Release In The Dark (DARK erotic romance series) (19 page)

He draws his sword and slashes
madly, slicing the air, the walls of his tent, and runs his sword
through the mattress, again and again. The blade of his sword clangs
against the bars of my cage, as he hacks at the cage over and over
again, taking his anger and frustration out of that blasted thing
that was supposed to be holding me, securing me, imprisoning me. But
still, I am gone, gone from him. When his captain tries to approach
him, he lashes out. His captain stumbles back in pain, as Owen's
sword cuts across the man's arm. Clutching his wound, the captain
tries to reason with Owen, but Owen draws his gun and waves it at
them, laughing and screaming hysterically before raising his arm and
firing into the air. The sound of a gunshot brings more soldiers
into his tent, with rifles trained on him. “You want to shoot
me?” Owen taunts his soldiers, pressing his face against the
barrels of the rifles. “Get out...” he drawls, slapping
at the rifles. “Get out of my tent! Get out, all of you! I
want her found! You hear me? Hunt her down. Find her! Bring her
to me! This is an order! Do you understand?” he screeches.
Owen abruptly straightens up, panting and leans hard against a
pillar. The sword and the gun drop from his hands as he sinks to the
ground. Cautiously, the captain orders the soldiers to lower their
rifles and takes a step towards Owen. When Owen raises his head, his
face is no longer a mask of hysteria and blind, destructive rage.
Something seems to have broken in him, yet he pushes himself up and
commands his wary soldiers, his gaze fixed on a distant point above
their shoulders, “The girl is with Jaxon Ryleth. He is armed
and extremely dangerous. Shoot on sight. Kill him! But capture the
girl...alive.”

Owen turns and his emerald eyes
seem to stare right into mine just before the vision fades and the
forest returns. I am no longer in his tent, but back in the forest,
on my belly, blinking the sweat from my eyes as I squint through the
grass.

Still shaking from my vivid
vision, I try to erase the last image of Owen from my mind. The
haunted, hollow, hopeless look on his face when he turned his face
from his men to stare into my eyes through the speeding, spiraling
distance and time between us. The abyss between us yawns ever wider
and deeper. He should stay away, far away from me. Coming after me,
chasing after me, clinging to the dream of me, will just bring him
closer and closer to the precipice, and sooner or later, he will
plummet into that swirling darkness. And he means to drag me down
with him.

I snap my eyes open and look
towards Jaxon, who is holding his gun steady and following Owen's
every movement like a hawk.

Go, Owen, just go
.
Go
far, far away. From me, from us.

I know that Jaxon can put a
bullet in Owen's head with just a squeeze of his forefinger, but I
also know that Jaxon won't pull the trigger unless Owen discovers us
and attacks first. I snap my eyes back to Owen, who is ordering his
soldiers to move off in another direction, even as he shrieks and
shouts, shoving his soldiers dangerously off the narrow track and
kicking everything and everyone in his path.

I close my eyes and plead
silently.
Please, just go Owen. Leave me. Forever.

A part, a large part of me,
wants him to go so that Jaxon won't have to kill him. I don't want
to watch Jaxon shoot him. Not because I feel anything for him. But
because I don't want Jaxon to destroy someone, someone that is
already broken, and dead in all respects. It just feels wrong, to
kill someone like that. And I don't want Jaxon to commit a wrong,
for me. The main reason Jaxon has murder on his mind is because he
knows what Owen did to me. He wants to kill Owen for me.

As the soldiers start to move
off, I see Jaxon's gun waver slightly, as if he is debating if he
should take Owen's head while he is still within range, or let him
go. After a few tormenting heartbeats, Jaxon's gun lowers and he
exhales a slow, shuddering breath.

His free hand finds mine and he
grips my hand tightly in the grass, as he squeezes his eyes shut. In
his mind, he thinks that he has just let a monster go, simply watch
him walk away when he could have buried a bullet in his head and have
him drop dead where he stood.

He turns to face me, his eyes
searching, questioning. I lace my fingers through his and whisper,
“He is already dead. But we...live.”
We must. We
have a future—together.

He reaches over and touches my
face tenderly.

I love you
, our hearts
beat the same words.

We remain unmoving in the grass
until the entire forest has gone silent.

After Jaxon has made doubly sure
that the soldiers have truly gone from us, and we are safe to move
from our hiding place, he helps me up and pulls me in for a quick
hug. With a kiss to my forehead, he leads me deeper into the forest,
burrowing into the gathering shadows.

The sunlight is rapidly fading
as we make our way relentlessly through the forest. When I ask Jaxon
softly if we are going to join up with Irin and the rest of the
resistance fighters, he shakes his head, his gaze hardening.

As before the light disappears
completely from the sky, Jaxon unearths a trapdoor hidden under a
cluster of thorny weeds. After crawling into the tunnel after me, he
pulls the rusty trapdoor shut and prods me from behind. “Go
on,” he whispers. “Move forward.”

“
I can't see,” I
whisper back. “I don't know where we're going!”

“
Just keep moving forward.
This is an old, abandoned bunker. I discovered it when I was on the
run. This is the route I took.”

I frown, but I start creeping
forward cautiously. His words echo through the tunnel. The route he
took? When he was on the run? So what are we doing? Are we
actually going back to where he escaped from? Why?

I stumble out of the tunnel, and
Jaxon's switches on his flashlight behind me. We are in the middle
of a musty chamber. The chamber is empty and the ground is sandy but
thankfully dry.

“
We'll rest here,”
Jaxon says, shrugging off his backpack. “Eat, drink and catch
what sleep we can.”

As if in response, my stomach
lets out a fierce rumble. Jaxon chuckles and roots around his
backpack for his energy bars. He hands me one and I can hear him
unwrapping another one for himself. I tear the wrapper open and just
sit cross-legged on the floor. Now that I have stopped walking, I
suddenly feel the ache in my legs. In three big bites, my food is
gone, washed down with two mouthfuls of water.

I burp softly. Jaxon does the
same, only unabashedly louder. Too much air in the stomach with too
little food.

Sitting side by side on the
floor with the flashlight between us shining up at the low ceiling, I
close my eyes and listen to our steady breathing. Finally, I blurt
out the questions that have been ricocheting through my mind for the
last few minutes, “Where are we going, Jaxon? Why are we not
meeting up with the other resistance fighters? What about Irin? If
we are not going to rejoin the cell, then what are we...?”

At the mention of Irin's name,
Jaxon stiffens and lets out a snarl. “She shouldn't have done
it! I won't forgive her.”

“
Done what?”

He turns to me, his eyes
narrowing. “I will never forgive her, for sacrificing you.”

My mouth rounds to form a silent
“o”.

I am about to tell him that I
was the one who'd insisted on going to the Red Lantern, that Irin is
not to blame, when he snaps, “She knew! She bloody knew. She
knew that you must have been so worried and so scared when you heard
that I'd gone missing. And she used that, used your fear and your
love for me. She used you, Zoey! Used you and sacrificed you for
her cause...”

“
But isn't her cause the
cause of the resistance?” I sputter. “Isn't her cause,
your cause as well?”

“
Yes. I fight for the
resistance, for freedom, for the people,” he says, his eyes
glimmering in the light. “But I will never sacrifice anyone,
or use anyone for the cause. Irin used our love against you, to
manipulate you, to trick you into going to the Red Lantern, seemingly
of your own free will.” He puts up a hand to silence my
protest. “She could have found out about me through other
sources. She was trying to use you, and...get rid of you at the same
time.”

I shake my head. “Why...does
she hate me? It's not like I...”

“
She doesn't hate you.
Irin doesn't hate anybody. Nor does she like anyone. She's too
practical for that. You are a newcomer to the cell, and Irin has had
to accept you into her cell because of me. You have not been trained
as a resistance fighter before, and there will be limited missions
she can send you on. Anyone who cannot be of use, is a liability to
the cell, according to Irin. So—”

“
So I'm a liability,”
I finish softly. “But I was a Siren in the Palace, so she
figures that since I was a sex slave in the Palace, I would fit right
in at the Red Lantern. That was the best use she had for me. The
only mission that I could be sent on.”

“
No!” Jaxon answers
fiercely. “No! No one should have been sent to the Red
Lantern! No one! Not you, not anyone! You understand?”

I look away. “Someone has
to go...to try to find out what happened to you. And that someone
has to be me.”

“
You?” Jaxon sucks
in a sharp breath, preparing to launch into a lengthy argument or
rebuke. “That is just...”

“
Yes. Me.” I turn
to face him. “Because I love you. And without you...”
My voice quavers before breaking completely. “You don't know
how it was like, how I felt, how I feared...not knowing, not being
able to do anything, to help, to find out...you have no idea...”

He folds me into his arms and
shushes me, rocking me gently as I sob into his chest. “I
know,” he whispers into my hair. “I know,
Zoey...I...would have done the same,” he says at last. I lift
my face to stare up at him. “Yeah,” he smiles, brushing
away my tears. “I would have done what you did.”

I sniff and let out a heavy
sigh. “And I would have been so mad at you! If you
had...had...other women...” My jaw works furiously but no
words come out at the unbearable thought of other women all over him,
leering and clapping at his naked body and running their eyes, hands
and mouth all over him. “I'll kill them! And you!” I
grate at last, punching him in the arm.

“
Ouch! That hurt...and
didn't.” Jaxon's lips quirk up, a mischievous glint in his
eye. “If you hadn't wanted to kill me and all those imaginary
women, then that—would have hurt.” He puts a hand over
his heart and gives an exaggerated grimace.

“
You!” I put my
hands around his neck and mock strangle him. Laughing, he leans in
and kisses me full on the mouth. The kiss is light and playful at
first, but starts to deepen as our lips part and we take each other
with more urgency and hunger.

I knock over the flash light,
and reach down to flick the switch off. “Conserve energy,”
I whisper against his mouth.

“
Mmmm, I like groping you
in the dark,” Jaxon murmurs, his lips curving.

Still kissing my lips, tasting
me thoroughly, his hands move down my shirt and start to undo the
buttons one by one. Pushing the two halves of my shirt open, he
nuzzles my breasts and slips a nipple into his mouth. I moan as he
begins to suckle me gently, licking and teasing with his tongue. He
plays with my breasts, his lips, teeth and tongue taking turns to
pleasure me, until I begin to pant with desire.

Pushing me up, he bends me over
so that I am on my hands and knees. My shirt is still over my
shoulders, hanging wide open. Running his hands over my breasts and
hard, wet nipples, he moves down to unbuckle my belt and undo the
zipper on my pants. Sliding my baggy pants down my hips, but not
removing them from my legs so that my pants and belt pool around my
knees, he puts one hand on my back and pushes me forward gently. I
hear the sound of his zipper, and immediately, I feel the head of his
swollen cock pushing into the crack of my butt. He strokes his cock
up and down, smearing my wetness all over. Breathing heavily, he
bends over me and starts to fondle my breasts with one hand, while he
guides his cock into my aching pussy with the other. I groan with
pleasure as his cock inches slowly and smoothly into me. Dropping on
his hands and knees over me, Jaxon kisses my mouth when I turn my
face to him. His hand moves to my breasts and rubs my nipples in
tight circles with the flat of his palm. “Harder,” I
pant. “Harder!”

He takes my nipples between his
thumb and fingers and squeezes, gently at first, then harder, until
he is pinching my nipples and the flesh around it in quick, sharp
nips. “Ah,” I throw my head back and cry out.

Feeling my muscles start to
clench around his cock, he straightens up and grabs the two globes of
my butt, spreading me open slowly. “Touch yourself,” he
grits out, rolling his hips as he slides in and out of me.

My shaking fingers rub my clit
as he increases his pace. The sound of our flesh slapping together
reverberates round the dark chamber, and the scent of sex fills the
stale air around us. Jaxon leans forward and grabs my breast,
flicking my nipple with his thumb. When he captures the tip of my
ear between his teeth and licks, I shatter completely. My orgasm
crashes through my body in a pounding wave, ripping the ground out
from under me. I cry out, closing my eyes at the sudden weightless
sensation, as every nerve in my body comes alive with pleasure.
Collapsing on my elbows, I blink rapidly and push myself up. Jaxon's
arms are around my waist, supporting me, keeping me from falling flat
on my face.