Page 30 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
“I’ll stop saying it when it stops being true.”
They stood there in a silent stalemate, both breathing hard, until finally Jacqueline gave up. “Are you going to let me use the toilet or not?”
Her hair, disheveled and damp with perspiration, was falling into her face. Her lips were skewed to an I-hate-you twist, slight lavender shadows beneath her eyes belied her fatigue. In spite of himself, Hawk felt a brief, unwelcome pang of sympathy for her
.
He reached into his pocket and retrieved the small metal key. “Turn around.”
She complied. Hawk turned the key in the lock, unclasped the handcuffs, and pulled them from her wrists.
Then she whirled around and slapped him hard across the face.
For a moment he was too stunned to react.
“That’s for using me.” Her voice shook. Her eyes glittered vivid, furious blue. “And for threatening me and my family, and for calling me a bigot. And for putting a fucking hood over my head like I’m a prisoner being led to the gallows. And I don’t care how big and strong and scary you are, if you ever put your hands on me again, so help me God, I’ll kill you.”
Hawk regained his composure. He slipped the cuffs into his back pocket and worked his jaw where she’d hit him; it stung. Snow White was stronger than she looked.
He leaned in close to her face. “Okay. I’m reasonable. You get one, Red—and that was it. And so help me God, if you don’t stop cursing, I’m going to take you over my knee again, and this time you won’t like it nearly as much as last time. Understood?”
Her only response was to blanch.
Hawk withdrew. He jerked his chin to the companionway that led to her berth. “Head’s in there, so’s a bed. The whole boat’s been cleared of anything you might try to use as a weapon, so forget it. Try to get some sleep. You’ll need it.”
Then he turned, slammed shut the main cabin door, went topside, and roared his frustration into the wind.
“I don’t understand.”
Standing on the narrow, silty banks of a sluggishly flowing river the color of a strong cup of coffee, Jack stared into the dense green tree line, not five yards ahead. The vegetation was so thick it appeared impenetrable, with visibility reaching only a few feet into the forest. Umbrella-shaped trees draped in moss towered over lower palms and shrubs of an infinite, endless green variety; and off in the distance a line of rolling hills climbed to taller peaks shrouded in thick mist.
Two days on a sailboat, another on a small skiff, half of a fourth in a tiny canoe, and Hawk had brought her to a rainforest?
Did he intend to camp?
She turned and looked at Hawk, who was pulling the small canoe they’d arrived in onto the riverbank. He dragged it a few feet into the dense underbrush, covered it with branches, then returned, brushing leaves from his hands.
His shirt was drenched in sweat, clinging to the hard lines and angles of his body. Jack quickly averted her eyes from the sight of flexing muscles beneath wet cotton. She knew all too well what he looked like beneath his clothes, and was doing her damndest to forget it because he was a son of a bitch.
“I don’t understand,” she repeated, irritated with herself. Don’t look at him. Do. Not. Look.
“That seems to be an ongoing problem for you,” he observed dryly, walking near. Big and male and rugged, with four days’ worth of beard and a mane of unkempt dark hair, he seemed perfectly at ease in this emerald wilderness, as he exuded his usual aura of danger and unvarnished sex appeal.
“Where are we?” Jack asked with growing annoyance. Christ, it was so humid you could cut the air with a knife. And what was that hideous screeching off to the left, coming from behind those bushes? A banshee would have trouble being heard over that racket.
You’re a long way from home, Dorothy.
Hawk stared off into the forest, his normally bright eyes dulled by some unknown emotion, some unspoken thought that seemed to leech all the vitality from his face and body the longer he remained silent. Finally, in a voice tinged with melancholy, he said, “Home.”
Then he strode purposefully toward the wall of green and disappeared into it.
She waited for him to return. When he didn’t, her first instinct was to run.
But where? Turning to look in both directions, she calculated her chances for escape, realizing quickly just how poor they were. With no food, no water, and no idea how to guide herself out of this wilderness and back to civilization, she’d most likely die within days. She glanced at the river, wondering what might be hiding beneath its dark surface, then jumped as the screeching in the bushes grew louder. Something began to snort and paw at the ground.
Panicked, Jack leapt into a run. Crashing through the underbrush in pursuit of Hawk, she stumbled blindly ahead, calling his name.
Was he going to leave her in the jungle? Alone? Was this the plan—some kind of twisted episode of Survivor?
