Bear. Dmitry froze. The accent was his homeland. Only one person had ever called him that nickname and she was buried in these mountains somewhere.
He searched the darkness, his heart thudding heavily because in the tones of that voice had been an unmistakable threat. His heart hardened. It wasn’t possible. There was no way.
“She is fading, Dmitry,” Adam called out.
Dmitry tried to see who hovered in the darkness, but he could not and the woman who’d stolen everything he was needed him.
“I will find you,” he called out.
It was all he could give the one who’d spoken to him from the shadows and it was a threat of his own. He turned to Bone, lifted her into his arms and left the voice from his past there. He was torn but so was Bone and she held him now. All of him.
Rand drove them through the passes carefully. It poured from the sky and he held her. The Jeep jostled and he held her. When the sun split the sky he was still holding her.
They drove until they reached a small town and Rand called in coordinates to Raines who picked them up at a small airstrip hidden among the towering trees of the rainforest.
He bandaged her as much as he could on the plane. He inserted an IV and began rehydration but she did not wake. He cleaned her, dressed each wound, kissed her cracked lips and covered her with warm blankets.
But it could never be enough.
His heart was broken. Dmitry only hoped he could put her back together.
Chapter Eighteen
The pain dug into her with vicious hooks, pulling and rending until all she knew was its embrace. Fire streaked up her leg and through her shoulder, along her scalp and down her back. She called to her aba and ima but they ignored her. She called to Blade, Bullet, and Arrow and they turned away.
She called to Dmitry and he responded but he was too far away for her to hear him. She cried out to God and he did not answer. Bone was alone.
Always she was alone.
“You are not alone, sister,” Blade whispered.
Bone saw her sister then and her heart lightened.
“You came back,” Bone said reaching for her sister, touching her shorn hair and smiling. “I like your hair, sister. It is becoming on you.”
“You need to wake up, Bone Breaker,” Blade urged.
Bone sighed. “Is this death then?”
“Why do you think you’ve died?” Blade asked with a grin.
“Because you did not punch me for commenting on that horrible haircut,” Bone bit out around a gasp of pain.
“I came to see how broken you were and you make jokes,” Blade returned with a small laugh.
Bone nodded. “Yes. I like your laugh, Blade. It has saved me many times—have I ever told you that?”
Blade sighed and it was harsh, filled with pain. “Do not, sister. You suffered and I can find no joy in life right now. I came to tell you that…”
Bone glanced at Blade who simply shrugged. “That what?”
“Nothing,” Blade responded, her shoulders drooping for a single second before she masked her features in a blank facade.
Bone let it drop. “Why are you not in Sydney and where the hell am I?”
“Virginia.”
It all rushed back to her. The torture at Joseph’s hands, hanging from the cliff once again, and Dmitry, climbing down to save her. “I thought it was a dream.”
“Yet here you are, wide awake,” Blade quipped.
Bone tried to sit up, found herself unable to and the weakness taunted her. “I’ll ask again,” she said on a heavy exhale. “Why are you not in Sydney?”
“I am headed back today. Nodachi isn’t going anywhere,” Blade told her in a voice so low she knew she was the only one to hear it.
Bone nodded and spikes dug into her skull.
When her eyes opened Blade was staring at her.
“He came for you.”
“He did,” she replied though it hadn’t been a question.
“You will give him a chance to share his secrets as well, siúr,” Blade cautioned.
Bone went on alert at that. Surely the man who’d accused her of being a liar, wasn’t keeping his own secrets. She didn’t respond to Blade’s demand. Dmitry had been hers and then he wasn’t. “What do you know, Blade?”
“I know that everyone has secrets. And your Dmitry has always had more than his fair share. I am going hunting now, sister.”
“And you, Blade, what are your secrets?”
“It isn’t time, Bone,” Blade whispered. “Soon, sister, and we will all know the truth.”
Between one breath and the next, Blade was gone.
If Arrow was the darkness, Blade was the light. She could hide in the middle of a field of sunshine. And her blades sang such a wondrous song. Bone craved to hear her sister’s blades.
Bone tried to sit, forcing her pain to disappear though it was a difficult battle. Normally, she took the pain deeper inside, twisted into something she could purge. Now, when she had no enemy in front of her, she was forced to accept it. But it hurt and she cursed several times before she was able to sit upright.