Uncharted

by Adriana Anders

  He bit back a yawn, recognizing his own exhaustion for the first time—aching muscles, gritty eyes, heavy head. He worked hard to concentrate as he covered her injury with a clean white bandage. Yeah, so maybe she wasn’t the only one who was close to passing out.

  “This’ll have to do for now.” He fought the urge to let his hand linger around her ear and shoved himself back, then up to standing. “Let’s rest.”

  Her only response was a long, low hum. He unpacked a few more items and grabbed a bedroll, spread it beside the first, and caught a glance from her. “Not much room.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “You can go up the hall if you need to use the, uh…”

  She shook her head.

  And then, because he had the feeling she wouldn’t settle in until he did, he zipped himself up, careful to face away from her, definitely not touching but, by necessity, close.

  Once she’d done the same, he doused the oil lamp. The silence that followed lasted so long he was convinced that she’d fallen asleep. Then: “What’s your name?”

  He swallowed, considered pretending he hadn’t heard, and changed his mind. A first name couldn’t hurt, could it? “Elias.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Suits you.”

  Eyes wide-open, he stared into complete darkness, breath held. Would she put the name with the face and figure out who he was? He hoped not. After her smiles, disapproval would kill him.

  “Pretty sure you saved my life back there, Elias,” she finally whispered. “Thank you.”

  He released a long breath. “Anytime.”

  She snuffled and shifted, as if getting comfortable—not exactly easy on the hard ground. Though he couldn’t see, he pictured her snuggling deeper into the bag. He listened to the short, shallow sound of her breathing, layered with Bo’s slower cadence.

  When maybe ten minutes later it deepened into a more restful rhythm, he considered waking her to check her eyes again. Or had they decided you didn’t have to do that for concussions anymore?

  Waking her up wouldn’t help at this point. What could he do out here if there was brain swelling? If they were going to survive this at all, it would be by taking their time and being smart. Not acting stupid. If she didn’t sleep, she wouldn’t make it. They wouldn’t make it.

  They. Not him.

  And that, right there, freaked him out more than any of the day’s events.

  A part of him—the feral loner that had kept him alive all these years—shouted at him to get up and get the hell out of there. Company, he’d learned, wasn’t an asset when running for his life. It was a ball and chain.

  But leaving her right now would likely sign her death warrant, and that wasn’t something he was willing to be responsible for. One more life.

  She shivered and he shifted closer, sharing his warmth and whatever comfort he could provide in this bare-bones setting.

  They’d be safe here, he hoped, for now. But there was always the slight chance their pursuers would find these caves, in which case they were screwed.

  He clicked tongue to teeth and nudged Bo to the woman’s other side. Unlike the humans, his canine companion had no trouble giving in to slumber. As usual, it took about three point two seconds for her to pass out, happily unaware of the danger surrounding them. Bo was probably enjoying this.

  Hell, he was almost enjoying this woman’s presence. With a happy sleepy sound, he let himself fall deeper into slumber, let his body heat mingle with hers, let himself come as close as he ever did to relaxing.

  He was warm, floating somewhere in that place between sleep and consciousness, when he awakened to the ball-shriveling sensation of a blade piercing his neck.

  ***

  “Leo,” an unfamiliar voice rasped as the speaker’s chest rose and fell, moving her with it.

  Leo shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to see or understand something—anything—in this absolute pitch-black, dark so thick it coated her tongue. Or was that blood?

  “You okay?”

  She pressed the blade deeper. “’s going on?” Her slurred whisper sounded frantic to her own ears. She couldn’t calm her breathing, couldn’t manage the wild beating of her heart.

  The man between her legs barely moved, his only reaction the slow expansion and contraction of his rib cage. She tightened her thighs around him and dug her toes into the ground, wondering for a handful of seconds if her brain had somehow shorted out and turned a one-night stand into a nightmare.

  Not that she did one-night affairs, but she couldn’t remember. Not who this was or how she’d gotten here or even where here was.

  “You forgot.” A statement said in a gruff, strained voice.

  Her head hurt like hell. Had she been drugged?

  She took a second to get her bearings. The place gave her nothing at all. Just dank darkness and quiet. She cocked her head. Not absolute quiet, though. Something dripped not too far off. “Where’re we?”

  “Cave.”

  A cave. Definitely not a one-night stand. Unless it had gone very, very badly. Or unless this guy had some interesting kinks. Her tongue was thick and dry and took up too much of her mouth. She screwed up her face in concentration. A deep sniff gave her the smell of earth, along with the unmistakable scent of blood. Fuel too. But that made no sense.

  Think! Figure this out!

  Where was she supposed to be right now? Which deployment? Had she been captured outside the wire? He sounded American, so if this was a prisoner situation, he was probably in the same position. Confusion swamped her, turned even the dark hazy, unsteady as a wave of seasickness, which she’d never had in her life.

  “Trying to kill me, Leo?”

  Her name in that low, hoarse voice gave her pause.

  “I know you,” she whispered. Not a question.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why can’t I remember?”

  “Bumped your head. Couple of times.”

  “There a light?”

  “Gonna reach for it, okay? Don’t cut my throat out in the dark.”

  Right. Much better to do that in the cold light of day.

  “Easy,” she finally conceded. What choice did she have? She could only assume they were trapped here together. Who the hell had she wrapped her thighs around? “Any fast moves and I do it.”

  The shape beneath her shifted, something scuffled at their side, and a light came on, blinding her. In the split second before her eyes slammed shut, she recognized him—not who he was, exactly, but that she knew him.

  And she liked him.

  She released the pressure on her push knife, let herself feel the width of him, hot and thick between her legs. Before she’d finished inhaling, he’d rolled them and she was trapped.

  Chapter 10

  In a perfect turnabout, the man’s bulk weighed her down, anchoring her in her body, though she wouldn’t have minded leaving it and succumbing to blessed oblivion right about now.

  “Remember me, Leo?” Before she got her hand out from between their bodies, he grasped it and disarmed her, chucking the knife to the side, where it landed with a clang.

  The sound of her name on his lips was familiar. Not unpleasant.

  Slowly, as if approaching a bull elk in the wild, she put her hand on his shoulder, ran her fingers over the tight muscle, trying to extricate the memory from a skull that felt like Humpty Dumpty after the big fall.

  Her gaze stuttered on her hand. Why do I have gloves on?

  She shut her eyes for a few seconds, trying to figure this whole thing out. All she saw on the back of her eyelids was that intense, shadowed gaze and—oddly—the skin of the man’s neck where she’d just touched it. Pale and warm looking.

  Alaska. The crash. The virus.

  “Campbell Turner.” She mumbled the name befo
re she’d consciously thought it. That was wrong, though.

  “Shit, you forget everything?” She grunted in surprise and tried to bat him off when he pried open first one eyelid, then the other, blinding her with his flashlight. “You were hit on the head. Pretty sure memory loss means concussion.” His big hand probed at her head, then moved to her face, cradled it for a few seconds, and finally released her. “You okay?”

  “Yes, Elias.”

  “You remember my name.”

  She groaned, shielding her eyes. “Turn those off.”

  “Those what?”

  “The lights. All the lights.” She nudged at him until he rolled off her, then she turned over and hung her head, wobbling on all fours as she waited for the wave of nausea to pass.

  “Only one light, Leo.” The man’s voice was a rumble, each sound purling out measured and slow.

  Slowly, she pulled in a deep breath, finally allowing herself to notice that it wasn’t just her brain that hurt. Her chest, arms, back, neck—everything she flexed ached.

  “Okay.” She did her best to parse out the memories her brain threw at her—the little plane, being shot at by a helicopter. Relief flooded her, loosening her limbs. “Okay. Okay, it’s coming back.”

  His response was a rumble, low in his chest. She guessed that passed as an affirmative in his book.

  “Could you put the light back on?” She slowly lowered herself to her butt. “Just…don’t shine it in my face this time.”

  He clicked a flashlight on. It shot through the space between them, the single beam precise as a bat signal, offering up next to no information on their surroundings.

  “Shine it on you…please. The light.”

  He hesitated before complying.

  She grimaced when he chose the worst possible angle—from straight below. “Geez, man.”

  “What?” His shadowed brows dipped, carving him into a horror movie nightmare.

  “You look like a demented yeti. Give me that.”

  He handed her the light and remained still through her long, slow scrutiny, which only confirmed that the guy didn’t need spooky effects to look like something straight out of a sleepover ghost story. His beard was maybe five inches long, bushy, and blended with the dark brown hair curling over the nape of his neck, showing no signs of grooming—ever. What she could see of his mouth was a thin line, grim, without the slightest potential for softness. Above it was a long, hard nose, possibly straight at some point but clearly battered by whatever life had sent his way.

  Bear fights, her rattled brain threw out as an idea, complete with images of this massive, thick brute of a man engaging in shirtless, bare-knuckled combat against a grizzly, like some vintage Russian circus act. Hand-to-hand. Or would that be hand-to-claw?

  For reasons she could not fathom, her eyes went to the curve of his neck again. As if that spot held some secret she needed to unwrap.

  She’d just lifted her hand—to touch him, maybe—when something moved against her side, making her jump and pulling her from whatever head-trauma-induced reverie had taken hold.

  “Hell.” With a hand flattened to her chest, she blinked at the wolf dog. “I’m delirious,” she whispered, shoving her alarm, along with her messed-up imagination, far, far back. She examined the man again and let her eyes work their way down, over his thick, worn, fur-lined parka, then immediately back to the dark area below the beard. “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s fine,” he replied, covering his neck with one gloved hand.

  “Did I do that?” She strained to look at her knife lying in the corner of the cave and pointed the flashlight at its shiny crimson tip. She had. She had nearly cut out his throat. “Oh no. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to—”

  He put up a hand. “’s fine.”

  She didn’t even remember sliding the small blade from her boot. Couldn’t figure out what had awakened her in the first place. And now she’d injured him—the only man who might have some clue as to what was going on around here.

  “Hey.” He scooted closer, putting them face to face, Leo up on her knees—another position she didn’t recall getting into—and him seated in front of her, legs spread wide. “Hey, Leo. Leo.”

  Calm down. Calm the hell down.

  She never did this. Didn’t lose it, ever. Not for years, at least. Decades. Not since Mom died.

  “I’m fine, Leo. Throat doesn’t hurt.”

  “You’re bleeding. Shit.” She put her gloved palms to her eyeballs and pressed. “It was dark. I was hurting. I was blind and…” She couldn’t catch a breath, couldn’t get her nerves to settle. Had to get outside. Had to—

  “Leo.” One big hand grabbed ahold of her bicep and everything stopped spinning.

  She stared at his hand, remembering. “Your arm.” Her eyes flew to meet his, which sparkled in the ghost light.

  “What?”

  “Your arm. You had your arm on me. Around me. I thought you were…” She didn’t finish. Didn’t have to, judging from the way his expression hardened.

  He opened his mouth, shut it, and then spoke. “Won’t do it again.” Unexpectedly, the lines around his eyes deepened with what might have been humor. “Unless you ask me to.”

  ***

  The memory lapse worried him, along with the other symptoms. He couldn’t do anything about a concussion out here. There wasn’t a hospital or clinic or even a doctor for hundreds of miles. He could get her to Schink’s Station, but that trip took him days on his own. And who knew what would be waiting for them there? With snow on the ground, plus a storm, towing an injured person, he had no idea. Add to that the team of killers after them.

  Might never make it.

  Had to.

  He knew these people—or the ones who’d hired them—and he knew exactly what their game was. They’d take over the entire town of Schink’s Station and use its citizens as bait. He had to get back there before they started killing people. Under normal circumstances, the town’s citizens could take care of themselves, but these attackers were relentless.

  Damn it all. If only his phone hadn’t died, he’d call in. Hell, he’d give himself up if it made a difference.

  But even that wouldn’t save lives. They’d kill them all in the end. Every man, woman, and child would be sacrificed to the greed of the people at the top. Greed or something darker. They’d never shared their motivation.

  Worst of all, he’d sworn no more people would die on his watch, and yet here he was again, in the thick of violence and mayhem. The people back in town, the ones who’d attacked his cabin, this woman. Dead or dying or injured.

  He stared at her, jaw hardened at what he had to do: get to Schink’s Station—as fast as was humanly possible—and take back the town.

  And keep Leo alive in the process.

  He stood, decided. “Got to do something about that head.” Bo’s warm body pressed up against his leg, ready to move.

  Leo, however, sank back onto her pallet and shut her eyes. “Gimme a sec.”

  “Be right back.” He grabbed his ice axe and a plastic bag from his pack and made his way to the cave entrance before turning to look at her. “Don’t do anything.”

  A thin layer of glacial silt a few feet into the glacier cave’s entrance told him everything he needed to know about exterior conditions. It was worse than bad. He got down on hands and knees and crawled through the narrow opening, then stood outside.

  If it were just sleet, they could risk moving, but that wasn’t the worst of it. A thin layer of ice had formed on everything, from the snow that was already on the ground to the rock face behind him. Even in the dark it shone, slick and deadly.

  The wind, though, was what scared the crap out of him. It danced around him, whipped the tall treetops into a frenzy and picked up whatever precipitation hadn’t frozen to the nearest surface, blasting it back in
to his face like a sandstorm.

  No way could he take Leo to get medical care in this weather. They’d have to stay here and give her a chance to rest, wait out the weather. If it cleared, they could take off in the morning.

  He slid his way down to the frozen stream, squatted, and chopped at the water with his ice axe. It gave quickly, providing chunks for him to stuff in the bag.

  Something cracked behind him.

  He dropped the bag and swung around, rifle up and at the ready.

  Nothing.

  A quick search of the shadowed, ever-moving landscape showed no living creatures, but that didn’t mean someone—or something—wasn’t approaching. Rather than wait for a confrontation that couldn’t end well, he snatched the bag of ice and his tool, fought his way back up the rise to the rock wall, and sheltered there, eyes scanning every inch of his surroundings. A shape finally materialized from the woods. He squinted.

  Bo. It was Bo.

  Relief poured through him like hot whiskey. “Come on, girl.” The wind stole his whispered words and hurled them at the sky.

  Still on edge, still wary, he made his slow, careful way along the rock face to the cave.

  As he went back in, he stretched his near-frozen fingers against the cold. He was getting too old for this. To run, to hide, to fight the elements that would win out in the end, no matter what. How many times had he wished himself back at that crucial moment, when he’d been given the chance to choose between right and wrong, good or bad? Run or die.

  In the cave, he dropped to his knees and eased Leo’s hood back as far as he could, shoving it under her head in a way that should have woken her up. The fact that it didn’t only underscored the seriousness of her condition.

  She might not survive this.

  Everything else evaporated.

  With the kind of clarity that comes from a decade of living in near-complete isolation, he saw his mission in a way he hadn’t in forever.