‘‘Then put on the clothes.’’ The gun remained steady on her. ‘‘And your coat and ...............boots. Leave the rest of that stuff here. You won’t need it again.’’
She did as she was told, dressing in silence, knowing she’d had no choice but to let him rescue her, yet cursing herself for being such a fool and giving herself to him.
The jeans were loose around her rear, and she rolled up the hems four times so she could walk. As she shrugged into her coat, she slipped her hand into the pocket and smoothed her fingers along the icon’s edge. The memory of the Madonna’s gentle face gave her the courage to ask, ‘‘Who are you?’’
‘‘Warlord. I’m Warlord.’’
‘‘You’re a warlord?’’ One of the ruthless murderers who preyed on the locals and the tourists?
Could her situation get any worse?
It could. He looked straight at her, his obsidian eyes empty of emotion. ‘‘Not a warlord. I am Warlord.’’
As the sun set, the man who called himself Warlord drove his motorcycle up the steep, narrow path and straight toward a sheer rock face. Karen wanted to hide her eyes, but at the last second the path swerved, Warlord followed, and the motorcycle roared into a camp protected on three sides by cliffs and on the fourth by a dropoff that tumbled away into space.
The smoke of a dozen campfires twisted into the clear air. A hundred men, dressed like Warlord, with hair and beards as wild and knotted, squatted in groups around the flames, cooking, chatting, playing video games on their handhelds, drinking, and reading.
Every head turned in their direction. Silence fell. The men observed them—observed her— with acute interest. Then they turned back to their meals, their conversations.
It was as if the couple on the motorcycle were invisible. As if . . . she were invisible.
Warlord slowly drove the bike through the camp, twisting and turning among the men. They drove past a huge central fire pit, now cold and blackened with charcoal.
Karen clutched Warlord’s leather jacket with sweaty palms. She heard snatches of English spoken with every accent, of French, of German, of Asian languages, and of languages she could not identify. In a low voice she asked, ‘‘What is this place?’’
‘‘Our base.’’
‘‘For what?’’
‘‘Our raids.’’
Warlord. He said he was Warlord.
‘‘You can’t be the only warlord,’’ she said.
‘‘I’m successful. I’m brutal. I’ve vanquished all my rivals. I’m the only Warlord who matters in this part of the world.’’
Like a dumb animal, she’d blindly run with him, trusted him to keep her safe, and she’d stumbled into this trap.
‘‘They’ve all seen you now,’’ Warlord said. ‘‘They know what you look like. They know that if you run, they’ll get to stop you. I would suggest that you not run. They would enjoy it too much.’’
He made her sick with his threat, but she answered steadily enough. ‘‘When I run, I won’t let them catch me.’’
For a second he let go of the handlebars, caught her hands, and jerked her forward until she rested against his back, cheek to groin. ‘‘Then I’ll catch you—and I promise you won’t like that.’’
‘‘Are you under the quaint impression that I’m having a good time right now?’’ she snapped. ‘‘Put your hands on the bars, you fool.’’
He laughed, a rumble deep in his body, and took control of the motorcycle again.
She squinted through the deepening dusk, trying to guess which tent would be hers. Hers . . . and Warlord’s. Until she could escape.
Because no matter what he said, what threat he made, she would escape. She was smart, in good health. The winter she was sixteen her father had sent her out into the Montana mountain wilderness with only minimum gear, and she had survived a brutal week alone. And Warlord couldn’t watch her every minute of the day.
Yet the farther they went into camp, the more her hopes sank.
Perhaps Warlord couldn’t watch her, but unless the camp emptied when the troop went on raids, she would be watched.
As they approached the end of the valley, he stopped the bike and pointed. ‘‘That’s where I live.’’
Her gaze traveled up and up.
A wooden platform was built twenty feet above the valley floor, and into the cliff. Atop the platform was a tent larger than any she had ever seen, and she’d seen plenty.
‘‘It’s custom-made, warm in the winter, cool in the summer. I live there—and now you do, too,’’ he said. ‘‘You’ll be comfortable.’’
‘‘No, I won’t.’’
‘‘Then you’ll be uncomfortable. Your choice.’’ He drove the motorcycle into a cleft in the rock and got off, then steadied her as she stood.
Her legs were shaky—from hunger, from fear, from the long trip to this place. Leaning against the stone, she realized how truly trapped she was. While they rode she should have twisted off his ears or gouged his eyes. Yes, they would have wrecked, but she would have had a chance of leaping free. . . .
‘‘Come on.’’ He took her hand and tugged her after him.
She dug in her heels.
Without looking back he said, ‘‘Do you want me to carry you? That would provide the men with entertainment.’’ With his free hand he gestured up the rickety stairway that led to the tent. ‘‘And if we fall, it’s a long way to the ground.’’
She stumbled forward under the pressure of his grip.
He pushed her the first few steps up the stairway.
It was steep, almost a ladder, and to steady herself she bent to clutch the wooden treads above her.
‘‘Don’t step on the third step. It will break under your weight.’’ When she hesitated, he pushed her again. ‘‘Go on. I’m not interested in you now. Exhausted women have no life in them. I’ll wait until tomorrow, when you’ve eaten and slept and you’re able to fight.’’
He was such a bastard. Such a completely right bastard.
She was hungry, thirsty, and tired. The pants he’d given her were drooping, the cuffs she’d made unfolding. She used one hand to keep the waistband up, and kept the other on the ladder, and her eyes resolutely lifted to the platform and the tent.
If he did as he promised and left her alone tonight, tomorrow she would have the energy and intelligence to find a way out of this.
It would probably include a ransom.
Eerily, he echoed her thoughts. ‘‘I imagine your father would pay well to get you back.’’
‘‘What do you know about my father?’’ she lashed.
‘‘I know he owns the company you work for.’’
At last she understood his motivation for taking her.
Ransom. Of course.
Nothing else made sense.
‘‘You ought to do a little more research on your intended victims, because my father wouldn’t pay a dime to get me back.’’ There. She’d given him the unvarnished truth.
‘‘Are you asking me to believe he doesn’t care about his only child?’’
‘‘I don’t give a damn what you believe.’’ She wished the steps had a handrail, anything to give the illusion of protection from a hard fall.
He laughed, a low sound of amusement that licked along her spine. ‘‘If your father is truly indifferent to you, that’s good to know. I won’t have to worry about him sending help.’’
‘‘No,’’ she said bitterly. ‘‘You don’t have to worry about that.’’
‘‘Don’t step on the fourth from the top.’’
She wavered, counting, then took a long step up. ‘‘If you’ll get me a hammer and some nails, I’ll fix that for you,’’ she said sarcastically.
‘‘In case of attack from a mercenary group with aspirations to my valley and my territory, those steps will give me the extra seconds I need to slaughter a few more of them.’’
‘‘Oh.’’ She used her elbows to inch her way up on the platform. The two-by-eight boa
rds were springy, the nail heads were rusty, and when she looked down she could see the ground through the gaps in the boards.
He grinned as he watched her get as close as possible to the tent and stand, half stooped over, ready to drop in case the platform—or the world— tried to send her tumbling over the edge.
She looked out. ‘‘Is that likely? An attack? And slaughter?’’
‘‘Slaughter is a time-honored tradition on the border.’’ Lightly he sprang up to stand beside her, observing every minuscule movement down in the valley and up in the mountains. ‘‘But don’t worry. The valley is almost impenetrable. Attackers have to climb the mountain that surrounds it before they can rappel down the cliffs, and while they do, we’ll pick them off like ducks in a shooting gallery.’’
‘‘What if they use helicopters?’’
‘‘No mercenaries here are so well funded.’’ Catching her wrist, he pulled her along the narrow ledge toward the entrance.
For one alarming moment she looked over the edge and all the way down. Just as in her nightmares, the ground rushed up to meet her. She took an unwary step back, stumbled on a tent peg, and almost went over onto her rear. As her arms windmilled, she swallowed a scream.
Warlord dragged her forward, into his arms, and steadied her. ‘‘You’re afraid of heights.’’
‘‘No, I’m not.’’ At least, she shouldn’t be. Not when there was so much more immediate to be afraid of.
‘‘That’s the nightmare that wakes you from sleep.’’
She denied it automatically. ‘‘No, it’s not.’’
‘‘These are the highest mountains in the world. The most dangerous. If you’re afraid, why did you take this job?’’
‘‘I’m not afraid,’’ she said, her teeth gritted.
The sun was gone. The stars’ light barely glistened. The campfires flickered far below, and she couldn’t really see his face. But by the tilt of his head she knew he studied her, and just as it had been on those nights when he visited her tent, she thought he saw clearly in the dark.
She didn’t want him to see her afraid. Fear always unleashed that awful mockery, so she tilted her chin up and smiled tightly. ‘‘I have a question. Will you share me with your men?’’ She shouldn’t have suggested it, but she had to know.
There were too many men out there, and she’d take that nosedive off the mountain if it came to a choice between that and them.
Catching the front of her shirt in his fist, he leaned close to her face, and when he spoke, his breath caressed her face. ‘‘I do not share what is mine. And you are mine; make no mistake about that. Mine forever.’’
‘‘Forever is a very, very long time.’’
‘‘An eternity.’’ Unseen and unanticipated, he swept her into his arms, and in a symbolism that wasn’t lost on Karen, he strode to and through the opening in the tent.
Chapter Eight
Warlord’s arms tightened around Karen.
Welcome home, my bride."
Yes. He’d laid his claim to her, and treated her like a bride, but a bride from the days when men captured their women and held them by force until they trained them to be docile.
He would have a hell of a wait. ‘‘You might want to keep an eye on your bride, or she’ll stick a knife between your ribs.’’
‘‘Every relationship has its small difficulties to work out.’’ He let her slip down and onto her feet.
‘‘Wow.’’ In all her years of roughing it, Karen had never seen anything like this. Two LED camp lanterns hung on hooks up by the ceiling and shed a white light on the tent’s spacious interior. The outer shell would attract no notice at all in any American camp-ground, but inside . . . a sumptuous handcrafted wool carpet covered the floor, and huge tapestries hung along the walls. To insulate against the cold, Karen supposed, but also to lend the richness of their beauty to a wanderer’s abode.
Yet a man—a raider—had seized what he liked. When she faced one direction a graceful tree of life grew on a green background. Another direction and a medieval knight pranced across a field. One wall was a modern rendering of a blue lake at twilight, and the other a graceful arch with pink roses spilling onto a path. The carpet was a glorious Kashmiri rug in cream, burgundy, and black.
‘‘I guess the term ‘feng shui’ means nothing to you, huh?’’
‘‘I’m not into Chinese food.’’
Was he being funny? She couldn’t tell, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to laugh.
The rest of the furniture was as much of a hodgepodge as the tapestries—there were two chests, a French provincial desk, an ergonomic desk chair, a coffee table with cushions tossed around it for casual seating, or maybe for dining, Karen didn’t know which. She didn’t care. For there was also the bed. . . .
Ah, the bed.
It was nothing more than a queen-sized mattress set on the floor on a bed frame without legs, with a brass headboard and footboard and a canopy of mosquito netting. The posts shone as if someone polished it daily, a narrow leather holster was strapped to one upright bedpost, pillows billowed flirtatiously, and the whole glorious contraption should have whispered of sin and seduction.
Instead it shouted rest and relaxation. ‘‘What kind of mattress is that?’’ she asked.
‘‘A Sealy.’’
She groaned with pleasure quite unlike the pleasure she’d experienced in his arms. ‘‘My God, how did you get it up here?’’
‘‘What do you care?’’ He took the collar of her coat and tried to lift it away.
She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself and glared.
He tugged. ‘‘Take off your coat before you lie down.’’
‘‘No.’’
In an elaborate gesture he removed his hands. ‘‘I was playing the gentleman.’’
‘‘That ship has sailed.’’
For a moment she thought he was going to laugh. ‘‘You remind me of . . .’’
‘‘Of what?’’
‘‘Home.’’ He gave her a push on the shoulder. ‘‘Go to sleep. I have to find out what’s happened with that shipment that’s coming through today.’’
She stumbled to the bed, flopped sideways across the mattress, and promptly slid into sleep. . . .
She stood on the edge of the cliff, the blue sky surrounding her. The wind blew hard, tumbling her hair around her face. She tried to back up, to get away, but her feet were too heavy. Then the ground shook. The stones rumbled. The edge gave way. She hurtled toward the ground. . . .
Her own scream brought her back to a wavering consciousness.
Heart pounding, she opened her eyes—and stared into his. Into Warlord’s.
He crouched on the bed, holding her. ‘‘Was it your nightmare? Did you fall?’’
‘‘Yes.’’ She shuddered, and woke completely. ‘‘Yes.’’
His arms felt like safety, but that was a deception. For he watched her without expression, and now, without a doubt, he knew her weakness.
He would exploit her weakness.
‘‘Do you want me to stay?’’ he asked.
‘‘No.’’ She pushed away, out of his embrace, and closed her eyes, rejecting him.
He could not seduce her with gentle words and comfort. She would not be his compliant bride.
She listened, heard nothing. Furious that he lingered so near, she snapped, ‘‘Get out, damn it!’’
No one answered.
She opened her eyes.
She was alone.
Chapter Nine
Karen woke knowing exactly where she was. She knew why she was here. She remembered every last horrific moment of the day before, and most of all, she remembered Warlord.
She heard footsteps. He was in the tent. As he moved closer she carefully freed herself from the blankets and prepared to leap.
And she heard Mingma’s soft voice say, ‘‘Namaste , Miss Sonnet.’’
Karen’s eyes sprang open. She came out of the bed in a rush. ‘‘Mingma? You??
?re here? He captured you, too?’’
‘‘Miss?’’ Mingma’s brow knit as she stared in puzzlement. ‘‘What do you mean, capture? He bring me for you.’’
Karen thought she must be more disoriented than she’d realized, because that didn’t make sense. ‘‘Where’s the warlord?’’
‘‘Warlord is gone.’’
‘‘Gone from camp?’’ Karen grinned with savage pleasure. ‘‘What time is it?’’
‘‘The sun will rise soon.’’
‘‘We can get away.’’
‘‘No, miss.’’
‘‘Don’t worry. I’ll make the plans.’’ Karen pushed her hair out of her face. She was good at planning, good at taking advantage of opportunity, and she needed to escape now, first thing, while this warlord guy was out drinking with his buddies and celebrating his new concubine.
Mingma tsked and shook her head as Karen tugged at the pair of men’s jeans that sagged around her hips—Warlord’s jeans. ‘‘That is not attractive. Warlord requested I find you new clothes to wear.’’ With a smile, she gestured at a blue-green georgette skirt and midriff-baring shirt intricately worked in gold-threaded hand embroidery. ‘‘He says bring only the finest and most beautiful, and I do.’’
‘‘That’s a pretty fancy sweat suit.’’
‘‘Sweat suit?’’ Mingma cocked her head at Karen’s sarcasm. ‘‘I don’t understand ‘sweat suit,’ but the color is like your eyes.’’
‘‘Great. Just what I always wanted.’’
‘‘Will you wash your hands and face before you eat?’’ Mingma gestured toward the hammered-copper pitcher and bowl.
‘‘God, yes. Thank you.’’ Karen splashed the cold water on her face, vanquished the last of the cobwebs, and felt a rise of confidence.
‘‘Will you change before you eat?’’ Mingma stepped close and tried to tug at Karen’s shirt.
‘‘No! I’m not wearing that.’’
‘‘You don’t like it?’’ Mingma actually looked hurt.
‘‘It would be hard to hike in. Are all the men gone?’’ Karen didn’t wait for an answer, but opened the tent flap and looked.