“Who the hell do you think I am?”
“I don’t know.” Merc ground his teeth together, trying to bring his vision into focus. He could see a pair of legs encased in desert camo tucked into tan army-issued boots.
“I’m hurt, brother. We trained together since we left the ranch. We’ve been together since we were kids.” The voice taunted him. Teased him.
Merc tried to lift his head. He saw a narrow waist and tan, thick arms. A scar that cut through a thick blond beard. Straight white teeth stretched into a smile.
“Who are you?” Merc asked desperately. “Tell me.”
“You don’t remember me, my friend? I’ve left you alone too long.” The blond beard faded black, and Salaam’s pointy, scarred face sneered into focus.
His energy disappeared and Merc dropped his head, fighting to keep from groaning at the dream. He’d known that man. He felt their connection like a lost limb. Dammit, why couldn’t he remember?
“Ah, I see you do know who I am. Now, where were we? Tell me your name and your rank.”
The dream sapped his determination. What kind of man couldn’t even remember his past?
Merc heard the whistle of leather flying through air a second before his torso erupted in burning pain. He jerked, his body bowing back on instinct, but clamped his lips together. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt.
“Name and rank.” Salaam flicked the razor-tipped flogger at his side, and Merc thought that must be what Satan looks like as he tortures his victims in hell.
“Elf number two-fifty-two,” Merc said and braced for the next blow.
Salaam didn’t disappoint. This one hit right on top of the last one. “Name and rank.”
Merc lifted his head slowly, careful not to slosh his brains around too much, and offered up a grin. “Easter Bunny. Rank number one, motherfucker.”
Salaam hissed in a breath, his temper starting to rise. “You like pain, my friend?”
“What can I say, I’m a bit of a masochist.” Merc tried to shrug but just ended up hanging his head.
Salaam swung, the flogger hit Merc’s chest, and a thousand razor points dug and ripped into his flesh. Merc bit the inside of his cheeks so hard he tasted blood.
“Name and rank.”
“You can call me Dr. Evil.”
Salaam screamed and brought the flogger around from the left, catching Merc in the side. He bowed sideways, the sharp pain stealing his breath. Salaam came back from the right. And the left. And the right.
Merc tensed, his body tight and immobilized with agony, he braced for the next, welcoming the pain. He could use the motivation, just like he had in his training, to fight. To win. Pain meant he was still alive. And if he was alive, he could escape. He just had to kill the bastard holding the whip.
Salaam’s harsh breaths filled the tent. Merc looked up in time to see him drop the flogger and go for the long knife at his belt. “You’ll talk. I’ll cut you until you do.”
Merc threw back his head and roared his fury. “More, bastard. Give me more.”
Salaam snapped, yelling, and ran toward him. A second later, Merc used the chains holding his hands above his head to jump. His strength left him at the last second and he only got high enough to wrap his legs around Salaam’s waist. He gave a violent twist and threw Salaam to the ground. Merc got in a hard kick to Salaam’s ribs and savored the satisfying crack when they broke.
Salaam rolled away, gasping and holding his side just out of Merc’s reach. “Is that all you can take?” Merc jeered, then spat out a mouth full of blood as a hard cough wracked him.
Salaam rose from the ground, clutching his side, his golden skin unusually pale. “Let’s see what you can take. I will personally bring your woman here and take her body before you. Let you watch as she screams beneath me.”
“That’s all you can do, torture helpless women? Why? You scared of me? I’m tied to the fucking ceiling.” Merc taunted him, realizing Salaam was on the edge and might be crazed enough to carry out his threat.
Salaam hesitated at the tent flap. “I’m afraid of no man.”
Merc kept going, desperate to do anything to keep him away from Caroline. “Then bring it. Get your little knife back and let’s play a game of who bleeds out first. Or are you too scared?”
“I’ll kill you.” Salaam limped over to his knife and Merc breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“You’d have to be a real man to do that.”
Salaam picked up the knife, looked at Merc, then tossed it to the side. “I’ll show you a real man.” Holding his ribs, he went for the flogger. “When I’m through with you, you will call me master. And then, when you finally beg me for your life, I’ll show your woman a real man. You can die together.”
“Bring it.” Just stay in the fucking tent. He needed to remain conscious long enough to wear Salaam down and buy them more time.
Salaam, clutching his side, lifted the flogger overhead. “I hope you live long enough to hear her screams.”
Merc braced himself, ready to take Salaam’s full brunt of anger if it meant saving Caroline. The flogger came down, the force of the blow bending Merc backward in an even more painful wave of agony.
He blacked out for a second. No. Stay here. Stay focused. You have to keep Salaam in this tent.
Merc heard a gurgling sound and managed to lift his head. Salaam clutched at his skinny neck, his own razor-tipped whip had somehow wrapped around Salaam’s neck. Dark spurts of blood bubbled and spilled through his fingers as Salaam frantically tried to loosen the noose. There was a sharp whip and a crack and Salaam was free to fall to his knees, holding his throat with a shaky hand.
“So you’re the mighty torturer Amir told me all about. He said you would break my man there. That you’ve never failed.” Merc watched as the robed figure’s hood fell away. “Looks like tonight’s a first for everyone.”
Caroline spun, as if holding center ring in the circus, her beautiful blonde hair too clean and too perfect to be touched by this filth. “Caroline –” A hard cough wracked him, stealing his ability to speak.
“Oh, don’t you worry honey, I’ve got this shithead covered.”
Salaam made to move from his tethered spot on the floor. Caroline yanked on the razor rigged collar. Salaam roared and fell to the ground, digging his fingers beneath the coil around his neck for air.
“Salaam, my big tough Salaam, did you really think you would win against him?” Caroline pointed at Merc. “This guy almost snapped your neck a minute ago with his legs. On top of that, you’ve had him tied up and beaten for days and yet he still kicked your ass.” Caroline tsked and continued her slow circle around the room, and when her whip pulled tense she yanked, causing another groan from her captor. “Now, let me see, I believe you were saying something about raping me and killing me in front of Merc. I don’t think you’ll be able to do that laying on the ground like that. I mean I’m a weak female and all, but you gotta at least try.” Caroline lifted and then yanked down on the whip, flipping Salaam onto his bony back.
She straddled him, absorbing the pure power and satisfaction. Nightshade cocked her head to the side, and gave Salaam her deadliest smile. “I think that when I’m through with you, you’ll be a little too light in the load to rape anyone.”
She pulled out the long golden dagger from her robes, the same one she’d sliced Amir with, and gently traced an x down Salaam’s torso trailing into the waistband of his draw string pants. “What do you think, Merc? Should I just give him a little nip or full on lop it off?”
“You crazy woman! Get off me!” Salaam bucked and tried to kick her in the head, but she held him down by his leash just like she would a bad dog.
“You’re wasting time. Just go for the jugular.” Merc gritted out.
“But I’ve already done that to Amir.” She pretended to pout, holding the bloody dagger over Salaams rapidly widening eyes. “That seems so cliché.”
“You kill
ed my master? You filthy whore! I will kill you!”
“I don’t like being called names, Salaam.” She said quietly.
“Fucking slut! Die! You will die!”
Nightshade stood and pretended to study her prey. He kept jerking up and she’d planted her foot on the whip, so that each movement he sliced himself. It was pitiful really, like putting down a wounded bird, or in Salaam’s case, a buzzard.
She squatted then and took his chin in a firm grip. “I had thought to end your life quickly, but after what you’ve done to my friend, I’ve decided you need a much slower and much more painful death.”
Before Salaam could spew more filth, Nightshade brought the hilt of her knife to his temple, rendering him unconscious. As fast as possible. She bound his hands to a second pole in the tent and gagged him. Then she went to help get Merc down.
When Salaam woke up, she’d finish her task.
His vision hazed and Merc blinked rapidly, focusing in on the blurry form of a small figure in black robes approaching, a bloody dagger in her grip.
“Caroline? It’s really you?” It couldn’t be.
Caroline Cotter didn’t know how to kill a man. She should be crying or screaming, but this girl moved with a lithe and subtle grace.
“Don’t talk, you need your strength,” she said while calmly stepping over the dead man at their feet. “There’s a corral of horses about twenty feet behind your tent. Can you walk long enough to get there?”
The vision before him doubled and shifted. “Caroline, is that you?”
She lifted her hood, revealing her long pale blond hair. “Yes. Can you walk?”
Walk. Horse. Escape. “Yeah.”
“I need to cut you from the ceiling. Ready?”
Merc managed a single nod and tried to lock his knees, knowing the minute she freed him he’d fall on his face.
Eyes closed, he heard the soft sound of her cutting through the rope and then his right hand fell to his side. Agony burned through his arm and it was all he could do to not howl out in pain.
He felt the lightest touch on his cheek and opened his eyes to look into the clear blue aquamarine of Caroline’s. “I’m sorry I have to hurt you to save you.”
He took a deep breath so that he could get the words out. “It’s all right. Cut the rope and stand back.”
After a soul-searching second, she nodded and stepped to the side. One slice and he hit the ground with a thud, landing over the dead Salaam like a cross as the remaining air was knocked from his lungs. He was pretty sure he blacked out again.
When he came to, Caroline was squatting next to him. Her robe was parted, and he caught a glimpse of sapphire blue pants and a bare, toned stomach. She’d tucked a knife into a makeshift holster at her waist. “You have to get up. I’ve cut a hole in the back of the tent so we can go straight for the horses.”
How was she saving him, a sheltered senator’s daughter who’d never done anything more than kickboxing in her life?
Merc shoved the question to the back of his mind and used all of his concentration to focus on standing. He got a knee beneath him and then another. Forced to use his sore arms to lever himself into a vertical position, he swayed and Caroline steadied him.
“That’s it. Now, on your feet, soldier.” Her whisper was a harsh command, leaving no room for argument. She’d make a great drill sergeant.
Merc somehow got to his feet, bracing them wide for balance as the whole tent seemed to tilt. He shook his head, as if he could shake off the fog clouding his thoughts and actions.
Excruciating pain radiated from his neck down to his fingers as blood rushed back through his veins like sharp pinpricks. His arms tingled back to life, and in that moment, he wished they’d remain numb.
He could barely feel Caroline’s arm, small as it was, hooked around his waist. Her head just reached his chest, but somehow she supported his weight enough for him to limp to the newly cut tent flap.
The cold night air sucked what remaining body warmth he’d managed to keep inside, the contrast with the hot blood running down his skin even more acute. A bright moon, full and glowing, clearly lit the night and highlighted a large pen of horses.
“Where’s the guard?” he asked. The desert nomad’s horses were their lifeblood, something they’d never leave unguarded intentionally.
“Distracted for the moment. Hurry. I’ve saddled a stallion big enough to handle both of us.”
Merc coughed, the involuntary spasm in his lungs doubling him over. “How do you know about horses?”
“What do you know about horses?” Caroline asked instead of answering.
Images flashed through his mind lightning fast. A great golden bay with the sunlight gleaming on her coat. Her name had been Chestnut. And then just like that, the memory evaporated.
“I know how to take care of them. How to feed them. Change out their shoes. I know that’s a piebald and that’s the paint.” He nodded to the horses close to them as they circled the pen. “And that great big black is a stallion.” But he had no idea how he knew these things, the blank slate of his memory before the military a yawning hole, empty and lonely.
“Good. Think you can get your foot in the stirrup? If you can get up there, I can tie you to the horse to keep you on his back.”
Merc grabbed the rolled front edge of the saddle, hooked his still booted left foot into the stirrup, and used every single bit of strength he had to haul himself up into it. Blackness slammed into him from all directions, and he made a frantic grab for the horse’s neck to keep from falling onto the ground. The stallion tossed his head in fear, but Caroline immediately soothed the creature.
Merc closed his eyes and focused on staying awake long enough to help her. He wouldn’t disgrace himself by passing out. Not yet anyway. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
He felt the saddle dip and then Caroline’s soft body was at his back, her bare stomach against him. “Can you sit up?”
“Yeah.” He leaned back, savoring her body heat as a chill shook him. Caroline made quick work of tying him to the horse, crisscrossing a rope around his waist and legs. He sucked in a breath at the rough material on his raw wounds.
“I’m sorry. As soon as we are safe, I’ll take it off.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not so bad.” His tongue grew thick in his mouth. He thought he spotted a couple of bodies laying off to the right, partially hidden behind the watering trough. No way. Not possible. He was definitely hallucinating from a fever and blood loss.
Caroline reached for the reins, but he needed to tell her something, something important before he lost it completely. The thought danced at his periphery. Focus. He was being saved by a girl less than half his size.
His hands fell to his waist, the rough edge of his tactical belt scraping the raw wounds. “My belt buckle, front latch. Lift it ‘til it clicks, then lock it back in place.”
“Why?”
“GPS. So my team can find us.” A little gift from Agent K, TF-S’s CIA liaison — some new software developed by one of their undisclosed private corporations.
Caroline followed his instructions and then kicked the horse into motion, easing him into a quiet trot directly away from the camp, avoiding any chance of a passerby in the middle of the night. She’d done exactly what he would’ve done.
A few minutes later she picked up the pace, the bouncing from the horse jolting through him, painting him with even more of his own blood. “Fixing to go black. Can you handle this?”
“I’ve got you.”
He clung to her sweet voice as the darkness welled up and took control.
7
Nightshade wrapped the reins around her arms, creating a cage to keep Merc’s nearly lifeless body enclosed between them. If he fell to the ground, she wouldn’t have the physical strength to lift him back up, and she knew the Sheik’s absence wouldn’t go unnoticed for long. They had to put as much distance between them and the tribe as possible to have any hope of escaping.
<
br /> After she’d latched Merc’s belt buckle, nothing happened. No alarm, no beep, no light to indicate it worked. She had to operate on the assumption that they were completely on their own.
Using the stars and moon as guidance, a skill she’d learned very early on in her training, Nightshade led the horse north into the Hindu Kush Mountains lining the desert. She knew that would be the most obvious place for them to head, but it was also the only place she could hope to find shelter and defend them if needed. If she went south, back toward the desert, they’d be out in the open with nowhere to hide.
Merc’s body temperature climbed instead of falling from blood loss, and he muttered in his dreams as the fever overtook him. He wouldn’t be able to stay on the horse much longer without some kind of medical attention.
She’d actually gotten lucky and found a well-stocked saddle bag leaning against the corral fence, so she’d only had to scavenge for a few items. She’d managed to easily knock out both guards at the pen and hide their bodies behind the trough. And lucky her, they’d both been carrying small automatic rifles with full magazines, which she’d stashed in the holsters on the back of the saddle. Now, as long as she could hold Merc up on the horse, all she had to do was make good time into the mountain trails, find a decent cave, and tend to his wounds.
Hopefully, she’d be able to stabilize him long enough to make a run to the nearby town on the west side of the mountain range and contact her father. The clock ticked by faster with each passing second, increasing the likelihood of her unit’s annihilation at the hands of their enemy.
Merc’s huge body shuddered in her arms. He wouldn’t make it much further. She kicked the stallion into a full gallop, ignoring the fresh waves of blood tracking down her arms from Merc’s chest.
Dammit, why did she have to hear him taunting Salaam to save her life? She’d known that’s exactly what he was doing, trying to get his captor to go against him instead of her. And the whole time he’d failed to rescue her, she’d believed him incompetent. Weak. Worthless.
Instead he’d been brave and strong and fierce. He’d saved her after the blast and all but offered up his own life for hers. Now she felt like she owed him even more.
Revenge River: Men of Mercy, Book 9 Page 6
