Jump Zone: Cleo Falls (2 page)

Two

L
oath to leave the haven of sleep, Cleo squeezed her lids tight against the penetrating light. But consciousness took hold, bringing with it a mother of a headache and an underlying sense of urgency that made her blood surge.

Jaegar! It was crucial she get to him before the recruiters washed the Taiga ways out of him. She drove him away and now had to bring him home, restore him to his rightful place.

Memories of the previous night tumbled forward with the velocity of the waterfall—the cold, the pain, the helplessness…the retching.

Then the voice, the big guy with the gentle touch. The Ghost Warrior.

No such thing as the Ghost Warrior.

Instinct again took over and snapped her into high alert. Her muscles contracted, ready for action, ready to defend, to fight, to survive. But she couldn’t move her arms. Something tight constricted her wrists.

She’d been bound, tied up like an animal.

She flexed her ankles, relieved to find them untied. She fought the urge to jump up, run away from whatever was making her heart pound so hard. No, that wouldn’t be wise, and she was
supposed
to be wise—the elder council deemed it so. Freaking out would not help.  She would remain calm, determine her surroundings, and then decide on a course of action. She squeezed her lids closed and focused her acutely trained senses.

The muffled sound of water hammering rock told her that she’d been moved away from the falls, but not too far. She could tell without opening her eyes that the sun had barely breached the horizon. The sounds of dawn in the forest were unmistakable: birds singing their morning songs, animals scurrying through the underbrush looking for a breakfast of insects, the rustle of leaves as the dew evaporated.

She smelled the pungent scent of a fire made with green, damp wood.

Novice.

She smelled him—woodsy, masculine, and not entirely unpleasant. No sour stink of fear. And he was so close, she could hear shallow breathing. A sign her companion maintained a calm state or, better, still slept.

Whatever she lay upon enveloped her like a warm bath. She couldn’t feel the morning breeze on her body, so she assumed she was covered. Using as slight movement as possible, she wiggled her finger and felt a practically weightless cover, so unlike the heavy pelts and woollen blankets she snuggled beneath at home.

So her captor had bound her but seemed concerned with her comfort.

Don’t trust outsiders.

Cleo cautiously tensed and released each muscle, but it took everything in her not to wince. She ached everywhere. It even hurt to breathe. The bottom half of her right leg throbbed in a rhythm out of sync with the pounding in her head
.
She didn’t think it broken, but the bone along the front of her shin felt hot and tight—swollen, for sure. Hopefully not infected.

Every inhalation, even the shallowest, made her abdominal muscles hurt, likely the result of throwing up half a glacier. And her right butt cheek stung as if she sat on a pine needle. Damn, there was likely one stuck in her pants. Then something struck her like a low-hanging branch. She wasn’t
wearing
pants. Her calves and thighs rubbed together, skin on skin, and her arms were crossed and tied over a bare midriff.

For the love of ducks, she’d been stripped naked! He must have taken her clothes off after she passed out.

Bastard. Sick, perverted dirty outsider.

The rational half of her brain yelled, “
Hold up, he needed to get you warm,”
but the indignant she-warrior in her busted with anger and humiliation. It took a great deal of forbearance to keep her facial expressions in check.

She was sore and knew it would be a bitch of a morning if she had to fight,
naked,
but at least there was no serious damage to her body. Her forehead felt tight and her cheekbone hurt just above her scar, but she didn’t need her face to take her captor down. Clothes would be nice. It would be embarrassing to fight naked, but she would if she had to.

The bound wrists were a problem.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice thick with morning rasp. “You awake?”

Cleo mustered the most menacing look possible before turning in his direction and opening her eyes. He sat on a log not three feet away, eyeing her intently. The dark shadowy figure from the previous night was completely opposite by the light of day, a fact that scrambled her throbbing, angry head even further. The soft dawn light fell across hair the color of golden wheat, thick and entirely uncontrollable.

His eyes—it must have been a trick of the forest, because she’d never seen anyone with eyes like that—pale silvery blue, rimmed with sapphire. More wolf than human.

Don’t trust outsiders.

“Why am I
naked
?” She tried to sound fierce, like a kick-ass warrior should, but she had her own case of morning voice that cracked on the one word she was trying to emphasize, making her sound vulnerable and, well,
naked.
She cleared her throat. “Where. Are. My. Clothes?”

“And a good morning to you, sunshine.”

She squinted, unamused, to show she meant business.

“And the lady has some spark!” He grinned, showing off a row of straight white teeth, another sign he didn’t belong in the Taiga.

He scrutinized her, his eyes unnerving as they traveled over her face, but she couldn’t look away.  He caught her stare head on and held it until the heat in her cheeks made her look away.

“Glad to see you got your color back. That shade of dead-blue didn’t suit you, darlin’.”

Despite her attempts to look threatening, he remained in good humor.

Don’t trust outsiders! Outsiders bring evil and death and destroy families.

Feeling a surge of alarm, Cleo tugged and twisted her wrists, but the cord wouldn’t give. As the panic built, tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Cleo grit her teeth and swallowed. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let him see her cry. Warriors, even third-class ones, did not crumble into emotional heaps.

“Why am I tied up?” It came out
WhyamItiedup.

“Hey, relax.” He stood and circled the fire pit. Only then did she notice her clothes, spread on the ground close to the dying embers.

Cleo felt violated at the thought of him peeling her wet leathers off. Of course it was to keep her from going into hypothermia—she’d have done the same were the roles reversed—but her natural fear of outsiders kept nudging her across the border of rational thought right into terrorville.

“How about a little gratitude?” he huffed as he leaned over to snatch up her leathers. In falsetto voice, he mocked, “Oh, Mr. Knight in Shining Armor, thanks for risking your life by jumping into that freezing river to save my skinny little ass.”

Manners. Right. They seemed to be tied up, just like her hands. But for the sake of her grandmother, her moral compass, she struggled to push the words
thank you
from her lips. They wouldn’t come. Certainly not while his hands skimmed over her clothes, down her pant legs, squeezing, patting. It was too distracting, too personal.

Should she be grateful? Should she push her fears aside? What if she misjudged him? He didn’t look mean. He had a great smile.

But just because he’s attractive doesn’t mean he won’t—

He would have done it already if he meant to harm her.

Maybe he already did, while I was unconscious. Maybe he’d keep me, bring me to others, then kill me…

Something deep inside of Cleo started to unravel. If his intentions were benign, why did he truss her up? She was naked, wounded, alone. So very alone. There was no reason a man would tie up a woman unless—

“Untie me!” She strained her neck as she lifted her head off the ground. The covering, silver and light as air, slid from her shoulders down to the rise of her breasts. Horrified, she slammed back down. “Untie me now!” Her demand sounded like pleading.

Her quickened breathing made her pendant roll off her chest. The raging river that took everything else of value that she owned had spared her prize possession. Just knowing her mother’s crystal remained close to her heightened her resolve to survive.

Instead of answering, her captor threw her leathers across the clearing. Cleo flinched, but they landed in a stiff heap on the ground next to her. He speared her with a curious look, the light in his eyes gone, along with his quirky smile.

He continued mocking her, ignoring her outburst, “And that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, those chest compressions,” he said with a dry, humourless tone. “Where ever did you learn those handy little tricks?”

She averted her eyes. He had saved her
skinny little ass
.

She tried to swallow the lump at the base of her throat but it wouldn’t budge. Their eyes met as he pulled on a tattered grey shirt. Not that her judging-people skills were honed, but he didn’t look dangerous or mean. Just wary. She didn’t see anything in his pale eyes except a measure of disgust, which made her feel worse.

“Thanks,” she croaked through a constricted pipe. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Thanks for pulling me out of the river, for giving me CPR, for holding my hair while I puked.” There. That wasn’t so bad. “Now untie me.”

One of his eyebrows shot up.

“Please.” Grandma would be so proud.

“Are you gonna do something stupid?” His approach was guarded, which struck Cleo as rather ridiculous considering her current state.

“Define stupid.”

“Bite me, scratch me?”

“What do you think I am, an alphakitten?”

“I don’t know what to make of you, darlin’. You were ready for a fight last night.”

“And I’d have kicked your skinny little ass if I hadn’t hit the ground again.”

His widened eyes preceded a deep throaty chuckle. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

Cleo braced as he approached. Maybe she wasn’t being fair? He hadn’t threatened her. Yet. But her head throbbed and she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t get an accurate read on him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really.” Common sense said she had every right to fear him. But his cautious approach made her wonder if he was more afraid of her. “Here’s the deal, Mr. Knight. I won’t attack you if you don’t attack me.”

“I realize you’re disoriented after what you went through, but I did jump in after you. Do you have any idea how hard it is to drag a water-logged corpse from the bottom of that river? I hardly went to all that trouble if I meant harm, don’t you think?”

Unless you intend to use me first, like they used my mother.

Before another bout of panic could render her stupid, she buried those thoughts under a ton of here and now. He carried no weapon, his expression remained guarded but focused, and she watched his eyes for any tell-tale flickers. The eyes almost always gave away an intended attack.

“It’d be easier if you could slip your hands out the side of the blanket,” he said, dropping to his knees next to her.

“Just give me a knife and I can do it myself.”

He shook his head. “Not this time.”

A girl had to try. She rolled sideways and slipped her arms from under the covering.

“It was dark. Real dark,” he said without looking at her. “You needed to get warm.”

Cleo looked him up and down while he worked the knot. How should she play this when he, clearly, had the advantage? Instead of cooperating, the only thing her reanimated brain could focus on was
him
. This outsider. His broad shoulders and flat abdomen, the way the muscles down his arms flexed as he deftly worked the thick clump of polycord. The faint pulse throbbing on the side of his neck.

Clearly, she still suffered from some kind of hypothermic delusions. He was an outsider, not to be admired, not to be trusted. He was big, with ripped muscles, and she was completely and helplessly alone, naked, and, for the moment anyway, completely at his mercy.

Cleo prided herself on her ability to keep a cool, logical head in challenging conditions, but her current situation had her thoughts as scattered as autumn leaves. Maybe he didn’t intend to hurt her. Maybe he was just being kind. But what was he doing in the Taiga? Recruiters wouldn’t dare venture this far north, and sightseers tended to stay close to the Trading Post for safety.

Though he travelled alone, he definitely wasn’t a Banger, that much was obvious—those poor wretched creatures were more beast then man—and Drifters usually travelled in packs and hung around the walled towns in Lower Amerada, living off the scraps of civilization. Her self-proclaimed knight was too well fed and well behaved to fit in either category.

“I didn’t mean for them to be so tight,” he said, his gaze flicking to hers for a split second before the black polycord fell from her wrists.

Cleo’s fingers tingled as the blood rushed through. He took her hands and rubbed the circulation back into them. Her instinct was to pull away from him or deck him, but…it felt nice.

He could be a soldier with a build like that, but the Lower Ameradan Army knew better than to cross the Cut into the protected lands. She could count on one hand the times they’d tried to do that in her lifetime, and it never ended well.

Where the devil had he come from? She could ask him outright but sometimes, pretending to be a stupid female was the best defense.

“You were thrashing around in the night,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.” He tried to smile but only one side of his mouth went up, and damn it if it didn’t give him a charming appeal. “Or me.”

The skin on his hands was soft, almost slippery, as if the top layer had been sanded smooth, or worn completely off, but his grip was strong, his touch warm.

She made a decision. He wanted to be a knight, so she’d act the naïve, vulnerable female-in-dire-straights. He would underestimate her and she’d find a way out of her current predicament and get on with her mission.

“I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble,” she said, adding a good dose of humble. It helped that her voice was scratchy. Made her sound pitiable.

“That you did, darlin’.”  He let go of her hands and pushed her clothes toward her. “Do you need some help getting into these?”

“No. Thank you.”

Crouched on his haunches, his hands casually resting on his knees, he studied her with a look of bemusement. His eyebrows knit together over an intent gaze, like he was trying to solve a mental math problem. An angular jaw lay under a day or two of stubble, his lips pressed into a thin line. “You got quite a bruise on your cheek,” he said matter-of-factly. “Right above that birthmark—”