She’s everything to me. His hold eased slightly as his body began to relax, the aftermath of such intense sex beginning to fade, and he held her tenderly. He kissed her skin, nuzzled the side of her face, and smiled. He’d held on long enough to make sure she’d gotten off first.
“Wow,” she panted.
He softly growled. “Feel alive, sweet thing?”
“Oh yeah.”
He’d do anything to protect her, to have another moment like the one they shared—
her on his lap, their bodies connected, and his arms wrapped around her. She played with his hair, her fingers running through the locks, and he wished he could carry her to bed. He could spend hours exploring her body and making her come over and over.
His dick began to harden, his need to take her returning, and he forced it back.
She was in danger. He needed to get her away from the camp, put her somewhere safe. Mine to protect and I’ll kill anyone stupid enough to try to take her from me. He cupped her face, noticed a little blood where he’d nicked her with his teeth during sex, and used his thumb to wipe it away. The injury was very minor. The sight of her blood on the pad of his thumb made him long to taste even that but he resisted the urge.
86
Slade
He didn’t want to break the connection they had, hated that he needed to bring her back to their grim situation, but the enemy couldn’t find them in such a vulnerable position. He lifted his head and their gazes met.
“We got to go, Doc.”
The sweet smile on her face faded and he hated to be the cause. “Right.”
He refused to release her just yet, clinging to her to keep her in place. “We’ll do this later, longer, and I’m going to kiss every injury you’ve suffered. Once we’re back at Homeland I’ll make this up to you.”
“There’s nothing to make up. Thank you.”
He growled, anger stirred a little at the distance he saw in her beautiful eyes as though she were trying to put up an emotional barrier between them. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now we need to get you dressed and leave.”
“Okay.”
Trisha allowed him to separate their bodies, regretting that the moment was over.
He helped her to her feet, fixed his pants, and glanced around the clearing. His hair was messy from her fingers and she hid a smile, more than a little amused at his appearance.
Slade had been in a fight and afterward had still looked nearly perfect but hot sex on his lap had left him looking wild and disheveled.
“Stay right there.”
Slade found a pair of jeans and used a knife to slice off some of the legs to fit Trisha better but the waist remained a little baggy. He used shoestrings from a pair of men’s shoes as a belt to keep them up on her hips. He’d also found her a black T-shirt two times too big but she was grateful for how baggy it fell since her bra had been destroyed.
Slade searched through the men’s supplies and packed their acquired things inside a backpack that one of the men had brought with them. He took a sleeping bag, food, and he kept the men’s weapons. They also took water and soft drinks. Very quickly, Slade was ready to go. Trisha studied him.
“I’m not playing around with them anymore.” Slade wore a determined expression on his face. “You got hurt. I’m not going to be the hunted anymore, Doc. I’m going to find you a safe place to hole up and then I’m going to take the rest of these bastards out.”
Trisha just studied him. She knew he could be dangerous and had the ability to kill.
She’d seen it firsthand when he’d saved her from being raped. She nodded.
“All right.”
87
Laurann Dohner
Chapter Nine
The sun hung low in the sky when Slade glanced back at Trisha. He’d found a dugout area of earth inside the side of the hill. A large boulder had once taken up the space but time and gravity had caused the large rock to roll down the hillside into the ravine below. It had been really hard to reach the area. It was so steep that Trisha had nearly fallen three times, and if not for Slade, she would have. He’d climbed behind her, one hand on her, and had caught her each time she’d lost her footing.
“You are safe here.” Slade crouched down in front of her and his hand brushed her uninjured cheek. “You will hear anyone coming from below and it’s too unstable above for them to use their ropes to try to climb down to this place.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to wait here where my people will find you if I don’t come back. It might take a few days but some of the males they send were trained with me from before we were freed. They know how I think and they will realize what kind of hiding place I would look for to stash you. Don’t shoot them when they do, Doc.” He gave her a tight smile. “It is considered rude to injure or kill someone attempting to rescue you.”
Trisha didn’t smile back, knowing he tried to use humor to defuse the stress, but she was too worried about him. “Come back to me.”
His smile faded. “I can’t guarantee that, Doc. I won’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“Then stay with me where we’re safe. Please? We could just wait right here together.”
Slade hesitated. “I didn’t realize there would be so many of them hunting us, Doc.
Those men I killed are not the same men who followed us down from the road when we crashed. They obviously have different teams out there searching for us. You know this from hearing them. That puts you in extreme danger and there’s only one way to handle this situation. I need to hunt the hunters and turn it around on them.” He paused again, staring intently at her.
“But—”
“They won’t expect that from me and their numbers need to be thinned out. It could take some time for my people to reach us and I need to help us survive. It will confuse those assholes when they find themselves under attack. Some of them will flee when people start dying. It will weed out the cowards from the truly deadly ones.
Those are the ones who need to die. It’s the only way to protect you, Doc.”
“But this is a really good hiding place. Just wait it out here with me, Slade. Please?
I’ll beg you if I have to. I’m terrified they will hurt you or worse. You’re just one man and there are too many of them out there. Those are your words.”
88
Slade
Slade’s head slightly tilted and his mouth tightened into a grim line. “I’m not just a man, Doc. I’m something far worse with the advantage, whether they know it or not.”
He hesitated. “This is what I am. I’m a New Species and I have something important to me to protect. But this isn’t just about you and I don’t want you to feel guilty if something happens to me. My people will be coming and I don’t want them walking into a trap of any kind, which is a possibility. I need to take out as many of these assholes as I’m able to. I’m a predator beneath my humanity. I may try to hide it but it’s still there. I’m also a survivor who has had to kill in the past to remain breathing.
Mercile trained me to fight to show off their drugs and it’s one lesson I’m grateful for at this moment.”
“You don’t have to fight them. You aren’t locked inside a cell anymore and we can hide. From what I understand, you were never really meant to be placed into a real battle zone, which makes that training not count. They just taught you enough to show what you could do but this is real, Slade. I don’t want you to die.”
He took a deep breath. “It was always real. Not all of my people survived their cruel tests or the shows they forced us to participate in to demonstrate the results of their drugs. I am dangerous, even though it’s never what I wanted to become. Whether you accept it or not, that’s the truth. They trained us too well and made us less than completely human. It wasn’t their intention to ever see us free but we are. I’m New Species. You’re a doctor but just because you aren’t inside a hospital doesn’t mean you stop being what you are. You’d help any injured person if you could regardless of being on the clock or off, wouldn’t you?”