“Does Elin know that Trey plans to take her as his wife?” Kael played the tip of her blade over Brian’s face, every so often pressing into his skin to raise a few drops of blood. “Has he told her?”
“He hasn’t told anyone. But it’s obvious. She’d have to be stupid not to notice he’s paying a whole lot of attention to her. For all I know, he’s already proposed.”
“Proposed,” Kael scoffed.
“I know,” Brian said. “Hypocritical bullshit.”
“Who’s the kid?” Kael asked in a quiet voice. “The little girl with Elin.”
“Fuck, man,” Brian said with a tired laugh. “I don’t know. Lacy? Lauri? We just picked her up along the way.”
“What about her mother? Where is she?”
“We’ve got her, too.”
“Then why is the girl with Elin?” Kael ran the point of the knife down the middle of Brian’s lips, over his chin, down to the center of his neck.
“Because it’s easier to keep her under control. That was Trey’s idea. That cunt won’t be trying to escape anymore now that she’s got the kid to think about.”
Kael nicked Brian’s throat with a flick of her wrist. The blade moved so quickly that Anna didn’t realize what had happened until a new line of blood appeared. “Don’t use that word again,” Kael said.
Brian stared past Kael, stiff and unmoving under the knife she still held against his throat. “What word?”
“You know the one.” Kael moved her face in front of his, forcing him to meet hate-filled indigo eyes. “Her name is Elin. That’s what you’ll call her, understand? Nothing else.”
Anna cleared her throat. They needed to get back on topic before Kael snapped and killed him. She thought about the ugly marks she’d seen on Elin’s back. “Is that why she was beaten? Because she tried to escape?”
“The first time.” Brian tore his eyes away from Kael’s fierce stare to look at Anna. “Then it was because she was disrespectful to Trey. He wanted her broken as soon as possible, but she hasn’t made it easy.”
“I’m sure she hasn’t,” Kael said, a faint note of pride in her voice. “When does your second contingent return to camp?”
Brian rolled his eyes. “You think I’m the leader or something? I’m supposed to know everything? You jumped the wrong guy. Trey’s the one with the radio.”
“We heard it was tomorrow or the next day,” Kael said. “Does that sound right to you?”
Brian stared hard at his feet. After a tense silence, he lifted his face and looked at Anna. “Your tits are bigger than Elin’s.”
Kael’s punch knocked the back of Brian’s head hard against the wooden pillar. Brian, one eye now swelling shut, managed a hysterical laugh almost as soon as Kael pulled away.
“Well, they are!” Brian said, giggling hoarsely. “Whose tits do you like?” He grinned at Kael. “I’d have a better idea if she took her shirt off, but I think I like Anna’s.”
Kael dropped down, placing her weight on Brian’s knees to force his legs flat. Anna watched in horror as Kael unzipped their prisoner’s jeans. Brian released an involuntary shriek when the blade touched his penis.
“Do you think I’m fucking joking around here?” Kael grasped Brian’s penis with her free hand, angling the knife between the organ and Brian’s testicles. “Do you want to lose this for the rest of the questions?”
“No!”
“Then talk. When does the second contingent return?”
“Tomorrow or the next day,” Brian gasped out.
“Who guards the women at night?” Kael kept the knife pressed against Brian’s exposed penis and stared directly into his eyes.
“I don’t know, man. I haven’t been doing guard duty lately.”
Kael moved her arm slightly, and Brian yelped in pain. “Why the fuck do you insist on making this so difficult? Do you know how happy it would make me to cut you to pieces right now?”
“So do it,” Brian snarled. “Stop talking about it, and do it already.”
“Tell me about the guards instead,” Kael said. “How many guards at night?”
“Six. Four around the perimeter and two standing guard with the prisoners.”
“Do you communicate?” Kael asked. “Do you keep voice contact, have radios?”
“We’ve got walkie-talkies,” Brian said. “We don’t use them all the time. Nobody has ever really bothered us much. You’d have to be crazy to attack a force our size.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I’m crazy.” Kael waggled dark eyebrows at Brian. “When do you usually wake up in the mornings? Who’s the first person awake?”
“Trey doesn’t take guard duty anymore, but he’s always the first one awake. He likes to be the one to get the women up in the morning, check on them—”
“What time is that?”
Brian shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know. Sunrise? Fuck, man, I’m usually asleep.”
“Is Elin restrained in any way at night?” Anna asked Brian.
Brian snickered. “Yeah. She pretty much always wears the wrist cuffs. I think Trey stopped cuffing her ankles at night after he put the kid in her tent.” He fell silent, apparently adding two and two. “You’re really thinking about trying to get her back?”
“We really are,” Kael said. “Any words of wisdom to help us on our way?”
Brian shook his head. “You’ll never do it. There are too many of us. You’re a hell of a fighter, but that didn’t stop us from taking your woman the first time.” He glanced at Anna, then back to Kael, as if genuinely mystified. “You should just take what you have and forget about the other one. Otherwise you’ll lose them both, I guarantee it. And you’ll die.”
“You underestimate how much we want her back.”
“He does,” Anna said.
“Look, whatever.” Brian’s eyes were glued to the knife between his legs. “I’ll make you an offer. If you let me go, I’ll help you get Elin back.”
“Bullshit,” Kael said. “Why would we trust you to do anything like that?”
“Because I wouldn’t mind walking away from this, you know?” Brian said. “Think you could find it in your heart to accept my help so you can get your woman back?”
“No,” Kael said. “No fucking way. What would make you keep your word? It would be just as easy for you to stroll right back in there and tell them that we’re coming as it would to actually do anything to help.”
“I’m your only chance,” Brian said.
“That would be the saddest thing in the world if it were true,” Kael said. “But it’s not. There’s no fucking way I’m going to trust anything you say. You’ve lied to me before, and I’m sure you’re lying to me now.”
“What do you think I lied about?”
“You never touched Elin,” Kael growled. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Oh, I touched her. You saw me touch her today, didn’t you?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Kael said. “You want me to lose control and kill you quickly. That’s why you’re pushing me. I’m not impressed.”
“If I’m going to die anyway, as you say, I may as well have a little fun before I go,” Brian said. “I just want you to know how your woman will remember me.”
The longer Anna had to look at the man, the more her stomach churned. They’d gotten all they were going to get from him. He’d known Kael was going to kill him from the start; Anna didn’t trust a single word that he said. “Are we about done here, Kael?”
“Yeah,” Kael muttered. “I think we are.” She turned to Anna. “Do you want to do this?”
Anna sputtered in shock. “Do I want to—”
Kael held out the knife. “You have just as much right as I do.”
Anna shook her head and backed away. “No, thank you. I…he’s all yours.”
Brian’s eyelids fluttered as Kael knelt beside him. He scooted away from Kael on his butt. “Listen man, for real. I never fucked her. I swear it.”
“I know you didn’t.” Kael grasped Brian’s bare penis and squeezed. “But I also know you wanted to.”
Something about the timbre of Kael’s voice told Anna that her lover was entering a very dark place. She took another step away from Brian and Kael. She kept the gun on Brian, unable to look away. She wanted Kael to hurt him, but she was almost afraid to watch.
Brian began to sweat. “Listen, man, I told you what you wanted to know. Why don’t you just have your woman there put a bullet in my head and leave it at that?”
“No, I don’t think that’ll do it.” Kael moved her knife so that one swift upward stroke would sever Brian’s flaccid member. “You really seemed to enjoy making Elin suffer today. I think I’ll enjoy doing the same to you.”
Brian snapped. His face turned red, and he screamed up at Kael. “Fine! You know what? I was lying. You really think I didn’t get at that little bitch before today? We’ve had her for days, faggot. We took turns—”
A flick of Kael’s wrist and Brian released a bloodcurdling scream. Anna turned away, unable to stomach the sight of Kael’s sloppy surgery. She could hear Kael chuckle, then the sound of a hard blow that stopped Brian’s blubbering screams. There was a wet, gasping sound from Brian that suggested Kael had caused some serious damage. Anna stared at the wall of the barn and jerked in surprise when Brian managed another hoarse cry moments later.
Kael placed a gentle hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Come on. We should get going.”
Anna looked over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of red blood and Brian’s pain-wracked body. She didn’t focus on his face. She turned back to stare at the barn wall again. “You’re not going to finish him off?”
Kael shook her head. “Slower this way.”
“But what if they find him? He could tell them—”
“He’ll bleed to death within an hour.” Kael encircled Anna’s waist with her muscular arm and pulled her close. “Besides, he’s not going to be talking to anyone. I made sure of that.”
“Good.” Anna became aware of the guttural, grunting noises behind her and felt a sense of perverse justice at what Kael had taken from the man who had threatened to take Elin’s innocence.
Kael interlaced her fingers with Anna’s. “I understand, you know. Why you didn’t want to kill him. I respect that.”
“Thank you.”
“Do…” Kael paused and swallowed. “Do you understand why I did what I did?”
A sad smile tugged at the corners of Anna’s mouth. I imagine Elin wouldn’t, but… “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
She squeezed Kael’s hand. “You acted for both of us.” And I’ve never felt safer in my life.
“I think we should go tonight,” Kael said, moving restlessly against Anna on the bed in Kate’s spare room.
The planes of her lean face seemed starker than ever, cast into relief by the late afternoon sun that streamed through the flowing white curtains of the open bedroom window. They’d showered the moment they got back from the barn and were lounging naked on the bed, taking some time alone to plan their course of action.
“Shouldn’t we try to contact Matt and coordinate something with him from the inside?” Anna’s eyes flitted over Kael’s body, all of a sudden aware of how much skin Kael was allowing her to see. Even littered with cuts and bruises, her lover was sleek and gorgeous.
“I don’t want to wait. We can’t take the chance that Trey’s partner and the extra men might show up tomorrow.”
“So how are we going to do this? It’s time to worry about the plan, right?”
“Two plans, I think. The plan for a perfect world, and then the plan if things don’t go exactly as we hope.”
Anna rested her head on Kael’s shoulder and melted into her embrace. “What’s our perfect world plan?”
“We sneak in there late tonight, take out the six guards Brian told us about without alerting any of the others, then we get the women out of there as quickly and quietly as possible. If we’re lucky, we can do it without waking anyone up.”
“That does sound like a plan for a perfect world.” But what are the chances that we’ll be able to poke our heads into the tents of fourteen frightened women and quietly inform them that we’re the good guys, without creating at least a little noise? Running a fingertip around the smooth skin of Kael’s belly button, she asked quietly, “What’s the back-up plan?”
“Explosives. Kate says her husband Walter knows how to make some. We could use them to create confusion while you’re getting the women out of there. If Elin can help the other women escape by that point, maybe you can take care of the men with me.” Kael cupped the side of her face. “I plan on killing them, Anna. One way or the other, I think I have to kill them all.”
“Even if they don’t wake up?”
Kael’s eyes flashed. “We won’t be able to just steal fourteen women from them without having them come after us. I want this mission to be stealthy for as long as possible, but it’s not going to end that way. I can’t leave Trey alive, at the very least. Not if he really does want Elin as a wife.”
“You’re right, he has to die,” Anna whispered. “I’m not as…excited…about killing them as you are, but I’ll do what needs to be done.”
“I am excited about killing them.” Kael’s dark eyes shone with a danger Anna had only sensed before that day.
Seeing Kael’s fierce protectiveness, unrestrained and unapologetic, bolstered Anna’s confidence. “So we sneak in, take out the six guards, and get the women out. Then we go after Trey first?”
“Yeah. If we’re lucky, we can kill him in his sleep.”
“God, I hope I don’t have to show that gun to anybody. And on that note, what are we going to do about Trey’s gun? I know he has one. For all we know, so do some of the others.”
“Call it a hunch, but I think Trey will be the only one with a gun. Nobody pulled one today at the river. If there had ever been a time, I’m thinking that would have been it.”
That’s probably true. Still, all it’ll take is for Trey to wake up with that gun… “At least Elin knows that we’re coming for her.” Anna called to mind that moment when she saw Elin’s defeated posture transformed as hope returned. “Did you see Matt tell her?”
“Yeah,” Kael said in a hoarse voice. “Remind me to give that kid a big hug when we see him next.”
Anna studied Kael’s face. A fire flared deep in her belly, and she blinked in surprise. The adrenaline that had her shaking ever since they’d captured Brian suddenly left her, and she found herself weak with arousal. Immediately, she felt guilty that she could even think about making love with Kael when the woman they both loved was in such danger. Yet the darkness she saw in Kael excited her, and Anna was certain she was the only one to experience it this way. She was the first person to see this side of Kael and to accept it.