Jett's Wild Wolf (Mystic Wolves 3) (20 page)

Once he had the pants buttoned, he returned to where she sat sipping her glass of water. “You ready?”

She put the glass down with a clink. “I can’t leave my car here. What about when I need to leave.”

Xander was truly beginning to believe he was falling head over ass for her. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you. Until this bastard is caught, consider me your chauffeur.”

Coming February 2016

Midnight Delta Series

Book Two

––––––––

By Caitlyn O’Leary

Dedication

To all of our men and women who have served.

H
is knife was wet with blood as he followed Darius into the shack in the middle of the Mexican jungle.  His team mate, who was the medic immediately went to the woman who was tied spread spread-eagle to the wall.  Her dress was ripped, exposing her back.  There was a bullwhip lying beside one of the dead men.  He also saw another man who had a cell phone gripped in his hand.  Clint grabbed it, sure it was set to film the torture of the girl.

Shrill screams broke through the room as the gag was taken out of the girl’s mouth. 

“She needs to stop, but I don’t want to gag her again.”  Darius said helplessly, as he motioned Clint over.  Darius didn’t speak Spanish, but he knew that Clint did.  Clint rushed over. 

“She’s screaming for her family.  Work with the others to get them cut loose.”  Clint turned to his other team mates who were with an older couple and another young woman.

Clint wiped off his knife on his fatigues and slid it carefully between the exposed wood of the wall and her wrists.  God, she was a mess.  He couldn’t believe how deep the lacerations were from where she had struggled against the rough rope. 

“Shhhh.  I know you can’t see them, but your family is safe,” he assured her in Spanish.

“Let me see them.  Papa!  Mama!  Beth!”  Tears dripped down her face.  Clint went to her other wrist and began to carefully cut that one loose as well.  She struggled to turn around.

“Mama!”

“Miss, you need to calm down so I can get your other hand free.”  Clint didn’t think she could hear him, she had to be out of her mind with pain.  Despite that, her entire focus was on her family.

“Where are they?”  She was yanking so hard against the rope that he didn’t have any other choice but to hold her hand down so he could ensure that he didn’t cut her as he sliced through the rope.  His fingers were slicked with blood by the time he was done.

“Darius, get back here, she needs medical attention, stat!”

“We need to get out of here.”  Mason Gault said.  Clint acknowledged his leader’s words, but continued to concentrate on the woman’s wounds.

“What’s your name?”

“Let me go to my family?”

“Stay there.  Let them help you.”  The older man crouched in front of her as Clint gently helped her to the floor of the cabin.

“I’m so sorry daughter this is all my fault.  Oh God, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”  The man started weeping.

Lydia, reached out to her father, but hissed in pain.

“Enough!” Clint commanded.  “This isn’t helping your daughter.  We have to get the hell out of here.” 

“Let me hold her.  I’ll carry her.”  Her father’s voice trembled.  Clint looked up and saw he was now surrounded by the small family.  Looking at the father, he knew that there wasn’t a chance in hell the man would be able to carry his daughter the miles they were going to need to walk. 

“One of my men is going to carry her,” Mason said as he stalked across the room.  “We need to leave here immediately.  Our intel says that the other members of the cartel will be here shortly.”

Clint felt Lydia jerk. 

“It’s okay,” he told her in Spanish.  “Nobody is going to hurt you again, I promise.”

“Just help my family,” she answered in English.  “Please.”

“I’m going to help you.  My team will help your family.” 

“Ms. Hildago, I’m going to give you something for the pain.  It’s not going to knock you out, because we need you to remain conscious, but it will make you feel better.  I’m also going to give you some antibiotics.  As soon as we’re far enough away from here to be safe, I’m going to do some triage on your wounds.”

“Lydia, he’s going to need to give you the shot in your hip.  We just need to lift your skirt just a little, okay?”  She looked up at him with a pleading look.

“Can’t you give me the shot in my arm?”

“No.  Darius is our medic.  He’ll do it quickly.”  God, he wanted to preserve her modesty, but they needed to get the medicine into her system.

She bit her lip so hard he thought she might draw blood.  “All right.”

Darius had it done and over with in a moment.

Clint helped her to stand, but he had to take most of her weight.  He looked over at his friend Darius, and saw the same look of resignation.  They could arrange for some kind of travois, but pulling that through the jungle would slow them all down.  What’s more, it would be too painful on her back.  Even though the medicine wasn’t meant to put her to sleep, she would likely pass out from the pain.  Clint hated the idea, but he was going to have to secure her to him as he carried her. 

“If we tie her upper arms and wind the rope around your waist, it should support her if she lets go.”  Darius said, reading his mind.

He felt her shudder.  “Are you talking about tying me up again?”

“Honey, do you think you’re strong enough to hold onto me while I carry you miles through the jungle?”  He looked into her eyes and could clearly see her struggle. 

“I want to say yes, but I know I’m not.”  She choked back a sob.  “But I can’t stand the idea of being tied down again.  Of not being able to get free.  I just can’t.” 

Lydia would have collapsed if Clint hadn’t caught her.  She let out a broken cry.  He didn’t blame her.  She still had to be in unimaginable pain, and totally freaked out about being restrained again.  He had an idea.

“I’ll give you one of my knives.  You’ll be able to cut yourself loose at anytime.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Darius asked.

“Shut up Dare.” He glared at the other man.  Clint totally understood Lydia’s need for control.  He highly doubted that the beating was the only thing she had endured. 

“Once we get away from here, you’re going to have to check all of them out.  It’s likely they have more injuries.”

“I wasn’t raped.” Lydia said baldly.

“How about-”

“Neither was my sister.  They were going to, but I made them mad.  That’s why they started to whip me.” 

“Will you be able to hold onto me if we lift you onto my back?”

She hissed in pain as Darius ripped the remaining tatters of her dress off her back and used some disinfectant wipes on the wounds.  More tears filled her soft brown eyes.  He saw Dare pull out some antiseptic.  When she tried to look backwards to see what his friend was doing to her back, he grasped her fingertips with one hand and gently turned her head to face him.

“Lydia, can you hold onto me?” he asked again.

“I’ll try.”

“So you understand why we need to strap you on so that you won’t fall.  Lydia, there is no way I’m going to let you fall and injure yourself even more.  Not on my watch.” 

“How far will we have to go?”

“This is going to take a few days.”

“Days!  You can’t possibly mean to carry me for days.”  She reverted to Spanish.  Then she let out a moan.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry.  This next one is going to hurt bad too.”  Clint looked over her shoulder and saw the regret on Darius’s face.  Lydia was hunched over and she clutched Clint’s hand.  Her long hair covered her face.

“Just finish it,” she said in English.

Clint looked down at her bent head and at the hands holding his, and saw the wounds on her wrists.  God, those were going to hurt as bad if not worse than the whip marks on her back.  He looked around the shack and saw that each of the other men on his team had paired up with the other family members. 

“How much longer Dare?” Mason asked.

“Not much, Lieutenant.”

Clint had been responsible for intel on the operation.  The Mexican drug cartel planned to make Mr. Hildalgo an example today.  They were bringing someone high up in the organization to the shack to watch over an execution of him and his family.  They were going to post it on-line as a warning to others. 

Clint’s team was involved because Hildalgo had been working with American DEA agents, but some of them were on the cartel’s payroll.  Still this wasn’t enough for the Navy to be involved, but unfortunately there was a US Congressman who was implicated in the mess.  So a Senator pulled some strings to ensure that Hildago was brought to safety.

The cartel had pulled the Hildago’s out of their home where they were having dinner, and brought them to the ass end of nowhere.  It looked like everyone but Lydia had clothes that could weather the trek.  She was in a shredded dress, shredded nylons and no shoes. 

Clint ducked down and pulled out a T-Shirt from his backpack.  He would’ve given her fatigues but the cotton material would rest more softly against her back.  He found a chair and shoved it right side up and guided her to sit down now that Darius was done applying the salve on her back.

“Lydia, you’re holding up the front of your dress.  When Darius bandages your wrists it will fall.  Let’s get you into this shirt, okay?”

She looked up dazed.

“What’s your name?”

Fuck.

“I’m sorry Ma’am.  I’m Senior Chief Petty Officer Clint Archer.  I’m a Navy SEAL.  I’m part of team Midnight Delta.  We’re going to get you out of this hellhole.”

She looked up at him as she held the remains of her dress up to her breasts.

“Call me Clint,” he said in his most gentle voice.  “I’m just going to put this over your head, and pull it down, then you can put your arms through.  How does that sound?” 

She sighed in relief.

“It sounds really good Clint.”

He was careful to keep the back of the shirt from touching her wounds until the very end.  He pulled out the mounds of black curls from the opening for her head.  She winced when the shirt and the hair finally rested against her back.  She struggled to get her hands through the openings for her arms.

“Let me help.”  He reached in and guided her limbs through, amazed at the softness of her skin.  God, she was trembling so hard.  She wasn’t going to stay conscious for long.  He looked around the shack and saw Mason giving him a hard look.  They had to hurry.

Darius had gauze ready to wrap around her wrists. 

“Give me your hands Lydia,” Clint requested.

She squeezed tightly as Darius quickly administered to the wounds on her wrists.  Quiet tears rolled down her face. 

“All done Ms. Hildago.”

Clint let go of her hands and pulled socks out of his backpack and pulled them onto her small feet. 

“Let’s get you settled up on my back.”

Lydia wasn’t a tall woman, maybe five feet, five inches and a little on the curvy side, in other words, a perfect armful.  She wouldn’t be a hardship to carry, but it was going to be tougher when she became a dead weight, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she would be before sundown.

Clint turned and crouched down so that Lydia could maneuver onto his back.  She wiggled a bit so she could get a better grip, then she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Lydia, I need you to grip my shoulders, better yet, put one arm underneath one arm and link it with the hand coming over my other shoulder.  I can’t have you blocking my airway.”

“I’m sorry.  I should have thought of that myself.” 

“Why?  Have you ridden piggyback through the jungle before?”  He hiked her up a little bit higher, and then Darius came around front holding some rope.  He heard her swift intake of breath and wished he could spare her this.

“Remember, I’m giving you my back-up knife so you can get out of this.”

“Actually, I’m going to tie this so all she has to do is yank on it and it will give way.”  Clint watched Darius’s swift and sure movements.  He tied the cords so that it was above her elbows and wouldn’t slide down to her wrists.

“Ms. Hildago, here is the end of the rope, if you pull this, you’ll be free in an instant.”

“Thank you.”  Clint wished he could see her expression.  Darius nodded.

“Okay, we need to get going.”  Darius swung Clint’s backpack up with his, and they left the shack.

Clint tried to carry on a conversation with Lydia, anything to keep her awake, but she was too tired.  When he had to climb over tree trunks she groaned in pain.  Those were the worst moments, he hated that.  He looked up ahead and saw the other members of the family at different levels of energy. 

Finn was shadowing the father along, and Drake was helping the mother.  Drake was second in command and the biggest member of the SEAL team.  He probably should have been carrying Lydia, but everybody realized Clint had made up his mind to take care of her.  Therefore Drake had Mrs. Hildago in case she needed to be carried next.

The younger sister, Beth, looked like she had a lot of nervous energy, and would make it for a while.  But, Clint could tell that she had been through some shit.  She was paired with Mason, their Lieutenant, he would treat her with kid gloves.

“Clint?”

“I think I’m going to pass out.  I’m sorry.”

How did he tell her it would be a blessing?  That the sounds of pain she was making were killing him?

“Lydia, it doesn’t matter.”

“If I pass out, then I’m going to be harder for you to carry.”

“In training I’ve had to carry a lot more weight than you.  You’re a lightweight in comparison.”

“That can’t be true.”  She shifted and held on tighter.

“SEAL training is grueling.  They make sure that we can handle any contingency, including carrying beautiful women through jungles.”  She huffed out a laugh, a warmth bathed his neck.  Then she sighed, and rested her head and he knew that she had faded into unconsciousness.

Darius, who had been taking up the rear jogged up beside him. 

“I can take her for a while.”