Savage Pursuit

by Michelle Marquis

  SIREN WARRIOR

  BOOK 5:

  SAVAGE PURSUIT

  by

  Michelle Marquis & Lindsey Bayer

  TORRID BOOKS

  www.torridbooks.com

  Published by

  TORRID BOOKS

  www.torridbooks.com

  An Imprint of Whiskey Creek Press LLC

  Copyright © 2009 by Michelle Marquis & Lindsey Bayer

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-60313-636-3

  Credits

  Cover Artist: Nancy Donahue

  Editor: Sara Kent

  Printed in the United States of America

  WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT

  SIREN WARRIOR BOOK 5: SAVAGE PURSUIT

  “A RECOMMENDED READ For Savage Pursuit! The Siren Warrior Chronicles keeps on getting better and better.”

  Joyfully Reviewed

  Other Books by Author Available at Whiskey Creek Press:

  www.whiskeycreekpress.com

  Siren Warrior Series

  Incubus Nights

  Midnight Becomes You

  The Love Machine

  To the fans.

  Prologue

  Death was everywhere.

  From the small huts the villagers lived in to the modest stone village center, bodies littered the streets in the beginning stage of decay. In the cloudy sky above, buzzards lazily circled, waiting for the band of mercenary intruders to leave them to their feast in peace. Desmond rode behind Gavin and Gypsy. As Desmond’s hyperia stepped over the carnage, an overwhelming sense of dread filled him. The last thing he wanted to see was Gavin’s wife raped and slaughtered, her body tossed like so much discarded trash among the common dead. He didn't know her very well but the effect that she had on his father was nothing short of amazing. Her influence had, unbelievably, driven Gavin to become a better person. Something Desmond would never have thought possible.

  Gavin had taken on that grim darkness he was famous for. He didn’t speak but took in everything: every rancid corpse; every crushed child; every burned out home. He was like the angel of death taking inventory of his new domain. After what seemed like a lifetime they reached the medical tent. All around it soldiers lay butchered, resting in their own dried blood and gore. The small detail had fought well but was overwhelmed by their attacker’s numbers. Desmond knew a couple of the dead personally. The pain that crept through him was as familiar as an old lover. It was a pain that greeted every soldier on every campaign as they watched their friends fall beside them.

  He swallowed the black doom filling his throat. His father dismounted to enter the tent and Desmond caught some motion out of the corner of his eye. Gypsy was starting to dismount as well but Desmond grabbed her forearm and shook his head. She looked upset but nestled back into her saddle as Gavin slipped inside like a ghost returning to the underworld.

  Desmond ached to cover his ears from that horrible roar he knew would come from Gavin with the discovery of Harlan’s body. Against his will, he was flung back in time to Gavin’s killing of his older brother Northe so long ago. He could hear it now in his memory as it echoed through his mind. He hated that roar—that bone-jarring battle cry that could only mean one thing—death.

  Clenching his teeth, he forced himself back to the present and waited. It was the longest vigil of his life and it felt like he had a noose around his neck waiting for that trapdoor to finally send him to a bottomless hell.

  But then Gavin emerged without Harlan’s body in his arms and Desmond dared to hope that maybe—just maybe—she was still alive somewhere. He sure hoped so because that was one miracle the world could really use.

  Gavin glared at each of them. When he spoke, he sounded like a maniac on the verge of an all-night rampage. “I want all of you to search every square inch of this village. Make certain Harlan is not here. You are to report back to me in ten minutes.”

  Everyone spread out searching. A few minutes later, Gypsy called out, “I found something!”

  Gavin and the troop joined her at a large bush partially obscuring the entrance of a narrow mountain trail. He stalked up and plucked a tiny strip of cloth off a spiky branch. He moved it up to his nose and inhaled it. “Clever girl,” he rumbled. Then he turned and addressed all of them. “Harlan is alive. We will ride all night to close the distance between her captors and ourselves. Everyone will keep up the pace or die trying. There is no room for failure here. I will have my wife back. I don’t care if it kills me or all of you in the process. She will be retrieved, dead or alive. Do I make myself clear?”

  A chorus of voices rose from the troops and soon they were all following behind Gavin, riding up the trail at a frenzied pace.

  Desmond glanced at Scarlet who looked as nervous as a cat in a dog pack. She looked over at him, pale and lost. She was in for some real school now that was for damn sure.

  He just wished he’d packed a much larger whiskey flask.

  Chapter 1

  Terror is a devastating emotion to feel for an extended period of time. It devours hope and forces death scenarios into one’s head with breathtaking vividness. But the real desolation isn’t so much the prospect of being killed but the possibility of losing a future with loved ones. That, for Doctor Harlan Theron, was a far worse fate than any beatings or torture her kidnappers could inflict.

  Harlan estimated that she and her AEssyrian captors had been on this muddy trail for at least twenty-four hours with only a few short stops. They’d ridden through the rainy night and into the balmy day without making camp, passing nameless towns and destitute villages that reeked with the stench of poverty and decay. On and on they rode, through the narrow mountain passes and shallow rivers with only her fear to occupy the time. The abrasive rope that bound her had already rubbed her wrists raw and her legs ached from the continuous riding. The images that played through her mind were made worse by not knowing why they had taken her after slaughtering everyone else. The screams and smells of the dying echoed through her memory and twisted her heart.

  Nothing could make her understand why an entire town had been destroyed.

  There was no war in this area and the town had nothing of value. It was as though they had taken pleasure in the desperate pain of those they murdered. Her quiet mourning then turned to the soldiers who had accompanied her to the satellite clinic. Some of them she’d known for many years and they had lost their lives defending her, had lost a future with their own loved ones. As she felt herself slipping under a blanket of sorrow she knew it was time to focus on surviving long enough to escape or be rescued. Shifting in the saddle, her mouth tightened into a painful wince as she wrung her wrists in the ropes trying to work in a little slack.

  Sulla, the criminal leader of this band of thugs, rode up alongside her and she immediately stilled her hands. He was a young male, probably around two hundred years old, but still remarkably large. Harlan guessed him at about two hundred and fifty pounds. He had three diagonal scars marring his face that looked to be trident marks.
One ran along his forehead to his jaw, one past his cheekbone and along the rise of his nose, and a shorter one on his chin. His metallic green eyes looked dull from inadequate nutrition as was common in these poor rural parts of the planet.

  “We need to stop so I can relieve myself,” Harlan complained to him in AEssyrian.

  Sulla squinted off at the trail ahead. “One more hour,” he replied.

  “No,” she said, making sure to keep her voice firm. “I can’t wait another hour. I need to go now.”

  Sulla barked an order to stop. The males up ahead reined up their mounts, looking back at them with vague curiosity. You’d think they’d be getting used to Harlan’s breaks. Although Sulla had resisted the stops at first, Harlan concocted a story about human female physiology and the necessity of relief every few hours or the potential for illness. She was sure it was much more detailed information than he ever wanted to know and finally he relented.

  Grabbing her hyperia’s bridle, Sulla escorted her to a small clearing of trees and dismounted. Carefully she slid down the side of her mount and almost fell from the stiffness in her legs. Once she had regained her balance she turned holding her hands out to him. He unbound her wrists laying the short length of rope over the front of his saddle. Then he took a few steps back and watched her. Mild disgust oozed throughout her stomach making her nauseous. He is not standing here watching me go to the bathroom.

  “Turn around,” she said, pointing at him and twirling her finger in a circle.

  A full-grown bull male would have been outraged at the way she was speaking to him, but Sulla was still young and apparently inexperienced in hostage taking. He gave a quick snort and turned his back to her. Harlan quickly tended to her business with as much privacy as she could expect. Pulling up her shorts, she buttoned them and pulled a few threads from the cargo pockets dropping them on the ground. Her lips were dry and tacky from the slight dehydration she was experiencing. Her captors were not depriving her of water, she was purposely limiting her intake. Since her bathroom breaks were somewhat infrequent she wanted her urine to be as concentrated as possible to help Gavin track her. Thankfully these criminals were too stupid to realize what she was doing. Any experienced soldier, mercenary or bounty hunter would have caught on to her little trail marking routine immediately and put a stop to it.

  While Sulla’s back was turned she leaned against one of the trees and wiped the sweat from her palms down the craggy bark before he turned around again. AEssyrians had an outstanding sense of smell; anyone following them would surely pick up the many scent markings she’d been leaving all along her journey. She had also dropped every item contained in her pockets along the way, including a few pens, some bandage strips, a thermometer and a small tube of antiseptic salve. All she had left to mark her trail now were bits of thread from her clothes, strands of hair from her head, and blood, sweat and urine from her body.

  There was no doubt in her mind that her husband, General Gavin Theron, was coming for her. He was an obsessively territorial bull male and the kidnapping of his wife would be intolerable to him. She also knew he loved her with a desperation that bordered on madness. For a second she almost felt sorry for these criminals but when she thought about the carnage that they had left in Sanguar the feeling passed quickly.

  Sulla mounted back up on his hyperia and roughly grabbed her upper arm. With little regard to how much force he was using he yanked Harlan up off her feet and dropped her into the saddle of the mottled gray hyperia that had been toting her around. Harlan cried out and viciously pulled at his fingers with her other hand until his grip was gone. The hyperia, agitated by the commotion, tried to bite him and got an angry right cross for its trouble. It shook its head a few times and hissed at the AEssyrian. Sulla ignored the beast and picked up the length of rope to tie Harlan’s hands again. “Is that really necessary?” she asked. “Where am I going to go? I don’t even have any idea where we are.”

  He seemed to consider this for a moment then left her hands free. It was a minor mercy she greatly appreciated. They rode back to the group and continued their journey. She had given up asking where they were going since, thus far, all her inquiries were met with silence. Harlan’s thoughts returned to Gavin. If there was ever a man she wanted on her side, it was her ruthless husband. It gave her comfort to know that he was hunting for her. That realization was made all the more convincing since he’d rescued her from touchy situations in the past. She recalled back when Emperor Megolyth was little more than the leader of a band of wandering marauders. Gavin had risked war to persuade him to release her after she’d foolishly ridden out to their encampment and was taken prisoner.

  Gavin was an interesting study in the hidden darkness of a man’s soul. Born in a whorehouse to a human prostitute, he’d grown up in the back alleys of AEssyrian society. He trained himself to fight and struggled through the military ranks until he’d achieve what few men in his position could dream of: a generalship. But the very thing that made him such a successful soldier made him a despicable mate. He was a brute and a bully to the women in his life and the military always came first. He was also a notorious drunkard and an unrepentant womanizer. Because of these vices, and so many others, he floundered from one failed relationship to another.

  Harlan met him while working a short medical contract on AEssyria. She smiled as she recalled how much she’d hated him. He was everything a sane woman avoided in a man: loud; arrogant; aggressive, and proud to a fault. Not to mention a little bit crazy. He pursued her for two years, forcing himself into her life to the point where he’d even physically prevented her from leaving the planet to escape him.

  But then something extraordinary happened.

  Through all his bad manners and annoying meddling he’d shown her the man he really was. Not the hulking evil general everyone else saw, but the man he would have been had it not been for all those demons of his past that haunted his mind. He bared his soul to her and vowed his love, and as much as she didn’t want to believe him, she did. That’s when he had her. And now, in the company of these ruthless murdering punks, it was clear to her that he was her best hope. Because the only thing that she knew for sure, the only thing that helped her keep her sanity, was the knowledge that her husband was coming for her. And he wouldn’t stop until he had her back, dead or alive. And if these scumbags ended up killing her, Harlan knew Gavin would give new meaning to the phrase “a fate worse than death”.

  Chapter 2

  The three moons climbed into the sky above and could just be made out through the treetops as they set up the first camp. After riding through the previous night and day, Gypsy’s muscles throbbed as she fed and watered her hyperia, absently watching the mercenaries set up Gavin’s tent. In the field the senior officers always had tents. It was where they held meetings, conducted briefings, and slept. The rest of the men and junior officers made camp on the ground among the members of their unit.

  Gypsy had never spent any time with mercenaries and just being around them made her bristle. They spoke to each other in low tones, watched everything that was done and listened to everything that was said. These vermin certainly gave her the creeps. She wished they didn’t have to rely on them but her mother had been kidnapped across the border and the neighboring king was not about to allow Gavin to march through his lands with an army. The king had granted permission for a rescue party of no more than thirty participants. All but three had to be civilians. Gavin had been furious but knew that they could have been barred from crossing the border entirely. Sometimes Gavin’s reputation could be a bit of a liability and despite Megolyth’s fondness for Harlan, the emperor wasn’t about to risk war for her. So here they were: her father, her half-brother, the new doctor and twenty-six probable criminals. She wished Caraculla had come with them. Her heart ached at how much she missed him and despite their argument she could really use his support, even if it was just to cry on his shoulder.

  Heaving the saddle off of her mount Gypsy carr
ied it over to a clear spot and dropped it on the ground. She unpacked some of her supplies and piled a few stones in a small circle nearby. Breaking off a chunk of dead wood from an old fallen tree she pulled her minitorch from her supplies and depressed the button several times until the flame ignited. Despite the exhaustion creeping through her body and numbing her senses she was angry that they were making camp at all. Logically she knew it was a necessity but the thought of her mother being assaulted or tortured while they ate and slept was making her crazy. If we could just ride a little longer maybe we could catch up. But her father’s rage was extremely unpredictable at this point and she couldn’t bring herself to question him.

  Her campfire had barely begun to smolder when she felt Desmond come up behind her. She looked back at him and smiled. At six foot five he was just a few inches shorter than Gavin and almost as big. For such a large man it was amazing how quick and silent his movements were. His long dirty blonde hair had been divided up into probably a hundred braids and tied back. She knew it was a style of ease that he preferred on campaigns. Gypsy also noted that his handsome face was pale with tension. She wondered if he might be sick. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Being around Gavin for too long causes me an enormous amount of stress,” Desmond replied, his voice sounding hoarse. “Speaking of which, he wants to see you.”

  Gypsy got up and walked over toward Gavin’s tent. Still somewhat lost in her thoughts her eyes caught sight of a large shadow before her and she stopped just short of smacking into one of the mercenaries. He stared down at her and made no motion to move from in front of her. Gypsy made hard eye contact with him. “Are you lost?”

  The mercenary watched her for a second longer than she was comfortable with. She placed her hand on the hilt of her saber. Gypsy kept an unwavering stare on him and he looked past her, probably to see where Desmond was. Then slowly he shuffled off to the side and walked away. She sighed and came to the entrance flap of Gavin’s tent as another one of the mercenaries checked the security of the stakes, slowly hammering one of them into the hard dirt. The flap was tied open and she could see her father inside kneeling on the ground studying a map stretched out before him. She cleared her throat and Gavin looked up. There was something grim and sinister about him that made her skin crawl. His features were hard and focused with the intensity of a compulsive lunatic.