Galen had used the tranq, but he’d left it in the room, she was sure.
Would Neal follow through on the orders?
Or would he linger trying to figure out what had happened to her until he was discovered in her room?
Or would he head for the rangers’ room to inform them that she was missing?
He was smart, but he was a soldier. He was used to following orders. If his commanding officer, her, was missing, wasn’t it likely he would go to the next in the chain of command to ask for orders?
Not that the rangers were in the chain of command. They were civilians. But they were heading up the task force, so it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
Well, it wasn’t a leap to figure out what Hallie would do if Neal decided to ask instead of following through with the orders she’d left standing.
Hallie would go straight to the prince/or the king’s advisors and demand to know what they’d done with her.
The question was, would she have enough sense to contact central command before she did that?
Or would Neal think to contact the brass and let them know what had happened and ask for orders?
She actually felt better once it occurred to her that it was way more likely that Neal would contact their commanding officer for orders than turning to Hallie because she was fairly confident the orders would be to get the hell out and wait until the situation had been thoroughly discussed and a new plan devised.
If he hadn’t, though, if he’d gone to Hal, the chances were probably pretty high that the whole damned crew was sitting in their prison.
They’d still be able to contact command if they had their suits.
Well, should be able to.
That would depend on the thickness of the stone walls in the prison below the castle, she realized.
So they were in a pretty nasty situation.
The Oloote weren’t enemies, but they damned sure weren’t friends and there wasn’t a firm enough understanding for them to simply dismiss her sudden disappearance directly after Damek had announced his intention to take her as his queen.
Shit!
They could be in all kinds of trouble!
Not that it made sense that they would be involved and still be there, but she didn’t think she could count on the Oloote to be reasonable about the situation.
They were just going to be pissed off.
And god only knew what they’d do if they’d managed to capture her people.
Especially if they were in the act of capturing Nldick and making off with him when the Oloote found them.
All of that was pure speculation, though.
She had no idea what had happened or was happening and no way to find out.
The only thing that was an absolute was that she was on her own. She couldn’t help them. At this point, she wasn’t even in a position to help herself.
And the situation, as far as she could see, was deteriorating very quickly.
Galen was carrying her further and further from the only people who could or would help and also from her only means of escape—the ship.
And the longer they were gone the more likely it was that Damek would figure out it was his brother who’d taken her and she was going to find herself smack in the middle of a civil war!
She couldn’t see Damek simply throwing up his hands in defeat and accepting that Galen had outmaneuvered him.
She wasn’t happy when she discovered she was right. Near dusk, they topped a sharp rise and were able to look back in the direction from which they’d come. They were too far away to make out much—or she was anyway—but torches dotted a long line snaking through the forest behind them.
A really long line.
“Oh my god!” Charlotte gasped when her mind finally assimilated what she was looking at. “What are we going to do?”
Galen was studying the line, as well, she discovered. His expression was grim. “Stay ahead of them.”
Charlotte could only gape at him.
They were exhausted.
Well, she was. She was pretty sure the beast was getting pretty tired, too, because it seemed to her that he’d begun to stumble.
Maybe not Galen.
But even if he was in fine fighting form, what could he do against so many?
If she’d had her damned armor she might at least have stood a chance of outrunning them. As it was, she was going to be virtually helpless and useless when they caught up to them.
If they did.
And she wasn’t putting any bets down on her and Galen making a clean getaway, especially since it seemed pretty obvious that the men behind them weren’t hunting them. They were giving chase.
* * * *
Charlotte discovered that terror wasn’t enough to keep her awake and alert when exhaustion set in. She struggled, but her mind kept suggesting she’d be better off to rest a little while she could.
Somehow, it seemed worse when she began to nod off, because she only lost consciousness for a handful of seconds before she was jerked awake again by something—a thought, a noise.
“What’s the plan?” she asked after a while, more to try to stay alert than because she thought he would tell her or that it would be anything workable at this point.
He didn’t answer.
She swiveled around after a few moments, half wondering if he’d dozed off himself.
He was awake.
She could see the gleam of light in his eyes but not a hell of a lot besides that because the sun had gone down, they were deep in the forest, and the neither of the moons had risen.
“You don’t have a plan,” she said uneasily.
He kept his silence.
“Or you just don’t want to share?”
Silence.
“Who the hell am I going to tell?” she demanded angrily.
“Everyone if you continue to speak so loudly,” he responded tightly.
Charly’s face felt like a neon sign, flashing red. She was exhausted, damn it! Like anybody could think straight under the circumstances!
Well, she had been trained to operate with very little sleep, but not when she’d been drugged first! Well, drunk and then drugged! She probably still had residual chemicals in her blood!
“I didn’t say it that loud,” she said defensively.
“I take it you were talking too loud to hear the echo?” he retorted.
“Smartass!”
Neither of them said anything for a while, but Charly began to have bladder issues. She couldn’t recall the last time they’d stopped for a break, but she knew it had to have been a long time. “Can we stop so I can pee? Or would you prefer if I piss down your leg?”
He pulled the beast to a stop. “Make it quick … unless you just like the idea of entertaining a couple of hundred men.”
She slipped off the beast and damned near collapsed when her knees buckled.
“Don’t run. I don’t have time to chase you down.”
She could barely walk, damn him! But she wasn’t about to tell him.
She hobbled off a little ways, but she didn’t bother to go far.
Because it was pitch black and she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to find the damned beast again just by its stench.
“Your ass is very white. Let us hope they did not spot the flash when you dropped your drawers.”
She glared at him as he dragged her back up the beast and settled her in front of him again.
“Oh you are hilarious. I know damned well you couldn’t see me. I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”
“Mayhap your hand is not as white as your ass?”
“Smartass.”
Chapter Eight
“Oh my god!” Charly gasped when she saw what lay before them.
Sheer exhaustion had overtaken her at some point during the night ride in spite of the misery of being on the back of the beast almost every moment since they’d left the castle. She’d finally yielded to the demand of her body, slumped agains
t Galen for whatever security and comfort he could provide, and passed from the world of knowing.
She didn’t feel like she’d rested, though, when she woke and she wondered if she’d done nothing but doze off.
The world around them had lightened significantly, however, and that suggested at least a few hours had passed. Her eyes, burning from lack of sleep, teared as she sat up and looked around, blinking to adjust her vision as she struggled to pierce the thick layer of fog that lay along the ground just below the point where Galen had pulled the beast to a halt.
It was that, she was sure, that had awakened her—the cessation of movement.
She just couldn’t figure out, at first, why he’d stopped.
Finally, either her vision adjusted or the morning breeze shifted the heavy veil of fog.
They’d paused on a hill, she realized.
Before and slightly below them lay a wide valley denuded of most of the trees that had once dotted it—evidenced by the stumps here and there across the landscape like broken teeth. A dark, jagged edifice ruptured the ground in roughly the center. At first, Charly thought it was nothing more than a jumble of tumbled, jagged rocks. Slowly, though, she began to realize that it was far too regular in shape to be wrought from nature.
It was a castle.
And before it was an army of thousands.
Galen caught her jaw and forced her to look at him as she gasped out the shocked words. “This is could be tricky. I need you to trust me, Charlotte.”
Charly just gaped at him, trying to wrap her mind around the size of the army and what that meant when they had another one right behind them.
“They are not far behind us now and the beast is weary. It will take some doing to make it to sanctuary,” he added as if he’d read her thoughts.
“But …,” Charly managed before he shoved the spout of the water skin in her mouth.
At least, she thought it was the water.
Liquid fire shot down her throat and filled her mouth, ballooning her cheeks and completely disorienting her for several seconds. It flickered through her mind that it was the ‘screwed up my head and loosened my tongue at both ends’ wine’, and then the impulse to spit it out.
But the impulse to preserve her dignity and not to behave in a disgusting manner in front of a guy that she had the hots for was way stronger.
She swallowed.
He shot another load into her mouth.
That time she whipped her head to one side in an attempt to avoid the intoxicating drink—for all the good it did!
He dropped the wineskin, captured her face in one hand and planted his mouth over hers.
She swallowed when she felt her grip on her locked lips failing.
His mouth and tongue became conqueror and pillager, ramming her ‘walls’ down and invading. Her head swam. Heat inundated her like a tsunami.
It was woefully brief, however.
He pressed his forehead to hers and murmured something to her in his own tongue when he broke the kiss.
She didn’t catch it and couldn’t have translated it if her life had depended upon it.
Between the kiss and the wine she had about two viable brain cells left to her name—which she couldn’t remember at the moment.
Thoroughly disoriented and bemused, she simply sat as docile as a lamb to slaughter as he whipped a cord out and bound her wrists together.
“You are a captured bride. You must look the part, must be witnessed as such … for your sake.”
When he’d tied her, he yanked his shield from its place near the animal’s rump and slung it across his back, and then he bundled her in the bedcover until he’d swaddled her like a mummy. Before she could object to having her head covered—well find her marbles and object to all of it—he kicked the beast in the sides and launched it toward the castle in the distance like a rocket.
She made a grab for purchase.
She didn’t know what part of his anatomy she grabbed, but he grunted like she’d kicked him in the nuts.
Then he shifted her around and tightened his grip on her.
She couldn’t see shit!
She heard, though.
She knew the moment the warriors standing at the ready in the field spied them. A near deafening shout went up.
She was just glad the terror tightened her sphincter instead of making it faint.
She braced herself the best she could for impact, expecting to be spitted on one of the pikes the soldiers were holding at any second.
Instead, after what seemed an interminable time, she heard a clash behind them. A deep shadow seemed to fall over them and she ‘felt’ sound echo back to them as if they’d run through a tunnel. And then the beast made a noise and stumbled and she felt herself flying through the air.
The jolt when she landed wasn’t nearly as traumatic as she’d expected.
Maybe because Galen never let go of her?
Maybe because Galen leapt—with her—from the back of the beast?
He was gasping for breath when he set her on her feet and pulled the cover off of her head.
She swept the area around them with her gaze and saw that it looked as if they’d been swallowed by the castle. The huge, thick gates were slowly closing behind them. In the narrowing aperture, she could see a great upheaval as the men outside waged battle against those who’d chased them from the king’s castle.
Confusion flickered through her, but she couldn’t make any sense of it at the moment and she gave up trying fairly quickly.
Galen narrowed his eyes at the conflict for a handful of seconds and then turned and began to haul her up the tall flight of stairs that led into the structure protected by the walls. When she stumbled, he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the top.
She would’ve been more happily impressed if she hadn’t immediately been certain he was going to drop her or fall and roll to the bottom with her.
Thankfully, he made it to the top with both of them intact.
He didn’t put her down.
She couldn’t let go since her hands were still tied and he’d, somehow, looped her arms around his neck when he picked her up.
A group of elder giants dressed in long very elaborately decorated robes met them on the ‘porch’ at the top of the long flight of stairs. The one who looked the oldest or at least the most shrunken, stepped forward and spoke to Galen.
The conversation didn’t last long and then the robed men turned and entered the castle.
Galen carried her inside.
“You could put me down,” she whispered.
His jaw tightened. “I could.”
But he didn’t.
They crossed a short vestibule and entered an enormous room that looked like some sort of spa. There was a large, diamond shaped pool in the center.
No exercise equipment, but no benches either.
The robed men disappeared.
Galen set her on her feet and carefully ‘peeled’ her. When he’d removed the bedcover, he folded it in half and spread it on the stone floor not far from the edge of the pool. Then he untied her hands.
“What is this place?” Charly asked, feeling the beginnings of uneasiness as her voice echoed across the huge chamber.
Galen flicked a look at her face and then lifted one hand to lightly caress her cheek. “You are safe here, beloved.”
Charly was so stunned by the caress and the endearment that he was half undressed before it dawned on her that that was what he was doing.
Getting naked.
She was instantly torn between fascination with the play of muscles he’d unveiled and just a tad of wariness as to what he had in mind.
Was he planning on using that ‘club’ on her?
Did she want him to?
Her female part, brainless thing, said yeah! Yay! Yippee! Do me! Do me! Do me!
The tiny voice of reason that remained with her screamed ‘run fool!’
He gestured toward the pool as if he’d read her mind
. “Bathe.”
Chapter Nine
Charly tried not to take that command badly, but the damned beast they’d rode in on was ripe and she didn’t doubt she smelled like it—probably both of them did—not that she could tell which smell was attached to her and which to him when it all smelled the same beastly.
She shrugged of the flare of irritation, the tiny flash of resentment that he’d killed her fantasy with the suggestion that she was really ripe and in desperate need of a bathe.
Which, in all fairness to him, she’d noticed.
The pool was damned sure inviting after the days spent riding for their lives.
She just hadn’t been certain it would be ok to make use of it, especially for bathing.
He was the prince, though. Surely it must be alright if he’d suggested it?
She glanced around as she peeled off her t-shirt and panties.
Thankfully, there was no sign of the robed guys, but almost as if her thoughts prompted it, she heard some kind of chant start up nearby as she tested the water with her toes.
She glanced around again, but she still didn’t see anyone other than Galen and she was trying really hard not to stare at him.
She did notice that there were some openings in the walls, up high, though, and decided that must be where the sound was filtering into the room from.
Dismissing it when she discovered the water was warm, she moved deeper and found that the pool was fairly shallow, coming up only to her waist.
So it must be for bathing, she reasoned.
It seemed an odd sort of placement for a bathing pool, but then again she’d had just enough of the wine—and Galen—to weaken her grip of logic.
It seemed weird to her, she reasoned, because she wasn’t from Bacsheer and didn’t know that much about their customs or practices.
And she didn’t even know if the guys with robes were Oloote. They looked a lot like the Oloote, but other races on Earth were similar, soooo…. Did that clinch it? No, she thought not.
On the other hand, primitives tended to practice strange religious rituals so maybe it had to do with that? Some alien religion?
Because now that she thought about it, the structure seemed a little odd for a castle—very fancy and yet a poor use of space or at least not practical. The room they were in seemed to take up the majority of the space that was allotted to the Great Hall in Galen’s castle.
The Barbarians: Stolen Bride Page 5
