One Four All (12 page)

“Of course,” scoffed F’yit.
She’s laughing? Holy Gods.
Lira held her breath, waiting to hear what else might come out of the woman’s mouth. “The princess trusts me with her life. I can convince her to follow me anywhere. All I have to do is tell her one of those soldiers is injured. She’ll come running.”

“Find Uke first,” ordered Speth. “Ask your husband what the hell he’s been doing all this time.”

Husband? Uke is her husband?
Lira clutched at her stomach, the mere sound of the words making her sick.

Speth continued. “I need to get her out of here before those soldiers of hers make any more trouble. Once she’s gone, I can deal with them and then we all need to disappear for a while. Battarq’s on to us. There’s no other reason for those men to show up.”

As Lira watched, F’yit came into view, her back blocking the light from the opening.

“What about our money?” the woman whined. “You promised to have our money waiting for us. I spent four fucking years of my life as that whore’s maid, and I was promised compensation, a great deal of compensation. Before I take one more step, I want to know where it is.”

“In an account in Swasi.” Speth sounded impatient. “We all have money in a bank in Swasi, you and Uke, me and Kess, all of us. The secretary said he’d send us the account numbers and passwords as soon as she’s on board and they’ve cleared the channel.”

“How can I be sure he’ll keep his word?”

You can’t be sure. You’ll be dead
.
You know too much
.
Speth will kill you as soon as I’m gone.

Lira shuddered at the sweet falseness in Speth’s voice. She was amazed F’yit didn’t seem to pick up on it. The man was as venomous as a pit viper. “You are a loyal subject of Khubuk, Sunn. The secretary recognizes your tremendous sacrifice. Never doubt that you will be well rewarded.”

Sunn
.
Her real name. Her lying, treacherous Khubuk name
.

Her heart filling with an unfamiliar murderous rage, Lira fought to hold herself back. She wanted to wrap her hands around the woman’s neck and squeeze the life out of her then tear the two men into small pieces. Along with Regnan, these people had conspired to kidnap her, throw her country into confusion, and drive two nations to the brink of all-out war.

Lira heard the woman sigh as if she felt put upon. “All right, I’ll go get her. I suspect I’ll run into my husband on his way down. You are too impatient, Speth. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in four years, it’s how to bide my time.”

The woman turned and entered the cavern. Lira knew she would be momentarily blind after stepping from bright daylight into the dank darkness. Heedless of the noise she made, Lira snagged the woman she knew as F’yit by the hair and smashed her face against the rock wall. She tossed her to the floor of the cavern and set a foot against the side of her neck.

Kill her before they are on you. Kill her. She deserves to die
. Hearing the woman’s pathetic moans, Lira couldn’t finish her. Instead, she burst through the entrance to the cavern onto the sliver of beach and slammed straight into Speth’s big body heading full speed in her direction. With a grunt, the man staggered back a few paces, while Lira sank to her knees on the sand, the wind knocked out of her.

She looked up and saw recognition dawn in the guard’s eyes. He glanced over her shoulder and, without warning, strong arms wrapped around her chest, and she found herself dragged toward a zodiac that had been drawn up on the beach.

“Red.” Lira tried to yell for him but managed only an inarticulate croak. She would have to help herself. Lira did her best to dig her heels into the wet sand and make herself dead weight. As the man tried to reposition her and improve his grip, she saw Speth unsheathe a knife and disappear into the cavern.
Oh, Gods, not Red
. But the man returned shortly. He cleaned his knife in the sand.

“Thanks. Saved me a shitload of trouble.”

“Fuck you, Speth,” Lira managed to spit out in a hoarse whisper.

“Really?” The man laughed. “Don’t mind if I do. Hold her down for me, will you, Trey?” As Lira watched him unbuckle his belt, she realized that her lungs had begun to work again. She opened her mouth and screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

“Shut up,” Speth shouted, and he smacked her so hard across the face that her vision blurred and the man holding her lost his grip. Lira sprawled onto her stomach in the sand, tasting blood. Then Speth straddled her, tugging at her jersey. The tough material resisted his attempts. It was glued to Lira’s body with sweat and water from the cavern. With her peripheral vision, Lira saw him whip out his blade to cut it away. Desperate, she bucked beneath him and, grabbing a handful of sand, turned just enough to sling it into his face with all her strength.

Infuriated, cursing a blue streak, Speth grabbed her by the hair and hauled her to her feet. He stumbled with her to the shore, half-carrying her, avoiding her kicks, ignoring her screams.

“I’ve had enough of you, bitch,” he yelled. They reached the water, and he waded in with her pinned under his arm. At last he seemed to feel he’d gone far enough. He shoved her beneath the waves, forcing her underwater, keeping her submerged with a knee pressed against her back.

So now I’ll drown. How sad. Perhaps Red or Tanner or Wat will survive to tell my father what happened to me
…

* * * *

Kepp’s heart thudded in his chest as he and Wat scrambled down the side of the cliff. They had to reach her before Speth succeeded in drowning her. Heedless of the noise they made and careless of their own safety, both men slid down, sending a shower of loose stones onto the head of the man who watched Speth drag Lira into the waves. By the time he looked up, it was too late. Wat landed on him and tumbled with him onto the wet sand. Confident that Wat could handle the man, Kepp sprinted through the sand toward the surf line. His only thought was of Lira, and he hoped to God she could last another thirty seconds.

Speth’s attention was focused on the struggling woman. He didn’t see the man running towards him or the flash of the steel blade he pulled from his belt. It wasn’t until the blade was buried deep in his back that Speth realized there were other people on the beach, and by then it was too late. He dropped Lira. Rising from his knees, he turned to face Kepp, a puzzled expression on his face just before he fell back into the water, dying fast.

“Lira,” Kepp yelled, “Lira.” He passed Speth’s body and grabbed for her arm, dragging her limp form from the shallows. She wasn’t breathing. He tossed her over his shoulder and lifted his feet high to sprint back to the beach. He threw her onto the sand, her legs still in the foaming surf, and began mouth-to-mouth. Wat rushed to her side to begin cardiac compressions. It seemed like an eternity, but Kepp knew maybe only twenty or thirty seconds had elapsed before he felt Lira move beneath his hands. She retched several times, and he flipped her onto her side so she could get rid of the seawater she’d swallowed.

Kepp sat back on his heels, a hand supporting Lira’s head. Thank God he and Wat made it off that cliff in time. He’d been waiting to catch all the men involved when he’d seen Lira come flying out of the cavern onto the sand, seemingly hell-bent on getting herself killed. For fuck’s sake, how had she found out about this? And where the hell was Red?

Lira finally stopped coughing, and Kepp gathered her into his arms.

“I’m so sorry, my love,” he murmured, brushing the wet, sticky strands of hair from her face with a gentle hand. “I took too long getting to you. You could have died.”

Lira looked into his eyes. “I thought I would die,” she whispered. “Red?” She peered around. “Find Red. I left him at the top of the staircase. He’s injured.”

“Don’t worry your pretty head, darlin’,” said Wat, taking her hand. “Red doesn’t kill easy. I’ll find him.”

Wat disappeared into the cavern while Kepp helped Lira to sit up. “He was attacked by two men in your quarters. I think he has a skull fracture.”

“How’d you get him out, sweetheart?”

“He could walk a bit, and he knew where you and Wat had gone, but I couldn’t support his weight on the stairs. It would have been too dangerous. We heard voices, and I came down to find the two of you.” Lira wriggled in his arms. “F’yit? She’s in there.”

“Alive?” asked Kepp.

Lira shook her head.

“I figured. I saw Speth disappear inside and return with a bloody knife.”

“I heard what she said. I know what she was, Tanner. I almost killed her, but I stopped myself.”

“She was a traitor,” said Kepp. “She betrayed you, and she betrayed her own country. Whatever you did, it was justified. Can you stand? We’ve got to get out of here, fast.” When Lira nodded, he pulled her to her feet.

“Where will we go?”

“Across the channel.” Kepp pointed. “To Zhinshu. Home.”

“Can we take that?” She pointed to the zodiac.

“If they don’t blow us the hell out of the water, yes.”

Lira stared at the far shore. “Then we’d be safer waiting until nightfall. But I don’t know if Red can hold out that long, not without medical attention. He took a pretty hard blow to the head.”

“Then it’s a damn good thing I’m so hardheaded,” said Red. He hobbled toward them wearing his trademark lopsided grin, an arm thrown around Wat’s shoulders for support. “If it wasn’t for the blurred vision, the headache, and the blood, everything would be fine. Hey, why the hell is your mouth bleeding?”

“The son of a bitch slugged her,” said Kepp, studying Lira’s face. With gentle fingers, he tugged her lower lip down to check the cut. It didn’t need suturing, but her mouth was going to be sore. As they huddled together, the wind increased. Lira began to tremble. Kepp realized that the scanty practice jersey she wore offered very little in the way of protection and warmth when it was dry, let alone when it was soaked with ice-cold seawater. Within seconds, she was shaking outright, and he wondered if she was going into shock.

Kepp swung her into his arms. He looked around for some sort of shelter that couldn’t be seen from the mouth of the cavern or the fishing boat. There was a small cavity in the rocks about twenty yards down the beach. That’s where he’d take her.

“We need to get her warmed up. Wat, get rid of these bodies and then bring Red. We have to keep out of sight. Lira’s right, we can’t risk the zodiac until after nightfall, but we’ve got to stay alive until then.” He strode across the sand, determined to protect this courageous, headstrong woman.

Red followed, his pace slow, but Kepp felt reassured when he saw his friend moving under his own power. He dragged Wat’s bag with him. Kepp carried Lira out of the wind. He laid her across his lap and searched the jersey for the fastening tabs, but the garment was so wet that although he could get the tabs open, he couldn’t remove it.

“C-c-c-cut it off,” Lira ordered through chattering teeth.

Kepp slid his knife out of the sheath. Red did the same. Together, the two men began to cut the garment from her, taking great care to slice the material and not the woman.
As they stripped the fabric away from her wet skin, Wat joined them.

“Damn,” he said, “you started without me. I want some of this.” He whipped out his blade and began cutting the sticky fabric away from Lira’s thighs.

The pace of Lira’s breathing increased, and Kepp stole a quick glance at her face, worried she might be suffering from hypothermia. One look told him it wasn’t hypothermia she felt. She was aroused, just as he was. When he peeled the fabric from her breast, her rosy nipple puckered and pointed in a determined fashion, right at his mouth. It would take a strong man to resist such an invitation, and if there was one thing Tanner Kepp had come to realize, where Lira was involved, he had little resistance.

“Fuck.” Kepp gave in and lowered his mouth to her.

Lira responded with a soft keen of pleasure.