Too right, Kane thought as the woman tried to stand up and wobbled.
“Let me bandage that up,” Nadya said as she looked around like she expected there to be supplies available.
It was the kind of knee-jerk thing healers did. Except there was nothing.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take his head.”
Apex stepped in to heft up Lucan’s feet, and then they were all moving in a group. The relocation involved a squeeze through the entrance to the passageway into Callum’s den, and then some narrowing twists and turns that meant they had to slow down or risk knocking Lucan into hard things that were not going to help.
Inside the den, they settled Lucan on the pallet across from the natural spring basin while Mayhem started moving in the weapons they’d taken off the guards. Thanks to the gun belts the males had been fitted with, there was plenty of ammo, and Kane started to feel slightly better about things as Rio went through the various guns and handled them with complete confidence.
And then it was time to go.
Drawing Nadya aside, he stared down into her eyes. There were things he wanted to say, but there was no time, so he just stroked her hair and her neck—
Hair.
With a sense of wonder, he touched the lengths that were just below her ears. But as he went to say something, she interrupted him.
“Just come back safe with a plan.”
“I’ll come back to you, I promise.”
As something warm bloomed in the center of his chest, it had nothing to do with what she looked like. It was the fact that she was willing to endanger her own life to save a male she owed nothing to.
Just like she had done everything she could to save Kane.
“You are the strongest female I have ever known,” he said.
Actually, he really wanted to tell her he loved her, but not like this. Not like now.
“I’m not,” she whispered. “I promise you, I’m not—”
He kissed her again, but deeper this time, his tongue slipping into her mouth. As she arched against him, he was at once peaceful and fully aroused.
“I won’t be gone long,” he said against her lips.
Then he forced himself to break away and nod to Apex.
The two of them left without another word, and as they made their way out the narrow passage, Kane had a sudden, very clear thought.
Whatever was inside of him? However violent it was? However much he didn’t understand it?
He was glad he had the damn thing.
Anything to be able to protect his female—and increase the probability he had not just lied to her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
By mutual agreement, Apex dematerialized with Kane back down the mountain to the garage. As they re-formed in shadows thrown by the low angle of the moonlight, they were not far from the road that wound its way around the base of the mountain.
Too bad it was in the middle of the night, Apex thought. The chances of finding a human out in this kind of rural area were small.
“There was a village,” Kane volunteered. “South of here. I could see it from the clearing.”
“It’s our only shot.”
They nodded and dematerialized again, re-forming and then ghosting out in increments to close in on a cluster of little houses and shops by the side of a riverbed. All of the windows were dark, even in the gas station, and for a second, Apex wondered whether the structures had all been abandoned. But no, there were cars with tires that were not flat, and other signs of life like tended-to bushes and trees, and paint that wasn’t peeling, and shutters that sat right in their mountings.