Her Every Pleasure (29 page)

“What is going on here?”

His men glanced at him sheepishly and then at each other.

“Your men were considering breaking their Janissary vows, monsieur. Or are you all mere hypocrites? This wrong you would do my friend offends Islam, does it not?”

The Tunisian pushed one of his men roughly out of the way and rebuked him in his native tongue. Then he turned to her and put out his hand. “Give me the gun, Your Highness. You cannot win here.”

“Back up unless you want a hole in your shirt!”

“It is not wise of you to threaten me. Why would you protect her when she betrayed you, anyway?”

“You wouldn’t understand. You aren’t human.”

“Threats and insults, too? Are you brave, or mad, or merely foolish, Princess?” Their onyx-eyed leader stepped forward. “I have a threat for you. No—a promise,” he corrected himself. “You pull that trigger, and by Allah, you will both regret it. We do not need you alive; we merely prefer it that way. But if you provoke us, what happens to you will be your own fault.”

Sophia looked him in the eyes. “I am not afraid of you,” she whispered with her finger on the trigger.

“Give me the gun.”

“Give me your oath that you will not let your men lay a hand on us. Swear it on your Book.”

Alexa was crying behind her. They were either both going to die very soon or they would get through this together. But neither of them would be raped.

The Tunisian stared at Sophia for a long moment. “Very well, little lioness. I will not permit my men to touch you or your stupid friend. They need me to remind them of their Janissary oath.” He cast an angry glance around at his men. “Besides, I’m sure Ali Pasha would prefer you intact, anyway.”

“Ali Pasha?” she breathed.

“Now give me the rifle. Come. Do we have a deal?”

Sophia stared at him, at a loss. Promises to infidels didn’t count, but she realized if she did not give up the weapon, they would kill her and Alexa in a trice.

Ali Pasha?

Good God, was that where they were taking her? Delivering her to the Terrible Turk himself? How she wished in that moment that her suspicions about him had been wrong all along.

“The rifle, Your Highness,” Kemal urged her. “What’s it going to be? You’ve got one bullet. Squeeze the trigger, and you’re the one who’ll end up full of holes. Or you can live.”

Though it took all of her strength and self-control, she turned the rifle sideways and handed it over.

He gave her a polite smirk as he accepted it. “Stay over there. Both of you.” He jerked a nod toward the cave wall. “I will remind my men of their manners.” With that, he walked away and unleashed a rapid, incomprehensible tirade on his men. They looked ashamed.

And so did Alexa. “Thank you. Oh, thank you, Sophia,” the girl whispered, trembling.

“We’ll see if he keeps his word,” she replied as both women huddled by the cave wall.

Having heard the news about their destination, Sophia was now quite as terrified as Alexa was. But she did her best to hide it.

“Sophia—I’m so sorry!” The sob from her traitorous lady-in-waiting tore at her heart.

She looked over at her traumatized companion, feeling reluctantly merciful. It was a little late for apologies, but she did not have the heart to say so.

Instead, she touched Alexa’s shoulder in a token of forgiveness. “It’ll be all right,” she murmured. “Don’t worry. Colonel Knight and the others will find us.”

“They’ll save you, maybe. But they’re going to leave me to die. I know they will—after that!”

“They will not leave you to die,” she answered wearily. “You know them better than that.”

Alexa kept crying while Sophia inhaled a shaky breath and braced herself upright against the rough stone wall behind her.
Hurry, Gabriel.

She sent out the very whisper of her heart to him to save them. In this, her hour of greatest need, it was not in her bodyguards that she placed her faith, nor in the prince of Denmark. She knew her true mate was coming to find her.

Her guardian angel.

Her knight.

Her message on the silk scarf, written in ladies’ cosmetics, had given them several pieces of valuable information. It read:
+ + 11 E.

As Timo had explained, it meant that both she and Alexa were there, that they were both all right, they were not hurt. There were eleven enemy fighters, and they were heading due east.

The news that Sophia was still unharmed came as a blessing to all of them and buoyed up their strength for what was sure to be another long night. Pounding doggedly down the main road through the beautiful French countryside, they kept their eyes open for any fresh sign from Sophia.

In the fading light of evening, they almost missed the distant bit of white fluff lying in the middle of a steep road that wound up into the mountains. But Gabriel spotted it through his telescope as he rode on, constantly scanning the landscape through his lens. At once, he held up his gloved fist to signal the men to a halt.

“What is it, Colonel?”

“Did you see something?”

“There. Some white object in the road.” Reining in his blowing mount, he looked again through the telescope and found the object once more through the lens.

It had been hard to make out while his horse had been in motion, and even now, as they came to a stop, he still could not tell for certain what it was. The distance was too great.

“Markos, what do you make of it?”

The eagle-eyed sharpshooter urged his horse up beside Gabriel’s and stared for a moment through his own spyglass.

“Can you tell what it is?”

Markos lowered the telescope slowly from his eye and turned to him with a grim expression. “I think it might be a body.”

“A body?” Demetrius echoed.

Markos eyed them uneasily. “It looks like something in a gown.”

“They wouldn’t,” Timo whispered. “He must be wrong. Why would they kill her?”

“They tried before.”

“But it could be nothing!”

“We have to make sure,” Gabriel said.

Niko was shaking his head. “It doesn’t look like anything to me, and riding up there to investigate is going to cost us precious time. We’ve got to stay on their tails!”

Gabriel searched the landscape.
Sophia…where are you?
He could feel her somewhere near. He knew she was still alive. She was waiting for him.
Hold on, my love. I’m coming for you.

The men were arguing, tense and worn out, in need of rest and a decent meal.

“What if you’re wrong? It could be somebody’s laundry blown away—or a dead bird or something, or nothing at all!”

“The horses are already near exhausted.”

“So am I,” Yannis muttered.

“If we spend what strength they have left on a wildgoose chase, then we are fools!”

“And if she’s somewhere up there and we go riding past, we’re even bigger fools,” Gabriel countered. “What if they’ve gone up there into the woods to take shelter for the night? It’s what I would do if I were them. I wouldn’t want to risk being seen at any inn along the way. Whatever that white thing is, it could be another clue that she’s left for us. We know they want to throw us off their trail.”

“I agree,” Timo said stoutly. “Let’s go check it out.”

Gabriel nodded and urged his horse back into motion. The others followed, some reluctantly. About a quarter mile down the road, they took the turn onto a smaller, rockier country lane that led up into the rugged limestone hills.

They pressed on in taut silence, each man wrestling privately with his dread that they were about to find either Sophia or Alexa dead in the middle of the road—murdered and dumped by the abductors like so much refuse.

If that fear were not enough for them, there was its alternative: that the white object in the road was nothing, and they had wasted valuable time investigating it.

But then, still some distance off, they examined it through their telescopes again and exhaustion fell away as they realized that it had to be a clue. They were sure it wasn’t a body. It seemed to be a dress.

Through his telescope, Gabriel scrutinized the ledge above the place in the road where the garment lay. If that was the clue from Sophia that he believed it to be, then she had clearly passed through here and might still be in the area. That, he decided, was where they would begin their search.

But he ordered the men to hang back and keep a distance for now. If the enemy was somewhere nearby, then stealth and silence would be their best weapons, especially since the kidnappers already owned the double advantage of good cover and high ground.

They would have to approach with great care to avoid being seen or heard. As much as possible, he wanted to control the element of surprise.

“Yes,” he murmured as he looked around, “she’s here on this mountain somewhere. I can feel it.”

“They must have stopped for the night like you said,” Timo agreed. “We’ve got to track them down and find them before they’re on the move again.”

“But how? God, we’ve got thousands of acres of wilderness ahead of us. Caves, gullies, ravines,” Demetrius said. “How are we going to find her?”

“We’re going to use our heads. And we’re not coming down until we’ve got her.” Gabriel glanced around at them. “Take a break, boys. I’m going to go retrieve that bit of clothing she left us and do a bit of scouting around the area.”

“Shall we come with you?” Yannis offered.

“No. I want you all to get a bit of rest for what’s to come,” Gabriel said. “And I want silence, understand? Sound will travel right up this mountainside, and they’re sure to have sentries posted. Let’s keep the element of surprise for as long as we can.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Aye, sir.”

In grim quiet, the men led their horses into the woods on the side of the road, taking cover among the trees. They found a stream and let the horses drink while they stretched a bit, took a few swigs from their canteens, and began checking their weapons and getting themselves ready for battle.

Meanwhile, Gabriel sneaked farther up the mountain on foot to get that blasted petticoat out of the road before it drew the Scorpions’ attention the same way it had drawn theirs. As twilight deepened to dark, crisp night, he arrived at the place where Sophia had thrown the garment. He rejoiced to touch it, knowing she was near. Quickly sweeping up the white cloth and concealing it under his black coat, he spent a good hour scouting out the terrain. Then he selected a small cave away from the road where he could bring Sophia once he had her safely in his care. He stocked it with firewood and supplies and made sure she would have all she needed.

God, keep her safe.

Before going back to his men, he paused outside the cave to survey the surrounding area one last time. The air was thinner at this elevation. He took note, for it would cause the men to tire faster. He was a little more used to it himself because of his battles in India.

Countless memories of those days prepared him well for what lay ahead tonight.

Dark impulses, long dormant, had begun stirring to life inside him, a savagery he had thought, or hoped, that he would never need to use again.

But he needed it now, and he realized it had never truly left him. He closed his eyes and felt the fury fill him. He let it come, rushing into his veins, a dark ecstasy. Aye, he welcomed it. The time to kill had come again. If he was damned for this, for saving Sophia, then he wanted no part of redemption.

The men seemed to notice the strange look in his eyes when he stalked back through the woods and rejoined them.

Having come back down the mountain, he laid out his battle plan, describing his plan for how and where they would start their search of the woods above that ledge where they had found Sophia’s signal.

“Once we’ve found the enemy camp, here’s how it all will go. First, Timo, you’re supposed to be the best tracker.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“Good. I’ve got a job for you. We know Sophia wounded one of these bastards during the ambush.”

“Yes. One of them reached into the carriage to try to get her, and she slashed his right arm open.”

“It’s too soon for it to be fully healed yet. So, we know that one of these men is already wounded. If anyone’s going to tend to back down from a fight, it’ll be him—especially if he can’t use his sword arm properly.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“We’re going to let him run. The rest you can kill at your leisure, but if you see a man with his right arm bandaged, try to let him go. We’ll have you track him, Timo, and eventually he should lead you to wherever the Order of Scorpion has its headquarters. We need this information. Can you do this?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. You can take one man with you, but I want no more than two of you going. You don’t want to attract undue attention. And keep your distance. Do not allow yourself to be captured as you near their base of operations. We need you to stay alive and to report back to us what you find.

“For the rest of you, if anyone should become separated from the rest of us for whatever reason, make your way to Kavros as quickly as you can. We will rendezvous at the naval base. Right, then. Who’s the best marksman?”

They all pointed at Markos. He lifted his rifle with a wry smile.

“When we close in on the camp, you’ll take a position where you can give cover. I don’t care if you have to get up in one of these trees. Other than our bandaged friend, feel free to pick the bastards off as you find the opportunity.”

“Will do.”

“They’ll want to move Sophia as soon as they know we’ve found them,” Gabriel continued. “Getting her out of there is going to be their top priority. To prevent their escape, we’re going to want to find their horses first and set them loose before we attack. The horses will likely be under guard. No noise dispatching the sentries, all right? Cut their throats. That way, when the others come out to try to spirit Her Highness away, they’re going to look for their horses, but what they’re going to find instead is me.

“The rest of you will launch the main assault. I’ll be in position to intercept Sophia and get her to safety. I’m not sending her off by herself like Leon did. Not now.”