Kane, Samantha - Brothers In Arms 4 (44 page)

cried out and jerked forward, taking two steps in their direction as the bullet hit him.

He didn’t fall, however. Instead he raised the gun yet again, his hand shaking slightly but not enough to miss at this range. Ian was trying to scramble to his feet as he looked over at the window. He saw Daniel there, climbing over the frame into the room, but he was too far away to reach Robertson in time. Suddenly another shot rang out from the open door. Robertson’s body toppled sideways as he was hit. The gun fell from his hand and Ian reached over and snatched it up. He spun toward the door and saw Jason lowering his gun.

Brett was crawling frantically across the floor to Freddy. “Freddy! My God,

Freddy,” he cried out.

Freddy sat up quickly and then had to lie back down. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice a little weak. “I’ll be fine.” Brett reached his side and pulled Freddy into his arms, hugging him tightly.

“One last kiss before I die,” Freddy murmured melodramatically from where his

face was pressed into Brett’s neck.

“Freddy,” Brett laughed shakily, chastising.

“Well, it was worth a try,” Freddy mumbled as he pulled away. “Ow! Why didn’t

you ever tell me how much it bloody hurts to get shot? Damn!” He grabbed his

shoulder and let Brett support him.

“Is he dead?” Jason asked from the doorway. He still stood where he’d fired the shot. Ian and Daniel walked over and Ian looked away as soon as he saw Robertson was dead. He’d been shot in the head and there wasn’t much left of him.

“He’s dead all right,” Daniel said cheerfully. “I say, Jason, good shot. I’d have had him if he hadn’t jerked at Brett’s warning.”

Jason slumped against the doorframe. “I hoped I’d gotten him. We were running

out of bullets and he seemed to be impervious to them.”

Ian took two steps and stumbled. He fell to his knees and then curled himself into a ball as the tears came. Daniel and Jason came running. Jason hauled him into his arms.

“Ian, Christ, Ian,” he said.

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“She’s dead. She’s dead,” was all he could say as he felt his world crashing around him. How was he going to tell Derek?

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Sophie was tired and hungry and dirty. She missed Ian and Derek so much she

ached inside almost as much as she ached outside. Lukey and Jack were a couple of incompetent fools, but Sophie was still no match for their superior strength. They’d managed to catch and drag her back two different times today, and the second time they’d not bothered to be polite about it. The ropes that bound her wrists now were painfully tight, and her jaw was still sore from the gag that Jack had put on earlier when he tired of her shouts and complaints. He’d removed it when they reached these

secluded woods, but she’d kept quiet, afraid he’d put it back on.

They had traveled most of the day and well into the night before stopping. That was Sophie’s fault. Partly because she’d slowed them down today, hoping to give Ian and Derek time to find her, but mainly because she’d told Lukey and Jack in vivid detail what Ian and Derek were going to do to them when they found them. The two men

were jumping at shadows now. Sophie grinned in malevolent satisfaction at their fear, which only aggravated them more.

“My husband will pay you just as generously to return me to him as my brother is paying you to kidnap me,” she told them reasonably for the hundredth time.

“You already said that,” Jack snarled, “and I told you that he’d pay us first, see us hanged second. No sir, Jack and Lukey ain’t that stupid. We’ll take the money what was offered us first, it’s the square thing to do. Wash our hands of you, little miss, and won’t be sorry.” Sophie didn’t like the way he was looking at her. “You ought to be grateful we didn’t slit your throat like that gen’leman told us to. We’re too softhearted, we are.

And he’s not paying us enough. Murder’s a sight more costly than kidnappin’.”

“That’s right, Jack,” Lukey agreed. Sophie hadn’t heard him say anything else all day. Just “That’s right, Jack” every time the little weasel opened his mouth. It was beginning to grate on her nerves.

“Softhearted?” Sophie scoffed. “You have kidnapped me, humiliated me, tied me

up, gagged me and now you are starving me. I hardly call that gentle treatment.” She spoke with false bravado, her heart racing at Jack’s offhand mention of murder. Harold wanted her dead? That didn’t sound like him. He’d always threatened to kill her himself. She found it hard to believe he’d let someone else do it.

Jack wiped the dripping liquor from his chin as he lowered the bottle he’d been steadily drinking from since they’d stopped. He’d become more and more belligerent with each drink. “Ungrateful little bitch is what you are. Got you a carriage to ride in, didn’t we? Let you stop to take a piss whenever you asked, didn’t we? We ought to have something in return, I’m thinking.”

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“That’s right, Jack,” Lukey agreed, turning his piggish, vacuous face toward her, his little eyes gleaming evilly in the firelight.

“If you touch me, my husband will see you tortured until you beg for death,”

Sophie told him, disgusted at the thin thread of fear that ran through the words.

Jack heard the fear in her voice and grinned, making Sophie shiver at the black teeth that were revealed. “Not if he doesn’t find you, or us.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked, her panic starting to overwhelm her. She tried to breathe slowly as Ian had taught her, and she thought of Derek and how

disappointed he’d be if she succumbed to the panic. The thought stiffened her back and she raised her nose disdainfully.

“Why, the reason we’re takin’ you to Dover, Duchess,” Jack chortled. “You’ll soon have a new husband, one who won’t put up with your airs and naggin’. You’ll learn obedience at the end of a whip if I don’t miss my guess.” His laughter grew at the horrified look on Sophie’s face. “But don’t you be worryin’ too much, missy. In them harems you only got to fuck the master once in a blue moon, he’s got so much pussy to choose from.” He laughed so hard he fell off the log he’d been sitting on, and Lukey laughed with him.

Slavers. That’s where they were taking her. Oh God, where were Ian and Derek?

Why hadn’t they come yet? Sophie closed her eyes as she tried to control her breathing, but her heart beat so fast it drowned out all her mantras until all she could hear in her head was a silent scream. She was brought back by the stench of foul-smelling breath in her face and a hand on her throat. Her eyes flew open and she saw Jack leering at her.

“So Jack and Lukey must be lookin’ pretty good about now, eh? Might be your last chance for some good English cock, little missy. I wouldn’t be so ungrateful if I were you.” She tried to shrug off his hand, but Jack suddenly pushed her hard and she fell back on the ground. Before she could recover, he was on top of her. He raised her bound hands over her head and held them as he squeezed her breast painfully. She fought like a she-cat, but suddenly her hands were being pressed painfully into the ground and she looked up to see Lukey holding them down. Jack laughed. “Good idea, Lukey. You hold ‘er whiles I fuck ‘er, and then I’ll do the same for you.”

“That’s right, Jack,” Lukey said, and Sophie screamed as Jack ripped her bodice open.

* * * * *

They rode half the night before they found Sophie. They found the carriage first, behind some trees on the edge of the woods. The horses had been unhitched and their tracks led deeper into the woods. Derek and Wolf and another old friend, Simon

Gantry, took the point because they had experience with covert night maneuvers in the war. Devlin and Rufus and the two bodyguards, John and William, stayed back.

The kidnappers were camping in a deserted stretch of woods, after apparently

riding most of the day to get here. According to several people they’d interrogated on 222

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the way, Sophie was making their progress painfully slow. The cover story the

kidnappers were using painted Sophie as a young runaway from an aristocratic family who was being returned to her father’s house after being rescued from a botched elopement. They had her incarcerated in a shabby carriage. At one stop they’d let her out to relieve herself and had to chase her through the coaching yard and livery before hauling her back yelling and screaming to the carriage. Several people had complained and were about to call the sheriff when the kidnappers drove recklessly away, nearly running down several occupants of the inn. When Derek heard the story he’d laughed appreciatively. “That’s it, Sophie,” he’d said, and then he’d nearly cried at how proud he was of her courage.

The trail led here, to this dark stretch of woods in the middle of nowhere. Derek could see the faint outline of a weak fire through the trees. The kidnappers were smart enough not to take Sophie someplace she could try to escape and attract attention again, but too ignorant to realize that a fire in this lonely stretch of woods would attract just as much attention from anyone passing by. Derek wanted to race through the woods and snatch Sophie from them, but he knew that could be dangerous. They didn’t know for sure that Lukey and Jack were alone. And cornered, the two men might harm Sophie if given the chance. No, it was best to sneak up on them, but it was taking much too long.

God help those bastards if they’d hurt her. Derek was going to have to beat them to a bloody pulp as it was. If he had to kill them too it could get messy.

He glided through the trees, just able to make out Simon on his left and Wolf on his right. The two smaller men had run some late-night forays with Derek on the Peninsula, so he was confident they knew what they were doing. They had decided to surround the camp and determine if Lukey and Jack were acting alone. If so, Simon and Wolf were to wait for a signal from Derek before moving in.

Derek could hear voices murmuring at the fire, but he was still too far away to make out the words. One of the voices was Sophie’s, he was sure of it. When he first heard it, he had to stop and kneel on the ground he felt so lightheaded with relief. She was alive, and well enough to speak.
Thank God
,
thank God
. He rose again, and his progress became swifter, his heart beating fast as if calling out to Sophie. Suddenly Sophie’s scream echoed through the night and Derek threw caution aside as he crashed through the woods to the campfire.

He didn’t hesitate as he crossed into the small clearing. He registered the scene immediately, and dove for the little man on top of Sophie. He picked him off her and threw him to the ground several feet away. With hardly a pause, he spun about and kicked the big one in the jaw, sending him flying back into a tree. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and turned around in time to see the little one on his feet and running at Derek with a knife in his hand. Derek feinted to the right and then knocked the knife out of the other man’s hand with a blow to his wrist. The man—Jack, Devlin had said—cried out and awkwardly tried to punch Derek with his other hand. Derek landed a fist on his jaw and the man went down, Derek on top of him. Derek straddled his chest and his hands wrapped around Jack’s throat. Derek’s vision was black on the 223

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edges, his focus narrowed to Jack as he choked and turned red. The image of Sophie being assaulted by this spineless bastard was burned in Derek’s memory, and all he could think was that he had to die for touching her. Jack’s hands clawed at Derek’s, trying to loosen his hold so he could take a breath, but Derek just squeezed harder.

Suddenly a hand on his shoulder was shaking him, and the killing rage receded. He let go of Jack’s throat just as the other man began to lose consciousness. Derek turned his head sharply to see Devlin back away, his hands in the air.

“You’d regret it. Killing him in front of her,” was all Devlin said in explanation.

Derek knew he was right.

“I wish you had killed him,” Sophie rasped from where she was kneeling a few feet away. She was spitting mad, and Derek had never seen anything so beautiful.

“That’s my girl,” Derek said approvingly, and Sophie’s head jerked around so she could stare at him. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears and she began to tremble.

“Am I?’’ she asked in a small voice.

And suddenly they both lunged for one another at once, crawling across the ground that separated them, Sophie falling into Derek’s arms. “Christ, yes, Sophie,” Derek murmured as he kissed her cheeks, her lips, her eyes, all the while holding her so tightly it was as if he were trying to absorb her into himself. “Tell me you love me, Sophie,” he demanded as he cupped the back of her head and held her lips to his.

Sophie’s eyes were closed, tears dampening her cheeks. “I love you, Derek,” she whispered desperately, “I love you.”

He rewarded her with a passion born of fear and its aftermath. Their kiss was

scorching in its intensity. Derek devoured Sophie’s mouth only to be forced to give way to her demands as she licked and sucked and nipped his lips with murmurs of joy. Her body was pressed to his, her tied hands between them. Her breath was his breath, her heartbeat an echo of his own. The sound of a clearing throat finally brought Derek back to his senses. He slowly pulled away from Sophie’s kiss as she moaned in

disappointment.

“Um, sorry to interrupt, Derek old man, but don’t you think we ought to get Sophie home? Or at least inside somewhere?” Derek slowly turned his head to Simon. He

blinked several times before he was able to register the question.

“Home,” he growled. “I want her home.” He stood up and cut the rope binding

Sophie’s hands, throwing it away in disgust. Sophie stepped in and clung to him, and he lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the waiting horses. Only after she was settled on his horse with his jacket wrapped around her did he turn back and get an accounting of what was going on.

Simon and Wolf had made short work of the big and slow Lukey. He and a now-