Uncharted by Adriana Anders
Chapter 32
Elias couldn’t recall waking up this sore before…or this satisfied. He stretched, popping joints and easing muscles, tightened his arm around the woman who lay against him, and shifted lazily, enjoying the feel of female flesh against his morning erection.
And then remembered just where he was.
At the top of a mountain, in what could barely be called a cave.
He eased an arm out from under their piled-up covers and brought it quickly back into the heat.
Cold as hell out there. And he didn’t hear rain anymore—or the constant thrum of the waterfall. Bad news. He’d be surprised if the rain hadn’t turned into something worse in the night.
And here they were, outside and buck naked.
He pulled in a deep breath and let out a sigh, unable to stop the smile from splitting his face.
Best wake-up. Ever.
His eyes cracked open, just enough to watch her.
On a wave of heat, everything they’d done came rushing back. Not just the kissing and touching, but the bone-deep emotions. The stuff that he couldn’t begin to explain—the stuff that had plumbed his soul.
Though he didn’t think the sun was all the way up, there was enough light that they needed to get moving again. How good would it be to stay here, instead? Perched in the clouds, where no one could see them? They could—
With a light humming sound, she stirred, her body going through the early phases of wakefulness the way his had.
In a moment of certainty, he opted to play it casual. No morning-after weirdness, no pressure to make this something—even though he knew that what had happened between them was cataclysmic. Leo, he surmised, wouldn’t appreciate pushiness at this point. She didn’t like having her mind made up for her.
He rolled out from their nest, giving her space to wake up and time to adjust to this new reality.
The cold slammed him like a fist, and for a few seconds, he wanted nothing more than to crawl back in there with her. His penis, thick and languid a moment before, begged him to, but he ignored it.
The sky was lighter than he’d realized.
He threw on a shirt and long underwear, went around the bend to answer nature’s call, and returned quickly.
“It’s cold and it’s late, Leo. Better get going.”
“Yep. Yep. Sounds good,” she said, voice thick with sleep, as she emerged, wrapped in blankets. Though her sleepy eyes lingered on his body, it didn’t take long for them to skid past him to where what had been a waterfall last night was now a massive icicle. Beyond it, so big it took his breath away, was the wilderness they’d spent the last few days crossing. The entire vista glittered in the sunlight, crystallized like the breath in his lungs.
Growing up, his mom had put figurines on the mantel around the holidays every year—a Christmas village. He’d loved those things as a kid—the warm glow of the lights in each little window, the sparkle of the snow-crusted roofs and trees. Not once in the last decade had he felt cozy looking out at this place. Not once had his cabin seemed as warm as this overlook today, a snug haven in a land frozen solid.
“How on earth did we climb up here?” Leo’s question was light, but there was a definite thread of holy shit in there. Like she’d had no idea how far they’d come.
Careful not to meet her eye and show her what she’d done to his world, he responded with a nonchalant, “Good question.”
She crawled forward, almost to the edge. “Nothing but a goat path.”
“Sure is.”
While he pulled out dry clothes and threw her items that would, again, be way too big, she turned to take in the shallow shelter they’d spent the night in.
“And today…”
Halfway dressed, he sat beside her to pull on socks and, finally, his boots—which were miserably wet.
“Today, we do the summit. Hopefully before the helicopter arrives.” He pointed straight up. “Hope not to break our necks in the process.”
She shut her eyes. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Yeah, but once we get over the top, it’s all downhill.” He stood and then, because he couldn’t deny this thing—didn’t want to—he squatted beside her, wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, and leaned in for a quick, clean kiss.
It was nothing of the sort. The moment they touched, it turned dirty and deep, vocal and more complex than most of the relationships he’d had, including the one with the woman he’d almost married.
When he finally pulled away, he imagined his expression was something like hers—shell-shocked and exhausted and hungry for more.
“We’ve got to go,” he said, letting her hear the regret in his voice.
“You sure?” She grinned and bit her lip, drawing his eye to that lush, sexy mouth.
“Hell no, I’m not. But on the other side of this mountain, there’s something I want you to see.” Feeling boyish and excited, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You’re gonna like it.”
He handed her one last layer and went to feed his dog.
***
Downhill wasn’t all that easy—especially with the ice coating the rocks for most of the morning—but it was a cakewalk compared to last night’s climb.
And, Leo had to admit, it could’ve been a million times harder and she’d still be smiling like an idiot.
They paused rarely throughout the day, but each and every time, he gave her looks that sped her pulse up, sent warmth to her belly, and had the two of them grinning like kids.
As she took the lead after lunch, she had to consciously relax her mouth, purposely turn those lips down. And maybe, just maybe, she put a little extra sway in her step.
When he let out a low, quiet wolf whistle, she knew she’d been caught out. “What?” She squinted at him over her shoulder. “You think you’re the only one with swagger?”
He shook his head with a grin. “No. No way, Leo Eddowes. You’ve got swagger for days.”
She gave in and let the smile reemerge, a little flirty, a little prim. “Why, thank you, sir.”
She’d walked another few steps when he caught up and passed her. “That what it’s about?” He turned and walked backwards. “Swagger?” His expression changed, became challenging, as if he knew that under all her bravado she was a vulnerable ball of nerves and emotion—an open, beating heart, ripe for destruction.
She didn’t like the shift. What was it with this guy getting serious all the time? What was it with her falling into his traps?
Right. A trap, Eddowes?
“Might be.” She meant to turn it into a joke, to say something, but she couldn’t. Not with him.
Who’s the one making things serious here, huh?
“Sometimes, when you’re neck deep in the mud, eighty guys all trying to get the same thing you want…where you’re a woman, weighed down by literal boobs and centuries of misogyny…and oh, hey…you’re Black, to boot?” She threw a hand up into the air. “Well, sometimes, you pull yourself out of the shit with nothing but swagger.”
“Swagger didn’t get you here.” He sounded so certain, as if he knew her inside and out.
That certainty put her back up. “Think you know me?” She kept her voice light. “What do you reckon got me where I am?”
“Intelligence. Mostly. Good instincts too. I…reckon”—he underscored the word more than she had, leaned a little too close when he did it—“there’s a decent dose of talent in the mix. I’ve seen your reflexes. I’d bet they’ve been honed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you were born with some…connection with the sky. An ingrown understanding of gravity or mechanics or things that go vroom.”
A shiver went through her, starting high and shimmering through her quads and kneecaps on its way down, into the earth. She was like a lightning rod, only instead of electricity from the sky, she drew it from him. Or him from her. Something like that. And it freaked her the hell out.
“Am I right?”
Right on target.She opened her mouth to make some jackass comment and stopped when he put up his hand.
“I won’t tell you you’re special, ’cause we both already know that’s true—and I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. But what you’ve accomplished? Most people couldn’t do even a fraction of that. Beat out thousands to become an elite pilot. What were you? Firehawks? I’ll bet you were.” When she didn’t deny it, he went on. “And unlike me, you’re not a big, strong white man, so that makes you at least a hundred times more qualified than I could ever be. But that’s not even it. Not the…” He snapped his fingers lightly, his eyes looking everywhere for some elusive word. “There’s something deeper than all of that. Something solid, at your core. It’s the thing that I get. The place where we inters—”
She snorted to cut him off, to keep him from saying the big stuff. The dangerous stuff.
Not at all fazed, he cocked his head and watched her closely. “You believe in doing what’s good, what’s right.”
“Right? You mean like good versus evil?” A sigh drained slowly from her lungs. “You saying it’s all black and white, Elias? It’s not. I do what I can to help, but…” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Wait. This is pretty rich coming from the king of sacrifice himself.”
He stopped his slow, backward walking and stared at her, incredulous. “You think I gave up my life on purpose?”
She waited.
“You think I’d have done this if I had known the consequences? You think I’d do it again?” He looked older than before, his face lined, shoulders heavy.
“Yes.” More intense than she intended, she stepped close and tilted her head way back to look him in the eye. “Yeah. You’d do it all over again.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. It was all she could do not to kiss it.
“Am I right?” Suddenly, unexpectedly, she wanted to take back the question. What if he said no? What if he preferred his old life to this one? Seriously, who could blame him? There’d been loss and death—so many prices to pay for doing the right thing.
The problem was, if that was his wish—to go back and get a second chance—then he’d wish her away, wish all of this gone, never to have happened at all. And she couldn’t bear the idea of never meeting the man.
In a way, she already felt bereft, as if knowing him had carved a hole inside her. But not knowing him would be a million times worse.
Breathing too hard, she moved past him. “How much farther?”
He didn’t answer right away. After another few steps, she looked up and realized that he didn’t have to.
***
“Where the fuck are they?” Deegan barked, clearly not bothered about being overheard.
Standing ankle deep in half-frozen mud, Ash searched the forest below and the cloud-tipped mountains above. They’d both fallen this morning—Deegan twice and Ash once, bruising his hip so badly he’d thought it was broken. Once he’d started walking, it only ached when he slowed.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t fucking know? They’re out here, aren’t they, mate? You’re the shit-hot tracker, right, mate?”
Ash didn’t glance at the other man, whose attempt at imitation was Dick Van Dyke–level absurd. He kept his eyes on the ground, scanning, slowly, carefully. Quietly.
Or at least, that’s what he’d have liked.
“Are you sure they’re even out there?”
Rolling his eyes internally, Ash turned. “They are.” He squinted up at the mountain, then down again. Maybe if you’d shut up, I could think.
Deegan apparently expected more from him. When he didn’t get it, he made a disgusted sound, reached for his sat phone, and headed into the woods, dialing.
Ash turned a full circle, ignoring the man. He loved this place. The harsh, ever-changing weather made it all the more beautiful, as far as he was concerned. What was more enchanting than going to sleep at night and waking to find everything frozen in place? He’d have enjoyed it a lot more if this arsehole hadn’t been with him.
He tilted his head, listening to the low drone of the man’s voice. He couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was not happy. At all.
If only he could leave Deegan behind.
He shut his eyes for a moment, picturing taking it one step further. It would be so easy to end the fool—a clean slice to the throat. Yes, well, though the idea of cold-blooded murder had its appeal, it was not the mission.
He must focus on the mission.
Deegan stomped and slid back up the slope, clearly angry. “Chopper’s down.”
Ash’s brows rose. “Down?”
“Out of commission. Pilot’s working on it, with some geezer from town. Shit.” He sighed, his little eyes flicking around. Deegan had one of those square-jawed American faces so often immortalized in comic books and action films. He was big and blond and strong looking, as far from Ash’s physique as a person could get. And yet, even with his wonky hip, Ash could best this man in a confrontation. The trick with Ash was that he was unobtrusive. Nobody saw him and thought, operative! Nobody assumed that he was the hunter. “Look, you got a bead on them yet?”
Rather than respond, Ash uncapped his water, leaned back, and let his gaze go soft.
The air was cold and crisp, the wind so sharp it pushed the clouds along like recalcitrant sheep. One minute, the peaks were visible, the next, they appeared to be topped with cotton, spun from sugar. Something the other children’s parents would have got for them at the carnival. Something Emma would have begged for.
Had she lived.
He pulled in a breath, let the oxygen brighten his vision and stir up his senses, and tucked his canteen away before setting off again, ignoring Deegan’s muttered obscenities, his thoughts full of the past that never was.
“They can’t have got far,” he said over his shoulder. “Not with the wounded woman, not with last night’s weather and this morning’s deep freeze.” He allowed himself an evil smirk. “Think you can pick up the pace?”
It had been shit luck that the downpour to end all downpours had come through and cleared all trace. There wasn’t an identifiable track to be found. The rain, the freeze, the wind, they’d all come together to obliterate any signs of passage.
After a long day’s slog, they’d come to a crossroads. Three possible paths toward Schink’s Station, none of them direct. None of them the obvious choice.
A sign would be nice right now. Not that he believed in divine intervention. There’d been times when his life had depended on some kind of goodwill—whether Ganesh’s, God’s, or Mother Nature’s, he frankly hadn’t cared. Of course, the last time he’d looked to the heavens for help, he’d lost everything that mattered. But then, he had more faith in nature than in any god. In his mind, the two were intertwined, he supposed.
Maybe he should have brought Emma here, when all was lost. Maybe this place would have healed her when the medicine hadn’t.
Shaking that silly notion from his head, he let the past wash out of him and focused on today. At this moment, he wished for a sign—not to save face in front of Deegan, but to finish this thing once and for all.
The clouds parted and he spotted it then—high in the sky: a bald eagle, the bird slow, wide winged and graceful. Its lazy, circular descent brought it to alight at the very top of the mountain before him, where it perched proudly, framed by clouds on other side, like a painting, or a dream.
Or the very sign he’d been seeking.
“Up it is,” Ash said with a smile, feeling lighter than he had all day.
Muttering curses behind him, Deegan scrambled to keep up.