This man had crawled through her bedroom window in the middle of the night with her parents right down the hall. He'd held a knife to her little sister's throat and told her he'd kill her sister if she didn't come with him. She'd gone, and she was grateful she didn't struggle. Caine's men surrounded her home, ready to murder her parents, her older brothers and her little sister. She'd gone quietly with him to protect her family.
She'd been eight years old and her life had changed forever. She'd been beaten, starved and raped, forced to "marry" Caine and become his "wife." The one saving grace had been the farm. He'd forced her to work from sunup to sunset, and she'd loved every second of her hands in the soil, coaxing the plants to grow. She could forget her life and pretend she was a girl on a farm with no endless nights of hell to worry about.
Caine and the other cult members had learned that with her working the farm, they prospered. That didn't stop the beatings or the cruelty; if anything, Caine wanted her cowed and completely under his thumb. He'd dug a hole in the ground and forced her into it several times after beating her senseless. The problem he found with the punishment was that she healed fast and didn't seem to mind being in the ground with the soil all around her. So he'd found a metal box, and when he was especially drunk and feeling mean, he would force her into it.
"Did you really think anyone could keep you from me? Your betrayal has brought God's wrath down on you and you will be punished. I've searched for you, a cheating, betraying wife. Jezebel. God sent me to save you in spite of yourself."
He reached down and grabbed her ponytail, yanking her head up so that her eyes were forced to meet his. He wore his beard bushy to cover his weak chin, and his eyes blazed fire like a madman's. He'd been the demon in every one of her nightmares. He was the devil, evil incarnate.
He leaned close to her, pressing his foul-smelling mouth next to her ear. "I killed them all, one by one. I told them you wanted them dead in order to be with me. I knew that's where I made my mistake. You didn't cleave to your husband as you should have because the sins of your former life were too great for you to overcome as long as those sinners lived. You had to be shown the way. You had to be punished."
He slapped her face hard, knocking her backward, bringing tears to her eyes. When she would have been driven back by the blow, his hand holding her ponytail kept her from falling. He rained blows on her, using his fist as well as his open hand.
Lexi barely felt the attack after the initial slap, managing to kick out with her legs, as she'd practiced over and over in the gym with her brothers-in-law. She hit him hard in one knee and a thigh with the heels of her boots. He cursed at her as he fell into the gate. She rolled, astonished that the move actually worked.
Slamming her fists as deep as possible into the soil, she directed the seismic energy straight at the man who had turned her life into a living hell. She put every ounce of fear and anger, helplessness, and despair he'd made her feel into the blow. All the pain. The grief at the loss of her family. All of it went into the terrible strike directed at him.
The earth shook beneath her fists, the ripples spreading out, rushing beneath the ground straight at its target. Caine struggled to his feet, dragging himself up using the fence post.
"You bitch. You're going to pay for that." He winced when he tried to take a step and his knee crumpled out from under him.
A vein appeared in the ground, zigzagging like a snake, widening as it approached Caine. Her eyes widened in horror and she pulled her fists out of the earth fast, but it was too late. The crack became an abyss, opening directly under Caine and the gate, dropping them both into the fissure. The crevice wasn't extraordinarily deep, and it slammed closed on Caine's legs, crushing them, trapping them in the ground. He screamed and screamed.
Horrified, she stumbled backward. Two men raced toward her from the other side of the fence, leaping over it, one breaking off to try to aid their leader while the other rushed her. He held a very large knife in his fist. She recognized both men. They had been training under Caine, doing enforcing and punishing members who committed any infraction against the cult when she'd been there.
Peter Rogers was the man desperately trying to dig Caine free, while Darrin Jorgenson came at her with a knife.
"Kill her. Kill the bitch," Caine screamed over and over, tears running down his face. His upper torso flopped over the ground, his face suddenly buried in the dirt.
She tried to make her brain work, tried to remember what Levi had told her to do, but she couldn't think, couldn't move. She stood waiting for the death blow, thankful that at least she'd managed to stop Caine from taking her away with him.
There was no sound. None. Later, when she thought about it, she felt as if the very earth had taken a breath. Time slowed down. She saw each step Darrin took as if he were in slow motion. She literally could see every breath he drew and the lines of fanatical hatred on his face.
She didn't take her eyes from him, watching him come closer and closer, waiting for him, relieved now that it was over.
A hole blossomed in the middle of Darrin's forehead, a bright red crater that knocked him backward, the blow hard enough to jerk his head back and send his body flying through the air to land in a heap on the ground.
Lexi stared at the body, uncomprehending. A hard arm circled her waist and dragged her backward, thrusting her behind a man she'd never seen before. He was tall, with axe-handle shoulders, a thick chest and shaggy hair. At first she thought it was Levi, Rikki's husband, but he moved differently and he was . . . bigger. More muscular.
He strode toward Caine and Rogers, covering the ground as if he moved above it rather than on it. He was smooth and fluid and something out of a movie with his long coat swirling around him. He raised his hand as he approached the two men and squeezed the trigger of his pistol just once. Peter Rogers dropped to the ground like a stone. Lexi jammed her fist into her mouth to keep from making a sound.
*
GAVRIIL crouched down beside Caine, lifting his head by his hair, staring into his eyes. Evil stared back at him malevolently. Caine's legs were crushed, but Lexi had managed to keep the crevice from killing him. Caine looked past Gavriil to Lexi and spat on the ground.
"You whore. You're dead. I'll kill you slow. Your devil won't save you. No one can save you. Your name is written in the book of the reaper in blood."
"Save it for your parishioners in hell." Gavriil kept his voice soft, so there was no way Lexi could hear. Deliberately he dropped Caine's head harder than necessary so that Caine's face landed in the dirt. He leaned down, putting his mouth close to Caine's ear. "I'll be coming back without her and I know more ways to make you welcome death than you can possibly imagine. Stay alive for me, will you?"
Gavriil rose, turning back to Lexi. Her face was stark white, her eyes enormous. "Are you all right? Any broken bones?"
She still couldn't move, not even when he reached her, holstering his gun in the shoulder harness and reaching out to run both hands over her, searching for damage. Terrible tremors wracked her body and she couldn't catch her breath. She didn't dare look at him or she'd cry. If she looked at Caine or the two dead men, she'd throw up.
"Lexi, talk to me. Look at me. Look at my eyes." His fingers smoothed over a bruise already marring her cheek. The pad of his thumb removed a small trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.
There was something commanding, compelling in his voice--not at all like Caine, but more in a velvet-soft, mesmerizing, worried tone. As if her health were the most important thing in this man's world. Lexi forced her gaze upward, over his broad chest where the thin black shirt he wore was stretched tight over well-defined muscles beneath his open coat. Her gaze continued upward, past his strong, shadowed jaw and straight nose until she found herself staring into eyes as dark as midnight. Beautiful eyes. Eyes she was certain she'd seen before. Her breath caught in her throat.
She let herself fall into his dark blue gaze, her only refuge. The world around her receded
until there was only this man and his amazing eyes holding her safe.
"Do you know who I am?" His voice was infinitely gentle. A wisp of sound with no impatience, no threat, only concern.
She shook her head mutely. She couldn't find her voice. Her hands trembled and she twisted her fingers together to try to get the shaking under control. She was definitely in shock. Violence was abhorrent to her, although she had defended herself. She just couldn't look at the dead bodies, or at Caine, still alive, still a threat.
Her gaze, in spite of it all, began to shift toward him.
"Have you heard the name Gavriil before? Or Prakenskii?" Gavriil deliberately spoke softly in a Russian accent as he framed her face with his hands. "Look only at me, angel moy, nowhere else. Only at me."
He watched her eyes widen. She nodded, some of the shock receding.
"I'm here and I'm going to take care of this. Don't look at them. Don't look at him. I need to know if you're hurt."
She swallowed hard, her breath still shallow and labored, her eyes still bouncing a little, but she didn't pull away from him and her gaze was steadier on his.
"No. No broken bones. He's very good at beating up a woman but making certain she can work the next day."
"You know this man?"
"I'm the whore's husband," Caine shrieked. "She's a Jezebel. Look what she's done to me. She made a deal with the devil. She's a witch, worshipping Satan, holding him hostage between her legs."
Her face went completely white. She looked as if she might faint. Gavriil held her head firmly to prevent her from looking at the man claiming to be her husband. "Don't look at him. He's nothing. He can't hurt you, not ever again," Gavriil said, keeping his voice as gentle as ever. "I need you to go sit in your wagon there for a moment. I'll be right with you. Can you walk?"
She nodded and Gavriil turned her around, away from Caine and the obscenities he continued to shout in between screaming and crying and desperately digging at the dirt holding his legs captive. Gavriil waited until she had crossed the road to slip into the trail wagon before once more crouching down beside Caine. He held Caine's hair in a vicious grip, dragging his head up.
"We'll have a conversation very soon, you and me, but not right now. Never call yourself her husband again. Not out loud and not in your mind." As he held up Caine's head by his hair with one hand, the other took a fistful of dirt, shoving it in, packing it tight and then holding his hand over his mouth and nose. "I don't have soap with me, so this will have to do."
Gavriil was strong and he made certain Caine could see the casual way he cut off all air one-handed before he dropped the man's head on the ground again and left him to try to pry and spit the dirt from his mouth. He kept his body between Lexi and Caine so she couldn't see the man or what he'd done to him. He leaned into the trail wagon.
"He's not my husband. They told me the marriage wasn't legal. I was eight years old and he kidnapped me. He's not my husband," she denied, tears shimmering in her eyes. A few trickled down her face.
"I'm well aware of that," Gavriil said, and used the pads of his fingers to brush the tears away. "I don't want you to think about him ever again. He's totally insignificant. A worm. Less than that."
"He'll never stop coming after me. He won't. I have to call the sheriff right away and tell him what I've done," Lexi said. "They'll send me away from here and I don't know what I'll do. I can't start all over again. I just don't . . ." She trailed off, tears swimming in her eyes.
"There's no need to call the sheriff," he said gently. "I want you to let me take care of this. You go back to your home and call Levi, Thomas and Max. Tell them what happened, but don't let anyone overhear. I know Max has children. We don't want to frighten them after all they've been through."
"They'll make me leave," she whispered again, her hand going protectively to her throat.
"Who? No one can make you leave," Gavriil assured her, struggling to understand.
"I'm in witness protection. I'm supposed to call a number and they'll come and get me. They'll take me away from everyone and I'll never get to see my sisters or the farm again." Tears tracked down her face. "He's got followers, others who will come for me. They kill entire families. They killed mine."
Gavriil felt everything in him go still. It took control not to look back at the man who had kidnapped a child and then murdered her family, forcing her to become his "wife." "Look at me, Lexi. Right now. Don't think about anything else. Just look at me."
Lexi's tear-drenched eyes met his. He smiled at her, more a showing of his teeth than an actual smile, because he wanted to kill the son of a bitch right then. He watched her take a deep, shuddering breath.
"We'll handle this. You'll never see these men again. We'll figure out how they found you and we'll make certain it doesn't happen again. The farm is safe. They couldn't get on the farm without any of you knowing."
She frowned and looked around her, back toward the farm. "But you did, didn't you?" she asked suddenly, comprehending. "You were following me."
"I belong on the farm," Gavriil said, keeping his voice as gentle as he could. Caine was back to shouting obscenities at Lexi, clearly not learning his lesson. "The warning system already in place recognized me--recognized that I belonged here." He reiterated it, wanting her to begin to accept it as fact.
She nodded slowly. "Thank you for saving my life. They would have killed me."
"I'm sorry I was slow getting here. I don't move quite as fast as I used to." His body was screaming at him, protesting every step he took, every move he made now.
Lexi's frown deepened and she leaned toward him, her hand smoothing over his jaw. "You're hurt."
He stilled inside. No one ever saw his physical pain. He didn't allow it to show on his face, in his eyes or body. Only someone who saw into him, saw beyond the surface, could have seen pain in him. There was no doubt this woman was his. He took her hand and pressed his palm to hers. "Wait for me at your house. I'll come to you. Send my brothers to me and don't think about this anymore. Don't call or talk to anyone else until I've come to you."
"But my sisters . . . We made a pact to tell each other everything."
"We'll tell your sisters," Gavriil said. "But I'll be with you. Remember, I'm the one who did all the damage here, not you."
"Caine has to go to the hospital," Lexi pointed out. "The cops will know for certain then." She looked down at her hand, still enveloped in his.
"Let me worry about that. You go get my brothers and wait for me."
"Gavriil, they'll all come to my house. They'll know. We always know when one of us is in trouble."
He nodded. "That's okay. Just don't allow any of them to call the sheriff." His gaze was steady on hers. "Will you do that for me?"
Lexi's gaze clung to his. "That's the least I can do after you saved my life." She started to look past him to Caine, but Gavriil blocked her view.
"Don't. Don't give him that satisfaction. He's nothing to you. Just look at me and then go." He tightened his fingers around hers. "Don't see him. Only me."
Lexi pressed her lips together and nodded. Reluctantly he let go of her and watched as she drove away. He turned back toward Caine and there was nothing at all left of the warm, gentle man. The one striding toward Caine was utterly stone cold, inside and out.
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