Forged in Ash (42 page)

On a rough-hewn log bench, overlooking the calm blue-green waters of an alpine lake, Jillian watched through her lashes as her guardian unpeeled an orange. His huge hands were surprisingly limber, flexible, working the orange with ease and care.

They mesmerized her.

“Eat,” he said simply and handed her several sections of orange and half a roast beef sandwich wrapped in a paper towel.

She’d woken from her nap to find him banging on the wall across from her bed, which should have been frightening, but barely
made a dent in her conscious before she’d fallen back into a deep, grief-riddled sleep.

Her pillow had been soaked and her cheeks wet when she’d awakened the second time.

Had he cradled her again as she wept? She didn’t remember any dreams this time. But she knew they were there. They were always there, waiting to ambush her the moment she closed her eyes.

Taking a deep breath, she gazed out over the mirror-like surface of the water.

The lake was shaped like a bowl, with a rocky, steep shoreline riddled with exposed boulders and tree roots.

So very similar to the one she’d died in all those months ago.

“Why were you banging on the wall?” she asked absently.

He glanced at her and smiled slightly. “I was being
hisoh’o
.”

Which told her nothing. “Meaning?”

He shrugged. Reaching down, he pulled the hem of his jeans up and slid a wicked-looking knife out of a sheath strapped to his calf. “Loosely translated, it means being her elder brother.”

So he was Kaity’s brother. She would never have guessed it by looking at them. But then maybe he meant figuratively.

Jillian didn’t even flinch as he straightened with the knife in his hand. Instead, she took a bite of her sandwich, watching as he rummaged through the plastic bag he’d brought with them and emerged with an apple. Wielding the deadly blade deftly, he nimbly quartered and cored the fruit, and handed her two sections. After wiping the blade with a paper towel, he set it on top of the plastic bag.

She dropped the apple sections next to the orange sections onto the paper towel stretched across her lap and took another bite of her sandwich.

“What language is that? It’s beautiful.” Which it was, in a primitive, arrhythmic way. It wasn’t quite like anything she’d heard before.

“Arapaho,” he said simply, taking such a huge bite out of his sandwich, half of it disappeared.

“You’re Indian?”

He simply nodded.

She went back to staring at the surface of the lake, fighting the memories, fighting the loss, fighting the endless agony of grief that threatened to drown her.

“It doesn’t bother you?” he asked, his gaze direct, intensely black.

Confused, she frowned at him. “What?”

“That I’m Arapaho? Indian? Many still view my people as barbarians.”

Shaking her head, her gaze slid compulsively back to the water. “Have you killed?”

She knew that he had. Had known since Kaity had shoved her into the SUV and he’d turned his head to look at her. The icy hardness that allowed killing sheathed him, just like it did the four SEALs who’d killed her brother, just like it had sat upon the men who’d kidnapped her and her children all those months ago.

She’d become an expert at recognizing the face of a killer.

Would he admit to it? Or lie?

“Yes.” His voice was flat. Unapologetic.

The admission shouldn’t have reassured her, yet strangely, it did. “How many?”

“Many,” he admitted with the same cold lack of apology.

“Do you kill children?” The question emerged on a haunted whisper.

The bark of guns…the stench of fireworks…her babies falling.

She shuddered and shook the memory away.

“Never.” His voice was harsh, icy with cold, vicious rage.

Startled, she glanced at him, wondering if the wrath was directed at her, at her question. But he wasn’t looking at her; he was glaring down at the lake.

“We don’t kill children,
heneeceine3 betee.
We don’t kill anyone who doesn’t need killing.”

She relaxed beside him, his words echoing through her mind.
“We don’t kill anyone who doesn’t need killing.”

“Who is we?” she asked, finishing off the rest of her sandwich.

Not because she was hungry. But because she needed to regain her strength; she needed to escape. She might have been captured. She might be their prisoner. But she hadn’t failed yet. There was still time to make them pay.

“We don’t kill anyone who doesn’t need killing.”

His explanation resonated within her.

The men who’d stolen her family needed killing.

“We,” he echoed slowly, “are my people.”

She nodded slightly. He must mean his tribe. A long, comfortable silence fell between them. She’d just finished the last of the apple and orange slices when he spoke again.

“Who do you cry for Jillian?” His voice was very quiet. Very gentle.

Frozen. She stared down into the water. Suddenly feeling like she was drowning. Drowning in the memories. In desolation. In the endless, emptiness of grief.

The echoes of childish giggles haunted her mind.

“We see you, Mommy. It’s our turn to hide. You find us.” The pounding of feet scattering.

“Who,
nebii’o’oo
?”

“My babies. My brother.” Her voice sounded dull, wooden. “They
murdered
my brother and my children.”

She wasn’t telling him anything that he didn’t already know. Damn them. Zane Winters and his SEAL brothers might have denied killing her kids, but they were liars. They knew exactly what had happened.

The lack of surprise at her revelation was proof he knew the answer to his question.

So why ask?

“Who?”

“You know who.” She didn’t look at him. “Marcus Simcosky, Zane Winters, and the other two.”

“No.”

The denial snapped her head around.

She started to rise, the betrayal sinking so deep it caught at her heart, snagged her breath.

“Jillian.” He caught her around the waist and drew her struggling body against his side. He held her there, immovable. Inflexible. Until she collapsed exhausted and panting against him. “They do not kill children. They are not the ones who killed your babies.”

“They admitted it,” she forced the words out through a raw, burning throat.

“When?” There was patience in his voice.

“On the television, they admitted they killed my brother.” She spat the words at him.

“Your brother, yes,” he agreed steadily. “Your children, no.” He paused, held the rage in her gaze without flinching. “Your brother was not who he claimed, nor who you thought him to be.”

“You’re one of them. Of course you’d back their story.”

He shook his head, tightened his arm around her waist. “You
know this in your heart,
heneeceine3 betee.
You have always known it. Trust in your heart.”

She swallowed hard, trying to ignore his words. But they dug in and clung with claws tipped in poison.

Of course she’d wondered about Russ sometimes. About his constant surplus of money. Or how he’d disappear for weeks on end and then suddenly show up again out of the blue.

But he’d always had a good explanation. His job paid well, his consulting constantly took him out of the country.

“He loved me,” she said, hearing the thickness in her voice. “He loved the children.”

“I do not doubt that,” he said placidly as he stroked a palm up and down her back.

She could have bolted then. He wasn’t holding her in place. But she stayed. The warmth of his palm felt so good against her back.

“Tell me what happened,
heneeceine3 betee.
”

She shied away from the question, and the agony that nipped at its heels.

“What does that mean?” she asked, half in curiosity—he’d called her the same thing several times now—half in procrastination.

He smiled, leaned over to press his lips against the top of her head. She grimaced in disgust. Her hair was filthy.

“It means
lion heart
.”

With a slight smile, she leaned into him. But then she frowned. “I’m not a lion. When I saw him in the parking lot, the one”—her voice quavered and thinned—“the one who shot me, who shot Wes and Brianna. When I saw him, I ran.”

“He shot you and your little ones?” Wolf asked, his voice as icy as the water glittering in front of them, but his fingers were warm and gentle against her back.

Jillian shook her head, a tight, hot knot clogging her throat. “He shot me, and Wes, and Bree, but the other men, they must have—I didn’t see, just heard the guns go off and,” her voice died to a hoarse whisper, “Lizzy, Collie, and Katie crumpled and then, and then everything went cold and dark.

“I’m not a lion. I am not.” Wrapping her arms around herself she bent and rocked. “I ran when I saw him.”

His hand resumed, that soothing up-and-down caress.

“But you came back, did you not? In the parking lot at Kait’s building. You came back to kill him. To kill them all.” There was no disapproval in his voice. He was simply stating a fact. An accepted fact. He’d obviously heard the story from Kait. “Tell me what happened,
netee
.” She sighed and leaned into his warm hand. She was still a lion in his eyes. And he didn’t seem disturbed by the fact she’d tried to kill four people. Four innocent people according to him. Did he know she’d threatened his Kaity with a knife?

“This man, the one who shot you, what does he look like?” Wolf’s voice had chilled, the velvet baritone roughening.

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “He was tall, thin. Brown eyes. No hair.”

The warmth in his eyes centered her. Before she realized it, she began to talk.

“Lizzy let them in,” she whispered, her mind turning inward, pulling up that horrific day. “She wasn’t supposed to let strangers in. She knew that”—her voice thickened—“but she was only six, still a baby. I was in the kitchen. They pushed her into the kitchen with a gun to her head.” Jillian started to shake, her throat so tight she could hardly get the words out. “She kept…she kept saying ‘I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m sorry.’” Jillian choked on the lump in her throat, and then forced the rest of the memory out. “The other kids were in
the family room, watching television. They wanted me to call them into the kitchen. They said they’d kill Lizzy if I didn’t.”

She wasn’t aware she was crying until moisture hit her hand.

For a moment she stared down, dumbfounded. She hadn’t cried while awake since coming to in the sinking van. Her tears had been reserved for the night. For the dreams.

“They made you call the rest of your kids into the kitchen,” Wolf repeated, a dark, dangerous edge to his voice.

Her nod was sluggish. “They said—they said we’d be okay as long as we did what we were told. But they’d kill someone each time I disobeyed.” Her voice rose until it pierced the trees, shrill with anguish. “What could I do? They would have killed my Lizzy if I didn’t call the others. But by calling them, I killed them.”

“No.” His voice broke into her cry, inflexible in its certainty. Instantly, her voice fell. “Calling your children did not kill them. They would have found them. They would have rounded them up. You couldn’t have stopped that.
This was not your fault
.”

Absolutely still, she sat there and let his assurance sink in. Let it spread out. Let it slow her heartbeat and unfreeze her lungs.

Calmer, she continued. “They taped our hands and mouths and took us to the garage. To my van. They pulled the seats out, made us lie down and then taped our feet. One drove. One sat in the passenger seat. One in the back with us. After a while, they met up with two SUVs and they split us up.”

Wolf stroked her back again and pulled her closer. His big body burned against hers. But not even his heat could warm the icy hemorrhage in her mind. “What did they do with your van?”

She frowned. “They must have taken it back to the house and put the seats back in.”

He shook his head, for the first time looking surprised. “Why?”

“Because after they shot us, they cinched us into the seats and drove the van off the bluff above Lake Katcheca.”

He went very still beside her. His hand frozen on her back. “Your children are—”

“At the bottom of the lake,” she said thickly, only this time the tears didn’t fall. Her eyes burned. Her heart burned even worse. But the agony transcended tears. “I woke up when it hit the water.”

“They shot you.” He gently stroked the scar along the side of her head. When her hair had been long, the scar had been covered by the length of the strands above. Cutting it had exposed the thick, calloused healing tissue.

“Twice. They thought I was dead. I woke up when the van hit the water. The moon roof was open. I barely made it out.”

She barely made it to shore too. Or up the rocky, endless bank.

She didn’t remember much of the ordeal. The motorist who’d almost hit her as she stumbled onto the pavement said she was barely conscious. Raving and incoherent.

“I didn’t try to get them out.” The words erupted from her in all their agonizing frenzy. “I didn’t even try. I should have tried. I shouldn’t have just left them there. What if they were still alive? What if I was wrong? What if they weren’t dead before it went down?” Her voice climbed higher and higher, the agony a constant, unforgiving scream inside her mind. “I killed them. I killed them by leaving. How could I have just left them there?”

“Jillian.” He caught the hands that were clawing at her face and forced them to her sides. “Jillian,
heneeceine3 betee.
”

“I’m not a lion,” she shrieked. “I left them there. I left my babies to die so I could save myself.”

“No.” He shook her. “You left to survive. You left to give them the revenge they deserved. They were already gone. You could not have saved them.”

“How can I be sure?” Her voice rose again.

“Because you knew. In your heart you knew they were gone. You felt it. They were already gone.” His voice was so calm, so full of certainty. “It’s a mother’s
betee
,
bixoo3etiit,
to know when their babies have left them.”