Savage Mafia Prince: a Dangerous Royals romance

by Annika Martin

  The faint timbre of male voices carries through on the breeze.

  I make myself small. Still. The canoe is back at the island—that’s where they’ll look for us. I suppose it gives Kiro the opportunity to observe them.

  The breeze shifts, and the talking fades. How many?

  Shouts, then nothing.

  I wait a while longer. I hear rustles now and then, but that may be animals. Or Kiro.

  A voice is raised. They’re calling a name. There’s confusion. Something’s happening. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Kiro. Please be okay.

  A sharp blast rips the silence. A gunshot. Another.

  Craaack-craaack-craaack.

  I smash my palms over my ears, a vice grip that does nothing to muffle the blasts of semiautomatic weaponry. The firing intensifies. I imagine them strafing the woods.

  I hold on to my head, like if I cringe hard enough, I’ll keep out the guns, keep Kiro safe.

  My legs are looped around the branch so hard, I think I’ll never pry them off. The shooting seems to go on forever.

  And then it stops.

  I grip the branch and listen. The wind shifts.

  Nothing.

  I press my forehead to the rough bark, willing for Kiro to be okay. The idea of a world without Kiro seems…unbearable.

  The shooting starts up again. I clap my hands around my ears again. I tell myself it’s good they’re still shooting—it means Kiro’s alive. A threat to them. But then, one bullet could end him, so how is that good?

  Footsteps underneath me. I stiffen as I see guys in camo with South African street sweepers pass below. You get to know the makes of assault weapons out in the hot zones. You need those details for your pieces. The men down there are being stealthy, which I suppose is a good sign. It means they’re scared. Another group goes past.

  One man follows them from a distance; he turns now and then to walk backwards. There’s a slight movement to his side—I see a flash. Hear a soft oof.

  Rustling. Snap. That’s a bone breaking.

  I stretch to the side and catch sight of Kiro, face bloody, rising from the broken heap that was the man. Kiro wipes his eyes again and again. A cut on his brow is bleeding into his eyes.

  Head wounds bleed like a motherfucker, even when they’re not serious. A head wound. Does he have a concussion? At the very least, it’s fucking up his vision.

  He can’t fight if he can’t see!

  He’s gone in a flash. I hear more commotion. Somebody goes down. There’s a shot. Yelling. The guttural cry of a man dying. Frightened voices.

  Kiro’s out there, hunting and killing them one by one. One unarmed guy against dozens of armed men.

  Awe shudders through me. Kiro.

  I want to help him, but I need to trust what he told me—that I’m more of a help if he doesn’t have to worry about me. I rub my thumb over a little rough patch of bark.

  More of the men pass under me. They’re talking about his bloody face. They sound confused, like there’s something they don’t understand.

  I hear the words “Savage hearing…how he’s doing it?…fucker doesn’t need to see…”

  Of course. Kiro’s tracking them through sound and probably scent.

  His words trail off. Suddenly a shrieking alarm pierces the air. A key fob alarm.

  No! He won’t hear them coming now.

  I panic, clinging to my branch. There are more shots. Yelling. I’m really torn about going down there, now. Suddenly it all stops.

  Utter silence.

  Movement below. “Ann.”

  “Kiro?”

  “It’s okay.”

  I scramble down into his arms. His shirt is off, tied around his head to stanch the flow of blood.

  “Are you okay?”

  He touches his forehead. “A scratch.”

  “You’re bleeding. You might need stitches.”

  “I’m fine. Unlike your friends.”

  “I didn’t signal them. I figured it out, Kiro—I got played.”

  Warily, he searches my eyes. “You put your phone on, and it brought them.”

  “But I didn’t mean to. I thought it was okay, but my editor who sent my phone put something on it that I didn’t know about. I swear I didn’t know. I was fooled…”

  I trail off. The hopelessness in his face is fucking killing me.

  It’s all just words, and Kiro doesn’t care about words. My actions make me a liar. I brought them. I said it wouldn’t happen, but it did. “Kiro,” I plead.

  “We should get the canoe and go.” He takes my arm and leads me to a tree at the shoreline. The canoe is still there, across the stream. “I’ll get it. You’ll wait here.”

  “I don’t get it. You don’t trust me, you think I’d send people after us like that, but you want me to stay with you?”

  “You’re my mate.” He reaches out to take my hair in two bunches, like two ponytails, and pulls me to his chest. He kisses the top of my head. I think he’s relieved I’m okay. He pulls away. “We have to go.”

  Fuck.

  He never expected anything better from me. He doesn’t think to ask for more for himself. Not trust, not affection. Certainly not love.

  I look up into his beautiful, bloody, bee-stung face. The world sees a savage, but I see a man so achingly alone that he’ll have me even if he can’t trust me.

  It breaks my heart.

  I slide my thumb along his cheekbone. “You have blood here,” I whisper. I urge him to the water’s edge. “Come here.”

  He comes with me. I pull the shirt from his head and bend over to dip a corner of it in the water and clean his face. He stands still as I do it, eyes shut. It’s as if he doesn’t want to scare me off from this small act of caring.

  I inspect the cut on his forehead. It’s small. Only an overzealous doctor would stitch it.

  “It looks okay,” I say.

  I wet the cloth in the river and use it to clean his face a bit more. He sucks in a breath as I swipe a bit of mud off his chest. So many scars. I find I want to kiss the scars of this beautiful, wounded, savage boy who thinks he’s not worth loving.

  I scrub a little harder. I can feel the enjoyment in him. I love the enjoyment in him. I love caring for him like this. Being a team.

  “We have rubbing alcohol in the first-aid kit. That would be good for your head.”

  He nods.

  Words mean nothing to him; he said as much before. But my caring for him means something. My giving a shit that he has blood and mud on him means something.

  Nobody ever gave a shit about him. Maybe that’s why he felt so fiercely toward me in the institute. It probably seemed like I was acting as his mate.

  “Close your eyes.” I wet the cloth again and clean a streak of mud from his temple. A warm glow spreads in my chest, lighting dark corners, like tendrils of warmth and light, connecting the disconnected cold, dark bits that I had hidden away.

  I press my other hand to his cheek, but this isn’t a clinical touch at all. It’s affection. It’s me not getting enough of Kiro. It’s me maybe never getting enough of Kiro.

  He opens his eyes.

  “Didn’t I tell you to close your eyes?”

  He closes his eyes. “Yes, Nurse Ann.”

  I slide my hand across his whiskers. The warmth spreads deeper, hotter.

  My wild affection for him exists the way a mountain does—it’s just there, damn everything else.

  “We should move on,” he rasps.

  I touch the spot next to his eye. And then I get up on tiptoes and kiss his nose.

  His eyes fly open, a bolt into my soul. I slide my palms over his arms and chest, dirty and sweaty.

  I kneel and dip the cloth into the water and clean him some more. I want to clean him. I want to do everything for him. This is Kiro’s language. His pulse thrums in his neck. I slide my hand over his neck, feeling the way desire builds in him. In me.

  I want to do everything for him.

  My eyes
rest on his cock, hard through his pants. I press my palm over him. He hisses out a breath. Maybe he’s hard from the fight, maybe from the way I’m caring for him, or just the kiss.

  I kneel before him and put my face to the place where the bulge strains most tightly against the rough canvas of his pants. His cock jumps under the fabric.

  I turn my eyes up to him. He’s watching me, half-wild. Words mean nothing, but actions mean everything to him. I set aside the shirt and hold his gaze as I unsnap his pants. I shove them down, partway down his legs.

  His chest heaves.

  Panting.

  I’m stricken with awe at the sheer wildness of him, hair tangled and dirty from battle, breath heaving in and out. He’s like a medieval warlord, nostrils flaring with every breath.

  “Ann,” he grates out.

  I wrap my hand around his cock, wild and beautiful and foreboding as he is. His hand goes to my hair. I hold him around the root, barely fitting my fingers around his massive girth. I set my lips on his head, licking off the gleaming droplet at the end.

  He strokes my hair, breathing ragged. His clumsy movements tell me he’s as turned on as I am.

  I wet him with my lips, take in more of him, sucking, squeezing. He tastes of salt and sweat and man. He tightens his hand in my hair and begins to move, fucking my mouth gently.

  I squeeze him and jack him off as I suck. I know the hand feels good, but it’s also a little bit of self-preservation—a stopper from him shoving his crazy Kiro hugeness all the way down my throat.

  His hand snags on my hair. He’s covered in sweat and the dirt of battle. I love him like this. I want him to make me dirty.

  I look up into his face as I suck him. I show him by my actions that I’m with him. It makes no sense to my brain, but utter sense to my heart. The affection I have for him is strange and real and true. Does he feel it?

  He makes a little sound, eyes glued to mine, fixed on mine.

  He’s all I see. All I hear. Until the explosion rips out from behind me. I pull my lips off him and turn.

  A man on the ground. With a gun—pointed up at Kiro.

  Hands clap down on my shoulders. A heavy weight. I turn and meet Kiro’s eyes. My first thought is that he’s unhappy I disengaged.

  Then I see it—his eyes awash in pain. Shock. Accusation. Blood drips down the side of his neck.

  “No!” I burst up to steady him.

  Blood flows from the side of his head—a wound in the side of his head. That man just shot him.

  “Oh my God! No!” I get him to the ground. I kneel at his side. There’s so much blood. “Kiro!” My hands shake as I wipe away the blood. Shot in the head.

  A noise right behind us. I look around. The bloody man is on his belly, gun shaking in his hand. He’s going to shoot Kiro again, or at least try.

  I go to him and slam my boot down onto his wrist. There’s craaaack as he releases the gun. He’s pale. Sweating. Respiration failing. Lots of blood on his shirt.

  He’s alive but bleeding out. “Help me,” he says.

  He has the look of a man beyond help. It would probably be best to kill him.

  I take his gun instead and rush back to Kiro.

  “Kiro, stay with me!” I brush his hair back with shaking hands, trying to assess the wound, keeping the man’s gun by my side, alert for any movement, any sound.

  He’s losing consciousness.

  I dab at it and determine that the bullet didn’t go through. It grazed his head. I heave a sigh of relief, though a bullet doesn’t have to go in to do a hell of a lot of damage. It’s a blow to the head, just like a baseball bat could do.

  He’s mumbling.

  “Stay still.” I tie a makeshift bandage around his head like a headband, then I tear off my jacket and tuck it around him. I pull his pants back up and tuck his cock back in and button him up.

  A rustling sound. I grab the gun and stand. The one who shot us stares sightlessly at the sky. I watch him for a while, just to make sure he’s not faking it. I’ll shoot him if I have to.

  More rustling—from another direction.

  I back up to the shadow side of the tree.

  A squirrel.

  Deep breath.

  I go back to Kiro. He tries to get up, then sits back down. Dizzy.

  “You’re okay, you just need to keep still.”

  Except this is a dangerous place to stay. Dead men all around. Are they all even dead? More could just be injured.

  I examine the gun in my hand. I’ve had firearms training, but I’ve never shot anybody who wasn’t made of paper. That’ll change if anyone else goes after Kiro.

  Think, think.

  I turn my senses to our surroundings. Handle immediate danger first—that’s the rule at times like this. I creep around, find another body. Another. One that looks alive until I toe him and see the amount of blood that’s run out of his mouth.

  I spot a pack near a tree and go to it, carefully, like something might jump out.

  There’s some kind of radio walkie-talkie device in the outer pocket. Inside a small Styrofoam pack are several baggies of dried food and beef jerky. Money, first aid, two guns. I hear the voice—faint. Hello? Come in.

  It’s coming from the radio walkie-talkie thing. The connection is open.

  I put down the pack and take it out, holding it like it’s alive, like it might bite me.

  Come in, motherfuckers, the voice says.

  Nothing.

  Who’s out there? We’re fifteen minutes out. Keep your lines open—we have your location. You copy? You out there?

  I stare at the thing.

  Last time I send boys to do a man’s job, another voice snarls.

  Fifteen minutes. Keep the line open. Can I get to the canoe and get us out of here in under fifteen minutes?

  Then I get an idea. I open the pack and take out the Styrofoam. I break it up and shove the walkie-talkie in a baggie and wrap the thing up with medical tape. I run to the nearby river and set it off.

  I collect a few other walkie-talkies and quickly do the same thing. Then I set my phone off in its own Styrofoam raft. My whole fucking life.

  I hear the drone of engines in the distance, but it could be my imagination.

  I check Kiro again. Groggy. “You can’t fall asleep.”

  He grumbles. He’s really dazed.

  I take off my boots and jump into the freezing water, cursing and swimming madly for the canoe. I stuff our things into it, but I don’t even get into it, I just turn and swim it back. I pull it up onto shore and urge Kiro in.

  I should really be keeping him still, but we have to get the fuck out.

  This might be a shit plan, but it’s my plan, and I’m not second-guessing it. I get in and shove us off.

  I take a quick look downstream—none of my Styrofoam vessels are around, none caught on the rocks or reeds. Hopefully that’s what’s making the signal. Hopefully the mob guys will follow it and not us.

  Okay.

  I start paddling upstream, keeping to the shady west side of the shore. It will be dark soon.

  Kiro’s watching me. He’s trying to focus. “Ann,” he says. “Was I out?”

  “A little. How do you feel?”

  He doesn’t answer. Just squints around.

  “Kiro? Tell me how you feel.”

  “Dizzy,” he says. “Like a hammer is inside my brain.”

  A bullet graze can be a serious head trauma. “What else? How’s your eyesight? Move your feet.”

  He complies.

  “Looks like systems online. But you probably have a hell of a concussion.”

  He grasps the sides of the canoe, squinting around. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know. But being that I’m a way faster paddler than you are, we may be all the way to Canada. Possibly Alaska. What do you think?”

  Nothing. I need to get him talking, get a sense of how he is.

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “I think you’re a good m
ate.”

  I keep us going, around one bend and then another. I go for an hour, getting him to answer stupid little questions. He’s not sitting up and not insisting on paddling. Not great signs.

  An hour into our trip, he growls.

  “What?”

  “They’re coming. Hunting. Helicopters.” I don’t hear anything, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there. Kiro sits up and grabs the other paddle. “Hurry—” He points at a swath of brown way off across the waterway.

  “What?”

  “We can hide there.”

  We paddle like hell for the spot. He maneuvers the canoe under a fallen tree at the river’s edge and ties it up between the branches. It’s great cover.

  “What are you going to do?”

  He climbs out, using the rotting branches as a bridge to the shore. He slips a few times—I can’t tell whether it’s the instability of the branches or his dizziness. When he gets to shore, he straightens, sways a bit, and then reaches out to hold onto a tree. Definitely dizzy. It’s not good—it could be something with his inner ear. But then he withdraws his hand from the tree and takes a few more steps. He’s stable. Or maybe it’s willpower.

  He comes back to the canoe. “We’ll sleep here until light,” he says.

  I snuggle him into the blankets and stretch out by him. I poke his ribs. “Hey.”

  He stirs.

  “You hear that?”

  He gives me a look. Stupid question. Of course he hears it. The chop-chop-chop of a helicopter. A spotlight slides around the landscape. Luckily, the Kevlar of the canoe isn’t reflective like metal would be.

  Kiro closes his eyes and traces my lips. We’re two peas in a pod in the slim canoe and he’s feeling my lips.

  The moon comes out from behind a cloud, lighting his features. “Look at me,” I whisper.

  He opens his eyes. “I’ve been looking at you for days, Ann. I’ll never be tired of looking at you.”

  “I mean look at my eyes. I want to see your pupils.”

  I place my hand on his beard and pull up his right eyelid, then the left. The left pupil is bigger, but only slightly.

  “Does your head still hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  His pause tells me everything. “I’m feeling better. I’m almost home.”

  I slide my thumb along his unwelted cheekbone. “Almost home.”