Dark would fall swiftly and completely in the rainforest. Time to join the others. Swish. Something moved through the jungle.
“Mestre,” the boy whispered behind him. Portuguese gave way to his native language as he added another, more insistent phrase.
Male voices cut through mist. Logan froze, listening.
Villagers? No. The vocal tones and cadence didn’t sound like the locals. He turned his back on the pit. His gaze searched the surrounding forest, but the foliage was impenetrable.
How much time had passed since the others left? Not enough for Paulo to send someone back to check on him.
Logan scanned the clearing for the boy. The only sign of the kid’s hurried exit was a few swaying fronds.
Not a good sign.
Multiple footfalls and rapid-fire Portuguese grew louder, closer. Logan skirted the clearing and ducked into the jungle where the boy had disappeared. A narrow game trail bisected the dense vegetation. He pushed aside dripping leaves and followed the kid. The trail was designed for a scrawny eight-year-old. The jungle pressed in on him. He angled his shoulders and crept forward.
The voices behind him became urgent. This way! He went this way! After him! Machete blades slashed through the forest.
Hide or run?
Right, both. Logan crashed through the flora, stealth bowing to speed. He ducked around a thick tree and pushed through a wall of leaves. The soaked ground gave way beneath his feet. He grabbed for a branch. His hand swiped air.
Shit!
He plunged downward, falling endlessly, then tumbling through wet leaves. Branches whipped. Skin shredded. Bones snapped. Agony surged through him as he cartwheeled and rolled down the steep incline.
His shoulders struck a tree root and bounced. Pain exploded through his head. As he slid to a stop, the forest sounds faded. Numbness replaced fear. Darkness supplanted light.
This is it, then.
His last conscious thought was an image of Elizabeth, her honey-brown eyes haunted as she’d left him that final time.
Maybe he’d see her sooner than he’d thought.
Elizabeth DeMarco leaned back from her microscope and jotted observations in her notebook. With a bubble of anticipation, she returned to the eyepiece, adjusting the focus to better view the tissue sample smeared on the slide. Fascinating. The lichen solution seemed to be working. The diseased human cells appeared to be regenerating. Elizabeth made another notation.
She’d never come across anything quite like it in her career as an ethno botanist. This mix of fungi and algae could hold the key to a cure for cancer or any number of other incurable illnesses, including the deadly disease that plagued the women who lived in this hidden valley.
She pulled back. Better not get too excited. False hope was worse than none. She rubbed a tight knot at the base of her neck. Time for a break. Some food and a short walk outside would freshen her eyes.
A groan drew her from her stool. Elizabeth moved to the hall. In the adjacent room, a woman shifted on a narrow cot, her long legs moving restlessly under a light blanket. Elizabeth crossed to her side.
The angular planes of her patient’s face had sharpened since the onset of the disease, her flesh wasting away as her internal organs failed. The once vital woman seemed to be aging in front of her eyes. Elizabeth increased the IV’s drip and let the potent painkiller flow. The woman quieted.
Satisfied her patient was as comfortable as possible, Elizabeth returned to her makeshift lab, her boots scuffing on the floor of the craggy cave where she worked. She eyed the stone slab tables and collection of lab equipment that filled the space. The laboratory had been sorely outdated when she’d arrived. Two microscopes, a few portable Bunsen burners, an assortment of glass containers and various other instruments had been procured for her use. The new equipment shared space with antiques still in working order. Beautiful, resourceful and deadly, the Amazons knew how and when to apply these qualities to get what they needed to sustain their secret civilization.
Elizabeth perched on the stool, thoughts of a break pushed aside by the urgency of the situation. If she couldn’t cure this disease, this small clan would vanish. It made no sense. Despite their cellular connection, the energy of the valley seemed to be failing its loyal inhabitants.
“Dr. Elizabeth!” Mari, her assistant, raced into the lab. Her eyes gleamed. “Come quickly. You are needed in the medical ward.”
“Is someone sick? Injured?” She followed the tall brunette down a series of carved-out tunnels to the large open space that served as the emergency ward of their hospital. The smells of sweat and wet leather met her as she stopped in the doorway. A half-dozen women, members of a returning hunting party, gathered around a gurney. Their towering height and muscular shoulders blocked Elizabeth’s view. Murmurs of appreciation echoed on the stone walls.
“He is beautiful.”
“But so large.”
“A sturdy and strong male, just as the queen requested.”
The cacophony of excited voices hushed as Elizabeth crossed the chamber.
Why are they just standing there when someone needs help?
“Ladies, step aside please.” She muscled her five-foot six-inch frame through the crush like a Lilliputian in the land of the giants. Bows, quivers and spears clattered as the warriors moved aside. Elizabeth reached the foot of the bed and froze.
Her heart stuttered. A litter had been placed on the examination table. On it, in a huge broken and bloodied heap, was a man she hadn’t seen in two years. The man she loved.
Logan!
Chapter Two
A blonde warrior stepped forward. A red crescent moon painted on her chiseled cheekbone identified her as the leader. “We found him at the base of a drop-off. We assume he fell.”
Elizabeth moved past her to Logan’s side.
“Everyone move back. I need space to work here.” Elizabeth barked out the order without pulling her attention from the man on the table. “Mari, over here.”
Her assistant, one of the tribe’s few slaves, skirted the group of warriors in a wide circle.
He was pale and still as death. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Hot tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away.
She couldn’t lose him, not after he’d just found her. But Logan…What was he doing here?
Duh. Looking for her. This was not Manhattan. One didn’t run into an old lover in the remote Amazon interior.
Offering up a silent prayer, she reached out with a shaking hand and placed two fingers on his tanned throat. On Logan’s throat. His skin was warm, but an agonizing long second passed before his pulse thudded against her fingertips. Weak and thready—but very much there. Overwhelmed with relief, she braced a hand against the table to steady herself.
Get it together. Logan needs you.
She took a deep breath, locked down her emotions and shifted into clinical mode. “I need more light.”
Mari placed a hand on the stone wall. The lights in the chamber brightened until the room was lit like a surgical suite.
Elizabeth reached for the scissors and snipped away the remnants of Logan’s shredded clothing, revealing the powerful body, familiar except for its damaged state. Contusions and abrasions mottled his skin. Her hands gently prodded his wide chest and broad shoulders, sliding down his heavily muscled limbs and feeling for obvious fractures. Broken clavicle, wrist and ankle. Her fingertips returned to an angry, kidney-shaped bruise that reached across his well-defined abdomen. Fractured ribs. Likely internal injuries. Without moving his head, she parted his hair. An enormous lump had formed on the back of his head. In the center, blood and dirt matted his hair around a long, narrow gash. Fluid trickled from the wound.
While her hand remained on his warm shoulder, her insides chilled. She could set his broken bones, but what could she do for internal injuries and a serious head trauma? And she had no way to even assess the condition of his spine. Elizabeth was a research scientist. Before she’d been brought
to the valley, her medical degree had been largely unused. She’d practiced field medicine in the last few years, but nothing like this. She didn’t have the means to care for someone with injuries as traumatic as Logan’s. She needed X-rays, CT scans, MRIs. While the Amazons were a resourceful band of scavengers, they weren’t going to find these types of machines in the rainforest. Her gaze swept Logan’s broken body, her despair compounding at the sum of his injuries. He needed a trauma center. He needed a team of surgeons. He needed a miracle.
Icy panic settled in her belly. Logan was going to die.
Unless…
“Mari.”
“Yes, Dr. Elizabeth.”
“Splint that ankle. Clean and bandage his wounds. I need to speak with the queen immediately, and I’m trusting you to care for him while I’m gone. Do not move him. You can cause further injury if you do. Understood?”
“Yes, of course.” Mari’s shocked gaze never left Logan’s body as she reached out and gingerly touched his arm. Her eyes widened as her hand settled. “I will take very good care of him.”
“No need to be so gentle, slave.” The warrior leader curled a lip in disgust at Mari. “He is but an animal.”
Silent, Mari lowered her eyes but continued to work. At her touch, the table rose to accommodate her height, and a tray of supplies slid from the wall.
“Good.” Elizabeth was reluctant to break the contact with him, but she removed her hand from his muscled shoulder and turned toward the exit. She stopped as Areta, the queen’s lieutenant, stepped out of the corridor.
“What’s this?” The most elite hunter in the tribe, Areta moved with the silent grace of a jaguar. Knee-high moccasin-style boots made no sound on the stone floor as she crossed the room. The arrows in her quiver did not dare rattle. The other warriors stepped aside to make way for their superior. Areta’s hard black eyes locked on Logan’s form. “He should not have been brought here.”
The blonde warrior shook her head. “My orders—”
Areta cut her off with a glare, flashing a heated glance at Elizabeth as if reminding the hunter of the doctor’s presence. “I’m well aware of the queen’s directive. But this specimen is too damaged. It should be destroyed.” She redirected her gaze to Elizabeth. Contempt flickered. “Immediately.”
“The queen has granted me authority over this facility.” Elizabeth drew her shoulders back and stepped between the lieutenant and Logan. Two years ago, Areta had wanted Elizabeth exterminated as well, but the queen had intervened.
The lieutenant’s lip curled in an expression no one would mistake for a smile. “Well, I plan to have that…beast…removed at once.”
“Let’s leave that up to the queen, shall we?” Elizabeth skirted Areta and lifted her chin as she strode from the room. Though she wanted to race down the corridor, she paced her strides with purpose not panic. Without looking, she felt the weight of the warrior’s glare on her back. She had one chance to save Logan, but first she had to convince the tribe’s ruler. A wave of doubt surged through her. The odds of her success were questionable. Though the monarch often sought her counsel on medical, scientific and human-world matters, Elizabeth was acutely aware of her outsider status. She suspected that if or when her usefulness faded, so would the queen’s favor.
Elizabeth splayed a hand on her chest, where panic gathered. Logan’s fate depended on the events of the next few minutes.
On the queen’s whim.
Chapter Three
The voice stirred him, pulled at him. Comprehension drew him from blessed oblivion and into a nightmare of misery. Elizabeth.
His eyelids were cemented shut, and his body felt like it’d been run over by a tractor-trailer. Twice. He sucked in a breath. Agony seared through his chest. His breath wheezed out. Air, and other things he had no interest in identifying, rattled.
The voice came again.
He slogged through the pain to awareness, wrestling one eye open. A blurry figure rushed past his head. A woman. Dark hair. Fair skin. Slim. Moved with grace. Like Elizabeth.
The eyelid trembled, failed and slammed him back into darkness. Logan listened, his soul unable to release its grip on consciousness—or the possibility that he’d found her.
More speech. Deeper. Throatier with a threatening edge. Not right.
Then Elizabeth again. He couldn’t understand the words but he’d know that voice anywhere. Even with the threads of irritation running through her tone, he found the sound of her voice soothing. It flowed over him like the memory of her slender fingers stroking his skin.
He strained for more.
Could he be dead? No. Surely death wouldn’t hurt like this.
Dying maybe? Was Elizabeth there, in the next life, waiting for him? He commanded his hand to move, to reach out toward her voice. Nothing happened. His arm refused to obey. His entire body felt like an unresponsive prison.
He’d probably broken his stupid neck.
Sounds faded. Blackness called as pain overwhelmed him. Logan went. But a small part of him remained alert for her voice. No amount of pain would deter him from finding her. To see Elizabeth one more time, he’d willingly endure purgatory.
Elizabeth formulated her battle plan as she strode down the corridor, very much aware of Areta close on her heels. The enormity of her task weighed on her. She was a medical doctor, a scientist. The queen had foreseen her worth in curing the tribe’s affliction. Elizabeth knew she hadn’t been spared just because she was a woman or because the Amazons had gone soft. To be blunt, Elizabeth was useful.
Logan was both an outsider and a man. Outsiders were eliminated, not brought into the valley. Elizabeth had seen enough blood on returning warriors’ spears and swords to know the Amazons didn’t take prisoners. Nor could they afford the outside world learning of their existence. Though some sort of supernatural veil concealed the valley, the tribe’s paranoia about discovery told Elizabeth the barrier wasn’t impenetrable. But so far, she hadn’t found any way out. Though she hadn’t searched in a long while, she never stopped watching and learning. Any tidbit of information could come in handy. Guilt and joy surged through her. Clearly, Logan had never stopped searching for her. She couldn’t believe he’d actually come for her, but she was also the reason he was lying in that chamber, dying.
Why did the hunting party bring Logan back with them? Why not leave him where he’d fallen? Without intervention, he wouldn’t live through the night. He was no threat.
Elizabeth must convince the queen that Logan also had value. But how? Elizabeth had not seen nor heard of a man inside the valley. She glanced at the lieutenant striding at her flank. If Areta had been on that hunting party, she would’ve run her spear through Logan with no more compunction than if he were a wild boar.
Elizabeth stopped in front of a pair of tall mahogany doors with intricately carved designs running the length of it. She pounded on the thick wood and waited impatiently for admittance. Areta stood to one side, hands clasped behind her back, stony countenance fixed straight ahead.
The doors parted, gliding open as though they weighed nothing. Atanea, one of the bronze-skinned royal guards, stood waiting to greet them, one glowing palm extended toward the doors. “Dr. Elizabeth, how may I be of service?”
“I need an audience with Queen Phoebe. It’s a matter of the utmost importance.” Elizabeth exhaled hard and attempted to control her clattering heart.
“I’m sorry, but Her Majesty is in a meeting at the moment. Labor issues.” Atanea grimaced.
“I’m sorry. This can’t wait,” Elizabeth said.
The queen’s irritated voice sounded from her office. “Atanea, who is it?”
“Dr. Elizabeth, Your Majesty,” the guard answered over her shoulder. “And Areta.”
The queen’s pause didn’t help Elizabeth’s nerves. “Send them in.”
Elizabeth stepped through the door into a large library. Three women, dressed in the soft, knee-length shifts favored by non-warriors, stood near the expansive mah
ogany desk. The queen dismissed them as a mother would bickering children. “I don’t care how you organize yourselves. I want that bridge repaired by sunset tomorrow. You three may go.”
“Dr. Elizabeth.” Ignoring Areta, Phoebe gestured toward a chair as the door closed behind the craftswomen. “What can I do for you today?”
Elizabeth perched on the edge of the leather seat. “Your Majesty. One of the patrols brought in an injured man today.”
The queen nodded. “Yes, I’m aware of the situation. How is the patient doing?”
“Not well. We just don’t have the means to treat his injuries by traditional methods, which is why I’m here.” Elizabeth clasped her hands together to still them. “I’m requesting your permission to heal him in the sacred falls.”
Queen Phoebe paused. Her head tilted. She is considering it! Elizabeth masked her relief. She couldn’t afford anyone to know how much Logan meant to her. “Are you sure that is the only option?”
“His injuries are critical, Your Majesty. He will not live through the night.”
The queen’s eyes moved to Areta. “Is this male as fine a specimen as I’m told?”
The line of discussion threw Elizabeth off stride. Yes, Logan’s physique was impressive. During his undergraduate years, he’d been the only anthropology major on the football team. But why would his size and strength matter? The Amazons hardly needed slave labor. The typical tribeswoman was at least as strong as two average men.
Areta’s mouth tightened. “The male is too damaged to make an assessment, Your Majesty. It should be destroyed.”
“That wasn’t my question, Areta,” the queen scolded. “Describe him.”
“Approximately two meters in height, one hundred kilograms.” Areta bit off the words.
The queen pressed her lieutenant. “Strong of back, straight of limb, free of obvious deformities?”
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