Bodyguard Lockdown

chapter Eleven



Pain drove Booker awake, but panic and fear opened his eyes. Startled, he reached for his gun. The pain—sharp and white-hot—speared his shoulder, tore through his neck.

He remembered then. The horse’s hooves. The fight with the mercenaries.

Waseem’s admission before he died.

The new leader of the Al Asheera, a man named Minos, wanted Sandra. Wanted whatever she was hiding from Trygg.

He saw her then, waist deep in the water. Her gun left on a rock, less than a foot from her elbow.

Smart woman.

He leaned back, angry at the relief that weakened his limbs. Made his heart beat hard.

She’d left her clothes by the rocks to dry. She wore only her bra and, he assumed, her underpants.

Slowly, she turned her back to him.



He hissed through his teeth.

Bruises tattooed her body. Brown and blue. Dark and ugly.

She stepped from the water. The sunlight hit her dark hair, caught the lighter strands, the auburn highlights, set them on fire. Small, supple curves were wrapped up in flesh-colored panties, topped with a small bow at the top of the elastic.

Desire tightened his gut, fisted his hands with frustration.

Jaw clenched, he battled through the pain, forced down the desire.

But he couldn’t force himself to close his eyes.

Sandra stopped midstride when she saw him, then her features instantly became unreadable as she shuttered her thoughts from him. Slowly she emerged from the water.

“You’re awake.” She stopped long enough to grab the pistol, clothes and, he noted, her medical bag before she joined him.

Like he said before, smart woman.

He started to nod, then decided against it when the pain morphed into a concert of jackhammers inside his skull.

“Just.” He shifted from underneath the lean-to she’d built, then glanced up at the sky, noted the direction of the sun above them, felt the prick of late-afternoon heat on his skin.

“I saw your bruises.”

Quickly she slipped into her semidry T-shirt and pants. “They look worse than they feel.”

It took effort, but he stood, his legs shaking in protest. He cupped her cheek, ran a soft thumb over her jaw where the shadow of a bruise remained. “You gave better than you got, Doc.”

The gentleness of his compliment nearly undid her after the worry she lived through the night before. Slowly, she turned her cheek away, watched his hand drop to his side, curl back into a fist.

“You had a fever most of the night,” Sandra said, her voice even. She opened her medical bag and grabbed two pills. “Here, take these.” She handed him the pills and the water. “It will take the edge off the pain and ease the soreness. You’ll get your strength back quicker.”

“Time is short, Doc.” Booker downed the medicine. “We need to get going. We can make Tourlay just after sunset.”

“A day of rest is more important—”

“Waseem told me that the Al Asheera are rising again. They have a leader. Minos. I can’t be sure whether Jarek knows about him. If this new leader has infiltrated Jarek’s people, I want to make sure you’re out of harm’s way before the war starts.”

“I know of Minos, Booker. He is a peaceful leader. He cares for his people.”

“They aren’t working for Trygg. He’s a tool for them to get close to you. One of the men in Trygg’s camp has ties to the Al Asheera. He’s been feeding Intel back to Minos.”

“The Al Asheera would not risk a relationship with Trygg. It would put them in direct opposition to the crown,” she argued. Sandra had gotten to know these people. Some she even called friends. They would never follow a man like Trygg.

“They want the cylinders,” Booker stated with derision. “They will destroy their enemies with one or two of the cylinders, then sell the rest to the highest bidder. The money will come in handy when they seize Taer.”

“Destroy their enemies? You mean the royals?”

“One tidy little package,” Booker scoffed. “Waseem had knowledge of your new weapon going on the black market. He didn’t know what that weapon was exactly.”

“He could’ve been lying to you.”

“He wasn’t lying,” Booker responded flatly. Waseem spent the last fifteen minutes of his life begging to stay alive. He would have betrayed his own mother to save his skin.

“Minos and his followers have joined the game,” he said, not masking the truth this time. “Like I said, they might not know what you have, Doc, but they know you have something. And they know it’s a weapon.”

“The Al Asheera are no longer vengeful.” A sadness stretched across her chest, a heavy band that tightened with each breath. “Waseem and some others must have broken away from the main tribe.”

“They are all dangerous, until proven otherwise,” Booker commented casually, but those blue eyes were anything but as they swept over her pale features. “One, two, a half-dozen bad ones—any more than one just becomes a number.”

“I can prove the Al Asheera are not in league with Trygg,” she stated, steel now in her tone, her feet back under her. She took a step to him, then another, until they were almost toe to toe.

“It’s time for you to trust me.” Her chin lifted higher until her gaze locked with his. “I have connections in Tourlay. Connections that are not influenced by Trygg. We can stay here for twenty-four hours, then we’ll find my friends. They’ll help us get to the cylinders quicker.”

“That is not going to happen.”

“Give me one good reason why not?”

“Let’s start with your capabilities,” Booker stated. “The reason I’m in this condition? Saving you. The reason it got worse? Saving you again. And that doesn’t even include the apartment the other night, when I saved you the first time.”

“I didn’t ask—”

“My turn,” he interrupted, the two words cutting through the air like the crack of a whip. “Now, back in the day of your ancestors, I’d own you.”

“That’s ridiculous—”

“Still talking,” Booker warned.

Sandra placed her hands on her hips, not happy.

“Now,” Booker continued, “because I respect your medical abilities—to a point—we’ll take a few hours, until the heat lessens, then we’ll move.”

“You need rest,” Sandra replied, her voice hard with a doctor’s impatience. “Why on earth would you risk serious complications—”

“Because frankly, I’m not up to the task of saving you a fourth time. And staying here too long will make us easy targets. Is that clear?”

She couldn’t argue with that, as much as she wanted to.

But it was the fatigue that overtook his features—just for a second. Just long enough to remind her that he was suffering.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yes. You can tell me where the cylinders are, and stay put somewhere safe.”

“No. We’re in this together.”

“Noted,” he said grimly. He eased back against the rock, dismissing her. “Now if we’re done—”

Frustration bubbled, until it spit angry sparks that sizzled and snapped at her nerves. “Not quite. You still need to tell me about Emily. And your baby.”