Until his gun was emptied.
After which things went silent behind him. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he met Mayhem’s eyes. The male shook his head once.
He was also out of bullets.
“Sonofabitch,” Apex muttered as he got prepared for what was coming.
Fucking hell. Unless that wolven pulled off a miracle and got back here in the next thirty seconds, they were going to be captured and dragged off the mountain.
Either on their feet in collars and cuffs.
Or in body bags.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was a dreamscape.
As Nadya felt the furnace inside her begin to lose some of its heat, she was so relieved that a floaty disassociation finished the job of lifting her up and away from the pain. Suspended on a bed of soft air, with time stopping altogether, she was content to just let the tension funnel out of her joints and limbs.
The absence of stiffness was such a shock, she was compelled to move herself—and that was when she discovered she was not alone.
Except she already knew this.
“Kane…,” she whispered.
“I’m right here.”
More relaxation now, and she told herself to open her eyes and look at him, but her lids were so heavy. Besides, why fight anything. For once, she was without discomfort.
And she was with him.
And… he was really, really naked.
So was she.
Nadya discovered all this as she arched her spine, her bare breasts coming against his bare chest, her nipples peaking at the friction—as well as the knowledge that they were lying down without the complication of clothes.
“What happened?” she murmured. “Where are we?”
This had to be a dream, right? Surely this was a dream.
“We’re safe.”
“Were we in danger?”
“You don’t have to worry about anything.”
As she felt his hand stroke her head, she had a moment of anxiety as she pictured him passing his palm and fingers over the patches of stubble. Except assuming this was a playground set up by her subconscious, she decided to just pretend she had hair again. Not long hair, as it had been, but some kind of regular growth up there. Maybe a halo of short, soft curls?
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I feel… amazing.” She stretched again, and had to admit to herself that she did so in a deliberate manner—so that her nipple ran up what had to be his sternum. “Really amazing.”
His breath caught, as if he had felt exactly what she had wanted him to. And then a shudder went through him.
To encourage this fantasy to go further, she moved her leg, bending her knee in such a fluid way, it was unfamiliar, normal function having been absent from her experience of ambulation, of living, for so very long. And of course, because she wanted it to, she made sure that her knee happened to go in between his.
So that the inside of her thigh stroked up the inside of his.