Ransom by Callie Rhodes

Chapter Fifteen

Gretchen was more than a little surprised to find Ransom waiting for her in the same spot where she’d left him. Maybe he’d listened to her, and had actually rested the whole time. She doubted it, but…maybe.

One thing she knew for certain was that he hadn’t taken his eyes off her the entire time she’d been hiking up the hill. It wasn’t just that the rock he was sitting on had a clear view of the cave. Somehow she’d been able to actually feel his gaze watching over her as she’d made the trip.

She knew he was worried about her. She didn’t need alpha senses to pick up on that. It was obvious from the hard lines digging into the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth. Gretchen didn’t know if she should be annoyed or pleased—though a pleasant little rush suggested the latter.

It was a new sensation—being looked after.

You’d think that America’s return to so-called traditional values would have caused a rise in old-fashioned manners. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Instead, across the country there was burgeoning resentment of women, and not just the ones like her who insisted on remaining in the workplace. Gretchen had plenty of friends who had become the good little wives they were expected to be, but far from being treated like queens in their own homes, they were more often ignored, belittled, and taken for granted.

Ransom, on the other hand, had looked after her every need and literally carried her when she’d been too tired to make the climb.

And yet alphas were the ones called savages.

“You got your stuff?” Ransom called out when she got close.

Gretchen nodded, holding up her notebook to show him. Her phone was tucked safely in the pocket of her now-dingy skirt. “Did you rest?”

“Close enough,” he said with a shrug.

She scowled at him. “Let me check your bandage.”

Amazingly, he did as she asked, standing up and raising his arm so she could inspect his side. She didn’t spot any fresh blood seeping into the bandage.

He couldn’t really be healing that fast, could he?

“Maybe I should take a peek underneath,” she suggested.

“Later. We need to get moving.”

Neither of them spoke on the walk back to the jeep—Ransom tightlipped with concentration, no doubt, and her because of the shortness of breath caused by trying to keep up with his unnaturally quick pace. Eventually, he must have tired of her huffing and puffing because he picked her up without warning and set her on his shoulders.

Gretchen almost argued, but decided against it. Her alpha might be injured, but someone who could keep up that pace was obviously doing all right.

They found the car concealed under the graceful branches of a huge black walnut tree. Even from a distance Gretchen could see that when Ransom had ripped off the bumper, he’d also torn the cover of the cargo hold.

“If highway patrol sees that, they’ll probably pull us over,” she fretted.

“You honestly think I’ll be driving this thing anywhere close to an official road?”

She was about to ask where he was planning on taking them when she noticed that the cargo area wasn’t empty. In addition to an ax, shovel, and several black plastic containers, a canvas bag marked with a red cross was strapped to the rack.

“A first aid kit? Why on earth didn’t you tell me? There’s probably antibiotic ointment and bandages and—”

“—and a tool kit and tent and emergency blankets and eight gallons of fuel. Yeah, I checked. None of which will be worth shit if we don’t get out of here.”

“Ransom.” Gretchen bit back her frustration. He could have internal bleeding for all they knew. “I’m trying to make sure you don’t drop dead before we make it a mile away.”

“I told you before, I’m fine, woman. Now get in the damn car.”

“Look, I appreciate the, uh, role playing thing where you act all dominant and tell me what to do and—”

“Role playing?” Ransom demanded, his eyes narrowing. “Is that what you think we’re doing?”

Gretchen tried to ignore her traitorous insides, which started to purr the minute he got all dark and scowly. “Just let me take a peek. It won’t take more than a—”

Ransom’s chest rumbled, cutting her off. “You can look all you want once we’re somewhere safe. Right now we need to get back on the road.”

Suddenly Gretchen found herself swept up in his arms again. Ransom opened the passenger door and dumped her in, slamming it shut before she had a chance to catch her breath.

So much for that alpha courtesy she’d been praising.

Seconds later, they were picking up speed on the rough terrain. For the next twenty spine-rattling minutes Ransom pushed the jeep to its limits, taking a route that must have been meant to throw off Fulmer’s trackers, one that apparently entailed hitting every rock and rut in their path.

When they were finally far enough away Gretchen she could no longer see the river valley in the mirror outside her window, she finally allowed herself to relax a little. Conversation would have helped her calm down even more, but the set of Ransom’s jaw made it clear he wasn’t in the mood for talking.

Unfortunately, the silence left Gretchen’s mind free to spin in anxious circles.

The first aid kit was a lucky find, but Ransom really needed to be seen by a doctor. But how the hell was Gretchen supposed to pull that off? She couldn’t risk anyone spotting an alpha outside the Boundarylands.

By now the story of the explosion would be all over the news, though Gretchen had no doubt that Fulmer was doing his best to either cover it up or spin it to his advantage. At any moment, more troops could come screaming down the highway behind them. Or they might be setting up barricades ten miles down the road. She half expected to hear the roar of chopper blades overhead.

And she didn’t even know where they were headed. She’d ask Ransom, but honestly, she was afraid of the answer.

Wherever it was, they wouldn’t be safe, not while she still needed to be in contact with the outside world. Fulmer had found them once, and she was willing to bet he was waiting to do it again.

“I need to check my email to see if anyone’s responded to my inquiries,” she said.

Ransom glanced over at her. “Is it safe?”

“No,” she said honestly. “But it’s better for me to do it now, near where Fulmer already tracked us, than wherever we go next.”

Gretchen held her breath and turned on the phone, amazed to find she had two bars of coverage out here in the middle of nowhere. Her thumbs moving like lightning, and she was into her email in seconds.

Eleven new messages. Heart pounding, she scanned the first, from an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately…”

Gretchen had accumulated enough rejections before she got the Journal job that she could spot one in the first few words. The majority of the ones she used to get were from editors who claimed to have too many female contributors already.

These were different.

“Eleven rejections. The Times is the only outlet that hasn’t responded yet.”

“Did they say why?” Ransom asked after a second, his tone softening.

“Most didn’t give a reason,” she said woodenly. “One of them said they’d consider doing an interview after the story broke elsewhere. And two editors told me never to contact them again.” She sighed. “At least the editor at the Houston Chronicle was honest—he said he couldn’t risk being the first one to print the story.”

“Fulmer got to them.”

“It looks that way,” Gretchen admitted. That knowledge sat like a stone in her gut. She’d been prepared to risk her job, her reputation, even her life to get the truth out—but it had never occurred to her that no one would be willing to print it.

“What about the New York Times?”

She shrugged. “They’ve got the biggest circulation in the country, so—”

“—so they probably get a lot more submissions.”

True, but they also employed a huge staff to go through them. Nonetheless, a tiny spark of hope bloomed in Gretchen’s chest. “They have come under a lot of fire for being critical of the current administration. So far they’ve defended every story. Maybe…I guess it’s possible that they’re still thinking my piece over.”

“Then there’s hope,” Ransom said, putting a hand on her knee. It was probably meant to be reassuring, but it was also extremely distracting.

“There is,” she agreed. A thin sliver, but hope all the same. “The only trouble is I’ll have to turn on my phone again to check for their response. Which means we risk Fulmer finding us again.”

Ransom thought about that.

“Yes. But this time we’ll be ready for him.”

* * *

In less than an hour, the terrain had changed from jagged mountains to gently rolling hills the bright green of recent rains. Ransom left the road again and headed into them toward the densest patches of green in the distance, hoping to find water.

He wasn’t disappointed. The river he discovered snaking through the countryside was wider and calmer than the one they’d bathed in this morning. Its banks were dotted with wildflowers and anchored with stately sycamores and clumps of birches. With no one around to overfish it, Ransom figured the river was probably full of perch and trout and channel catfish.

He passed the weathered remains of a barn, the farmhouse long stripped to the foundation, and kept going. Ransom wasn’t about to get trapped in a structure. He needed to find a spot with as many escape options as possible.

“What is it with you and rivers?” Gretchen asked. She hadn’t spoken for a while, but after he rested his hand on her knee her anxieties had diminished considerably.

“They provide everything needed for survival. Food, water…recreation.” He added a suggestive wink, hoping to reinforce her improved mood.

When she gave him a playful slap, he knew he’d succeeded. “How are you able to think about sex right now? You were just shot. Oh, look—blackberries!”

Ransom shook his head and chuckled at her distraction. Sure enough, the vines lining the bank were heavy with dark, ripe berries. “I guess this is as good a spot as any.”

He pulled into a cluster of three willow trees next to an elbow in the river, the shallow bank sloping gently down to a stretch of pebbled beach. There was a flat area in the center that would be perfect to make camp.

While Gretchen hurried down to the water’s edge, Ransom took a better look at the surroundings. Once he was satisfied that there were several good options for retreat and no approach that would give attackers much cover, he got the field tent from the cargo hold and started to set it up, remembering the summer he and Ryan raced each other to see who set up their one-man pup tents the fastest.

Ryan won, of course, but Ransom had been no slouch, coming in at four minutes and twenty-one seconds. For the first time in years, he caught himself smiling at a memory.

Gretchen returned with her fists full of berries and her lips stained deep purple. “None for you until you let me take a look,” she said in an attempt at severity. “I can’t believe you’re still standing.”

There was no reason not to humor her now that they were out of immediate danger. Ransom unwound the makeshift bandage.

Gretchen gasped. “What the…” She knelt and placed her hand gently on the flat plane of his stomach, causing his cock to stir, but she was entirely focused on the bullet hole.

“Looks like it stopped bleeding,” he said mildly.

“Stopped—Ransom! It’s scabbed over already. No sign of infection. It should have taken days for you to heal this much.” She looked up into his eyes, and Ransom couldn’t help picturing those sweet, plump pink lips around the head of his cock.

“Don’t know what to tell you. Good genes, I guess.” It was time for this conversation to be over—they had better things to do.

But Gretchen still looked shocked. “I mean, is this just a part of your alpha nature?”

“Honestly, I’m not completely sure. Probably, at least partially. But Fulmer was doing all kinds of shit with our immune systems. They kept on coming up with serums but no one ever said what was in them or what they were supposed to do. And he devised this whole catalog of injuries and tracked how alpha subjects healed from them.” He remembered the bodies being wheeled along the corridor, the horrific assaults to their bodies exposed in death. “Or didn’t.”

“So you don’t even know…”

“All I have to go on is what I overheard, and even that was plenty damn fucked up. But yeah, right now more than a hundred alphas are out there with all kinds of heightened abilities that they may not even be aware of.”

“But how…how will any of them find out what they are capable of unless— ”

Ransom decided he’d have to work a little harder to change the subject.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said, taking her warm, soft body into his arms. “Let’s do a little experimenting of our own and find out.”