The Last Marine (9 page)

But it seemed the desert dried up his reserve of set-downs. “Don’t fight me, sweetheart.” He bent down and lifted her into his arms.

Prudence wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face beneath his chin and even after four days on Asteria sweating and dirty, somehow, he smelled good.

A hot lump burned her throat and she had to choke out what she needed to say. “You don’t have to tell me, I already know.”

He rubbed his cheek against hers as he started walking. “What’s that?”

Why was he being so gentle with her? “That I’m weak.”

Chapter 13

Weak?

He’d never met anyone as strong. He might be in better shape than her after three days in the desert, but he’d been trained. He was used to going without. He was used to tough treks. She was soft. Small. She had no training or practice. He wasn’t so sure had their positions been reversed if he would’ve fared so well.

“I’m weak.”

Anger simmered in his gut. She’d taken down that . . . that . . . whatever the hell it was all by herself. She was bleeding from one leg and both shoulders. Damn it, he wished to hell they still had that med-wand. His arms tightened around her. “Don’t say it again. You defended yourself against that thing. Christ, I couldn’t get to you in time. The fucking sand kept sliding under my feet and this old Lockheed Martin’s got no goddamned range. You were amazing, so don’t you call yourself weak.”

“Why not?” Her lips moved against his skin as she spoke, sending shivers rolling through him despite the heat. “You’ve said it yourself.”

He had. He’d been trying to goad her into doing minor surgery on him at the time, but he’d never apologized. “I was being an ass. You’re not weak. Neither of us will say it again.”

She scoffed, or sniffed, he wasn’t quite sure which.

“I’m serious, Angel. I’m shooting the next person who says you’re weak and I always keep my word, so don’t test me.”

She pulled away enough to look at him, her face was dirty and tear-streaked, those lavender eyes wary and watchful. “Why are you being nice?”

He snorted. “I’m always nice. Besides, you’re bleeding—I never tease people who are bleeding.”

Tears welled in her eyes. The tiny drops were tinted lavender, too. It was like watching a fairy princess weep.

“Christ, don’t do that.” He looked away, unable to bear the thought of being the cause.

She sniffed. “What?”

“Don’t cry, damn it.” He lifted her higher in his arms, balancing her weight more evenly while he treaded sand. His legs were starting to burn like hell, but he’d be damned if he’d set her down. “You’ll make me cry, too.”

A startled laugh jolted through her small frame. Low, and husky, the sound went straight to his groin.

For the first time in days, a smile curved his lips. “Come on, now. Tuck you face under my chin and be still. My big ol’ head will give you some shade.”

She did as he asked, but he still felt wetness on his neck and chest. He couldn’t say if tears or sweat caused the moisture. “For a society miss, you’ve got brass.”

“I keep telling you, I’m not society. My mother was alien and my father was a Marine.”

She had denied being society before, but he hadn’t believed her. “A Marine? You were raised in the grunt class, too?”

She sniffed. “Went to public school and everything.”

“Really?”

“Until my parents were killed in the Chicago attack. From then on, I lived in an orphanage.”

“How the hell did you end up with the Parnells?” He tried to pull away enough to see her face, but she tucked her head beneath his chin.

“Alfred picked me out of a line up. Just lucky, I guess.”

Lucky? Maybe when Alfred had been alive, but based on what he’d seen, luck had nothing to do with her time with Randolph. At least she’d only been subjected to the brute for three months before she’d run away.

He crested the dune and there, not a hundred feet away an oasis sprawled in the sand. “I’ll be damned.”

Prudence gasped, and a wail tore through her. “I was so close. I would’ve made it on my own if I’d kept going.”

She was killing him. “Stop it. Everything’s all right now. Everybody needs help now and again.” He headed straight into the soft-hued foliage and into a rainbow of pastels. The sun glinting off all those colors dazzled his eyes after staring at so much black for the last few days. The trees weren’t anything like they were back home. Here they had spiked layers like a palm tree, except they looked more like opaque, glittery diamonds than any kind of bark he’d ever seen. The layers went from the base of the trees all the way up, growing smaller and smaller down to the thinnest branches. The leaves were wide and cupped, spanning the range from deep reds to pastel blues and yellows. If he’d ever bothered to imagine what the biblical Eden might be like, he might have pictured this. A clear, red-tinged pond sat in the middle. The water looked deep, might even go all the way up to his neck, and it appeared empty of wild-life. He pointed. “What’s the red? Is it safe?”

“It’s from Deridium deposits. The mineral is safe, we’ve been using it in antiseptics on Earth since its discovery, but—”

“Good.” They could both use some antiseptics for their sunburns and cuts. He walked straight into the water, shoes, clothes, Prudence, and all.

“No.” Her arms tightened around his neck and she shifted in his arms until her legs were wrapped around his chest. She seemed to be trying to climb right up to balance on his head. “I—I can’t.”

“You’re fine.” He coaxed her arms from his neck so he could breathe again. “I’m not letting you go.” His words didn’t have much effect. She still clung to him, her hands fisting clumps of his shirt, her breath coming in needy little gasps. “Close your eyes and hold your breath.”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna dunk us.”

“No, don’t—”

She came up sputtering, sobbing and fat, lavender tears dotted her cheeks. “Oh, please don’t. I won’t resist. Don’t drown me. I swear I won’t—”

What the hell? Griffin gave her a hard shake, but her eyes weren’t focused, they were wild with fear. Her hands had white-knuckle grips on him—one at the nape of his neck and one at his chest, she didn’t seem to realize she had skin as well as shirt fisted in her hands.

“Sweetheart, I’m not gonna drown either of us. I’m standing. We can’t drown. I just want to get the dirt off that sunburn of yours.”

The way she stared at him tore at his heart. Had she almost drowned as a kid?

“Hey, look at me.”

Her eyes met his, but she wasn’t seeing him. “Don’t put me under. Don’t drown me. I can’t breathe.” One of her hands went to her throat and seemed to want to claw at her skin. He pulled her hand away from her neck and remembered how bruised her throat had been on the ship. What all had Randolph done to this woman?

Randolph and his buddy Bronsen had led several waterboarding sessions in the prison with Griffin as their star attraction. They’d tie him down to a slanted table, cover his head, and pour water over his face. They’d hold him there, let him struggle while his sinus filled with water. Then, they’d hold him there some more until that water backed up, dripping down his throat into his lungs. After a while he wouldn’t be able to restrain his need for air, and his body reflexively sucked the water deeper into his lungs as he attempted to breathe. Water burned like hell when it filled his lungs, especially if was ice cold. But nothing was worse than being brought back, knowing one of Randolph’s fucks would give him CPR and flush the water from his lungs, give him time to catch his breath, time to remember every detail of what happened, then do the whole thing over.

He pulled his arms between them and cupped Prudence’s face in his hands. “Angel? Look at me.” He had to repeat his request several times before her gaze focused. “When I was in prison, Randolph and his cronies used to do something called waterboarding, do you know what that is?”

He didn’t need her to answer. Her eyes dilated in stark terror and her breathing increased until he feared she might hyperventilate. She moaned low in her throat. “Please, please, don’t.”

That son of a bitch had tortured her. He cursed. When he found Randolph his death wouldn’t be quick like Alfred’s. Randolph would suffer. “I will never do that to anyone.” He gave her a little shake and bushed her hair from her face. “I will never do that to anyone. Not even my worst enemy. Do you understand?”

“Y-You . . . .” Her eyes blinked as if she were having trouble focusing.

“I’m not gonna dry-drown you. I swear to God. I swear on my parents’ graves.”

“But . . . y-y-ou had . . . .”

“Sweetheart, I swear to you, I might be a bastard, but I would never, ever do that to anyone.”

“He did that t-to y-you?”

Alarm bells went off in his mind. Why the hell did it matter to her? He gave her a quick nod.

Prudence launched herself at him, wrapping him in a full body hug. “S-so sorry.”

His face twisted as a burning lump of something awful parked itself in his throat. Tears pricked the back of his eyes and he blinked them away. Those days were over. They were light years from Randolph, Bronsen, and the prison. There was no reason for tears now. His response to her tender apology shocked him so much he almost shoved her away. But he couldn’t, because he had no doubt she’d been through the same and if she thought he needed comforting, that meant she needed it more. So Griffin bent his knees, bringing them both lower so the water covered the teeth marks on her arms and returned her embrace. The thought of anyone subjecting Prudence to the same torture he’d endured from Randolph made his gut twist.

“Tell me.”

Her quiet demand sent a bolt of terror through him. No one talked about torture. Not those doing it, and not those subjected to it. Torture was grim, disturbing. “No.” He softened his statement with a little squeeze. Lifting his hand out of the water, he stroked his palm over her cheek, trying to wash the dirt from her sunburned skin without upsetting her. She allowed him several passes and then let him shift her to his other shoulder so he could get to her other cheek while she rested her face against his wet shirt.

Her breathing calmed and her body relaxed against his until he thought she might have fallen asleep. He leaned back, resting his shoulders on the edge of the pool and let the cool, healing water lap over them. He liked her. Maybe that made him a traitorous wretch, her being a Parnell and all, but he couldn’t not like her. Not anymore.

“I hated coming to.”

Griffin pulled away to see her face.

She allowed him a quick glance, then pressed her face back onto his shoulder. “I always had a moment of panic right before I inhaled. My heart would be pumping so hard I could hear it in my head. And when I sucked in that breath, I could hear the water whoosh into my body as the pain started—the burn, and that horrible ache in my chest. But right before I died, I always had this split second of peace.”

The tremors coursing through her body seemed to jump right into his. Griffin swallowed hard. He knew what she was talking about and he loathed that she understood such a thing. After the third or fourth time, he had started looking for that brief glimpse of peace, started hoping he could stay with it. He’d dream about it. And while it didn’t sound so bad when he referred to that moment as peace, that moment was the split second everything shut down except his brain. The peace she spoke of was a silent heart. Still blood. Waterlogged lungs. That peace was the split-second before the electricity in his brain fizzled out. Dreaming about those quiet seconds, hoping for them, was a special brand of sickness. A madness only a man captive and tortured could comprehend. But
she
knew.

“Next thing I knew my chest was on fire, my eyes felt like they’d popped out and got rammed right back in my skull and everyone stood around watching. Eager to see it all again.”

And if he used her as a hostage, if he got his ship at her expense, he’d be sending her right back to hell. No wonder she ran from him. Bowing his head, he rubbed his cheek to hers. “I didn’t know.”

She stayed quiet and still, letting him comfort her, allowing him to take comfort for himself and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he experienced a true connection. A communion.

He’d be damned if Randolph got near her again. “You lied to me, Angel.” He kept his voice soft and rubbed his chin on the top of her head. “You didn’t come here to be a pioneer. You came here to escape.”

“I came for both. I’ve got a fighting chance here. I have opportunites.”

And he’d threatened to take all that away. “Turn around, Angel.” He disentangled her limbs from him and urged her to lay her head back on the crook of his arm and float. “I want your cheeks in the water. Put your head back and relax. I’ll keep you from going under.”

With her muscles so tense, her body kept sinking until he gave her his other hand to hold on to. One of his arms supported her, the other lay between her breasts as she clutched his hand in both of hers. He tried not to notice how see-through her tank-top was. The white material had turned a mottled gray from the black sands, but the dirt didn’t make the thing any less transparent. There was no mistaking the dark circles of her areolas or the tight points of her nipples.

His body grew hard and aching, making him hate himself a little more. She was tearing him up. He liked her, wanted her. But she had been married to his enemy. This attraction had to stop. Maybe they’d bonded over their mutual dislike of Randolph, but she was still Alfred’s widow. Equal parts of him wanted to protect her and scare her away, because as much as he resented her, he was starting to fall for her, too.

No. It had to be proximity. He pulled her up. “That should be good.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”