“Bloody hell, Rogers! You want to blow it up with us standing right here? Shoot the bitch. It won’t kill her, but—”
“Cripes, look at Tim. I’ll show her.” A succession of gunfire. Thunk, thunk. Though she flinched, anticipating the engine block igniting, she realized quickly they weren’t shooting for her. Air whistled out of the tires. The vessel lurched, the punctured tires rapidly deflating. Gasping, she shoved against the undercarriage as it pressed toward the earth, sinking lower into the sand. Jesus, this was heavy. She hated the feeling of being closed in. Could she toss it toward one of them, use the distraction?
The sunrise was coming. She could feel it, the heat rising in her skin. If she rolled the vehicle and fire destroyed it, she had no cover, no protection from the sun’s rays, because the coated canvases had been in the other vehicle. Another stupid decision. She’d been in the city too long.
“He wanted her alive.”
“He said if we couldn’t make her come, to kill her. You hear that, love? You’ve left us no choice, unless you’re willing to let us stick this tranquilizer into your bum.”
“Try it,” she hissed, baring her fangs. “You’ll look like your mate.”
“Have it your way, then,” he responded shortly, but she had the brief satisfaction of hearing a faint quaver in the unnamed man’s voice. “Step back and juice up the flamethrower, Rogers. Reconsider, darling. We’ve got a nice canvas in the ute, so the sun doesn’t fry you like an egg. Otherwise, we fry you here.”
“Go to hell.”
As her arm muscles strained, she realized her quick plan wouldn’t work. She’d never actually lifted anything this heavy, and while she could hold it off her for a while, tossing it like a soccer ball was out of the question. She heard the roar of the flamethrower, saw the flash of light as it was triggered. The men had split, one to each side, back-pedaling, apparently prepared to detonate the vehicle with the combination of flamethrower and gunfire. While she didn’t need to breathe, she was gasping, and she recognized it as fear catching up with her racing mind. Her skin was already crawling, anticipating the suffocating inescapable burn of the fire or the sun, the predawn light starting to show in the scrap of sky she could see.
No. She wouldn’t die this way. She wouldn’t surrender, but they sure as hell wouldn’t outlive her. Twisting her body, she shot out from beneath the Land Rover, darting under the spout of fire. Ignoring the crackle of flames that could easily spark in her hair, she channeled her terror into a predator’s rage. She swerved, leaped behind Rogers. His neck cracked beneath her hands, but then, with a deafening roar, she was tossed as the vehicle exploded. Twenty feet she sailed, thudding down in a patch of sharp barbed grass that stabbed through her clothes. Bloody perfect. At least it served as somewhat of a buffer to the fall, though her bones did not easily break.
Scrambling, she turned and saw the other man thought too damn fast on his feet. He’d seized up the abandoned flamethrower and now redirected it toward her, a wild arc that caught the brush as she dropped to the ground beneath the wave of it. It surrounded her, licking greedily toward her legs as the man advanced, yelling.
He’d panicked, though. Misdirection of his weapon and the flame of the second Rover had caught the tires of his vehicle. It would be going up in a matter of minutes. As she crouched, she had the satisfaction of seeing the fear as he met her gaze. Yeah, you worthless bastard. You’re dead, no matter what happens. This far out, no supplies, on foot, you’ ll cook as good as me.
You’ d beg me to kill you.
Then he stopped, the flamethrower stuttering to a halt, dropping out of limp fingers. Fear became confusion and then vacancy as he fell to his knees, a knife protruding between his shoulder blades, the same fate as Harry. Dev charged around the petrol bonfire that was her remaining Land Rover, snatched his blade out of the man’s back and came toward her. Danny didn’t give herself time to think, just focused on a clear spot and leaped out of the flame. Fire grabbed at her calves, licking up toward her hips. As she landed, she stumbled, her usual vampire balance abandoning her such that she almost dove into the flames of the Rover.
Dev caught her, rolling her to the ground to douse the small licks of flame before he hauled them both outside the range of the rapidly spreading fire. Her startled cry was muffled when he twisted her beneath him, sheltering her with his back as her attacker’s vehicle went up in another wave of blasting heat and noise.
“Christ, just what we need.” He was up and pulling her forward again, even as he swore and muttered. “Come on, I have a bike over here.”
“Dev, sunrise. Everything to protect me—”
“Is gone. I know. Come on.” He got her to the motorbike, about a hundred yards away. Yanking his swag out, he removed the pack of belongings it held and then tossed the swag across the ground, unrolling it in a deft, practiced move. “Lie down on this.”
“It won’t be enough—”
“It’s what we have. It’s thick. Come on,” he snapped.
Behind him there was a dramatic backdrop of flames. Men’s bodies littered the ground. Not only the bastards who’d attacked her, but two innocent guides and three men she’d known for several years. Men who’d let her into their minds, who’d protected her when her strengths could not. Who’d tried to do that, even to this end. And now here was another man, risking himself for her.
Pressing her lips together, knowing now was not the time for regrets, she lay down.
Without another word, Dev rolled her in the swag, tucking the ends around her, working the ties with fast fingers, handling her as impersonally as a bundle of stones. The heat of the flames was being encompassed by the building light in the sky, which she could feel to the marrow of her bones. The sun was about to crest, turn the world around her into a hell on earth.
“You don’t need to breathe, right?” She nodded, a quick jerk. Before he brought down the full hood he’d fashioned, he nodded toward a cluster of rock formations in the distance, a series of pillars and hillocks. “It’s going to take me about an hour to get us there, long as we don’t have any problems. If we’re lucky, we’ll find a cave or at least an overhang with a shadow. I assume that would get you through until night.”
She didn’t have to agree or disagree. There weren’t any other options. Still, at his light shake, she managed another nod. “And this cloth? Will it protect you enough to get you there?”
It was all they had. He didn’t have to say that, either. “I’ll be a bit uncomfortable, but I’ll manage.” Perhaps it was because they both knew the Aussie gift for understatement, or maybe there was a shameful quaver in her voice.
Regardless, Dev studied her with serious green eyes, a momentary assessment, and she saw the man whose bush craft was the only thing between her and a very painful death. “All right, then. You hang in there, you hear me? I didn’t drive my arse off through the night and miss out on a piece of Joe’s birthday cake so you can die on me.” Then he cinched down the hood, shutting out light, most of the air and any sense of direction. She was giving herself completely into his hands.
He lifted and set her on the bike sidesaddle. Another precious few moments passed as he used some type of cords to secure her to both him and the bike. Finally, as he kicked the bike back to life, his hand squeezed her leg. “She’ll be right, love. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
She couldn’t hold on to him, clutch at another living thing, her arms pressed against her body as if she were in a coffin. But she was tied to him so that her body leaned into his. She held on to that, the sense of his heartbeat through his back, against her shoulder, her hip pressed against his buttock.
She should have told him to stake her. That was far preferable to being slowly burned alive.
He didn’t want to think about it, but it kept intruding. The wet blood on his knife. Explosions. Leaving fire and mayhem at his back.
He’d been there before, reveled in it like a savage, even as he’d been tempted countless times to let the flames consume him.
After Tina and Rob, he’d taken himself off to war, finding a place for the rage he told himself God would overlook. There was plenty of death to go around on the Kokoda Track, as he and his mates did their best to keep the Nips from making Australia part of the bloody Japanese empire.
Then, after the war, back to the Outback. There were no accusations here. Just emptiness, blessed silence. Well, with some exceptions, like the past few minutes.
He didn’t have time for ruddy flashbacks. Her life depended on him. He pushed the bike, but he couldn’t go too fast. There were too many things out here that could pop a tire, flip them. The light was rising, which improved visibility, but when the first red and gold ray of the sun painted the horizon, he heard her breath draw in as if it were a needle that pierced the canvas of his swag. He had to shut it out. He had to get them there safely, and if he rushed it, wrecked them, she was as good as dead.
God, it’d been a sight, though. The two explosions had sent percussions through the air he’d felt a mile away. He’d arrived in time to see her fly out from beneath the Rover before it exploded. She’d caught that one bastard up and broken him like a rotted branch. When she’d spun, that golden-blond hair glittering in the fire, her fangs bared, she was vicious, magnificent, deadly. And frightened, which made her all the more lethal.
He knew what Elle would say. But he couldn’t turn his back on Danny. She hadn’t spared him during their remarkable time together, had used him hard, just as she’d said she would. He’d craved every minute of it. He’d also heard the catch of her breath in her throat, seen the softening of her gaze when she touched his face with light fingers, passed them over his lips. Once she’d smiled, a tender girl’s smile, when he’d kissed her mouth unprompted. He remembered the arching of her body, offering herself to him as pleasure swept over them both.