Retribution (2 page)

“Bleak, you got our six; wait my mark.” His breathing evened, his vision sharpened, and everything slowed. He lowered his night vision ocular. “Let’s move.”

With Con at his side and the rest of the team covering them, Dray slithered over a section of broken wall. Crouching, he waited a moment to make sure they hadn’t been made. Once assured they hadn’t, he signaled Con to take his back. Running, he crossed the yard in less than thirty seconds.

He went down on one knee when he reached her, touching the tips of his fingers to her neck. For a second his heart stopped. No pulse.

“Damn you, no.” Then, the faintest warmth feathered his palm. Mouth next to her ear, he whispered, “I’ve got you.”

She didn’t acknowledge him in any way except for a slight uplifting of one corner of her mouth. For a second, Dray thought he’d lost his mind. Beneath the dried sweat, the bitter scent of blood and fear, he swore he smelled lemons. He shook his head, took another deep breath, and motioned to Con to take the lead.

“You’re clear, sir. Move toward Bleak and we’ll fall in.” Con’s voice moved quietly along the comm link.

The mountains of the Kush taunted them, danger in every nook and cranny of the ancient chain. His team moved like a well-oiled machine into the darkness. He adjusted his burden and settled in for a long hike, her weight secure against him.

“Sir, we need to stop. She’s leaving a trail,” Surrey called over the comm link.

Dray stopped in his tracks, gaze searching for shelter. Bleak found a cave that appeared abandoned. After sending him for recon farther in, Dray carefully set the woman on the ground near the entrance. He motioned Connor and Itchy to guard position and began helping Surrey unpack the med kit.

The medic knelt on his knees beside the woman and hissed, “Shit, she’s messed up bad.”

“Let’s get the shirt off first, Surrey. Catalog quickly, we need to keep moving,” Dray demanded as he stared down at them.

His own breath damn near stopped as the shirt parted beneath Surrey’s scissors. Heinous knife cuts on the woman’s breasts and upper torso, most still bleeding while some appeared to be scalded shut. Blisters formed between the cuts, and she’d been beaten black and blue. Everywhere. Horror tripped through Dray as Surrey checked her out.

“Her right hand is crushed. I’m going to splint it, but she’ll probably need complete reconstruction, if she doesn’t lose it. Grab that antiseptic and begin cleaning the knife wounds. Motherfucker—who does this to somebody?” Surrey’s voice was harsh in the darkness.

Dray went to his knees and began to clean the cuts. She didn’t even flinch. Some seeped sluggishly while others were angry, red, and puss-filled. He made every effort to be impersonal, but each wound lashed him deep inside, made him ache for what she’d been through. He tried to push the feeling aside. It returned over and over again.

“She needs more help than we can give her, goddamn it. We have to move.” He stood and glanced around. “Itchy? Get Post on the SAT phone right fucking now.”

“On it,” Itchy responded and thirty seconds later handed Dray the SAT phone.

“This is Captain Bonner, Team12. Need all pertinent information on any recent possible kidnappings of American females in Afghanistan.” Dray made the request as he forced himself to walk away from the scene before him.

“Captain Bonner, this is General Post. We are acquiring that information now, son. What the hell are you doing in Afghanistan?” General Post’s voice was ragged as if he just barely held back a growl.

“Sir, we were given orders by Command a week ago to recon and gather intel in this region of the Hindu Kush, specifically an old terrorist compound run by Kashar ben el-Din. Sir, these orders were verified with second entity at Command, and we transported in the same day orders were received.” Dray’s voice was hard and held a note of cynicism. “We now have one female civilian with extensive injuries recovered by Team12 at twenty-one hundred hours. We need intel on this, General. We’re blind.”

“Are you secure, Dray?” Post asked.

“That could change at any moment.”

“Give me twenty, Captain,” Post said and cut the connection.

He walked back to the mouth of the cave; the sounds of tape ripping and paper whispering to the ground signaled Surrey still worked on her.

“Dray, I’ve done what I can for now. Her nose was bleeding, that was the trail. She can transport, but she’s out and hasn’t roused at all, not even when I set her ankle. She has more cuts on her thighs, a broken collar bone, what I think may be a broken right hip, and multiple contusions and cuts over her entire body. Other than the nosebleed and multiple contusions to her face, there are no apparent injuries to her head. I don’t know how broken she is inside, but her temperature and blood pressure are really low, and she’ll be lucky if she doesn’t lose some toes to frostbite.” Surrey’s words were grim.

Hell, he’d seen soldiers wounded in combat, and with fewer injuries, who succumbed to death quicker. It was obvious she was a fighter. Hopefully that would work in her favor.

“Bundle her. We need to move.”

The itch at the back of his neck reached epic proportions. He didn’t have time to wait for General Post’s information before he made decisions. They needed to relocate quickly and in a direction the enemy would never expect them to go…straight into the mountains of the Hindu Kush.

* * * *

“Camp.”

One word and the others fanned out to ensure that the area he’d picked was covered and safe. Dray carried the woman in a sling Surrey had rigged. They’d taken great pains with her hip, but to transport her quickly, they’d had to strap her to Dray. Her legs were wrapped and secured around his waist. Her arms had been strapped to her sides, and Surrey had wound the sling around her back, effectively caging her against Dray. Surrey had given her nothing for pain because of her low blood pressure and any unseen head injuries. Pain had kept her out, and Dray hoped like hell she stayed that way.

Not once had he thought of sharing the burden with his men. None of them had questioned his decision. She weighed next to nothing, but carrying another person for any length of time was tiring. He needed rest and so did his team.

They removed her from her cocoon and rewrapped her gently in Dray’s sleep sack. Surrey covered her in a Ready Heat blanket. Earlier, Con had loaned her his skull cap, and Bleak had donated his spare knit cap. Now she was tucked in tight but had yet to wake up.

He’d managed to check in with General Post shortly before daybreak. Post informed Dray his team needed to make use of an alternate extraction point. There was no way to determine if that point was still viable, but it was their only option. General Post, in the meantime, was going to brush the dirt from the truth. He’d instructed Dray to maintain until he had answers.

Maintain my ass!
We need extraction fucking now!
His hands were tied, but her condition was severe. Surrey was good, but there was no way to accurately determine the extent of her internal injuries.

“Dray, it’s clean. We should be able to hole up here for a few hours. No sign of previous camps or life within five klicks,” Con reported as he stood there looking down at the woman.

“Connor, take first rest. Itchy, fan out with Bleak. Two hour intervals. I don’t know what’s going down, but I get a feeling we were set up, and our lady over there is the key.” Dray took a deep breath and nodded at Surrey. “Take first rest with Connor, and I’ll watch over her.”

“You got it,” Surrey said and moved to bed down fifty feet from where Dray had placed the woman. The others moved to handle business.

An hour later and everything had stilled. The surrounding forest was quiet in the pre-dawn light. It seemed there was no life in the forest except for them. It wasn’t true. These mountains were entrenched with Taliban. Snow continued to fall, and the temperature hovered around zero. Dray sat beside the woman, ever at the ready. If she roused, he’d know immediately, and then maybe he’d have some answers.

His gaze took a continual track over her face, and his heart jackhammered. Between the bruising, he could see smooth skin that had been kissed gold sometime in the recent past. His hands clenched at his sides. Somebody would pay for every bruise.

He winced as his mind put on the brakes. He’d been in contact with this woman only a few hours, had not shared a conversation, she’d not even
seen
him for fuck’s sake, and he was acting like a possessive lover, like she
mattered
to him.

What was it about this woman that set him on edge and made him gnash his teeth in rage at the ones who’d done this to her? Dray had been in plenty of situations where women had been harmed and he’d been forced to stand down. Some of them never even made it to rescue. Sure as hell was hot, not one of them had aroused this protectiveness he felt toward her—hell, none of the women he’d
dated
in the past came close to making him feel this way. And he’d only muttered a few words to the very broken woman in front of him.

It could be this insane need to protect was a result of her nasty situation and his adrenaline. He tried to explain it away, but it rang false. His mind refused to shy from her as its main topic.

Post had given him everything he could about the woman in Dray’s care earlier as they’d traversed a dangerous path through the mountains. He watched her as his mind ran the information over and over again.

Sasha Bennoit, twenty-five years old, originally from Gainesville, Georgia. Five feet one inch short, a hundred and five pounds, brown eyes. Whoever gathered this information had obviously not seen her eyes—you didn’t call that golden whiskey color
brown
. Never married, engaged once, no present significant other. Dray didn’t question why that fact made him want to pound his chest. She was the oldest adopted daughter of Coleman and Tilda Bennoit. She had four sisters, also adopted, Sadie, Kara, Halloran, and Devyn. Sasha was the oldest. No previous troubles on record for Sasha. She presently kept a room at her family’s house on Lake Lanier, but she’d traveled extensively over the past two years and was rarely home.

The woman lying so still and broken before him had been employed by PFF, People for Freedom, for the last six years. She’d begun as an apprentice while earning her degree in anthropology from Emory University and then moved into a full-time ambassadorship. She was very hands-on and, from all reports, loved her job.

He wanted to snort. Her job didn’t seem to return the favor.

Her passport read like a world tour itinerary for the nastiest places on Earth. She’d been in almost as many hellholes as Dray had. She was a black belt in Kyuki-Do and Brazilian Jiu-Jistu; both martial arts were heavy on self-defense.

So contrary to her present physical condition, Sasha Bennoit was strong. How el-Din’s men had gotten their hands on her at all was shocking. But in the end, they’d not broken her spirit—no matter what they’d done to her body.

He had the insane thought she was the type of woman who would always persevere, and that’s what a man wanted at the end of the day: for his mate to stand strong beside him and be ready for whatever.

He rubbed a hand over his face and locked his brain down, unable to handle the unease the thought stirred in his soul. All this thinking about mates and what a man wanted made him nervous. She was a strong woman who’d survived hell. Did he want her?

Dray winced. He didn’t know her, but if he were truthful, the answer would be yes. How could he not want someone with her determination to live, her absolute devotion to helping others?

Even with these sentiments, he knew better than to harbor illusions about any type of future for them. He just wanted to get her to safety, and then he’d take out this primitive rage on those who’d done this to her.

Damn she hurt. Sasha was now besties with pain. Where had it all come from? She’d been struggling for a while to get past the barrier of sleep to wakefulness. Her body resisted every attempt. She finally broke through but wondered what the cost would be.

Awareness came at a snail’s pace. And there was the cost—the brittle, deafening pain that brought the need to sob. She paid up as tears leaked from the effort it took to simply breathe. Sasha tried to open her eyes in the light of what could be a new day, but pain hammered her, and it was hard to tell anything about her environment over the buzz in her head. She ventured movement and realized she was cocooned in warmth. Even the feel of the cloth around her made her body hurt. She groaned, the agony so intense she was unable to stifle the sound.

“You waking up?”

Shock robbed her of the tiny breath she had managed to gain. In the midst of red-hot hurting, she knew it was hands down the sexiest voice she’d ever heard.

And her soul recognized it, everything in her easing for a blissful moment. It was the voice from her dream—the one that had said, “I’ve got you,” in a deep, husky tone. In spite of her pain, she’d smiled on the inside at that moment, thinking,
Oh, if only you did have me with your sexy voice,
and
What a way to go if you could please, sir.

It had been an instantaneous connection. Not understandable but there just the same.

The blood flowed furiously through her veins as claw-tipped anguish ripped at her. There was a piece of her that demanded she open her eyes and acknowledge this man. He’d saved her, somehow, as she’d lain broken in that compound.

“It’s all right, you’re safe. We’re American. Military Special Ops to be specific. We, uh, stumbled onto you yesterday. Thought you needed a lift, and here you are.”

The voice lulled her. The deep baritone rich with concern and something else her mulled mind couldn’t identify.

She tried moving, but each muscle twitch was torture, so she settled for opening her eyes instead. And was rewarded for the effort with the face of the hottest man she’d ever seen. Hottest man…sexiest voice…what the hell was going on?

For a few blissful seconds, pain was forgotten.
Good Lord, he’s beautiful.