Searing Need

by Tracey Devlyn

  “Dammit, Riley! Give me the journal, and I’ll free you and Camilla.”

  “What about Coen?”

  The bastard threw his words back at him. “He’s survived worse.”

  “Then forget it,” she said.

  She showed absolutely no fear, no wavering from her current course. She would not leave someone she cared about behind. She wouldn’t leave him behind. Warrior.

  Landry’s expression shifted from satisfied to troubled to… nothing.

  The switch. That moment when someone flips from husband, son, brother, dad to killer. A moment he knew all too well. He sawed faster, not caring if flesh got in his way.

  “Remember,” Landry said in a quiet voice. “You chose the hard way. Not only for you”—he settled his unnerving gaze on Coen—“but for him.”

  The blood in his veins crystallized into skeins of ice. Landry knew. Somehow he knew about his time in Ecuador.

  A smug smile appeared a second before Landry plowed his fist into Riley’s stomach.

  Coen roared. “Get away from her!”

  “Lover boy doesn’t want me to break your ribs. How do you think he’ll react if I mar your beautiful face? Do you think he’ll want to fuck you anymore?”

  She didn’t cry or scream or beg. His warrior arrowed curses at her tormentor’s head.

  “Narcissistic scumbag,” she spat. “I’m glad I trusted my instincts about sleeping with you. Just looking at you makes my skin crawl.”

  With gut-wrenching horror, he could only watch as Landry’s fist swung toward the side of her face. The blow whipped her head to the side, sending her glasses flying. She blinked several times before forcing her body upright.

  Pressure built behind his eyes as the past sucked him into its void. Back to Kendra and the guards. And his living nightmare.

  * * *

  Before any of the three guards had time to react, Kendra cut down the center one. Divide and conquer.

  With the door open, she rushed outside—leaving him behind—and the remaining guards followed, bellowing their fury. Coen hobbled over to the guard at the door and searched him for weapons. Blood oozed into the corner of his eye, and he wiped it away with impatient fingers. His ribs hurt like a bitch, but he ignored the pain.

  Relief swelled in his chest when he found a pistol and serrated hunting knife. He cut the plastic tie securing his ankles, hissing in a harsh breath when he rose to follow Kendra.

  A gunshot reverberated through the mountains.

  No!

  He skidded to a halt outside the shanty that had been his prison for the past three agonizing days. Sunlight momentarily blinded him, but he couldn’t miss the ragged mound lying on the rocky ground fifteen yards away.

  A line of scarlet trickled from Kendra’s nose, and her beautiful unseeing black eyes stared straight at him, as if she’d held out hope that he would free himself in time to fight by her side.

  He opened fire.

  * * *

  A fist to the gut brought him back to the present. Coen’s breath whooshed out of his lungs.

  “I wonder which one of you will break first?” Landry mused as if he were deciding on which color tie to wear. “If only you’d given up the journal. I could have spared you all this unnecessary pain.”

  The unexpected impact of Landry’s hit made him lose control of Riley’s almost-useless knife. He fumbled for it again and sliced at the rope with all his strength.

  Landry took the opportunity to punch the shit out of his face.

  “Monster!” Riley yelled. “Stop, Nick. I said stop it!” More softly, she said, “I’ll give you the journal.”

  Breathing hard, Landry backed away, picking up Riley’s glasses off the floor and sliding them onto her face with a gentleness that belied his bloody knuckles. “I didn’t hear that last part.”

  The final thread gave way, and blood raced back into Coen’s hands. Curling forward, he went to work on his ankles, alternating his attention between the knife and Landry.

  Thunder cracked overhead, making the greenhouse shake.

  “I’ll give it to you.” Her voice remained low, restrained.

  “Where is it?”

  “Close.”

  “Where?”

  “How do I know you won’t kill us as soon as I tell you?”

  “You don’t.” He traced a finger along her jaw. “But you’ll continue breathing until I have the journal in my hand.”

  “What about Coen and Camilla?”

  His hand dropped away. “Normally, I wouldn’t make that kind of promise, but I can see I won’t get the location without it.”

  She stared at him, waiting.

  “Them too.”

  Her chin began to tremble, and she blinked several times. One lone tear eased down her cheek.

  The rigid set to Landry’s shoulders softened. “All this will be over soon.” He crouched to wipe the moisture away before cupping the back of her neck. “Where’s the journal?”

  “My vehicle,” she whispered. “Beneath the driver’s seat.”

  His grip on her neck tightened. “Clever girl.”

  “Not clever enough.”

  “My father’s desire to legitimize his herbal empire in the eyes of the medical community compelled him to extremes.” His hold loosened until the pad of his thumb traced a path over her lower lip. “I must admit, I was skeptical of the high praise he heaped on you every time your name came up in conversation. Until I met you.” His hands roamed down her body, forcing her knees apart. “However, within a few short weeks of meeting you, I knew my father had miscalculated your character.” He leaned closer. “He’d held out hope that you would eventually join the team that would secure his place in medical history.” He reached for the button at her waistband. “But I knew you would never allow us to do what needed to be done.”

  “Damn straight.” Riley’s long legs swept up and clamped around Landry’s neck. And squeezed.

  With Landry’s weight on the balls of his feet, he lost his balance. They both crashed to the floor, chair and all. Riley’s shoulder hit hard, but her legs maintained their death grip on Landry’s windpipe. She released an animal-like cry and squeezed harder.

  “I’ll”—Landry wheezed, pounding on her thigh—“k-kill you”—more pounding and squirming—“for th-this.”

  “Fat chance of that,” she panted. “Daddy’s boy.” She squeezed his windpipe until his body slumped in her hold.

  The rope around Coen’s ankles fell away, and blood rushed back into his feet. He limped to Riley’s side.

  “I’m here,” he said, eyeing Landry for signs of revival. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “You’re free,” she said on a choked whisper.

  When he’d released her hands, he said, “I need to check him for weapons.”

  “Like this one?” Landry asked, pointing a pistol at her head while scrambling to his feet. He rubbed his neck and leveled a furious stare on Riley.

  Coen lifted his hands in the air and slowly rose, making himself the biggest target in the room. “Let her leave. I’ll get the journal.”

  A dark-haired stubborn woman stepped in front of him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He grasped her shoulder to shove her behind him. “Riley—”

  She shrugged out of his grip. “Coen’s not part of this. He’ll be called back to duty in a few days.” She took a step closer to Landry. “You and I can work this out.”

  “If you think I’m going to leave you alone with this—”

  “Enough,” Landry cut in. “Riley, get over here.”

  Reading his intent, she backed up a step. “I won’t let you kill him.”

  “And I can’t let him live.”

  Coen slid his left hand around her waist. “Even with me dead, it won’t take the authorities long to figure out who kidnapped her.”

  Nick smiled. “Nicholas Landry’s chapter in my life is almost over. Time to start fresh again.” His gaze roamed down Riley’s bod
y. “Where would you like to go? Sumatra, Chile, Rwanda?”

  “Are you mad?” she said in disgust. “Or a complete narcissist?”

  When Landry’s face emptied of expression, Coen’s hand tightened around the multi-tool.

  “No, Riley,” Landry said, aiming the gun at her chest. “What I am is done. With you.”

  Coen shoved her aside and flung the Leatherman at the other man’s head.

  A shot rang out, and fire burned his throat.

  “Coen!”

  50

  Glass shattered behind Riley, and she ducked low, grasping Coen’s hand and bolting away.

  “Do you really want to die protecting formulas?” Nick bellowed, wiping a smear of blood from his forehead, where her Leatherman had hit its mark.

  Zigzagging down the rows, she lifted a semiclean towel from one of the worktables and Coen swiped a trowel from another. She crouched behind a wall of Lobelia cardinalis and Asclepias tuberosa, drawing Coen down beside her.

  “Where were you hit—” Blood covered his neck. “Oh my God,” she whispered, pressing the cleanest part of the towel to the area.

  He winced. “I’m fine. The bullet just nicked me.”

  “There’s so much blood.”

  “It’s normal.” He covered her hand with his. “Where did Landry put my phone and handgun?” He lifted his pant leg to find an empty sheath strapped to his ankle.

  “He left them in the woods.”

  “Your phone?”

  “In his pocket.”

  A muscle popped in his jaw as he glanced at the trowel in his hand.

  Furious raindrops stamped across the windowpanes like the march of a thousand booted feet, deafening them to Nick’s movements inside. A deep gloom hung thick in the greenhouse, interrupted only by flashes of lightning.

  “When I say go, you make for the exit,” Coen whispered into her ear. “Don’t stop until you get to the research center.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You have to. It’s the only way to notify Maggie.”

  The logical side of her mind understood his reasoning, even agreed with him. But the side that loved him could never leave him to face this danger alone.

  “The lovebirds want to play hide-and-seek?” The anger in Nick’s voice was gone, replaced by cold detachment. “I do love a good seek.”

  So close. Riley whipped around, certain she’d find him an arm’s length away. But the aisle was empty.

  Coen put a finger to his lips and guided her to another plant-filled table two aisles away. “I need him to think that we’ve left so I can circle around and come up behind him.”

  “I can’t leave you.”

  “It’s better if I do this alone.”

  “For whom? You or me?”

  His lips firmed, and Riley knew his answer.

  “There’s no time for debate. Neutralizing threats is what I do—and I’m damned good at it.” His palm cupped her cheek. “Trust me.”

  “Frantic whispering,” Nick mused. “What could you be talking about?”

  Coen moved them again, farther away.

  Fear hammered through her veins at the realization of what he was willing to sacrifice to ensure her safety. He would die to protect her—as she would for him.

  The emotion that had been hovering around her heart for days formed into something solid and beautiful and terrifying.

  Love.

  She loved him. Why had it taken a sociopath hunting them to make her come to her senses? She’d always had freaking bad timing.

  “Please don’t ask me to leave you. Please.”

  An argument hovered on his lips until his attention settled on her face. Whatever he saw there made his words dry up on his tongue.

  Nick’s next words settled the matter. “Trying to figure out how to get her out of the greenhouse, Operator Monroe?”

  Coen dropped his head a moment and pulled in a deep breath. When he lifted his gaze to hers, a soldier stared back. Handing her the trowel, he pointed to two large water barrels that stood in a corner. “Hide behind those. Don’t come out until I give the all clear.”

  “But I—”

  “It’s either the exit or the barrels. Decide, now.”

  Pride snapped her shoulders straight, and she started for her corner. Without a second’s thought, she turned back to Coen, gripped the back of his neck, and laid a hot, you’d-better-survive-this kiss on his mouth. The possession lasted all of three seconds, but when she broke away, her lungs burned as though they’d been deprived of air for an hour.

  With their noses resting against each other and their warm breaths weaving together, she whispered, “I love you.” Not waiting to see his shock, hear his response, or feel his retreat, she stole away to her safe corner while he fought to save them both.

  51

  Coen waited until Riley tucked herself behind the water barrels before going in search of a weapon.

  I love you.

  Had she truly meant those words, or had they been an in-the-heat-of-the-moment declaration?

  Normally his mind flipped on a dime with each scenario thrown at him. It was something he had practiced over and over and over in selection training. But all his brain cells had caught on those three words and would not give them up. Not until the air shifted around him, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

  “Silence,” Landry said. “Putting all that plotting into action now? I can’t wait to see what you have in store for me.”

  He had suffered through enough psychological mind fucks not to be bothered by this one. But to someone who had lived a war-free life, Landry’s brand of torture would be terrifying. He hoped Riley’s belief in him didn’t waver.

  In a corner, he found a shovel. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the greenhouse interior and bringing shadows to life.

  He focused on one longer, denser, more menacing shadow—and began to stalk his prey.

  52

  Another clap of thunder rocked the building less than a second after the lightning streaked across the sky.

  Close, so close.

  As if Riley’s world wasn’t brimming with enough tension, she had to also contend with one of North Carolina’s megastorms.

  Something clinked to her right, and her heart paused midbeat. She stared hard into the gloom, though no one materialized.

  A scuffle to her left had her nerves ripping out of her skin.

  She waited for Nick’s face to appear right in front of her—just like in Jurassic Park when the velociraptor’s head knifed through the jungle’s underbrush—right by the game warden.

  Dagblast this storm!

  Peering through the small opening between the barrels, she searched for any sign of Coen. Where was he?

  Sitting here, waiting for something to happen, was torture. She needed a job, a task, a mission. She needed not to be useless. She needed to move.

  Frustrated with her narrow viewpoint, she angled her body around one of the barrels and caught her first hint of movement. She leaned forward to discern who lurked near the table of bloodroot.

  And stared at the beautiful profile of a predator.

  53

  Employing the stealth that had taken him months to perfect, Coen closed in on Hathaway’s fixer.

  Rounding a table of mint-scented, pale purple flowers, he spotted a dark figure crouched low at the end of the aisle. He moved closer, raising his makeshift weapon. When he got within striking distance, he swung the shovel at Landry’s head.

  At the last second, the fixer ducked out of the way and swung his arm around, aiming a pistol at Coen’s chest.

  As Coen dove away, he caught a glimpse of a swift-moving shadow plowing into Landry a fraction of a second before the spit of gunfire exploded toward Coen. He braced himself for the searing impact of a bullet drilling through flesh and tendon and bone.

  It never came.

  Above them, glass shattered, one of the windowpanes taking the brunt of Landry’s bullet. The t
rowel he’d given Riley flew across the floor.

  Fragments of glass rained down on him. He ignored the sting of tiny cuts and scrambled toward the jumble of arms and legs and curses.

  Despite Landry’s greater size, Riley held her own. Until the bastard produced a large knife and slashed it across Riley’s chest.

  Blood bloomed on Riley’s shirt as she crab-walked backward to get away. Landry pounced, grabbing a hand full of hair and jerking her upright to stand in front of him. The tip of his knife grazed her throat. A red line formed in its wake.

  Unable to take his eyes off the thin, bloody line, Coen stood frozen as a roaring started in his head.

  “Would you like to see her chopped up too?” Landry taunted.

  The roaring became deafening, blinding, and his mind spiraled deep into the darkness of his last mission.

  * * *

  Crouching in the rainforest’s underbrush, amid large, thick leaves and a steady, soaking rain, he waited for the guards to complete their circuit and head back in the opposite direction.

  After scavenging an AR and additional ammo, a hunting knife, a pair of boots, and some food, he had circled back to the encampment where he’d been tortured for the past three days. Fear of recapture didn’t slow him down. The only thing that mattered was retrieving Kendra’s body. He would not go home without her.

  Before he’d escaped, he’d taken down several of the guards. Several more had met their end when they’d chased him deeper into the forest.

  A good twelve hours, possibly more, had passed since he’d stared into Kendra’s lifeless eyes. More than enough time for the bomb maker to gather reinforcements, unless his Ecuadorian hosts felt they’d supplied their guest with enough human collateral for one trip.

  Given the scant activity in the camp, he was going to call this phase of his mission a success. Then again, maybe the bomb maker was keeping his men hidden in order to draw him out.

  Only one way to find out.

  Inhaling a steadying breath, he left the anonymity of the trees and ran to the nearest tent. He paused for a second to listen for voices. When he heard none, he cut a small opening in the canvas with the sharp tip of his knife. Finding neither Kendra’s body nor the bomb maker, he moved on to the next tent and the next and the next.