She turned her head and waited until he looked at her. He felt himself falling into her eyes. Under her spell. The emotion welling up was sharp and terrible. Fierce. Overwhelmingly strong.
“I love everything about you. I told myself that was what it was. All those parts separately, that I loved them. I watch you. I’m inside your mind. I see who you are. I’ve decided it isn’t about loving everything about you. It’s simply about loving you.”
Shylah was the most courageous human being he’d ever met. His blood thundered in his veins, roared in his ears. His heart beat so hard it felt like it would come through his chest. He remained silent until he was positive he could keep his voice under control. Emotion was still choking him. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and hold her close, keep her safe.
Draden waited until he could breathe. Until the lump in his throat dissolved. “Do you think you could have fallen in love with me if the circumstances were different? Not as extreme? Knowing we had all the time in the world?” He waited a heartbeat. “Because I know I would have fallen like a ton of bricks. Just as I have now. I know it with absolute certainty.”
He pressed her palm to his lips again, brushing kisses there before moving her hand back to his heart. He kept his gaze fixed on hers, wanting her not only to hear the truth in his voice, but to see it on his face and in his eyes, because he’d never said anything truer.
“You would have been my choice. I would have taken longer to get there. I would have been suspicious, and I would have fought it, but I would never have walked away from you. I know that’s the reason it’s so important to me to believe Trap can save you. I need you to be safe. Out there, in the forest, I know you’re skilled and you have every chance to be the victor in combat. But this virus, it’s the devil, Shylah. It’s evil and it consumes a human being from the inside out.”
Her eyes shone at him. He could see an answering light there and it shook him more than he cared to admit.
Shylah leaned closer to him. “We’ve got now. Together. We can decide for ourselves what we’re going to do until one or both of us goes down. In the meantime, we can be us, locked in our own little cocoon. We’ll give them our daily reports and our blood, but they shouldn’t expect anything else from us. We’ll do what they ask, but I’m not leaving you. I won’t do that, Draden.”
“I’ve got the headache already, Shylah, a fever and extreme fatigue. My lymph nodes are swollen. This has to be a fast virus, or it wouldn’t have killed all the villagers that quickly. I’m surprised I’m not sicker faster, but I know I’m infected.”
“You have a headache from the blow to your head, Draden. And you’ve been going nonstop. You’ve not had much sleep since I’ve been with you. And I don’t know when you’d slept last before you were ordered to rescue the doctors and soldiers. People get sick when they’re run-down.”
He couldn’t deny that what she’d said was true. He hadn’t had a lot of sleep prior to being sent on the rescue mission. They had been there instructing and also learning from the commanders of the Kopassus, an exchange of information in the hopes of taking down the terrorist cells in Indonesia.
He shrugged. “Let’s go back inside. I’m not getting the vibe that anyone is watching, but we are ringed by soldiers. I don’t like the idea of them spying on us.” He stood up and held out his hand to her. “Come inside, baby. I won’t suggest you leave again and I’ll make it clear to Joe, you’re staying with me.”
She nodded as she stood. “You make sure you do that, because I won’t have any problem forcing them to kill me if they try to take me.”
“They aren’t going to take you.” He meant that. No one would lay a hand on her. “You need to accept my apology and then let it go. That’s the way we’re going to do things when we’re together. I’m going to fuck up and apologize a lot. You’re going to forgive me and let it go.”
She laughed, just as he hoped she would. “I presume letting it go means I don’t get to bring it up later.”
“Exactly. Clean slate every single time.” He held the door for her.
“I see. I’m slightly worried about that term, ‘every single time.’ Does that mean there are going to be a lot of times you screw up?”
“I’m afraid so. I don’t have a lot of experience in the relationship department so sadly for you, I’m going to blow it. On the other hand, you don’t have a lot of experience either, so you might not even notice when I screw up. At least I’m hoping for that.”
She looked around the room. “You finished the dishes.”
He gave her a tentative grin. “Thought it best to let you cool off. I’ve seen Cayenne when she’s pissed. She’s very creative with silk.”
“I think I’m going to like Cayenne.”
“Trap shocked the holy hell out of me when he said she was pregnant. I know for a fact she’s been on two missions with him and held her own. She didn’t look pregnant when I left to come here. She probably would have had the baby in the forest, and then killed and wrapped an entire army of enemies with a newborn in a front pack.”
Her mouth twitched. “How do you know what a front pack is?”
He tried to look serious. “I read.”
“You saw it in a picture, didn’t you?”
“Pepper bought one, so she would have her arms free to work with the three little vipers,” he admitted. “Don’t ever tell her I called her daughters that.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. “Let’s darken this room so we can sleep.” Every muscle in his body hurt. He didn’t tell her that, because, like him, she had to have some illusions to make their little fantasy work for as long as possible. He did note it for Trap, glancing at the time. “I want to look you over for rashes, and I need to examine your lymph nodes as well.”
“It’s easy to get rashes here, especially when I was lying in the grass.”
Alarm skittered through him. “Shylah?” He waited until she turned around, her hand on the screen ready to pull it down to darken the room. “Do you have a rash somewhere?”
She shrugged. “I was lying in the grass when you raced toward the river. I’d been there for some time. Of course I have a rash. It’s like your headache, no big deal.”
Now his heart was pounding in earnest. “Come here.” He pointed to a spot right in front of him, between his thighs.
Shylah pulled a second shade and then stepped back, toward the window. “It’s really nothing.”
“If it’s nothing then you shouldn’t have any problems letting me look at it.”
“It’s on my stomach. My shirt must have pulled up while I was lying on the ground watching the village.”
“Come here,” he reiterated, this time using his commander’s voice. He didn’t pull rank even within the unit, but he could. “Shylah, right now.” He was going to examine her lymph nodes first. He had to know she was safe.
10
Walking out of the forest into the clearing with the morning light surrounding them gave Draden a feeling of déjà vu. He was absolutely exhausted, having spent the night killing as many of the enemy as possible. The entire time he had tried not to worry about Shylah. He’d examined her before they went to sleep and she had a rash that had spread up her tummy to just under her breasts and then down below her navel. Worse, he’d detected several swollen lymph nodes. He told himself that didn’t mean anything. Lymph nodes could swell for a variety of reasons, stress being one of them.
The ranks of the Milisi Separatis Sumatra were becoming very depleted. He and Shylah had worked as a team to annihilate the enemy, taking out as many as possible. She hadn’t hesitated once. He didn’t want either of them to unintentionally expose the villagers to the virus, so he had deliberately taken out the MSS guards and scouts outside the village. Members of the terrorist cell were still hunting for the two of them, spreading out into the forest, this time in greater numbers, making it even easier to do more damage. By morning, Draden was certain the Indonesian soldiers could i
nfiltrate the village now to make certain the inhabitants were safe from the terrorists.
They were both tired, but when he mentioned it, she had simply responded that it was to be expected. “I want to talk to Whitney,” he said as they approached the remote lab.
Shylah had bent down to touch the delicate trip line running across the ground in front of the stairs. The sun coming up shone on the web, revealing the lines stretching across the stairs and around each window. There was a neat burrow situated to one side of the stairs, as if a funnel-web spider resided there. Insects walked across the trip line alerting the spider to prey. In this case, those lines would serve as a warning if the remote lab had been penetrated.
Her head jerked up. She slowly straightened. “Why?”
He detested the suspicion in her voice. “Shylah, last night I told you I loved you. It wasn’t bullshit and I didn’t say it because we’re both infected. I told you that because it was the truth. I don’t lie as a rule, and I damn sure will never lie to you. We made a pact and I’m going to honor it.”