"They're right behind you," Rachael answered, clutching the wall for support. "Don't you see them? You're in terrible danger." She tried to remember who he was, someone very familiar to her. Her beautiful naked man. She remembered the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips. "Hurry, get away from them before they attack you." She inspected his body, saw the bloody streaks on his belly, his hip. The gash on his temple. "You're hurt."
"I'm fine, Rachael." He kept his voice calm, soothing. "Give me the gun."
"It's hot in here." All at once she sounded like a forlorn child. "Isn't it hot?" She wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand to clear her vision.
Rio watched her through narrowed eyes, silently cursed as the gun swept close to her face. The blood on her leg was too bright, suggesting the need for immediate action. The muzzle of the gun wavered, far too close to her temple. She swayed slightly. He moved, casually maneuvering into a better striking position. "It's all right, Rachael." Deliberately he used her name, his voice soothing, persuasive. He gained another step. "They're just pets. Clouded leopards. Small cats, really."
Her eyes were overbright. She frowned at him. She kept wiping her eyes in an attempt to get rid of the blurring. "Look what they did to my leg. Come away from there and don't turn your back on them."
He moved with unexpected speed, slapping the gun away when it swung in his direction, his body slamming into hers, shielding her protectively as a deafening explosion reverberated in the small cabin. His body pressed hard against hers, her soft breasts pushing into his chest, her face against his shoulder. Her legs went out from under her and she began to slide to the floor.
Rio swung her up into his arms, cradling her close to his chest. She was burning up with fever. "Everything's okay," he soothed, trying to ignore the ominous thud of the bullet striking metal and what it meant to them. "Don't struggle Rachael, you're safe."
She moved against his wet skin restlessly, the pain making her feel ill. His skin was so cool in comparison to hers she wanted to press herself closer. "Do I know you? How do I know you?" She frowned up at him, squinted through her spiky lashes to peer at his face. She made an effort to lift her hand, to trace the strong line of his jaw, his cheekbones, his mouth.
With great care, Rio laid her on the bed, trying not to jar her. He framed her face with his hands, forcing her to stay focused on him. "Can you understand me? Do you know what I'm saying to you?"
"Well of course I can." For a moment her eyes cleared and she smiled at him. It wasn't sexy, it was more angelic, and he felt it all the way to his toes. "In case you haven't noticed, you're not wearing clothes." Rachael sank back against the pillow. "Turn off the light please, Elijah, I'm really tired."
There was a small silence. Something deep inside him began to burn. Something dark and dangerous. Rio reached for her left hand, his thumb sliding over her ring finger to find it bare. He brought her fingers up to insure there wasn't a tan line proclaiming she'd recently removed a ring. He had no idea why relief swept through him, but it did. "Rachael, try to follow what I'm telling you. It's important." He carried her hand to his chest, without realizing he did it, holding it there over his pounding heart. "I need to lance the wound, cauterize it. I'm sorry, but it's the only way to save your leg. I think the bullet hit the radio, but even if it didn't, I can't raise anyone in this weather. The second wave of the storm is hitting now and there were three strong weather fronts coming back to back."
Rachael continued to smile at him. "I don't know why you're looking so worried. They haven't found us and I don't think they can."
Rio closed his eyes briefly, fighting for air. He wished her smile were for him, not some unknown man named Elijah. This was going to be hell, and she was so doped up he couldn't prepare her for what was to come. He had performed the procedure once before and even then it had been unpleasant. He pushed back the hair from her forehead. She was looking at him with far too much trust. "I'm just going to do what has to be done. I'm apologizing ahead of time."
She could see the reluctance and distaste in his eyes. "It's all right, Rio, I understand. I do. It had to happen sooner or later. I'm sorry he asked you to take care of it. I can see it bothers you."
"Take care of what?" he prompted. She was reassuring him, trying to make his job easier.
"I know Elijah wants me dead. I know he sent you. You look so tired and sad. It was wrong of him to ask you."
Rio swore softly, hunkering down beside her. Her eyes were glazed, dreamy even, but they carried intelligence. She believed he was there to kill her, yet she looked at him as if she felt sorry for him. "Why does Elijah want you dead?"
She blinked, her breath catching in her throat on a wave of pain. "Does it matter? Just get it over with."
"You're just going to let me kill you?" For some reason her apathy made him furious. She was going to lie there and encourage him to take her life? He wanted to shake her.
That same little smile tugged at her mouth. She seemed far away again, slowly turning her head away from him. "Even if you handed me a very large stick I wouldn't be able to lift it. I'll have to pass on being that take-forty-seven-kicks-in-the-ribs-and-keep-on-going heroine. I don't think I can lift my head."
He leaned closer. "Rachael? You're with me again." She sounded like the woman who had bashed him in the head.
"Was I gone?" She closed her eyes. "I wish I hadn't come back. What's wrong with me? Where did I go?"
"You've been rambling. I have no choice, I have to work on your leg."
"Then get to it. You're so tired you're going to fall on your face if you don't get it done." She made an effort to lift her lashes and study his face beneath heavy lids. "I'm not going to blame you if it hurts." Her eyes were clear and in that moment lucid. "I don't want to lose my leg, so by all means, do whatever is necessary to save it."
Rio wasn't going to talk about it any longer. Distaste for the ugly task glimmered in his eyes as he bent over her leg. The wound had to be lanced, thoroughly washed, cauterized and packed with more antibiotics. He had performed the surgery once out in the field when a friend had been shot and was bleeding profusely and the chopper couldn't pick them up immediately. Small beads of sweat dotted his body, then ran into his eyes to blur his vision as he placed the blade of his knife in the flames.
Opening the wound to allow the infection to run out set his stomach churning. She screamed when he poured the burning antiseptic, nearly coming up off the bed. He hesitated only a moment, leaning his weight across her thighs, and taking a deep breath laid the blade of the knife against her flesh. The odor was sickening. He didn't hurry, not wanting to make any mistakes, careful to cleanse and repair, before splinting her leg to hold it immobile in order to give it a better chance to heal.
He couldn't look at her as he cleaned the bedding and packed blankets around her leg to hold her still. She hadn't moved in a long time, her breathing shallow, her skin clammy. Definitely in shock, Rachael was trembling in reaction. Rio cursed softly. He eased down beside her, stretching out along the bed, drawing her close to him, unable to think of anything else to do.
"Rio?" Rachael didn't pull away from him, instead burrowed against him like a kitten for comfort. "Thank you for trying to save my leg. I know it was difficult for you." Her voice was thin. He barely caught the words.
Rio nuzzled the top of her head with his chin, blew at strands of hair caught in the stubble of several days growth. "Try to relax, I can't give you any more painkiller for a while. Just let me hold you." His arms tightened with possession. At the same time something was squeezing his heart like a vise. "I'll tell you a story."
Her body belonged with his--fit. He curved around her, thigh to thigh, her buttocks pressed against his groin, her head tucked safely against his throat, and she just fit there as if made for him. Her breasts were full and soft and pushed into his arms comfortably. He had lain with her before. Not once, but many times. The memory of her body was etched in his brain, in his nerves and flesh
and bone.
He rubbed his cheek in the mass of silky hair. It wasn't all physical. He felt something for her. Came alive around her. "That's not necessarily a good thing," he said aloud. "You know that, don't you?"
Rachael closed her eyes, willing her body to stop shaking, wanting the pain to recede if only for a brief space of time to give her a moment to breathe normally. Rio was an anchor she clung to, the one bit of reality she had. When she closed her eyes, she saw men contorting, fur rippling over their bodies, eyes glowing a fierce yellow-green. In that nightmare world the sound of guns erupted and she felt the shock of a bullet. She looked into those same intelligent eyes and saw pain and madness. And she heard his voice screaming no. That was all. Simply no.
"I need to hear your voice." Because it drove demons away. It drove the scent of gunpowder and blood from her mind, and she loved the deep caressing timbre of it.
"I don't know a lot of stories, Rachael. I never had someone telling me bedtime tales." He winced at the gruffness in his voice. It was just that she turned his insides to mush and made it difficult to remember she could have been sent to kill him. He believed in logic, and the way she affected him wasn't logical.
"I'll tell you one when I feel better," she offered.
He closed his eyes. She was like a gift, handed to him. Sent to him in his unrelenting world of violence and mistrust. "All right," he conceded to please her. "But try to go to sleep. The more you sleep the faster your leg is going to heal."
Rachael was afraid to go to sleep. Afraid of teeth and claws and the all-encompassing pain. She was afraid she would lose her tenuous hold on reality. As it was, she kept forgetting who Rio was. He felt familiar. She recognized his voice, but she couldn't remember their life together. When he talked to her, she floated on the sound of his voice. When his hands slid over her hot skin, she felt safe and cherished.
Rio told her some absurd tale of monkeys and sun bears he made up off the top of his head. It made no sense; in fact, it was fairly awful and showed he had no imagination, but she was quiet, slipping into a fitful sleep, and that was all that mattered to him. If the woman wanted storytelling on a nightly basis, he was going to have to hastily hone some nonexistent skills and learn to make up interesting tales.
He sighed, his breath stirring tendrils of her hair. What was he thinking, wanting to be able to tell her bedtime stories? He couldn't imagine such a ridiculous thing, couldn't imagine what he was yearning for. A woman of his own? Why? To share a home deep in the forest? To share a life of death and violence? He didn't know the first thing about women. He needed to get her out of his life as quickly as possible.
Rachael murmured softly in her sleep, restless, fitful. A soft protest against nightmares creeping into her sleep. Rio soothed her with some muttered nonsense, ignoring the ache she brought to his heart. Ignoring the strange memories in his head and the hardening of his muscles. Although his body was exhausted, his brain was alive with activity. Even the normal sounds of the forest didn't soothe him.
Rio lay listening to her, fear swamping him in waves at the thought of her succumbing to blood poisoning. Her skin burned against his. He bathed her with cooling water, kept the door open with the mosquito net hanging down both at the door and around the bed. The lantern was extinguished to keep the bugs from entering.
The rain persisted, a steady rhythm until the next storm hit about an hour later. It raged with enough force to blow rain through the heavy canopy. Rio slid out of bed, padded across the room to close the door. He stood for a long time staring out into the darkness, breathing in the scent of the rain, the call of the jungle. The chorus of male frogs sang off-key, joyfully hunting mates, adding to the lure of the forest. For a moment the wildness was upon him, beating in him with the need to shift, to escape. But the call of the woman was stronger. He sighed and closed the door firmly, shutting out the wind and rain. Shutting out the heady sounds of his world. He crawled back into bed, pulling the light cover over both of them, wrapping his arms around her and welding his body to hers. He was exhausted, but it took time for his body to relax, for his mind to let go. He fell asleep with a knife under his pillow and a woman in his arms.
4
THERE were nightmares. One simply ran into the next. Rachael felt she lived in a sea of pain and darkness where nothing made sense but a male voice pitched low as it murmured soothingly to her. The voice was a lifeline, pulling her from the darkness where teeth and claws savaged her body, where bullets whistled by and thudded into bodies and blood flowed and hideous creatures lay in wait to attack her.
Shadows moved in the room. The humidity was oppressive. A cat made a chuffing noise. Another answered with a gruntlike cough. The sounds were close, within a few feet of her. Every muscle in her body reacted, tightening in terror, increasing the pain in her leg. She couldn't move her body and when she turned her head, she couldn't see enough of the room to locate the source of those wild, cat sounds.
Sometimes the wind blew a cooling wave through the room and over her. Always the rain fell. A continual, steady rhythm that both soothed and irritated her. She felt trapped and claustrophobic, confined as she was to the bed. It was humiliating to have a man see to her every need, especially when most of the time she wasn't certain who he really was. Sometimes she thought she might be insane as the nightmare images of a man shifting into the form of a leopard replayed over and over in her head. There were moments she knew the man, where she was overwhelmed with love and tenderness, and moments when she stared into a stranger's catlike, frightening gaze and her heart pounded with terror. Time passage was impossible to know. Sometimes it was daylight, other times, night, but the one thing she counted on was the voice to steer her through nightmares and help her find her way back to reality.
She stared sightlessly at the ceiling, trying not to be alarmed at the sounds of wildcats so close to her when she couldn't see them. A shadow moved again, across the window, outside on the verandah. Her heart accelerated. The floor creaked.
Rio caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned as Rachael attempted to slip over the side of the bed. He leapt for her, his hands stilling her struggles. "What do you think you're doing?" Fear made his voice harsh.
She looked directly into his eyes, her fingers clutching at his arms. "They're here. He's sent them to kill me. I have to get out of here." She turned her head away from him to stare eerily into the corner. "They're over there."
Whatever she saw was real to her. She was so intent, it sent a chill shivering down his spine. "Look at me, Rachael." He framed her face with his hands, forced her attention back to him. "I'm not going to let anything hurt you. It's the fever. You see things because of the fever."
She blinked rapidly, her bright eyes beginning to focus on him. "I saw them."
"Saw who? Who wants to kill you?" He'd asked her a dozen times but she never answered him. She tried to turn her head away from him and remain silent. This time he had her face in his hands, holding her still, locking her gaze to his.
"You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. Your eyelashes are long. Why do men always get beautiful eyelashes?"
She had a way of throwing him off balance, disturbing his tranquility. He found it so exasperating he wanted to shake her. "Do you know how stupid that sounds?" he demanded. "Look at me, woman. I have scars all over me. My nose has been broken twice. I look like a damned murderer, not some pretty boy." The minute the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Damned murderer hung in the air between them. His teeth snapped together and he turned his head away from her enormous eyes, swearing silently over and over.
"Rio?" Her voice was soft. "I can see the pain in your eyes. Did I do that? Did I hurt you in some way? I don't like hurting anyone, least of all you. What did I say?"
He raked his fingers through his shaggy hair. "Of course you have to be perfectly lucid right at this moment. Why is that, Rachael? Two seconds ago you were so far out of it you didn't know your own name."
He looked so tortured her heart turned over. "Did someone accuse you of murder?"
Her gaze moved over his face, examining every inch--all-seeing eyes. He was certain she could see into his soul. Fierce anger smoldered, held deep where it couldn't be seen, burst free, a raging holocaust he couldn't prevent. She should have been afraid. He was afraid. He knew what he could do with that kind of rage, but her expression was compassionate, almost loving. Her uninjured hand went to his face, fingertips trailing over his lips, sliding around his neck so that she was cradling his head, offering, what? He didn't know. Sympathy? Love? Her body? Tenderness?
He ignored his first impulse to slap her hand away from him. He couldn't take her looking at him like that. He caught her fingers instead, pulling her palm to his bare chest, over his wildly beating heart. "You don't know the first thing about me, Rachael. You shouldn't look at me like that." He didn't know what he felt, a mixture of anger and pain and ferocious longing. Damn it all, he was over that. Over wanting. Over needing.
"You don't make sense to me." His voice deepened, sounded almost ragged. "Nothing about you makes sense. Why aren't you afraid of me?"
She blinked. Those huge chocolate eyes, so dark they were nearly black, eyes a man could get lost in. "I am afraid of you."
"Now you're humoring me."
"No, really, I'm afraid of you." Her eyes widened in earnest honesty.
"Well, damn it all, why would you be afraid of me when I've taken care of you and given up my bed for you?"
"You didn't give up your bed. You still sleep in it," she pointed out.
"There isn't anywhere else to sleep," he said.
"There's the floor."
"You want me to sleep on the floor? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable the floor would be?"
"What a baby. I thought you were a he-man." She smirked at him. "Be careful of losing your bad-boy image."
"And what about insects and snakes?"
"Snakes?" She looked around her cautiously. "What kind of snakes? You have kitty cats for friends. I'm hoping you say friendly snakes."