Her Every Pleasure (32 page)

She held her arms out to him, and though he had long been in her employment, like all the rest, she considered him closer to family in her heart. She hugged her old friend like a brother while Gabriel took a moment to collect himself.

“Thank God you’re safe.” When Yannis pulled back and looked at her, there were tears in his eyes.

“What of the others?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry—Demetrius is dead.”

Sophia squeezed her eyes shut, but she had already known this. She had seen it. “The rest?”

“All alive.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“Nobody’s hurt too badly except Markos. Damned fool broke his leg falling out of the tree where Colonel Knight posted him for a sniper.”

“Let me go and check on him,” she said.

“No,” Gabriel murmured, joining them. “I don’t want you going up there.”

Sophia looked at him dismay, but when he shook his head with grim finality, she knew he only wished to spare her from the sight of all the bloodshed.

Perhaps she’d had enough of that for now, in truth.

“Don’t worry, Your Highness. I’ve already seen to Markos,” Yannis assured her. “But he’ll be traveling slowly. You two are going to have to go ahead of us. I will stay behind to help him. And I will bury Demetrius. And Alexa,” he added with a glance at Gabriel.

“Alexa is dead?” Sophia breathed. “I thought she escaped! The last I saw her, she had just cleared the cave. Was she struck by a bullet? What happened?”

Yannis dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this. Markos saw her pass from his vantage up in the tree. She bolted straight on through the woods and in the darkness, must not have seen the ledge in front of her until it was too late. When Markos told me what happened, I ran down to see if she survived the fall, but she was dead. Her neck was broken.”

“Oh, God,” Sophia whispered, lowering her head.

Gabriel glanced at Yannis. “Did the injured man among them flee as we expected?”

“Yes, sir. Timo and Niko went after him, just as you commanded.”

“Excellent. You all fought well.”

Coming from him, this was quite a compliment, Sophia thought, but she eyed each man dubiously. “You all are getting along now?”

Both men favored her with jaded smiles.

“I think we’ve learned our lesson,” Yannis admitted.

“And that, not a moment too soon,” Gabriel agreed. “Come, Gypsy girl. Let’s get you out of here.”

“Gypsy girl?” Yannis murmured.

“Don’t listen to him,” Sophia answered with a blush.

She gave Yannis another hug with words of praise and comfort to pass along to Markos.

Then she and Gabriel both got on the horse and started down the mountain.

CHAPTER
         NINETEEN         

T
hey rode the few miles down the mountain in silence, then crossed the little bridge over the cold swift stream, and turned off the road. They plunged into the dark forest again, but with Gabriel riding behind her, his big, warm body so solid at her back, Sophia was no longer afraid.

He urged the horse onward through the dense trees, but when they came to a quiet meander of the stream, he reined in, took a quick, wary glance behind them and in all directions, and then dismounted.

She watched him in silence as he walked over to the bubbling creek and crouched down beside it. Sophia’s expression turned somber as she realized he was washing the blood off his hands from the vicious battle.

His words from that night at the farmhouse haunted her.
“I could not possibly kill another human being again…I’m quite sure it would cost me my immortal soul.”

Now he had had to do so for her. Was this brooding silence of his…anger? Anger at her?

Did he believe that he had damned his soul for her? The thought made her tremble. Warily, Sophia got down off the horse and left the animal there, joining Gabriel quietly by the water’s edge.

Upstream of him, she knelt down and lowered her fingertips into the cold current.

He finished cleaning his hands. Staring straight ahead, he took a deep breath and let it out.

She eyed him askance, worried by his silence.

“You all right?” he asked her evenly, aware of her watching him, even as he avoided her gaze.

“Yes,” Sophia murmured. “You?”

“Hm.” The short, vague syllable was neither confirmation nor denial, but it was all he offered for the moment, scooping water up into his cupped hands and splashing his face. “That’s cold,” he said.

“Yes.” She shivered a bit as he pushed up to a stand once more, set his hands wearily on his waist, and walked off to get the horse.

They went up toward the cave he had prepared earlier for her, but first, he led the horse to its hiding place among the trees. Sophia followed on foot, stepping carefully over the uneven ground.

“Our shelter’s right there.” He pointed toward a small cave a few yards away through the pines. “Should be warm in there. You can go and make yourself comfortable.”

She shook her head. “I’ll wait for you.” After the events of this evening, she was not about to wander off from her protector. All too happy to stay close to him, she leaned against a tree while he unsaddled the horse.

When he was finished, they walked up to the cave together. He assisted her over the boulders while an owl hooted in the distance.

Ahead, silver moonlight illumined the rock face with the cave’s pitch-black opening. Behind them, the wind whispered through the pines. Gabriel moved ahead, bending under the cave’s arched mouth as he went in. Right behind him, Sophia did not have to bend down at all; she kept her hand on his back in the darkness, but then he reached ahead and brushed aside a large, black blanket that he had hung previously like a curtain to conceal their camp.

Behind the curtain, the little cave was downright cozy, dimly lit by a pair of lanterns, warmed by glowing coals in a circle of rocks, with waiting bedrolls and a few fur throws, water and food, basic medical supplies, and more weapons leaning here and there around the walls if he should need them. He held the curtain back, letting her go in first, and as she stepped inside, Sophia’s heart lifted, for this small, primal shelter seemed more welcoming and safe than any palace she had ever lived in.

“My knapsack!” she suddenly exclaimed, pointing across the cave in recognition. She turned to Gabriel with an adoring look of gratitude.

The trace of a smile softened his granite countenance.

“Wouldn’t forget that.”

“Did you bring my knife?” she asked eagerly.

“See for yourself.”

As if he had promised to give her a handful of diamonds, she rushed across the back of the cave and crouched down to open the old canvas knapsack that Leon had always kept ready for her, the one she had escaped with on the night of the ambush. She peered inside and found that, indeed, all of her survival things were there. Including her knife.

She sent Gabriel a smile from ear to ear. The threat was over, but she strapped her favorite weapon to her thigh immediately. It instantly made her feel a good deal better.

He shook his head to himself in amusement, then took a long swig from his canteen.

Sophia slowly sat down on one of the fur throws beside the fire and stared into space. Images of all that had happened were flashing through her mind in the most rapid and disturbing fashion. She barely realized she was still shivering.

Gabriel frowned as he watched her, then he crossed to add fuel to the fire. This done, he went to the stash of supplies and picked up a small bottle of brandy and took the cork out. Pouring a large splash of it into a tin dipper, he brought it over and offered it to her.

“Take a few swallows of this,” he ordered.

She stared blankly at the bottle. “Are you sure it’s not drugged? That’s how all of this started.”

“Hey. Look at me.”

She trembled again as she lifted her gaze to his. His cobalt eyes searched hers with probing depth.

“You’re safe now. Drink this, Soph—Your Highness. You’re as white as a ghost. Go on. It will help.”

Hearing him address her as “Your Highness” once again was not an encouraging sign. He was keeping his distance, she realized.

But after what she had put him through, not even her royal self possessed the audacity to object. Taking the dipper from him without argument, she lowered her gaze and did as she was told.

“Just sit there and relax for a while,” he said in his terse, no-nonsense way, still in commander mode it seemed. “You’ll feel better in a bit.”

Sophia was not about to argue. Sipping the fiery liquor, she grimaced at how strong it was, while Gabriel took the bottle and walked toward the hanging blanket.

“I’ll give you some time alone. I’m sure you could use it. Be right out here,” he muttered, then ducked out again.

Sophia frowned. It seemed as if he was the one who needed some time alone. All things considered, she couldn’t blame him. She took another sip of brandy and tried to relax. Drawing her knees up to her chest where she sat, she closed her eyes for a moment and said a prayer for both Alexa and Demetrius.

As tears threatened, she sat up straight again, banishing them. If she allowed herself to start crying, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop. She turned her thoughts toward Gabriel and wondered uneasily if he was all right.

Shaking her head at the vivid memory of the savagery he had unleashed on those quite deserving barbarians, she found herself decidedly intimidated by him in a way she had not been before. She had to admit that this side of Gabriel left her a little afraid.

She dared not let him notice her newfound trepidation. After all he had just risked for her sake, she did not think he would appreciate her cowering from him as though he were some sort of wild beast.

After she had finished the brandy, she decided to go and check on him. She rose and went outside, and found him sitting on a boulder at the edge of the cave.

He was just sitting there in the darkness, staring off into the woods and the dark, starry horizon above them, a million miles away.
Where are you right now?
she wondered.
Come back to me.

He took a large swig from the bottle. She frowned in concern and reached out to lay her hand on his shoulder as she approached, but when she saw him tremble once with the lingering aftermath of violence, she thought better of it. She did not dare risk startling him.

With a certain degree of caution, she joined him, uninvited. Going over to his side, she crouched down slowly, resting one knee on the stony ground. She studied him with an upward gaze, but he kept his head down, shutting her out, as deep in his brooding as he had been that first night she had spied him from the hayloft, lighting candles in the little ruined church.

Candles for the men he had slain.

He had a strange look about him. It worried her. He seemed so remote, she did not know if he would permit her to reach him.

When she laid her hand on his knee in silent, comforting inquiry, he still did not look at her, but after a long moment, he slowly turned his palm upward where his hand rested on his thigh.

A tremor of gratitude swept through her at his silent, stoic invitation. Sophia gazed at him with her heart in her eyes as she rested her hand in his.

His fingers closed around hers with a gentleness that shook her after his ferocity up on the mountain.

“Are you…all right?” she murmured, dismayed by how weak the words were in expressing the fullness of her concern for him. How much she cared.

He nodded.

“Does your scar plague you?” she whispered.

He shrugged, still avoiding her searching gaze. “A little sore.”

“Gabriel.” When she bent her head and kissed his hand, he looked at her slowly, at last. His blue eyes focused on her as if from a great distance. “Thank you,” she choked out.

She laid her head down on his thigh. Gradually, he let his hand come to rest on her hair. “Don’t thank me,” he said in a hollow tone. “It was my fault you had to go through all that in the first place.”

“No, it’s my fault
you
had to kill again. I dismissed you from your post and walked right into Alexa’s trap. She knew me well enough to play upon my jealousy.”

“Mine, too.”

“Yours?” She lifted her head from his lap and gazed at him.

He shrugged self-consciously. “When she told me you had kissed the prince, I—”

“Kissed the prince?” she echoed. “But I didn’t!”

He suddenly frowned at her. “You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he muttered, pausing with a look of extreme vexation with himself. “Well, that is what she told me, and I fell for it. And I thought that meant…” His words trailed off. He tried again. “I was hoping that I could forget you…with her. Obviously that was never going to work.”

“It’s over now. Please, don’t be angry at yourself. It was her purpose to divide us so she could carry out her plan.”

“I never would’ve thought she had it in her.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Sophia said fondly. “Your chivalry causes you to look upon women tenderly. It’s one of the things I find dearest about you.” She gripped his hand more tightly. “We all were duped, Gabriel. Even those of us who knew her best—or thought we did. But if it’s any consolation, she did not do it willingly. They threatened to kill her if she did not cooperate, poor creature.”

“That I can believe,” he assented. “But why didn’t she come to us, and trust us with this threat?”

“She might have, if she had known how good you are. She had no way of knowing the extent of your abilities. Even Yannis looked to be in awe of you back there. You were truly magnificent tonight.”

“Well, I am glad you think so,” he said grimly, “but I would not blame you if you never spoke to me again.”

“Nonsense, you saved my life. Gabriel, they were going to take me to Ali Pasha.”

He nodded. “You said so all along, didn’t you? That it was Ali Pasha behind it. You were right about that. You were right about a lot of things.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave a tender squeeze as he gazed into her eyes. “You’re safe now. That’s all that matters. I’m not letting you out of my sight again. I will protect you. Always. I won’t leave you, even if you’ve decided to marry the prince. That, Sophia, is my destiny.”

She stared at him then lifted her arms around his neck and hugged him for a long moment. It felt wonderful to have him in her arms.

“I could never marry him,” she whispered as Gabriel’s hands alighted on her waist with a tentative touch. She did not let go, but kissed his cheek. “Even if the alliance could help Kavros, he would force the two of us apart, and I can’t have that. I can’t do without you, Gabriel. I need you too much.”

He closed his eyes with a soulful look and laid his head down on her shoulder as she held him.