The authorities were going to be looking for whoever it was that had broken into the med center.
She stopped again, searching in vain for anything that might look familiar. When she saw nothing, she prodded her tired brain, trying to retrace her movements. The med center was practically in the center of Gallen. She'd headed roughly north, she thought, when she'd run from the patrol and Reese and Dante's plantation was north of town.
But how roughly north? And what direction had she taken after her collision with the guard? East, she finally decided.
So she was now headed the wrong way.
She thought.
The stream could have taken her in another direction entirely.
Abruptly, she remembered the little stream she'd found when she'd gone exploring with Cain. It must be the same stream, and if it was, then it wound around Gallen and would take her near the landing field, hopefully near enough she would be able to see the security lights.
Unfortunately, she'd left the stream almost an hour before. Sighing, she turned and began to retrace her steps. After walking a little more than twenty minutes by her calculations, she heard the sound of gushing water. Hopefulness surged through her and she hurried onward. She'd just reached what she thought was the embankment when a cold, clammy, very hairy arm snaked out of the darkness and caught her around the waist, jerking her back tightly against an equally hairy chest. Almost at the same moment, a large hand clamped over her nose and mouth, cutting off her air supply.
Panicked when she couldn't drag in a breath of air, Amaryllis’ fighting instincts kicked in sluggishly. She swung her arm reflexively toward her captor, connecting with a bony, hairy shoulder hard enough the creature let out a howl of rage. It didn't release her however, and within a few moments the darkness was no longer merely around her, it was clutching at her, sucking her down into nothingness. In vain, she clawed at the hand that was suffocating her, her efforts becoming weaker and more futile by the moment. Her last thought before she lost consciousness was that she'd killed Reese's baby and herself in the process.
* * * *
Reese wasn't certain what woke him, but he was instantly wide awake. He sat up, listening, but heard no sound that seemed to indicate a threat. Slipping silently from the bed, he pulled his sword from its scabbard and crossed the room, easing the door open. All was quiet, but he found he couldn't shake the sense that something wasn't right.
Leaving his room, he made his way down the stairs and checked the first floor, room by room. He met up with Dante when he reached the stairs once more.
"What is it?"
Frowning, Reese glanced around the foyer, looking for anything that seemed out of place. “Something woke me."
Dante nodded. “You take the front. I'll take the back."
When Reese reached the rear of the house, he found Dante studying the ground beneath Amaryllis’ window. His heart seemed to seize in his chest as he glanced up at the house and saw that her window was open. Cain was leaning out, his expression grim.
"She went out here,” he said when both men looked up at him.
Reese looked down at the impressions in the soil. “She was alone,” he said neutrally.
Cain landed on the ground behind Reese and Dante. “When she left, at any rate. I've got a feeling none of us are going to be too happy when we find out what our darling mate has been up to."
Reese sent him a sharp look. “Do you know what this is about?"
"I could guess, but it would only be a guess. I don't know anymore than you do."
"The child?” Dante hazarded.
Cain glanced at him in surprise. Reese looked as if he'd been pole axed.
"She told you?” Cain asked.
Dante shook his head. “She was ... deeply disturbed, but she would not trust me enough to speak to me. It is only a suspicion I had."
"She is breeding?” Reese asked hoarsely, glancing around the area as if he thought she might magically reappear. He didn't wait for either of the others to respond. After glancing at the footprints again, he lifted his head, gauged the direction and took off at a run. Dante and Cain fell in behind him.
Dante glanced over at Cain. “You have no weapon. If we run into trouble, you will be the least useful. You should return to the house to watch over her if she comes back."
Cain's lips tightened. “It's nearly dawn. She would have returned by now if she could. I'm thinking she'll have more need of me wherever she's at."
The trail they followed led them to the med center. When they arrived, city security was still investigating a break in. The three retreated a short distance to consider the situation. It seemed indisputable that Amaryllis was the one they sought, and that she'd eluded them. The question was, where had she gone when she'd escaped?
Deciding Dante would be the least suspicious to ask questions, he was sent to see what he could discover. He returned a few minutes later.
"This way,” he said, setting off at a jog.
Reese and Cain caught up to him. “What did you find out?"
"She was chased beyond the city perimeter. They lost her in the woods. They're combing the area now with scanners."
Reese's lips tightened. “Her heat signature won't be the same."
"The hunter's signature isn't, but hers will not be the same as a hunter's either."
"The variation is only slight. It might not arouse suspicions,” Dante pointed out, but they all knew they couldn't afford to take the chance. Even if not for the fact that she was human, she'd broken into the med center. It didn't matter why, if she'd taken anything or not, she would still be punished if she were caught.
When they arrived at the area where Amaryllis had disappeared into the forest, they saw that the guards were walking the city perimeter, having decided, apparently, that their culprit would have re-entered the city at some point. The three exchanged a look.
"This explains why she hasn't returned. She wouldn't risk leading them back."
Cain surveyed the forest and frowned. “She was curious about the natives. Is there any possibility, do you think, that she found them? Possibly made friends?"
"No,” Reese and Dante said almost simultaneously.
Cain's brows rose.
"They are cannibals,” Reese said tightly. “We drove them from this place."
Cain felt his gut clench. “They're humanoid?"
Reese shrugged. “Two legged beasts, at any rate. They stalk a lone victim and attack in packs, like wild dogs. Two of our number were slain, their heads taken as prizes, before we discovered there were hostiles nearby.” He turned to look at Cain for the first time. “I do not believe that they would come near, but if they have taken our Amy, she has not found friends."
Chapter Twenty Eight
When they had followed the signs of her passing to the stream, they surveyed a wide circle around it, looking for any sign of where she'd emerged. Finding nothing, they decided they would have to split up. Reese would go north. Dante and Cain would go south.
Cain glanced at Dante several times as they jogged along the streambed, scanning the embankment on either side. “Reese thinks she went the other way."
"Yes."
"But you didn't argue."
"Thinking is not knowing. We can not afford to lose time by all going the wrong way."
Cain shrugged, unable to argue with the logic of that statement. “There is one little problem, however."
"What?"
"If Reese finds sign first, we'll have no way of knowing it. By the time we realize we've gone the wrong way, it could be too late for both of them."
"I will know,” Dante said simply. “And Reese will know if we find anything. This is the reason we took different directions instead of the same. So that each of us would know which direction she has gone without losing time."
Cain frowned. “Telepathy?"
Dante shrugged. “Perhaps, of a sort. It is more like I know what he wishes me to know and he knows what I wish him to know than sp
eech of any sort. It is what led us to one another to begin with."
He stopped abruptly, turning, lifting his head as if he was listening to something Cain couldn't hear. “She is taken,” he growled, heading back the way they'd come at a run.
Cain caught up to him after a few moments. “He's found her?"
"Her heat signature. A faint trace only, but she cannot be far or he would not have seen that."
* * * *
The first thing that Amaryllis became aware of was that her head felt as if it would explode. The pain in her ribcage was the second sensation her mind interpreted and fear followed that, the knee jerk fear that something had happened to the baby. A split second before she moved to avoid the discomfort, she realized her ribs were aching because of the bony shoulder digging into it. The realization saved her from giving herself away.
As her mind cleared, she became aware of a nearly overwhelming stench.
It took her several moments to realize the stench was coming from the creature that was carrying her and those that surrounded her. Pushing her discomfort to the back of her mind, she expanded her senses to detect what she could without giving herself away.
She decided there were about a dozen of the creatures around her. Close by, one was whining, or perhaps humming, beneath his breath. Two near the outer edge of the group appeared to be arguing, or muttering complaints. One moved with an uneven gait. She could hear one foot scraping with each step, as if he was dragging it.
It took a while to single out the sounds she thought indicated each individual, but she tallied it carefully and finally arrived at what she considered a fair guess.
Twelve to one and she was weaponless.
They were bound to become suspicious of her prolonged unconsciousness soon ... unless they thought she was dead?
She decided to risk a peek through her eyelashes.
The first sight that greeted her eyes was a pair of hairy buttocks. A filthy thong divided the flaccid cheeks. The skin beneath the hair was somewhere between a pale blue and gray, but that might have been because the creature was so dirty.
There was enough light to see, but she had no idea of how near dawn it had been when the thing had grabbed her and nearly suffocated her, so no clue of how long she'd been unconscious or how far they might have traveled.
The sun peering through the trees glinted off of something metallic, catching her attention and she realized that the creature had a sword strapped to his side. Excitement pumped through her. She closed her eyes, mentally surveying the state of her body.
She'd been hanging over the thing's shoulder long enough her entire body felt stiff and unresponsive. Sluggish circulation made it difficult to determine whether her hands were bound or not and she didn't dare try to move them to find out, or look.
She decided she'd have to assume they'd bound her wrists, but her arms were hanging over her head. The thought had barely registered when a hand tangled in her hair and jerked her head up.
She didn't have time to formulate a plan. The moment the fingers grasped her hair, she went for the sword. Snatching it from the scabbard with both hands, she swung it upward, gutting the creature that had grabbed her.
All hell broke loose then.
* * * *
Slowed by the need to look carefully to detect the faint signs, Reese had been tracking the progress of Amaryllis’ captors for nearly twenty minutes when an inhuman scream split the still morning air of the forest. It took him two seconds to triangulate the direction of the sound's origin. He broke into a run then, his heart hammering with unaccustomed fear.
The ground had been steadily climbing since he'd left the stream behind, the soil becoming rockier and the vegetation thinning, making progress easier but detection of their passing more difficult. Until he'd heard the scream, he'd begun to worry that he would lose all traces of their trail and that anxiety nagged at him as he raced up the hill along with the fear that the forest and rocks had deceived him with the direction of the sound he'd heard. Within a few minutes, however, he began to hear the sounds of a battle; the clang of steel against steel; growls and grunts of exertion; howls of pain; the meaty sound of something hard connecting with flesh.
A flash of metal through the trees snagged his attention and he veered toward it. He could see nothing of Amaryllis when at last he caught sight of the excited natives on a wide outcropping of rock some fifteen feet above him, but he didn't doubt for a moment that she was the object of their frenzied interest. Uttering a howl of rage, he bounded onto a large boulder beneath the ledge and then launched himself upward.
The rock beneath his feet split as he landed on the edge of the outcropping. He teetered for a moment and then caught his balance. A half dozen natives, attracted by the sound of Reese's booted feet impacting with stone, whirled to face him, let out yells of surprise and excitement and charged him. Bending his knees, Reese launched himself over their heads, cleaving one of the creatures nearly in half as he flew over him.
He landed between the group that had charged him and the group that was still occupied with trying to disarm Amaryllis ... or kill her. Two died before they even realized there was a threat behind them and, hacking to his left and right with his sword, Reese cleared and path through them and worked his way between Amaryllis and her attackers.
She threw him a look that was part relief, part apology.
"Stay behind me,” he growled, turning to face the savages.
"You can't take them all,” Amaryllis said, gasping for breath.
"I won't have to."
She wasn't certain what he meant by that. She didn't see anyone else, but she was too tired to argue with him at the moment. She knew no more than fifteen or twenty minutes had passed since she'd engaged the natives in battle, but she'd already been worn out from her escape the night before from the patrol. Moreover, she was bleeding from a half a dozen cuts since it was impossible to fend off every strike without taking a hit occasionally and felt vaguely dizzy.
She guarded his back, anyway, but discovered fairly quickly that Reese was backing both of them into a corner. “We'll be boxed in!” she shouted warningly.
He ignored the warning, forcing her back until he was taking the full brunt of the attack and she no longer had enough room to maneuver to try to help. All she could do was try to stay out of his way and not hamper his efforts at defending them.
The natives might have been startled by Reese's arrival. They might even have been intelligent enough to know fear when the raging blond giant landed in their midst, but their overwhelming superiority of numbers gave them courage and they showed no sign of flagging, or giving up. Within a few minutes, Reese was beginning to look as bad or worse than she did as they came at him by three's and four's and managed to break through his guard again and again, nicking his chest, his thighs, and his arms. The sword in Reese's hand was moving so fast it was little more than a blur of motion. Each time he was attacked from a new direction, he managed to block and parry, but there were too many of them and they were crowding too close for Reese to do more than defend their position. Amaryllis had begun to fear that the two of them would be completely overwhelmed when she heard the hunter's battle cry. Her heart leapt with relief.
Despite the heat of battle, the natives heard it, too. The moment those in the rear ceased to press forward to take the place of those who'd been injured or tired from wielding their swords against Reese, he launched an offense, cutting down three of the natives in quick succession.
Dante and Cain landed on the ledge behind the group like two great, wingless birds of war. Cain dodged two that launched themselves at him, leaping over them, landing in a dive and roll and scooping up a sword from the hand of one of the fallen along the way. When he came to his feet once more, a smile of grim pleasure curled his lips. Dante grabbed the first three that rushed him and tossed them over the ledge. Amaryllis heard one scream and then the meaty thuds as three bodies slammed into the rocks below in quick succession.
Within moments of their arrival, a half dozen warriors lay dead or dying and the ledge was so slick with blood that the battle became amacabre waltz of death as the fighters slipped and skidded with each step they took. When the few remaining natives finally realized that their numbers had dwindled drastically and they no longer had even the advantage of superior odds, they made a belated attempt to escape.
Reese and Cain cut them down as they ran. Sheathing his sword, Dante crossed the ledge and knelt to examine Amaryllis’ injuries. “There are none that are serious,” she said quickly.
Dante paused, his gaze meeting hers. His face was tight with both anger and anxiety. “You are more fortunate than wise then."
Amaryllis felt blood flood her cheeks, but she could hardly argue the point. It had been a stupid, careless thing to do and it might have cost both her and her baby their lives—the unknown life form. Tears filled her eyes. Her chin wobbled. “I didn't know,” she said in her defense.
Some of the anger left him. “A mission without proper reconnaissance is always unwise, particularly when there was no good reason for it in the first place and one very good reason not to."
Amaryllis glanced toward Cain accusingly. Unfortunately, he had his back to her and missed the look.
"Do not blame Cain. Your condition is far too noticeable now to be anything but what it is. I had suspected weeks ago, but thought it could not be. Otherwise, you would have told me."
Amaryllis bit her lip, but she somehow doubted that he wanted to hear her explanation.
Reese and Cain, having checked each of the fallen warriors to make certain none were a threat any longer, moved toward them. Reese studied her for several moments and turned to look at Dante. “She is alright?"
"Minor cuts. They will heal soon. I will need to examine her more carefully, but we must get her home first."
Reese nodded. “The ... infant?"
"I can not tell without a scan, but I do not believe it has come to harm either."
Amaryllis couldn't help but notice he refused to look at her, or speak directly to her after that first accusing glance. He leaned down when Dante moved away, scooping her into his arms. “I can walk,” she said stiffly.
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