Wild Encounter

by Nikki Logan

  A flash of frustration shot through him. If she’d just sit tight and let him protect her…

  He shook his head and moved back toward the house. He had half a plan to get her out—the second half. The first half was a little hazy. He needed to keep working on it, adapting to new stimuli and conditions. Come up with a workable solution. It’s what he was supposed to be good at—pulling off the impossible.

  It was why he was here.

  But if he didn’t hold it together, keep his brain in his head—and out of his pants—he just might get them both killed.

  Chapter Three

  Clare didn’t weigh all that much, but still the wood lip around the house protested as she eased onto it through the window in the post-midnight quiet. She clung shakily to the sill, her bare toes perched on the tiny timber edge, the enormity of the task ahead robbing her cells of oxygen.

  Moonlight shimmered off the louver glass lying on the rocky ground below and flooded the deserted compound. Pretty, but not very conducive to a covert escape. Beyond the perimeter, the veldt grass moved in seductive waves, a sea of light and shadow beckoning her to dive into its protective embrace. She shuffled, not knowing whether—or where—the hijackers posted a lookout each night, then gathered her courage and sprang off the lip of the house. She landed on a dew-covered tussock of grass and sprinted across the yard to the fence.

  Behind her, a long line of perfectly formed small footprints betrayed her escape.

  She stopped, balanced on the top railing, sorely tempted, torn between predators of the human and non-human kind. She’d made it this far…

  Damn.

  Lowering herself back down and placing each foot exactly where it had just been took as much mental strength as physical. Working in reverse, she shifted her weight, lifted the other foot and pressed it, wobbling, back into its counter-print. It was critically slow retreating across the compound that way, but at least it was quiet; nothing but the nocturnal sounds of the bush and her own heavy breathing filling the night air. She sucked in the last mouthfuls of clean air that she was going to get for a few hours and it tasted like heaven on her tongue. Fresh and crisp and…wild. Muscles screaming, she backed up to the edge of the house below the de-louvered window, twisted her body underneath the wooden floor boards, and commando-crawled between its timber pilings to the darkest place she could find, right at the center of the house below the hallway.

  The air under the house stank of putrid wastewater rising from the pit further back, and she didn’t even want to think about the creatures she was no doubt sharing the space with. Guaranteed some of them would be poisonous but if she lay still enough they might not be agitated enough to bite her.

  Wiggling a groove into the dirt, she settled into an uneasy position and waited for all hell to break loose.

  …

  An oath rang out from inside the house, somewhere above and to the left, waking Clare in a panicked lurch.

  Alpha. He’d discovered the missing louvers.

  Boards creaked as footsteps thundered into what had been her holding room, dust raining down between the floorboards.

  “Tsvagiridza!” Zimbabwe shouted.

  Find her. The Shona word clanked down every vertebra in her spine. Furious. Deadly.

  Footsteps crashed back through the house, bursting out the screen door. Clare twisted around, her pulse pounding. This was it, make or break time. From her vantage point she could see their shoes and midway up their calves. Five pairs of legs flew out of the door. Two headed straight for the compound fence, one set fumbled at the bakkie and bent to retrieve the keys he dropped. Clare got her first proper look at the bald man who’d driven the transporter.

  She held her breath as Baldy’s ferret-face looked right in her direction. For a split second, all seemed lost. But he was in the full morning light, and she huddled in darkness below the house. Logic told her he couldn’t have seen her. Still, her heart pumped double-time and she pressed her forehead into the rocky dirt, praying.

  “Corby, go south, as far as the village. Talk to no one,” Alpha shouted as he ran around the house. “You, head north to the road. Dyson, go west. No one returns until we find her.”

  Clare registered the fury in his voice and buried the thought that she’d have to face that anger later. Alpha and Zimbabwe sprinted to the back of the house, where the four panes of louver glass lay in a pile, and cursed. Together they followed her tracks to the fence line facing south.

  Her fingers curled into the dirt, grasping a rock, and she concentrated on the cold, smooth feel of it against her flesh to keep from panicking.

  Alpha spent longer than she was comfortable with examining her footprints. For one terrifying moment he looked back at the house, straight in her direction, before vaulting the fence and melting into the bushland outside the compound, with Zimbabwe in tow.

  Clare released her breath on a hiss as they crashed away through the bush, unarmed.

  So much for lions.

  She looked down at the rock in her hand and frowned. Not a rock. A magnet. Industrial and modern, it was totally incongruous lying down here in the dirt. She glanced up and realized she’d shuffled close to the ancient drain hole of the battered bathroom in her panic.

  Wrinkling her nose, she tossed the battery and commando-crawled toward the front of the house. Invincibility surfed in the wave of adrenaline coursing through her. She had survived hours in the dark along with millipedes, beetles, scorpions, and a spider the size of a saucer that had marched across her arm. After that, she knew she could do anything.

  She blinked in the bright morning light and straightened.

  Focused. Ready.

  She had a plan to carry out. She needed a vehicle, and more important, she needed to know her dogs were safe.

  Flying on her bare feet, she sprinted the perimeter of the house, searching for the transporter, growing more and more anxious. Where were they? She listened. None of the distinctive vocalizations wild dogs made. She hadn’t heard the truck leave, either. Had they moved it somewhere, and if so, why?

  Jogging to a halt she doubled over, steadying her breathing and spitting out a trace of vomit.

  Gone.

  Battling back her growing despair, she straightened with renewed fervor, determined to escape this hellhole and contact the authorities. Nothing would please her more than to see these men strung from the nearest tree for what they might have done to the dogs.

  Even Alpha. No matter what his game was.

  He didn’t want her money, he didn’t want her body. Which only left her medical training.

  Turning, she dashed up the rickety steps into the unlocked house, hurrying through the rooms in search of her veterinary kit. It had to be here. That was the only way Alpha could have found out her name. She’d had no ID on her person, but her passport, border papers, and even medicines dispensed to Dr. Clare Delaney were in the black medical kit she’d had with her in the transporter.

  She needed that kit. Her whole plan rested on the hope it hadn’t already been plundered.

  She slowed as she passed through the kitchen, her cramped muscles seeping lactic acid and aching. Papers lay scattered on the table and empty food packets littered the benches, but nothing had their identities on it or any kind of useful information she could give the police. Still, she’d overheard two of their names while under the house: Dyson and Corby. She just didn’t know who was who.

  Finally she reached the room full of bunks and stale man-smell and spotted her kit, tucked under a chair. She cracked the latch, urgently examining the contents. It had clearly been pillaged, but she prayed they’d only rummaged through—she needed something from deep inside. Fumbling for the hidden push-button latch in the base, she popped it and lifted out the specially fitted shelf of medical supplies. She always carried sedatives in the field—Ace Promazine and Ketamine for those animals she could help, and Pentobarbitone to humanely euthanize those she could not.

  She pocketed several Ketamine and
Ace Promazine bottles but rolled the Pentobarbitone over in her hands before reluctantly replacing it. She saved lives, not took them. The contents of the small glass vial could kill a full-grown buffalo. Spacing out the remaining bottles to cover the gaps, she replaced the lid. If anyone discovered the compartment later they wouldn’t notice anything amiss. She snatched a couple of syringes and looked longingly at her passport before, very reluctantly, leaving it where it was. Its absence would be far too obvious.

  Packing up the kit, she replaced it exactly where she’d found it under a chair. Alpha had left the door to her holding room wide open in his rage, saving her the arduous chore of having to climb back in through the outside window. Shoving the bed aside, she wriggled up the loose floor plank she’d worked on with the spoon handle throughout the previous day. It came free, leaving a shallow gap between the floorboards and the foundation timbers below. Careful not to crack the delicate glass bottles, she placed them and the syringes along one bearer beam, then carefully fitted the floorboard back in its spot.

  Mission complete, she shoved the bed back over it, and sagged against the wall, dizzy with relief. How long had she been holding her breath?

  She listened again. Still no one close by. But Alpha and Zimbabwe would be plowing through the bush searching for her. They could be back at the fence line already. She had to keep moving.

  She crept out the screen door and up the stony track about a hundred yards before turning purposefully east. Her bare feet screamed on every sharp snag, but their bleeding cuts and scrapes and the filth she was now covered in were an important part of the image she wanted to portray when she was recaptured. And she would be, because she was intentionally stumbling straight toward the path of—

  A steam-train crashed into her out of nowhere. She heard nothing, saw nothing, yet she suddenly and painfully found herself slammed into the dirt with 180 pounds of man on top of her.

  Very angry, tense man.

  Alpha.

  Thank God. She fought air in past the tight cover of his hand over her mouth. The forefinger of his other hand went to his lips as he scanned the bush around them. She stopped squirming. He lay fully on top of her, his gray eyes vigilant as her lungs struggled to inflate beneath his weight.

  A second later, she heard a distinct crack, the snap of dry brush under a heavy foot coming toward them. She sucked in her breath and froze. Alpha’s weight pressed down impossibly harder, holding her immobile.

  He’s scared. That realization frightened her more than anything else could have.

  They lay locked together, both rigidly staring toward Zimbabwe as he passed nearby, intently searching for signs of his prey in the other direction. Only a few straggly shrubs hid them, lying flat in the tall veldt grass.

  After what felt like an age, he moved away.

  Alpha’s hand eased off Clare’s mouth but he didn’t slide off her and—perversely—she really didn’t want him to. There was something so rock solid about him lying over her, shielding her with his body. It was the safest she’d felt since the transporter door lurched open.

  “Do you want to die?” he whispered furiously.

  She shook her head, still too winded to speak. Tears welled as her emotional exhaustion and long, drawn-out adrenaline rush finally caught up with her.

  “Jesus, Clare! Do you know how easy it would have been for them to shoot you first and ask questions later?” he said. “You just handed them the opportunity on a plate.”

  Anger eclipsed the fear in his face as he got it tightly under control.

  “He couldn’t shoot me, he doesn’t have a gun,” she wheezed. It was a careless thing to admit—she wasn’t supposed to know what any of them had carried into the bush.

  Alpha gaped. “He always has a gun. We all do.”

  Reaching around, he produced a handgun from the waistband of his jeans and laid it on the flattened grass right next to her face, where it loomed real and black in her periphery. She swallowed hard, and wet her trembling lips with her tongue.

  The impact of that unconscious gesture on him was immediate. He focused back on her face, his tone softening and his body following suit, settling more comfortably into hers. “Clare—”

  “Ana,” she corrected.

  “Clare.”

  So he knew he’d slipped up, after all. That didn’t surprise her. He missed very little. Except—fingers crossed—her feigned “escape.” Which reminded her of her plan, and she silently cursed that he’d distracted her for even a moment.

  “I just wanted to get away.” She barely had to try to make it sound like truth.

  He sighed. “I know, but you have no idea where you are going. How long have you been gone? Two, three hours? You’re only a couple of hundred meters from the house. You must have come full-circle, you little fool.”

  She let her tears well. For that, she didn’t have to try at all. A cauldron of conflicting emotions trembled on the brink of erupting. “Oh…”

  He relieved the pressure on her chest by placing his elbows on either side of her and easing his torso up. The move caused their hips to shift into an intensely intimate position. She gasped and her cheeks flushed hot.

  He didn’t miss it. The gray of his amazing eyes darkened to stormy black.

  Her body melted beneath him. Wanting—

  “Get off me.” She twisted violently to cover her embarrassment. And her body’s response.

  They struggled to their feet, not touching, but focused entirely on each other. He reached around to replace his gun in its holster, then pressed the transmit button on a two-way hooked to his belt.

  “I’ve got her,” he barked into it, not taking his roiling eyes from hers. “I’m bringing her in.”

  Clare dropped her lashes. It was unreasonable to feel the sudden stab of betrayal—of course he was taking her back, she needed him to—but she felt it keenly. It reminded her they were enemies.

  “From this moment on, every single step you take could be your last,” he growled as his hand closed around her wrist like a spring trap. “Bad enough fucking up their plan, but now you’ve fucked with their egos. Give them a chance and they will use you and then kill you, and not necessarily in that order. Understood?”

  His gaze blazed down into hers, begging comprehension. She looked away.

  He shook his head and guided her along the track, back toward the compound. “Come on.”

  How long had they taken to come down the track two days ago? Maybe ten minutes in the bakkie? Way too long to risk following it on foot unless she knew the poachers were far, far away. She definitely needed a vehicle.

  Which was the point of this whole exercise.

  As if summoned by her thoughts, the bakkie rumbled down the track behind them, pulling up on their left. Baldy shot her a filthy look as he killed the engine, opened the driver’s side door wide, and jumped out. Beside her, Alpha tensed, but that didn’t prepare Clare for the explosion of pain as Baldy’s fist connected with the side of her head.

  Hard.

  She dropped like a stone, senses reeling, her face screaming, aching, and throbbing all at once. Alpha leapt between them and dragged Baldy off her. Without a backward glance, without a word, the vicious bastard shook free and kept walking.

  Clare didn’t move, her eyes wide and stinging. Alpha’s lips moved as he crouched next to her, but she couldn’t hear past the painful buzzing in her ears. It wasn’t the punch. She’d had worse knocks from cattle she’d treated. Something else had distracted her before the violent strike, something she’d glimpsed on the passenger seat of the vehicle. Something that kept her mute and numb as Alpha pulled her to her feet and led her back toward her makeshift prison.

  She would not cry. Not in front of them. Not if it killed her.

  But she knew what she’d seen, wrecked and dirty, tossed on the front seat of the bakkie.

  A pile of red WildLyfe tracking collars.

  Oh, God. Her dogs were dead.

  Chapter Four

&n
bsp; “Clare…” Simon started, as soon as they were back in the holding room.

  “Get out!” Destroyed. Just like her eyes.

  “Clare, please—”

  “No! Out. Do not speak to me.” Her arms banded across her chest.

  He didn’t speak but stepped farther into the room, closing the door gently behind him. Then he waited.

  “Why?” The accusation came out more choked than spoken.

  He sighed. He’d done the math. There was only one thing that would have distressed her to this degree. And he didn’t think it was the shock of being hit. “I can’t tell you, Clare.”

  She glowered at him from the bed. “When?”

  “The first day. While you were washing.”

  That nearly broke her, but she recovered and clenched her jaw hard. “Where?”

  “Far from here, near a waterhole.”

  Her body stiffened. “That was a nice touch.”

  Simon took a step back from the sarcasm blistering her words. “It seemed like a good idea.”

  Her laugh was raw with fury. “To a pile of dead dogs?”

  He sucked back a curse. “You think they’re dead? No! We released them.”

  She swayed, sagging in relief, but then the shaking started. He itched to move toward her but the tightness in her voice kept him stationary.

  “What? Why?” Her sharp mind raced through the ramifications. And he saw the moment the realization hit her. If they hadn’t wanted the dogs, then what did they want?

  He searched for a response that wouldn’t blow his cover. There was no good answer. “It was a waste of bullets. The dogs were…superfluous.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “Bullets might have been kinder.” She opened them and stabbed him with a glare. “Do you have any idea what will happen to those animals if there’s already a pack in the area?”