His Virgin Princess. Grace Goodwin
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“Dani?” he asked again, this time his eyes cleared, widened. He groaned through gritted teeth. His dark pants were torn everywhere, dried blood clearly caked into the fabric in multiple places. I took a better look at his torso, the power and muscle covered in cuts, burns and blood. He looked like he’d been through hell, but I had no idea if everything was superficial, or if he was bleeding on the inside, too. Broken ribs? Bleeding kidneys? He was a mess, and seeing him injured made every cell in my body scream in denial.
He was mine. This could not be allowed. “You’re a mess.”
“Why are you here?” he countered, drawing his knees up toward his chest. We stared at each other, our gazes roaming. He was big. So very big, even sitting with his knees tucked up. His dark hair was long enough that it curled slightly over his ears, was thick, and I wanted to bury my fingers in it, learn the texture of him. A beard had begun to grow on his square jaw. Even in the dim light that came from the cave entrance, I could see the color of it was a touch redder than the nearly black hair on the top of his head. His lip was not only swollen, it was cut and bleeding. His face was thinner than in my dreams, as if he hadn’t eaten enough for a few days, but his eyes pierced me, held me in place. A predator’s eyes. Focused completely on me, taking in every detail, missing nothing. His gaze lingered on my ankle, on the tilt of my hips as I kept weight off it. It was like he could read my mind, knew my body already, was attuned to me.
His eyes were almost black, piercing in their intensity. I recognized him, not just from the dreams we shared, but in my heart, in my very DNA.
He was studying me just as closely and lifted his hand to reach out to me, but he let it drop.
“Are you real?” His voice was rough, dry. “Or am I dreaming?”
I tugged off my backpack, pulled out a canteen, removed the lid and handed it to him. “Real. Drink.”
He took it, swallowing the water greedily. How long had he been in this cave? Had he not had any food or water in days? As he drank, I glanced about. He’d been left in an abandoned cave, large enough for four or five men to walk side-by-side. I could easily stand at the entrance. If I put my arms up, I wouldn’t be able to touch the roof. The floor was stone, dirt and dead leaves covering the cold gray rock like a rotting carpet. We were about fifteen feet from the entrance, the daylight muted by the thick stone walls. I could hear water dripping in the distance, a gentle plop, plop. The chains holding him were large, heavy, but old and rusted, stained by the patina of age. The metal loops and bolts in the walls had been in place for a long time, as if Gage wasn’t the first to be brought here. To be tortured and neglected until dead.
A cage in the middle of nowhere? For what? “What kind of monster keeps a place like this?” I wondered aloud.
“My great-grandfather,” was his answer and it brought my gaze back to him at once. He smiled, but there was no humor in it. “This is my cave, Dani. Ironic, is it not?”
“Not.” I grabbed the discarded jacket and wrapped it around his feet. “Definitely not. We have to get you out of here.”
He used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. “I will ask again, what are you doing here?”
I frowned. “Saving you.”
He shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t have. Too risky.”
“You were going to die.”
He met my gaze. The vein his temple throbbed. “I know.”
“Then—”
He lifted his hand, but it dropped back to his lap, as if he were too weak. I reached in my pack again, found some kind of protein bar in the military rations I’d taken from the storage room at the Touchstone and handed it over. “Eat slowly.”
Breaking off a piece, he put it in his mouth, chewed. I watched the simple action, the play of his throat as he swallowed. Reaching out, I took his free hand, turned it over.
There.
The mark.
I placed my palm in his, mark to mark for the first time.
I gasped at the feel of it, the all-consuming burn throughout my body. Heat and need flared to life, but now wasn’t the time. But I also felt complete. As if a part of me had been missing…forever. I had no idea how I’d gotten through life, going through the motions. Perhaps it was that I hadn’t known I wasn’t whole.
But now…now there was no going back. Gage was mine and he could yell at me until he ran out of steam and I wouldn’t care.
“Someone wants me dead.” He shoved another piece of the bar in his mouth, chewed. “I won’t have them after you.”
“I can take care of myself. And as for you dying? Not happening.”
He moved his shackled wrist, the chain rattling. “As you can see, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve had days to try to figure out how to get out of here.”
I dug through my bag again. “I picked up some things at the Touchstone that might be helpful. A communication device.” I placed the small object on the ground, but he quickly reached for it.
“Picked up?”
I gave him a quick glance, then went back to my task. I wasn’t going to tell him I stole them. My intention was to borrow, to return them when I’d rescued Gage and we returned together. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, especially when I knew those cavemen would never have let me come along. And they wouldn’t have been able to find him, not without me. And the mark that called to me like a homing beacon.
“A comms unit? How did they not track you down within a mile of the Touchstone?” he wondered.
“It’s not turned on. Obviously. I removed the power cell. I didn’t want anyone to be able to follow me, because knowing my friends, once they got their mates involved, they would have come after me. Stopped me.”
“Who are these mates you mention?”
“Hunters at the Touchstone.”
“They should have stopped you. I will discuss this failure with them in future.”
I frowned, pursed my lips. He should be thanking me, not pissing me off, but I’d give him a little latitude, for now. Mark it up to him being delirious. And since we were in a cave…well, I guess it made sense he was acting like a caveman. “Well, I’m here. With a comms unit. And this.”
“Fuck! An ion blaster?” he cried, grabbing the weapon from me, checking the side of it. I had to assume he was looking for the safety, ensuring it was on. “You could have shot yourself.”
I huffed out a breath. “You’re not mated to an idiot. I know how to use a gun. How to shoot. How to carry one safely so I don’t shoot myself. If you haven’t caught on by now, I tracked you. I’m not a city girl, Gage.” His gaze narrowed, but he remained quiet. “No one else found you, did they?”
He exhaled, stared at me almost grudgingly, realizing I was right. I was here, saving his ass. Settling the blaster into his hold, he slowly stood, aimed the weapon at the plate on the wall above our heads where the chain was securely affixed just outside the bars.
“Get behind me.”
I moved as he wished, but his arm came about and all but shoved me farther back.
The shot echoed off the cave walls, as did the heavy clink of the chain as it hit the ground. I looked around his body, saw that he was no longer connected to the cave wall. “Another.” He aimed at his wrist, about three chain lengths above the shackle. “Wanted to test it first. See what happened. I’d like to keep from shooting my hand off.”
He fired again, one length of chain falling to the floor like a dead snake. The other was still attached to the shackle on his opposite wrist and I realized he’d been hooked up to some kind of pulley system. He put the ion blaster in his opposite hand and fired a third time. I sighed