The Killing Game

by Anderson, Toni

  Dempsey spread a sleeping bag out on the uneven ground. “If you want to stay warm you’re going to have to cuddle up next to me.” He held up his flashlight. “I need to turn this off to conserve battery life.”

  She wasn’t adverse to sharing body heat or stealing some comfort, but she didn’t want to think about the dark. She lay beside him, the floor uneven and hard. He spread a silver emergency blanket over them both. She shifted uncomfortably, grateful when he passed a T-shirt to use as a pillow.

  He spooned himself around her and she sank back into a cocoon of heat. His holding her didn’t seem awkward. After years of sleeping alone, she thought it would take time to adjust, but being next to him felt natural. They fit. Her body relaxed. After everything they’d been through she trusted him. And she didn’t trust easy. He hooked his arm around her waist and held her tight.

  “Get some sleep.” His breath ruffled her hair.

  Fatigue was already dragging her lids down, but she was relieved to be holding onto something strong and vital when the light went off.

  CHAPTER 11

  Dempsey woke surrounded by the scent of warm female. It was pitch-black but his other senses were making up for loss of vision and his imagination supplied the rest. His nose was in Axelle’s hair, and every inch of the front of his body was plastered to the back of hers. He realized his fingers were curled under her arm and clamped possessively over her breast. Her nipple pebbled against his palm—from cold, not desire, though his body couldn’t tell the difference.

  He tried to ignore his dick’s pathetically predictable reaction to waking up holding a beautiful woman and think about the next course of action instead.

  Follow the blood trail, checking for booby traps along the way. He shifted his knee, accidentally nudging her thigh forward and bringing his erection into direct contact with her arse—her very fine arse. He had seen her naked, and every glorious detail tortured him now.

  Most people—let alone someone who’d suffered what she’d been through—would have freaked out by now. The number of ways they could die was staggering. He’d taken on that risk when he’d signed up for active duty. She hadn’t.

  He made himself shuffle back, creating a space between them. She wasn’t his lover. She depended on him and that wasn’t a position he intended to exploit, no matter how his body was crying out for some basic human contact. Very basic. Lots of contact.

  She’d been through hell.

  She was exhausted, tired and scared.

  Who knew how long they were going to be trapped together. This cave network might not go anywhere except down. The bombing raid could have blasted shut every exit, and if it hadn’t, the Russian could still do the job for them. He needed to catch up with the old bastard but couldn’t risk losing Axelle in the warren of tunnels.

  He listened to her deep even breathing while he lay there stubbornly aroused, his skin prickling with hyperawareness and desire. He tried to distract himself with things that weren’t making sense. Like if her father had been contacted, why would the Brits—assuming it was the Brits—order the bombing of the cave when he was in position to at least chance a rescue? Why waste an opportunity to catch this old fecker and extract as much intel from him as possible?

  Why try to blitz the old goat into oblivion?

  Axelle edged toward him in sleep and now he was trapped against the wall and couldn’t move away without waking her. He lay there gritting his teeth as she wriggled against him. A long strand of hair tickled his nose and he smoothed it gently away. She stirred.

  He heard the panic enter her breathing and she whipped toward him in the dark.

  “Shush,” he whispered. “Everything’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

  “Dempsey?” She gave an audible swallow of relief, but she was still shaking with fear.

  “I think you can call me, Ty, now you’ve slept with me twice.”

  Her fingers sank into his shirt, searching for some sort of anchor in the dense sea of blackness. “Funny.”

  “Thank you. How’re you feeling?”

  “I haven’t bathed in days and I’m in danger of throwing up every time I remember where I am.” She laughed nervously. The silence grew and he felt her staring at him. “Every time I think about where we are—”

  “So don’t think about it.” He smoothed hair off her brow.

  She captured his fingers. “Then distract me.” That gave his small brain a jolt. “Tell me something about yourself that isn’t name, rank and number. Tell me why you joined the army.”

  Lingering thoughts of sex and arousal evaporated.

  Normally, he’d have lied. But he could feel her nervous breath against his neck, knew her panic was right on the periphery. And, for once, he didn’t want to lie. It was a big part of what made him who he was and he wanted her to know. To know him. “My sister was killed by a terrorist bomb when I was seventeen.” Faded memories of his sister’s smiling face and deep laughter rang through his mind, and immediately he was catapulted back to the day they’d put her in the ground.

  Rain dripped down from the sky like God himself was weeping. But Tyrone doubted the deity his family prayed to would have enough pity in his heart for a bunch of murdering feckers like the ones who stood before him.

  Not that they saw themselves that way. Oh, no. They were heroes of the revolution. Heroic fighters in a guerilla war that had lasted decades. It was him they blamed. He could see it in their eyes.

  The priest droned on and on. Finally, as one, they made the sign of the cross. It was a wonder they weren’t struck down dead on the spot for hypocrisy. If Tyrone had been looking for a sign that religion was bogus he’d have just found it. But he’d stopped believing three days ago when his little sister had been caught in the bomb his dad had built and his brothers had planted.

  Prayers ended. Rage simmered.

  The priest moved away for the mourners to pay their private respects. His father stood by the grave and looked down at the shiny white coffin for a long moment before turning away, deliberately pushing past Tyrone as he went. He fell back a step, shaking so hard from trying to rein the fury all in, that it was consuming him, cell by cell. His brothers stared at him stonily.

  “What are you looking at?” he jeered.

  “Shut your hole,” his father snarled.

  “Or what? You’ll fecking kill me too?”

  The patriarch of the family’s lips firmed. “Don’t think I’m not tempted,” he murmured.

  Then his mother was in his face, wearing her old wool coat and a black scarf that she’d tied over her rampant curly hair. The whites of her eyes were red, skin blotchy. “Hush, love. Give your da some time and space.”

  “I hope he gets all he needs in his own fucking cell in H-block.”

  She slapped him. Hard. But her betrayal struck him harder. “That’s enough of that talk, Tyrone Dempsey.”

  He rubbed his cheek. He should be used to it by now, but it always came as a shock.

  “That’s your father you’re talking about. Show some respect.”

  He almost choked. “Catch yourself on, Ma. He’s a fucking stone cold killer and you let him in your bed every night.” His voice had grown louder, accent thicker. Too loud for a churchyard full of mourners. Too loud for secrets this volatile. His dad turned to face him, his expression a cold mask of loathing.

  Hatred welled up inside Tyrone. He hadn’t known what his father and brothers were planning to do, but he’d known they were planning to do something.

  He stabbed his finger toward his da and raised his voice. “It was him! Paddy Dempsey who laid that bomb that killed twenty-seven people last Saturday, and the only reason you lot give a fuck is because he got Siobhan too.” His voice broke but he was done with this shit. He was done with living in the land of bigotry and misery. He looked at his ma. “How can you not see how wrong this is?”

  His mother flinched and two of his brothers came over to give him some. God, he was ready. He’d never hurt a fly in his
life but he was desperate to pound something or someone into the ground.

  “You’re the one who was supposed to watch her. It was a fucking Orange parade.” Ronan grabbed him around the back of the neck and leaned so close their faces were touching. Tears drenched his brother’s cheeks. “And keep yer fucking voice down—the Brits’ll be watching.”

  Tyrone pushed him away. “It was market day, you ignorant shite, or are you too stupid to understand women and children go to market on the weekend to get their fucking groceries even when the Orange men are marching?”

  “You were told to watch her.” Declan—the brother closest to him in age—shoved him hard. Twenty pounds heavier, he’d always liked throwing his weight around. Tyrone didn’t give a shit. He welcomed a pounding almost as much as he wanted to dish one out. It might numb the pain of losing his sister. If only for a few brief moments.

  “I was in the fucking kitchen listening to the fucking radio the way you told me. She snuck out of the bedroom window. I didn’t know she’d gone to town to meet Rory until you came home looking like the cat who’d got the fucking cream.” He shoved his brother, who fell back a step. Surprise widened Declan’s eyes before they narrowed with malice. Tyrone sneered. “You’re not enjoying the victory quite so much now, are you, Declan?”

  Declan’s skin went bright white. “It wasn’t supposed to go off until later. Until the shops were closed and the fucking Brits were doing their rounds.”

  “Jaysus, will you listen to yourself? You fucking loved the carnage, the wreckage. You strutted around that kitchen like a rooster in a cockfight, right up until we found out she was gone.” Dead. Siobhan was dead. She’d never grin at him again. Never tug his hair or tease his gentle nature when surrounded by all these killers. Dead, dead, dead.

  They were right. Siobhan was dead because of him. Not because he’d failed to keep her locked up in her bedroom like an animal, but because he’d let his father and brothers ply their deadly trade and never said a word. Never fought back.

  His vision blurred, or maybe it was just the rain. It didn’t matter. He looked at his da who was staring at him like he wanted to put a bullet in his brain. Well, he knew the fucking feeling. He pointed again. “You killed her. And I’ll never forgive you for it.”

  He turned his back on them and started walking. Things were about to change, and there’d never be any going back.

  The touch of a hand on his face snapped him back to the present. Axelle. The cave. Russian terrorist. There wasn’t much left of the boy he’d once been and sometimes he missed the naivety and innocence. He was shaking, and grateful for the darkness.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. He could hear her thinking, heard the hesitant probing in her voice. “You told me you were dead to your family—did you have something to do with her death? Is that why you try so hard to save people now?”

  He’d forgotten the sharpness of her brain.

  “No. I didn’t kill her. They did.” He didn’t want to reveal all his deep dark secrets. Not yet. Maybe not ever. “We may as well cover some ground if we’re both awake. Let’s go.”

  An hour later, the batteries in the torch began to fade. Not good. They were making progress but without light they were going to struggle to cover much ground. The spots of blood had disappeared, suggesting the Russian had managed to patch himself up and keep moving. Dogged, determined, old bugger.

  They got to a divide in the tunnel.

  Down one Dempsey could clearly hear the rumble of fast-flowing water. He hesitated.

  “I feel a breeze.” Axelle went to take a step forward but he stopped her and pulled her close, whispering in her ear.

  “This is where I’d set a trap.”

  She moved back around the corner to give them more cover. Dempsey dropped his pack and stripped off his body armor.

  “What are you doing?” Her expression was outraged as he tried to hand it to her.

  “I only have one vest. I want you to wear it.”

  She folded her arms, her eyes glinted but she kept her voice low. “Why are you here, Sergeant Tyrone Dempsey?”

  Use of his full name and title gave him pause. “To catch a known Russian terrorist.”

  “This is your job. Right? Your mission.” He nodded. “And they provide you with body armor to do your job, right?”

  “It’s personal now.” After another look at her determined face he pressed his lips together and nodded. “It’s my job, yes. That doesn’t mean—”

  She held up her hand. “I appreciate you rescuing me—I do.” Her eyes flashed with unexpected fervor. “Because I couldn’t have survived in here alone. But no way in hell am I wearing your bulletproof vest when you’re the one he’ll be shooting at.”

  “Axelle—”

  “No.”

  “Axelle—”

  “No. We can argue about it all day.” She was someone who was used to giving orders not taking them. At least she was getting some of her mettle back, but damn, he’d rather it happened a little later in the operation. “I’m not changing my mind.” She stood in the wide stance he used when he was determined to get his own way.

  He pulled the vest back over his head. Damn stubborn woman. “Why did you become a wildlife biologist?” It was suddenly important he knew what made her tick.

  She frowned at the change in topic. “Because animals need people who care enough to fight for them.”

  It wasn’t so different to why he’d become a soldier. To stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. He stared at her as their light faded. For some crazy reason he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him. Hip to hip. Her eyes widened before her gaze dropped to his lips, and he slowly lowered his mouth and kissed her—half expecting a kick in the balls for his audacity. Instead she wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning in as she kissed him back.

  Her body felt amazing. Lean and strong, but soft in all the right places. Her mouth like hot wet silk. She probed the seam of his lips and he deepened the kiss, holding her hard against him so she could feel his arousal, feel how much she turned him on. He didn’t know the last time he’d wanted a woman like this. Like his brain was going to explode if he didn’t have her, right here, right now.

  It was a heart-pounding, skin-scorching, soul-blasting kiss, and he didn’t want it to end.

  Breathing hard, he released her mouth and rested his forehead against hers. He stared into her dark eyes, wondering if his held the same mixture of insecurity, curiosity, and need swirling in their depths. They should, because that was exactly what he was feeling.

  He let her go.

  No time to enjoy the moment. No time to get distracted.

  He pulled NVGs from his pack and slid them over her head. He left his kit against a rock and gripped his carbine. He turned on the night scope.

  “You’ll be able to see through the NVGs if there’s any ambient light at all.” He folded her fingers over his pistol. “It’s loaded, so shoot any bastard who looks like he wants to kill you. But I’d appreciate if you didn’t nail me when I come back.”

  “What if you don’t come back?” her whisper was gruff.

  “I’m coming back.” Her mutinous expression told him she’d heard that promise before. Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling.

  “Hey, don’t think about the past,” he ordered. He leaned down and kissed her again, hard and fast. His heart rate jacked up to full speed in a split second. And suddenly he wanted to do a whole lot more than kiss her, so he backed away. “I’ll be back, if only to see if you’re good at anything beside kissing.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t going to shoot you before—”

  He grinned at the crispness of her tone.

  “—but now I might.”

  “Be safe, muirnín.” Then he took off.

  Right fork in the tunnel went toward the thundering rumble of water, which spelled trouble if they had rain—one reason to be thankful for the frigid temps outside. To the left was anot
her dark abyss but the air seemed to move slightly against his skin with the barest hint of a breeze.

  He didn’t trust the other guy. This is where he’d set up an ambush if he were the one being chased. He was definitely getting light through the scope as he moved along the tunnel as fast as he could while still checking for tripwires.

  Dempsey frowned. The Russian could have set mines and tripwires that would have slowed down soldiers and possibly killed them. Why hadn’t he? A lot of the intel they had didn’t make any sense.

  The floor of the tunnel was surprisingly smooth. He suspected the reason for that rumbled forcefully down a nearby chasm. Piles of boulders had been dumped and he had to crawl up and over them. He was careful about where he put his hands and feet. That was why he’d left Axelle behind. He didn’t want to risk her life by walking down what could be suicide alley. There was no visible danger but the absolute quiet had the hairs on the back of his neck vibrating. He rounded the corner and saw the dim sparkle of stars blinking through an opening ahead.

  Thank bloody Christ.

  He thought about going back and getting Axelle, or maybe trying the communication systems. But he wasn’t home free yet and she was safer back there, especially with the exit so close.

  His boots made a gentle scrape against the rock and he swore he heard the mountain itself draw in a deep breath. He could see no one. Hear nothing. The wind brushed his skin with fresh air he was grateful for after the stale atmosphere beneath ground. But he’d swear on everything he held holy that he was not alone.

  He crouched and kept scanning the ground, the opening. He made it out to the face of the mountain and cautiously peered around. Row upon row of spectacular peaks surrounded his position. No trees. Snow, ice, rock and sky. Then above him he spotted the mottled coat of an animal disappearing over the shoulder of the mountain. He gave it a salute, knowing that despite Volkov, these creatures would endure in the high inhospitable peaks.

  A deep furrow snaked through the snow, heading over the nearest ridge and out of sight.

  The Russian? Who else?