Dark Solstice (23 page)

Finally, despite her misery, she fell asleep. She woke sandwiched between two very warm bodies, wakened abruptly by sudden movement as Raathe slid his hand over her ass and encountered Kyle’s erection and Kyle slid his hand down her belly to her sex and discovered Raathe’s.

They were glaring at one another with deadly promise when she opened bleary, burning eyes and brought them both into focus. She closed her eyes again, her fatigue fogged mind struggling with the dilemma she’d found herself in.

Both men moved away and got up before she’d managed to come up with any idea that might diffuse a potentially dangerous situation.

Chapter Twenty

Rhea was so stiff and sore she thought for several moments that she wouldn’t be able to get up at all. She finally managed it by dent of sheer determination, but every slightest movement identified a new ache as she crept carefully toward the little stream of water near where they’d slept and crouched beside it to drink a little water and then bathe her face.

Her hands came away from her face bloody. She stared at the reddish water on her palms with surprise for a long moment and then revulsion when it finally dawned on her that it was Grimes’ blood. Shuddering, she dipped up more water, scrubbing her face vigorously and then tipped her head down to examine her flight suit. There were dark speckles of dried blood on her sleeves and the front and several larger patches stiffened with it. She recalled abruptly, though, that Grimes had grabbed the front of her suit and torn the closure open.

Opening it, she stared down at the dried patches of blood on her breasts and belly, feeling her stomach lurch. With an effort she swallowed the sickness. Peeling her suit off to the waist, she dipped her hands in the water and scrubbed herself with the frigid water until she’d removed all of the blood that she could see.

Despite the freezing temperature of the water, she struggled with the urge to strip and get in the water and scrub from head to toe. It was only with the reflection that she didn’t want to completely contaminate the minute water supply that she resisted.

Shivering, as much with revulsion as the cold, she swiped as much water from her skin as she could when she’d finished and shrugged into the top of the suit again. Raathe and Justice joined her as she was finishing up, one on either side of her. With barely a glance at her, the two of them focused on performing a similar ‘patch’ bath. Noticing that both of them were as bloodied as she’d been, she rose and made her way back to where they’d slept, wondering if it was their blood or the two men they’d killed.

Weak light filtered down through the exposed patches of the ice flow above them, giving the cavern the appearance of early dawn. She wondered if it was as she settled and began sorting and repacking the sleep bag she’d used the night before. She didn’t feel as if she’d slept more than a few hours, but then she had no idea what time it was when they’d finally stopped to rest. It had been nearly dark when she’d reached the caverns with Grimes and Cook. She knew they’d walked for several hours through the cave before Grimes had decided it was safe to stop and rest. She was hazy on the length of time that had passed between the stop and the attack.

She thought she might have dozed off. She decided she must have. One moment she’d been staring at Grimes’ back, tense, waiting for him to come after her and the next she’d roused at a faint sound and discovered him looming over her. Everything that happened after that was a blur. She’d yielded to her first instinct to flee and run right in to Cook, who was waiting for her. It was only after he’d grabbed her that she recalled her ‘fight’ plan, remembered she’d been struggling to brace herself to kill them when the time came that she had to.

Panic had overwhelmed her when Cook had grabbed her arms and she realized she couldn’t reach her weapon. She uttered a cry of frustration when it dawned on her, unwittingly giving herself the opening she needed because Cook had instantly become more interested in keeping her quiet than holding her. He’d shifted a hand to cover her mouth and wrapped his other arm around her to pin her back against him.

The image rose in her mind of dipping to her right to claw her pants leg for a handhold on her weapon as Grimes grabbed the neck of her flight suit and gave it a hard yank that parted the closure. She’d managed to fist her hand around the narrow end and snatch it free of the pocket, screaming in rage and terror as she slashed it across his throat. Cook had shifted his stance for balance when she’d dipped to her right and then thrown her weight to the left as she slashed at Grimes and then she’d twisted again to the right, stabbing backwards toward his belly.

The sickness welled up inside her again as the memory played out.

They
hadn’t killed Grimes and Cook. She had—Grimes certainly. She distinctly remembered the fierce satisfaction she’d felt when blood had spurted from his neck in a fountain and she realized she’d slashed his jugular. She wasn’t as certain about Cook, but she knew if she’d caught him in the belly as she’d planned, he would’ve died—eventually.

Standing, she twisted around to examine the back of her suit and discovered arterial spray there, as well, along the seat and legs of her suit. She hadn’t stabbed him in the belly, she realized. She’d slashed an artery, possibly—likely—the femoral artery between his thighs.

She crouched again, trying to decide how she felt about it beyond sick to her stomach. She discovered she just didn’t know—numb she supposed, neither happy nor sad nor horrified—disbelieving. She knew the images in her mind were memories, but they had the quality of a nightmare.

Raathe and Justice had shot the two men, but they’d been dead already. They just hadn’t fallen down.

They’d tried to protect her from the knowledge just as they’d struggled to reach her to protect from the men. Her chest tightened at the thought. Warmth filled her. It had to have been a nightmare of pain and misery just dragging themselves from the wreckage to the safety of the caverns, but they hadn’t stopped. They’d continued to push themselves almost beyond mortal endurance until they’d reached her.

They cared about her. They had to.

She’d been trying, hard, to convince herself that she didn’t really love them, that she’d just been so dependent on them for her life that it was gratitude she felt that they’d protected her and treated her well, not love. She knew she’d been lying to herself, though. Regardless of what they were, she knew she would’ve been just as drawn to them in any circumstances, both physically and emotionally. There was something about both of them that made them seem … ‘more’, so far above the ordinary that they were more like the perfect definition of what being a man meant than any other man she’d ever met, so superior that other men could only aspire to be what they were.

They returned, settling on either of her and bursting the little illusion of complete perfection by exchanging a resentful glare with one another and then favoring her with one that was a mixture of anger, confusion … and wariness when they spied the med scan she was holding in her hand.

Ignoring the warning look in Raathe’s eyes, she moved to him and knelt in front of him. “I should check you for injuries.”

“I’m fine,” he growled.

“Don’t be such a baby!” she snapped, grasping his swollen hand and holding it carefully in hers as she used the scanner. “Two breaks,” she said after a moment. “Did you get them in the arena?”

He met her inquiring gaze with a stony expression. “Probably,” he muttered, sending Justice a look she found hard to decipher.

She sighed irritably. Dragging her bag over, she dug inside of it until she found the portable med-unit. It only had four syringes, but she couldn’t see holding them for the possibility of future, more severe, injuries when they might not need them and John needed something now. Besides, it needed batteries for the computer and those weren’t going to last long. Frowning, she activated the program screen and selected the repairs she needed to program into the nanos. Raathe gave her a fierce look when she took out the syringe, but he said nothing as she took his hand again and injected nanos into the site of his injuries. Next, she removed a compression bandage and carefully wrapped his hand. He tried to get up as soon as she’d finished. “Nope!” she said, placing a palm in the middle of his chest. “You’ve been favoring your ribs. I want to scan them, too.”

Uttering a long suffering sigh, he leaned back. “Make it quick. We need to get moving.”

Dismay filled Rhea as she slowly scanned his chest. He had a hair line fracture in his third right rib, which was disturbing enough, even though it didn’t seem to present a danger to him as long as it had a chance to heal properly. It was the mended breaks that disturbed her the most, though. The scanner recorded two other healed breaks over the mid to lower half of his ribcage on both sides.

Either he’d been in a serious accident, or he’d taken a hell of a battering more than once. The realization of all the pain he’d endured for years—physical pain—to say nothing of his grief and guilt over Amy’s death, made her feel the urge to weep. She tamped it with an effort, trying to keep him from seeing how much it disturbed her.

He wouldn’t welcome her sympathy, she knew. He’d think it was pity and John Raathe was not the sort of man to pity or to appreciate anyone feeling it toward him.

When she’d injected more nanos at the site of the break, he sat up impatiently and allowed her to wrap his ribs securely as she had his hand.

She met his gaze when she’d finished. “Your nose and lips are swollen, too,” she noted, trying not to let on how much the reminder of his battle in the arena bothered her, trying not to remember how much it had terrified her to see him fighting when she knew how weak and injured he’d already been when he went into the arena.

A mixture of irritation and reluctant amusement glittered in his pale eyes. “You want to wrap those, too, munch?” he growled.

A flutter of laughter, quickly tamped, welled in her chest. “Don’t tempt me,” she responded tartly, struggling to dismiss the image his comment evoked.

On impulse, she leaned toward him, brushing her lips gently over the bruised, swollen flesh.

Surprise flashed in his eyes for a split second. As quick as thought, he burrowed a hand in the hair at the nape of her neck, parting his lips and planting them solidly over hers. His tongue flicked across her lips and delved inside.

Surprised herself, Rhea nevertheless felt welcome heat and lassitude envelop her the instant he laid siege on her senses with the restless exploration of his tongue. Luxuriating in the feel and taste of him, heightened by the fear that had dogged her before that she might never know his touch again, she leaned closer, bracing her palms on his shoulders to catch her weight.

He seemed to debate with himself over whether to continue or stop and finally pulled away, releasing his grip on her hair. He was breathing unsteadily as he met her gaze again. “All better now,” he said a little hoarsely, a knowledgeable gleam in his eyes that held both desire and amusement.

Rhea chuckled a little unsteadily. “Never underestimate the curative powers of a kiss,” she murmured.

“Oh, I don’t. A kiss a little lower would help even more.”

Rhea’s eyes widened a moment, but then her lips twisted with amusement. “How much lower?” she asked teasingly.

He glanced down at himself. “About three feet south, I’m thinking.”

“We need to get moving!” Justice growled the reminder from somewhere behind them.

Raathe sent him a look that was both a challenge and smug satisfaction.

Embarrassed and more than a little uncomfortable, Rhea got up and turned to look at Justice a little doubtfully. “I should check you for injuries, too,” she said tentatively.

He sent her a narrow eyed glare. “Another time,” he muttered tightly, hefting the bag of supplies from the ground at his feet and slinging it over one shoulder.

Raathe, she saw when she glanced at him, wasn’t at all pleased that she’d offered. Irritation surfaced at both of them, Kyle for refusing to allow her to check him for injuries and at Raathe both for provoking him and for being angry with her for the offer.

He’d just have to
be
mad, she thought angrily, shoving her supplies in her own pack jerkily and finally bundling it up. Raathe took it from her as she struggled to sling it over her shoulder, settling it on his own shoulder opposite the pack he was already carrying.

She appreciated the consideration, but it still irritated her. He was hurt. She wasn’t. The uncomfortable suspicion arose that he still perceived her as a useless bit of fluff. She didn’t mind being appreciated for sex. It would’ve distressed her a good bit if he hadn’t, but she needed to feel like she was of more importance to him than that.

Maybe she was making a mountain out of a molehill? Maybe the gesture didn’t mean anything at all to him beyond his knowledge that she wasn’t nearly as strong as he was?

In all honesty, she supposed she hadn’t given him any reason to value her more than the use he’d had for her from the start. She’d been so completely out of her element in the prison, and so wary of doing or saying anything that might tip the scales and bring annihilation down upon herself, she’d hardly even dared to voice an opinion that was contrary to his. How else
could
he perceive her except as a pet he’d grown used to having around and having to take care of?

Kyle nudged her shoulder as they started out and pushed a nutrition bar into her hand. She took it, smiling at him tentatively in thanks. Something flickered in his dark eyes, but it was clear he was still angry with her.

Sighing with resignation, she broke the seal and peeled the wrapper back, tearing off a small piece with her teeth and chewing it as she glanced around at her surroundings. She hadn’t been nearly as deep inside the cave system when she’d discovered it. The natural illumination made it less likely she could lose her way since she could see everything fairly clearly, but she’d decided it was still too risky to try to explore it when no one knew where she was.