Page 21 of The Hero Within
"You're going to get him killed. You're going to get yourself killed."
"He's dead either way. But there's a chance we might make it if we had you."
He thought about it. Heactuallythought about it.
Eden reached across the table and captured his hand. "Please."
The word cut through him like a fileting knife. But it was the action that disemboweled him. For the first time in years, Johnny felt a woman's touch stroke across the smooth webbing between his forefinger and thumb, almost as if she intended to comfort him.
And worse, it was this woman.
"Blackmailanda shitty attempt at seduction? You trying to pull out the big guns?"
"Please," she repeated.
Fuck.
He had this horrible breathless feeling inside him.Don't get involved.That was his modus operandi. He'd been there, tried to step into the light after he finally broke Cane's hold on him, and what had happened?
He'd ended up sold to fucking slavers and sent into an endless cage match.
Lesson learned.
There was no place in this world for a man like him. Nobody wanted a monster in their midst and it didn't matter how much he tried, there would never be any sense of redemption to find.
But....
Green eyes haunted him, thepleasewhispering in his veins. In his chest. Johnny withdrew his hand, though the ghostly caress lingered on his skin. He could watch her walk out of here. He could. But how was he ever going to forget her? Would he always wonder if he could have saved her when she met her inevitable fate?
A rash of images seared his brain.
Shadow cats gnawing on bleached bones.
Blood sprayed across the desert sands.
Eden's lifeless eyes staring endlessly at nothing as the predators finished what they'd started.
No.A spear of ice went right through him. She was determined to do this. She wouldn't take no for an answer.
Which meant he didn't have any fucking option.
His breath eased out of him with a shudder. Eden had called his bluff. The only thing left to do was try and salvage some of this. "I don't give a shit about redemption, but I will take you across the Divide on one condition...."
Relief burst over her expression like a sun rising and that was when he knew he was in serious trouble.
"What?" Eden breathed.
Johnny kicked his chair back again. "I'm in charge of this expedition. You do what I say, when I say, and you don't argue or I swear to God I'll hog-tie you and go sit in a fucking cave somewhere with you until this is all over."
She opened her mouth, but he held up a finger and waggled it in her face. "Ah, ah, ah."
Eden pressed her lips together mutinously.
"That's better," Johnny said, and smiled at her as he drank down the last inch of whiskey in the bottle, even as he knew he was making the worst damned mistake of his life.
Chapter Six
"Are you sure we need him?"Eden seethed, as they pulled their motorbikes to a halt at the edge of the Rim. Dust choked the air, but she knew both CJ and Colton heard her.
