which, Sharing Silver, has been nominated for a Golden Flogger award and won the Spanking Romance Reviews award for best ménage.
Having lived in four countries on three different continents, and been an active participant in her local kinky communities, she likes to "write to discover what she knows". Her own personal kinks include anything and everything to do with spanking, fireplay, edge play, scarification, age-play, and too many more to count. Some girls like wood, some adore leather, but Tabitha is partial to big, shiny, ornate knives… nothing else makes her quite as weak at the knees.
She lives in Europe with her Daddy/Sir, and a lilac cat who likes to sneeze in her face. She has a weakness for great cappuccino; strong, dominant, kind but brutally sadistic men (and counts herself amazingly lucky to have found one in real life); brilliant books, and tattoos.
Tabitha loves getting mail, so if you want to drop her a line, please do so at [email protected]. You can also check out her blog here, follow her on Twitter @BlushingTabitha, Instagram, or join her Facebook page. Thank you for reading!
Don't miss these other exciting books by Tabitha Black and Blushing Books!
Taken in Hand
Estelana
Summer Camp
Little Tudor Rose
Educating Eva: Silverlake Priory Book One
The Abbeyville Way
Conquering Cassia
Fulfilling Her Fantasy (Masters of the Castle Novella)
Sharing Silver (Masters of the Castle)
Confessions of a Spanking Author (Anthology)
Exfil
By
Bethany Burke
Prologue
There's garbage… and then there's Aleppo garbage. As in Syria.
Most Americans haven't a clue about how bad something can smell. Emily remembered going to the dump with her father when she was a little girl. They had trash men that came to the house every week, of course, but every once in a while they'd have something big that the trash men couldn't take. So they'd borrow her uncle's pick-up truck, load up whatever it was, and trundle out into the Virginia countryside for an adventure to the dump: Emily's dad, her big brother Justin, little sister Rachel, and Emily.
That big dump smelled horrible! And after they got done dropping off whatever it was—the old sofa, the broken-down washer—their dad would take them to the country convenience store along the road and buy cold sodas. Their mom didn't let them have sugar usually so this was a treat, too. They'd drink those sweet fizzy sodas as they drove back home and talk about just how stinky that dump was.
Emily had had no idea. No clue whatsoever.
Chapter One
10:55 PM Local Time – Aleppo, Syria
In utter darkness, Emily Becker sat in the filthy basement of a bombed out building in Aleppo, Syria and wondered if she were going to die, hell, wondered when she was going to die.
There was crushed masonry under her ass that hurt terribly, but she was too terrified to put her hand down to push it away, because if she did she'd have to also touch the dank slime beneath her. She truly did not want to know what she was sitting on.
Her leg hurt badly. She'd fallen into the basement as she'd tried to wiggle through a broken window, not r
ealizing that under the broken window there was no floor, and somehow her leg had twisted as she fell. She'd fallen maybe seven feet and her ankle had hit a chunk of masonry on the ground. At least nothing was broken, she was pretty sure about that.
A torn area on her head still bled in a slow sticky flow. She had no idea how she'd gotten that injury, but she thought it possible that she'd been grazed by a bullet, because she knew that had happened before she'd fallen. Neither of those injuries were serious, nowhere near life-threatening, yet, with the filth around her, without treatment, any open wound could and probably would get infected. A dozen other bangs and scrapes throbbed and stung.
It didn't matter anyway—really truly did not matter—because the stink would kill her long before anything else, except maybe a bullet. A miasma utterly surrounded her. She couldn't breathe… Unfortunately, in life one has choices about a great many things, but breathing is not one of them.
She couldn't NOT breathe.
Aleppo, one of the largest cities in the Middle East, had a population of nearly two million before the fighting had started, and for a city of that size, its infrastructure had never been wonderful. Now, somewhere nearby a sewage pipe had burst, but residents in the houses feeding into the pipe were still desperately trying to flush their toilets. As a result, human excrement flowed in an open channel through the basement where she sat.
But over it all was the stench of death. Animals for certain, probably people too, and very nearby. She hoped there were no bodies in the actual basement with her, but she was not optimistic. Every time she took a breath, she gagged, nearly vomited.
Between her back and the wall was a backpack. She knew when she'd come into Aleppo that she was risking her life and she felt that—for what was now in the backpack—would be worth it. One of the greatest archeological discoveries of all time. A game-changer. A find to challenge the Dead Sea Scrolls. She'd heard all that and more in the whispered conversations that had convinced her to come.