Billionaire Romance: MAXIMILIAN (An Alpha Bad Boy Contemporary Mystery Romance) (Mysterious Billionaires Book 3, Anthologies & Collections) (54 page)

If they had to resort to the spears they risked hitting their own people. It was something they had to risk. Dagmar was fighting again and she was too. Her back hit a tree, hard, and she grunted as sharp splinters sunk deep into her flesh.

Her small knife slashed across the shoulder of the man trying to kill her. The poison hit quickly. He began to scream and writhe, and he wasn’t the only one.

They were holding their own but there were so many more coming at them. She saw the bodies of many she knew and loved lying still and broken on the ground and rage filled her again. Her power had subsided but she could still fight and she did, bringing death to those who tried to take her life.

She occasionally saw Dagmar, his red hair shone like a beacon under the cool shaded canopies of the trees. They headed deeper into the forest, their aching bodies and exhaustion slowly giving out.

The Romans retreated, fleeing out of the trees and back toward hail. Aila leaned against a tree, struggling for breath. Dagmar came to her side. He was covered in blood and sweat and his eyes were filled with both rage and sorrow.

The number of Romans that had died was far higher than number of those from the Hail who’d been lost. Aila said, “We have to hurry! Get as many weapons as you can! They aren’t leaving, just regrouping, and we need to be ready when they come back.”

Dagmar nodded and the others began removing arrows and spears from bodies, all of them so weary that even doing that was a hardship.

Alia said, “We need food and rest.”

Dagmar said, “We need to run. Now, while we have a chance.”

“Running won’t help us.” Irritation flared along her veins. Her daughter, their daughter was out there somewhere in the hills, probably hungry and cold, and she longed to go to her with every fiber of her being. She said, “If we run we might run into our own and bring the death we tried to stop to them.”

Were they going to argue now, and in such a place? She knew he wanted what was best for their people but so did she. The question was who was right?

“You’re right but we need to fade away into a spot where we will be safe for the night. We need food and shelter. Dark’s falling and they won’t risk an attack at night, not when they don’t know if you can hit them with your …whatever it is again.”

He was right. She leaned against him and sighed heavily. “Dagmar, you’re right.”

His laughter rumbled up in his chest. “Say that louder so the men can hear you. None will believe you agreed with me, much less said I was correct.”

She slapped his broad chest and laughed. “You’re impossible! Help me gather weapons and we’ll see if any of them have any kind of provisions with them. I don’t really want to make a fire, that would just bring them to us.”

“We have dried meat, some of the hunters are carrying a large amount of it. We can gather a few things as we go. But we do need to go. The others would have gone through the hills to the left. The hunters know that way, and they know the dangers there. Plus there’s a small spot where they can take shelter from the cold tonight.

“We’ll head the opposite way and do our best to confuse the soldiers so they don’t know which way to go.”

Fear turned her bowels to water. “What if they choose the way the others went?”

His smile got wider. Her eyes widened too. “You want them to choose that way! That’s our people out there!”

She wasn’t thinking rationally and she knew it. But she couldn’t think past what he was suggesting. He grabbed her and said, “Yes, and we will be right behind the soldiers Aila.”

She blinked. Her whole body shook. “How can we be sure we will be able to keep them from finding them before we can attack?”

“We attack early.”

“She peered through the trees to the wide open spaces beyond. “There’s no shelter for us out there. If we fight them before they get to the trees on the other side we have no cover and the bows can’t do as good a job as they did today. We didn’t lose a single bow until they came to ground.”

“It’s a chance we have to take.”

“But they’ll know there are others.”

Dagmar said, “Aila, they’ll know anyway. That many people moving quickly…they can’t cover their tracks. We have to hit them hard, decimate their numbers even further. We have to use the land against them. There’s a deep bog that way. Our people know to avoid it and to tread lightly there, but they don’t. We could use it to kill many of them before they even realize what is happening. Then we can charge them and hide on the other side and hit them again. The others are moving already and they won’t stay late tonight, if they stop at all. They’re ahead of the army, and that’s what we needed to have happen.

“Now we have to get them, and ourselves, a chance to live too.”

She sighed. “You’re right. And I don’t like it.”

He chuckled, “I know you don’t. Now let’s get moving while those bastards are still trying to figure out what happened to them here.”

They finished gathering weapons and the few provisions the soldiers carried. It felt wrong to just leave them there, along with the bodies of their own dead and Dagmar frowned. “You’re right. We might be their enemy but they met an honorable death as did ours. And we need to keep them out of here for at least the night. In fact, we need them to go to the east.”

“You’re thinking of burning the woods,” she accused.

He said, “I am burning the woods. Our dead deserve that, and …”

She put a finger to his lips. “I agree.”

They set the fire carefully, using the lowest brush and piling it high around the trees. It hurt Aila to the soul to watch that lovely copse burn but she kne wit was only right. Their dead, and even the Roman’s dead, deserved an honorable send-off and this was the best they could do.

The fire blazed and roared. Dagmar said, “At least we’ll be able to cook tonight without fear since we know they can’t get through that.”

Aila said, “Send our strongest runner ahead Dagmar, and do it now. We need to let our people know we’re alive and what this fire is, and we need to make sure they’re moving quickly but taking time to rest.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’ll send Browyn.”

She nodded wearily. Browyn appeared and listened intently, her sharp little face was already creased with weariness and Aila felt a moment’s misgiving. Browyn said, “I can make it there if I have fuel for the run.”

“Take extra dried meat. Tell them they may cook tonight as long as there are no soldiers coming in from the other side. Have someone go look in every direction, at least five miles. That’s the distance the smoke will carry. Hopefully as large as this one is they’ll assume that is what they smell in the morning.”

Browyn trotted off. Dagmar turned to Aila and said, “Let’s move.”

They headed off to the west. Her feet trudged and her shoulders slumped. She hadn’t realized how much strength she had used up fighting and using her power but it hit her then. She asked, “Do you think she’ll make it?”

Dagmar nodded, “She was in the trees the entire battle. I saw her arrows take at least four. She’s tired from the worry I’m sure but physically she’s still fresh. Fresher than anyone else, anyway. We have to risk it, you know that or you wouldn’t have ordered it.”

“I know.” She rubbed her neck and added, “I think we need to make the hills and go slightly beyond, over to the little streams. They shouldn’t be able to see us if we hide in the underbrush and we could use some berries and leaves to disguise ourselves further. In fact if we did that we could probably sneak up on them easier as well.”

“That’s a great idea.” They walked faster, all of them pushing themselves to the limit. The fire blazed behind them, keeping the Romans back and lighting up the rapidly falling night. Dagmar’s body heat drifted into her skin and she leaned into him as the rain began, a gentle fine mist that would keep the fire from overtaking them but not douse it.

They headed into the hills, climbing past the strewn rocks and the high grass. They trudged through a narrow pass and then down again. Several of those behind them carefully cleared their tracks so that the next stage of their attack could be completed.

It was full dark when they stopped but the sky was bright from the fire. They rested in small groups, eating a few hares that Dagmar had caught as they fled from the fire. They weren’t enough, the group got a few bare scraps of the meat each but Aila and some of the others had also dug roots as they went and that, coupled with the dry hard bread the soldiers had carried, was enough to make them content and their exhaustion ensured that they slept no matter how nervous.

Dagmar and Aila took the first watch amid protests from their people. They sent their tired group of to bed and stood, keeping a close watch for shadows around the edges of the fire, not a bright blot in the distance.

The wind had picked up and she shivered. His arm came around her and he said, “I am proud of you. You are a ruler and I’m sorry it took me so long to see that. It was my pride, I suppose, that couldn’t let me see you for the ruler you could be, in the beginning, and I know I was cruel to you then, and after too.”

She said, “I was the same. All I could see was your faults because I was so intent on ruling I was sure nobody else could rule as well as I could.”

“I think we do rather well together.” His chin rested on the top of her head and she smiled softly. “I think perhaps it was always meant for the two of us to rule together. We both have our strengths and weaknesses, and together we complete each other and shore up the things each lack.”

“We do. Perhaps that’s the best part of what we have. It strengthens us.”

The sky grew darker. Aila said, “I wish I could see what they were doing.”

Dagmar said, “I bet they wish the same.”

She said, “I’m sure. They’re used to taking lands, you can see it in their faces.”

He nodded. “I know. But they won’t take ours, not without a fight. We won’t give up until we’re dead, and gone and we’ll die knowing we made it possible for ours to be safe and strong enough to fight them when the time comes.”

“It’s not a bad legacy.”

Her words held a catch. His arm draped over her shoulder and his fingers brushed against the top of her breasts. “No, it isn’t. Good rulers make history far less often then bad ones, have you ever noticed that?”

“I think it might be time to change that.”

Her face turned back to his. Their eyes met and passion flared up. Heat flushed all along her body, leaving her wet and aching. “What do you think that they will say about us?”

“That we fought each other, and then we fought the Romans. That we loved and lived as fiercely as we loved. What else could they say about us?”

Her heart ached. The smoke blew up into the air, bringing the scent of fresh sap and the remainder of the smell of the men who’d burned into glory in the flames. “Aye, indeed what else could they say?”

They sat silently until the others woke and took their places at the rocky point. Hand-in-hand they strolled to the place they had chosen to sleep, a small flat area filled with heavy moss and crushed flowers. It was cool and Dagmar cuddled her close, his fingers sliding along her hips under her own tunic.

Pleasure erupted along her skin. Their lips met in a long and lingering kiss. There was a bittersweet feeling to it as he lifted her leg and pulled it over his hip. Side by side and facing each other he thrust deep into her heated flesh, bringing the full weight and thickness of his member into her body while her fingers clutched his shoulders and their mouths met again and fused together. Overhead a single falling star blazed across the ebony canopy of the sky, and she wondered if that were an omen, and if so if it meant that this was the last night they had to together. That they would fall come morning.

His hips worked harder and his fingers slid lower until they found the throbbing ridge of her clit. He massaged it, taking her to the brink of an orgasm before sending her over it, her body going rigid and relaxing as his heavy and hot flesh met and parted hers.

Her fingers clutched at his strong shoulders and everything else faded away before the ultimate pleasure he gave her. Her body moved slowly against his, grinding and thrusting as he came too, his hot seed splashing into her depths and splattering her oiled inner walls.

They lay there, not speaking for a long time. Neither could sleep, and Aila wondered if he, like she, was afraid that if she slept she would miss the last few precious hours and minutes of their lives together. The steady beat of his heart banged against her breast and he stayed within her even though he had gone flaccid.

The rosy streaked fingers of a new dawn eventually showed in the lightening sky. Dagmar kissed her again, sweetly. She sighed and closed her eyes. Who would have imagined that this was how they’d end up, united not just as lovers and rules but as two people who truly loved and respected each other?

The callousness of their youth was gone. They were older and wiser, and they had learned so much with and from each other.

Breslin spoke from a respectful distance. “We should get ready.”

His voice was gruff and low. The lovers separated and Dagmar stood, pulling his tunic down before helping her to her feet. He asked, “Is there any sign?”

Breslin nodded grimly. “They’ve begun gathering themselves and are trying to make their way past the burning. It won’t be long before they decide their only way past it is to the east, they’ll be moving by the time dawn leaves the sky.”