Pure Blood (Time Spirit Trilogy, #3) (27 page)

Lying still on the rocky surface I held my
breath and listened. An eerie silence echoed around us as I waited
for another gunshot, but none came.

“Are we dead?” I whispered shakily.

“No,” Eli’s voice held a hint of laughter.
Sitting up with a groan he turned to look at me. “You okay?”

I nodded mutely, still too shocked to form a
coherent sentence.

“Come on.” He stood, brushed the twigs from
his shorts and reached for my hand.

I gratefully took his and tried not to groan
as my bruised body made its ascent. Squinting against the glaring
sunlight, I looked around me. A sudden dread seeped into my very
core.

“Where’s Lexy?”

“I don’t know.” Eli’s adam’s apple took a
quivering trip up and down his throat as he searched his
surroundings.

“We have to go back.” I turned and began
climbing up the small drop, back into the bush.

Eli grabbed the waist of my pants and pulled
me down onto the pebbly floor.

“Are you crazy?”

“Let me go!” I slapped his hands away.

“Those guys are probably still up there,
Mica. It’s not safe!”

“Exactly! It’s not safe! We need to go and
get them!”

“Mica! Stop it!” He grabbed my flaying wrists
with a firm hand and wrapped his other arm around my waist. .

“Let go!” I raised my tramping boot and
landed it on his shin.

“Ow!”

Everything but my right wrist was instantly
released, but my tugging still wasn’t working. His grip was
relentless!

“Eli! I can’t just stay here and let them…”
Panic soon got the better of me and my voice shook with unshed
tears.

He glared down at me. The soulless prat!

“It’s Lexy!! What if she’s hurt? What if
they’ve got her! Damn it, you don’t understand! She’s my best
friend! I have to go back and get her!” Fear filled sobs raced up
my throat.

Eli let out a sigh and pulled me towards him.
Wrapping firm arms around me, he regained his soul by quelling my
struggling limbs.

“You don’t think I’m worried too? She’s my
sister! I want to race back in there just as much as you Mike, but
we have to be smart about this.”

Pulling away from me, he placed a hand on
either side of my face and forced me to look at him.

“We are going to find them. Lexy’s a smart
girl, she knows how to survive in the bush and Tom’s there to help
her. We’ll be no use to them if we get cau-”

Our bodies tensed at the sound of a quad bike
coming down the riverbed. The bush above began to shake and wriggle
at the same time, then a walkie-talkie squawked with
information.

“I think they went this way, mate. Nic, check
down in the riverbed. Mutt reckons there’s four of ‘em. Should be
pretty easy to find.”

I held in a gasp and looked to Eli for a way
out. Thankfully his face had somehow morphed into a complete look
of calm. Grabbing each other’s hands we crept away from the voices
as quickly as possible. As the sound of a revving motor grew nearer
we realised, with sinking hearts, that there was no way we could
get away from these guys. Eli squeezed my right hand and scanned
the surrounding area again. I tried to join him, but my eyes seemed
to keep blurring with tears. Why I was turning into a feeble female
in distress was beyond me. I always thought I’d be brilliant in
these situations, but I had never faced death before and it was
fully freaking me out! Thank goodness Eli was here.

My thoughts were reinforced as he pulled me
towards a small cave-like opening beneath the forest floor.
Wrenching off my pack, Eli threw it into the space before sending
his own in behind it. He then wrapped an arm around my waist,
pulled me into the tiny cavern and sat me between his thighs. I
leant my forehead against his cheek, held my breath and waited.

If the circumstances had been any different I
would have been reeling in the fact that the sexiest guy on the
planet now held me firmly between his legs and his body felt so
divine I could just die! Unfortunately, intense fear was blinding
me from this pleasure and the muscular arms surrounding me were
completely unappreciated due to the harsh voices and searching eyes
of two very large drug dealers.

The men spent a good half hour poking around
the area searching for us. Eventually they stopped just in front of
our cave’s vine curtain.

“Nah, they must have slipped back into the
bush. We’ll get ‘em eventually.”

I looked between the leaves and spotted two
pairs of black army boots standing in front of a quad bike tyre.
Both of the men held guns. I could see their points aimed at the
ground, held casually by the men as they discussed their next
move.

“We better catch them. Hemi‘ll kill us if he
finds out someone’s discovered the crop. Didn’t Mutt say he saw one
of ‘em with a GPS? If they get away, we’re screwed.”

“Yeah, we need to find out what they
know.”

“Can’t we just kill ‘em?”

My heart lurched and Eli squeezed me
tighter.

“Yeah, but what if they’ve got cell phones or
something. We need to find out what they’ve done before we knock
‘em off.”

The other man grunted.

“Let’s head back, maybe Mutt’s found ‘em in
the bush.”

“And if he hasn’t?”

“Just don’t tell Hemi.”

The stones crunched and sent out a spray of
pebbles as the quad bike lurched away from us.

We both let out our breath. I sniffed at a
few quiet tears, trying to deny them, but unable to hold them in a
moment longer.

A steady thumb brushed over my face and wiped
them away.

“We’re safe now. They’re gone. And the good
thing is… they think Lexy and Tom are with us, which means they’re
safe too.”

I felt my insides calm and my wells of liquid
fear soon dried up.

“I’m sorry I kicked you.” I tentatively
rubbed my hand over his shin and felt his calf muscle tense at my
touch.

He dismissed my apology with a soft chuckle.
“Let’s just call it one of the hazards of big brotherhood.”

My heart sank as his comment swiftly brought
me back to the reality of our relationship. He was only holding me
for protection, just like he would Lexy. I was just his other
little “squirt.” Nothing more. I tried to focus on the fact that we
had just survived a close encounter of the killing kind and not
dwell on the point that I was never gonna get this guy.

Minutes ticked by with painful slowness and
despite the fact the gun wielding druggies had gone, we stayed
where we were until our legs were screaming to be straightened.
Edging out of our hiding place, we tentatively looked around before
stretching and letting our bodies enjoy the warmth of the sun.

Dropping my arms I looked over as Eli
extracted our packs from behind the vine. Yanking out his
cellphone, he held it up to sky then marched around like an idiot.
“No reception.” He threw it back in his bag and rattled off a
string of expletives.

I let him finish before clearing my throat.
“So what do we do now?"

Eli ran a hand through his hair and looked at
me. “We find Tom and Lexy and then get the
hell
outta
here.”