Deadly Game

Chapter 9

"So, you're all set to beat up the world for me," Ken whispered, stretching out beside Marigold. He turned toward her, scooping her close to him with one arm, trapping her leg with his thigh.

"Mmm." Her voice was drowsy. "Of course. It's the least I can do. After all, you did save my life when your brother was going to shoot me with that gun of his. He needs help, you know. He can't just go around offing people he doesn't like."

Ken smiled, for the first time in a long time feeling it was genuine. "I've been telling him that for years." He found the drowsy note in her voice unreasonably sexy.

"What did they do to me?"

"A little torture. We tried extracting names, but you held firm." He watched her face, and sure enough, he was rewarded with that same brief, intriguing smile.

"Good for me. I would have sung like a bird if you'd tried to make me eat peas." She gave a little shudder and opened her eyes, blinking up at him. "That's how all the interrogators get information from me."

"I've made a note and we'll go that route next time." He wrapped his arm around her, holding her close to his body heat. "You scared the hell out of me, Mari. That was close. Way too close."

She shifted toward him. wincing a little. "I think the Zenith did the job healing gunshot wounds and broken bones, but I feel like a truck ran over me."

He ran the pads of his fingers down her face in a small caress. "You'll feel better in a couple of days. You need lots of sleep."

Mari's lips tightened and her dark eyes went somber. "You know they'll come for me. Ken. Everyone, including Lily, is in danger with me here."

"We know. We're taking precautions."

"They'd better be darn good precautions. Don't underestimate them."

"We won't," he assured.

She liked having him lying beside her. "I've never lived anywhere but the compound. I've never been away from it except when they sent me on a mission, and we were always closely supervised. I've been on a lot of missions, and actually it was a relief to go somewhere and get away from there. Funny how this feels so different to me when it should feel the same. It's a research facility, isn't it?"

"Yes. It's part of Whitney Trust. Lily inherited everything when Peter Whitney supposedly was murdered. She kept everything going-everything legitimate, that is." On his side, propped on one elbow, he pushed the hair from her face with gentle fingers. "You've got to rest, Mari. You've got three IVs in you and Lily's still running fluids. Zenith is nothing to fool around with. I should have known when you were healing so fast, but no one uses it. It didn't occur to me that Whitney would deliberately endanger your life."

Mari enjoyed the feeling of his fingers stroking across her forehead. His touch was light and gentle, and no one had ever caressed her that way. "Why are you being so nice to me, Ken?" Because she didn't want to trust him-or the strange feelings she was beginning to develop for him.

"I'm never nice to anyone, Mari," he denied, a smile in his voice, although it didn't show in his gray eyes. "Don't go ruining my reputation."

She closed her eyes because she couldn't look at him anymore without feeling the burn of tears. She told herself it was because she'd nearly died, but she knew better. Ken Norton was giving her a taste of what life could be like-and she didn't have a life, could never have a life.

"He owns us, you know. We talk about escaping, but we don't do it, because we don't know how to survive away from the compound. We've never walked a real city street. We've trained in urban warfare, in simulators, and we have mock cities we enter to face each other in battle, but we've never really been out of the facility, other than to go to a jungle or some drug lord's little kingdom. Like I said, going on missions was a kind of vacation, as silly as that sounds."

Her voice was soft and drowsy, the note hitting just the right pitch to make his body come alive. Hell. Everything she said and did, everything she was, brought out the worst in him. Ken fought to keep his mind centered on their conversation. "Were you ever in the Congo?"

"I've been in every jungle, rain forest, and desert there is," she said without opening her eyes. "And every place they have leeches, I've managed to find them. Leeches are right up there with needles and peas for me. Before Whitney's breeding program, I was a damned good soldier."

"You're still a damned good soldier."

She flashed a small, grateful smile and moved just slightly, a small shift in her position, but it brought her soft breasts right against his chest. He managed to suppress a groan, feeling more a pervert than ever. "If I put my arm around you, are you going to shove me off the bed?"

"No. Should I?"

"Do you want me to be truthful?"

Mari smiled and snuggled closer to him. "No. I hurt and I want to go to sleep. You feel safe. I need to feel safe."

"Then you're perfectly safe with me."

Ken wrapped his arm around her and tried not to feel more than the surge of sexual awareness the heat and softness of her body brought. Emotions were something he refused to deal in. She looked so young, her lashes long and thick, lying against her pale skin. Her hair gleamed with platinum and gold strands. Lily must have slipped something into the fluids to push her toward sleep, or Mari would never have made such an unguarded statement. He hoped she wouldn't remember it when she woke.

"I'm here, baby. Just go to sleep and I'll keep watch," he murmured, his lips against her temple. She should have smelled of death-not life-but when he inhaled her scent, he could taste her in his mouth, feel his heart beating in time with hers, strong and steady with a perfect rhythm.

"I can't go to sleep; it's too quiet in here."

He groaned softly. "You're going to make me turn into a fool, aren't you?" He glanced toward the door. "You'd better never tell anyone I did this." Ken wrapped his arm around her head, his arm blocking the light from the window, wishing he had his guitar.

Jack had turned to books in the long years of their childhood and Ken had turned to music. He could play nearly any instrument, but he preferred the guitar. The feel of it in his hands and against his body was the same he felt when he held his rifle-an extension of himself. It was calming and took him away from the world, just as the rifle did. He couldn't play for her, so he sang softly, filling the room with his rich voice, using his own creations, songs he'd written over the years-songs of loneliness and heartache, of rage and death, and songs about the beauty of the earth and sea. He kept watch while her breathing evened out and she slept lightly. Whenever he stopped, her body jerked and a slight frown crossed her face, urging him on.

He glanced at his watch when Lily entered the room; he was shocked that several hours had passed. Embarrassed to be caught singing, he busied himself smoothing out Mart's hair while Lily checked her pulse and heart rate.

"How's she doing?" he finally asked.

"Much better. You saved her life. Ken. getting her here so fast. Another few minutes and I couldn't have done anything." Lily began removing the IVs from Mart's body. "Zenith is an amazing healer, but like dynamite, it's highly unstable. I've never been able to isolate what causes cell breakdown, and what the exact timing is. It always varies from patient to patient. It would be miracle drug if it stopped after healing the body. Look at her wrist."

Ken remained lying on the bed, holding Mart close to him.

She was awake; he could tell by the racing energy in her mind. She'd awakened the moment Lily entered the room, but she hadn't stirred, keeping her breath slow and even.

Lily carefully cut off the cast and gently prodded the wrist. "She's probably a remarkable healer anyway and the Zenith just pushed her body relentlessly." She placed Mari's arm back on the mattress and covered it with a sheet. "Has she mentioned my father much?"

Ken didn't reply. He wasn't going to lie to her, but Lily was fragile in her pregnant state and it wasn't her fault that her father was a madman.

She sighed. "I have to know about this breeding program he's got going, Ken." She glanced toward the door to where the others were resting, a small frown on her face. "I think he's inserting animal DNA into the soldiers. I think some of you already carry it, especially the men. Has she mentioned aggression? Anything that might indicate a few of the soldiers in his programs are showing signs of instinct rather than intellectual behavior?"

Mari's fingers touched his. He enfolded her hand in his. "I'll ask about it, Lily."

"He needs help desperately, Ken." Lily shook her head. "I should have known. I should have gotten him help. Look at this." She pushed the thin sheet from Mari's leg, running her hand along the skin there, feeling the bone. "She doesn't really even need this splint anymore either. She was shot. Her leg was broken, and yet in a few short hours her body has healed. Peter Whitney did that. He created the drug and engineered the biotic enhancements to accelerate her body's healing capabilities to phenomenal speeds. Just imagine how much the world could have benefited from his discoveries if he hadn't gone crazy."

Ken tightened his fingers around Mari's as Lily removed the splint. "But he did go crazy, Lily. No matter how brilliant he was-or is-he's become a monster. We can't allow him to continue and you know that. He's holding women captive and forcing them to get pregnant. They're prisoners, held in a remote facility somewhere, with no hope of ever getting out. And he plans to experiment on their babies."

Lily let out her breath in a long sound of distress. "I'm doing everything I can to find the women. Ken."

Ask her if what Whitney is doing to the men can be reversed. If he's inserting animal DNA into theirs or raising their testosterone levels, can she undo what he's done?

Ken cleared his throat and tried to look intellectual. "Lily, if Dr. Whitney is using animal DNA. or if he raised the testosterone levels in any of the soldiers, is there a way to reverse it or get rid of it?"

Lily's gaze jumped from his face to Mari's then skidded back as if she'd seen too much. "The testosterone levels might be managed with drugs. Depending on what he did and how much he raised the levels, I might be able to level the men out. But if he really is inserting animal DNA into theirs, which I'm beginning to suspect, there isn't anything I can do. With the extra pair of chromosomes he inserted, he has a lot of genetic code to work with."

She examined Mari's leg a second time, paying close attention to the wound. "She'll need more rest. Ken. Try to get her to sleep as much as possible, and shell need to drink a lot of fluids. Really push the water. The bathroom is over there." she indicated a door to their left. "Walk with her so she can test the leg, but only to the bathroom and back until I take X-rays. It 'looks' good when I feel it. but psychic ability doesn't always catch the little nuances."

"Thanks. Lily. I'll watch over her."

Ken waited until Lily had left him alone again with Mari. "What are you thinking?"

Mari opened her eyes, and his heart reacted with a peculiar leap. She had the darkest brown eyes, large and heavily fringed. He hadn't noticed before because he had been too busy fixating on her mouth, but a man could get seriously lost in her eyes. He was in trouble and getting in deeper by the moment.

"Brett acts more like an animal than a man. He doesn't care at all what I want or don't want. It really doesn't matter to him. other than that I cooperate with him. When I don't, he's furious. He wasn't always like that. Not to say he didn't have brutish behavior. I think he liked being strong and he picked fights, and none of us liked him all that much, but his behavior is even worse now."

Ken took a deep breath and let it out. Jack and he had always had better than average eyesight, but now both of them could see not only at night, but at distances more like those an eagle could see than a man. They had assumed it was due to genetic enhancement of vision and hearing, simply increasing their own capabilities, but they could both see heat sources as well. They could change skin color and hold the outside temperature of their skin at a different temperature than their internal body heat, which negated anyone else's ability to see their heat images. Did that mean Whitney had inserted animal DNA into each of them? Was that part of the reason he had been so adamant that Briony have Jack's baby?

"What is it?" Mari turned her head to look him directly in the eye. Her fingertip traced the frown on his lips.

"Jack and I have always had dominant personalities," Ken said. Whitney couldn't have added animal DNA to our genetic code, could lie, Jack? Is it possible he made us even more aggressive, knowing our history? "We're both aggressive and neither has much backup in him. We had certain traits, both physical and mental, far before we volunteered for Whitney's psychic program."

Ken, there is every possibility. I didn't want to consider it, but our vision is unlike human vision. And we've both become a little too much like shaggy bears growling in the woods. There was a hint of humor in Jack's voice, and the hard knots in Ken's belly relaxed a little. Even if the bastard did insert animal DNA, we've been living with it for a few years now and we haven't eaten anybody.

He would have given us something difficult to control-something that would mix with jealousy and aggression and heighten those traits.

Probably.

Jack sounded complacent. He could be complacent. He had Briony tied to him, and she was pregnant with twins She was totally committed to him. Jack was a handsome man with a physique any woman would be attracted to.

Mari, on the other hand, was sexually attracted because Whitney had paired them. He had the face of a monster, and his body was a patchwork quilt sewn rather haphazardly together. Mari wouldn't want to be seen walking down the street with him. let alone dancing with him. if Whitney hadn't intervened.

Jack had managed to escape the legacy of violence and jealousy and disgusting behavior their father had bequeathed to them, but Ken hadn't. He knew he hadn't, and Mari would sooner or later suffer for his baser traits if they were together.

Self-pity was a miserable and useless pastime. He refused to indulge himself.

Mart's fingertips were feather-light on his face as she traced the pattern of his scars. "You're so silly sometimes, Ken. You don't see yourself as you really are at all."

"How do you see me?" He wanted to sink his teeth into her finger, to draw it into the warmth of his mouth, but he kept himself absolutely still, not daring to really breathe, in case she stopped touching him.

"You're extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary."

His mouth curved into a semblance of a smile, the scar stretching tightly. It amazed him how that shiny skin could be so tight and not feel at all until it stretched, and then it could be painful. There didn't seem to be a middle ground. "You're doped up."

"I know. I'm floating. But that doesn't make it untrue. If you do have animal DNA. you seem to be able to handle it a lot better than any of the others."

"You won't be saying that when you're asleep and I wake you up croaking like a frog and my tongue darts out and finds that perfect little tempting ear of yours."

"Does my ear tempt you?" She tucked strands of hair behind her ear.

"Hell yes. Everything about you tempts me."

Mari felt herself blushing. No man paid attention to her in quite the way he did. He made her feel almost shy, when she wasn't a shy woman. Heat curled through her body, and when he was close to her, she could barely breathe. Her womb clenched, and in between her legs she grew hot and moist and throbbed eagerly, as if her body had a mind of its own. She was in over her head. She knew what to do in a combat situation, and she knew how to fight off a man's unwanted attentions, but she had no clue how to entice Ken Norton into wanting her with the same feverish intensity with which she wanted him.

Swallowing hard, she changed the subject, deciding that safety was preferable when she didn't have her wits about her. "Is Jack really with my sister?"

"Coward." He trapped her hand against his lips and, this time, drew her finger seductively into the velvet heat of his mouth.

Her heart jumped and began to pound fast. He made the smallest of gestures seem so erotic. She'd had sex, hated it, and had made up her mind she would never willingly participate, yet with a simple pull of his mouth, her breasts tingled and her muscles tightened in urgent need. "Yes, I am," she agreed. "I don't have a lot of experience."

"I do."

This time her stomach somersaulted. His voice was low, a whisper of sound that slid over her skin in a devil's temptation. For a moment she couldn't look away from his mouth and the way he tugged at her finger. Her breasts reacted as if they could feel his lips and tongue and teeth sliding over creamy flesh, tugging at her nipples until she ached and ached for him.

She loved to look at his face, the shape of it, the scars only calling attention to the perfection of his bone structure and the way his lips were sensually chiseled. She couldn't help the fact that she was drawn to his wide shoulders and thickly muscled chest. She liked big-muscled arms and narrow hips. The man was built exactly the way she thought a man should be built.

Mari swallowed hard and tried not to feel the dance of his tongue or imagine the stroke of it along her skin. He was the most erotic man she'd ever encountered. Everything about him, including that edge of danger, appealed to her. "Tell me about Briony. I know Jack is being careful in case I'm a threat to her, but I need to hear about her. I've thought about her every day of my life and sort of built up a fantasy life for her. I need to know if she's happy. Does she look like me? What's she like as a person?"

His teeth scraped back and forth over the pad of her finger, his brows coming together as he thought. "Briony is like the sunshine. She's bright and cheerful and lights up a room, and when she laughs, she makes you want to laugh with her. She looks just like you, beautiful dark eyes and the same beautiful hair." He rubbed strands between his fingers. "When the sunlight shines on her, with all that gold and silver and platinum, she looks like a million bucks."

There was genuine affection for her sister in his voice, and Mari hugged that knowledge to herself. She needed to know that with everything she'd lost, her sister had been allowed to live a real life. "What about her family? Were they good to her?"

"She grew up in a circus family with four big brothers. I think performing was difficult on her because none of them were an anchor and she had to learn to cope on her own, even as a child, but she's strong. Mari, and has courage."

"What about her parents? Were they good to her?"

"She loved them very much, and yes, they were good to her. They had always wanted a daughter. One of her brothers served with us for a while. He's a good man."

"Does Jack love her?"

"What do you think?"

"I think he put a gun to my head and would have pulled the trigger if he believed for even one moment that I was a threat to her-or to you."

"She didn't know about you. Whitney erased her memory. Whenever she tried to remember, she'd feel pain. When she finally was able to push past whatever he did to block her memory, she made us promise to find you."

"And you shot me."

A faint grin touched his mouth. "Well. I might not tell her that part."

An answering ghost of a smile curved her lips. "I guess not." She swallowed and looked away from him. "I need to go to the bathroom."

Ken shifted, sliding off the bed to give her room, trying to be casual and not embarrass her. "Let me help you sit up. You're going to be a little shaky for a day or two. That cocktail Lily gave you can make you pretty sick."

Mari frowned at him, looking alarmed. "We can't stay longer than a day or two, especially not with Lily here. They'll keep coming until they find me." And why did that make her so sad? While she'd yearned for freedom, a part of her had been terrified of going out into the world without a clue what she'd face.

Ken wrapped his arm around her back and lifted her into a sitting position, steadying her when she swayed with weakness. "Why haven't you escaped? You can't tell me that you and the other women, all trained soldiers, all psychically and physically enhanced, couldn't get out in all this time."

Mari pressed a hand to her rapidly beating heart. Did one admit cowardice to a man who had been tortured so hideously? She couldn't meet his eyes.

Ken caught her chin and forced her head up. "Mari, stop that. You were raised by a madman in an environment of discipline and duty."

"At first, I didn't mind it at all. I liked the training and the discipline. There was a lot of physical activity, and I excelled at weapons training and hand-to-hand, so it was simply a way of life to me. I didn't know any other way really existed. And there was Briony. I was so afraid for her. He promised she'd have a good life if I cooperated with him. When I read about families, I just pictured Briony in the role and it was all good."

Mari swung her legs over the side of the bed, testing the strength in her injured one. Zenith healed fast, but one still had to work the muscles to get them in shape, and Ken was right-she was trembling with weakness.

"When did you begin to realize all people didn't live the way you did?"

"Whitney gave us an excellent education. He wanted intelligent soldiers capable of making quick decisions when we were cut off from our unit, but in doing that, he encouraged us to think for ourselves. It didn't take long to realize our compound was a prison, not a home."

She stepped onto the floor, acutely aware of Ken's body heat seeping into her pores as his arm circled her waist to steady her. His scent enveloped her, clouding her mind for a moment, until all she could think about was the feel of his skin against hers. She wanted to push his shirt aside so she could examine the scars on his chest and down his belly…

"Stop. I'm not a saint, Mari."

She kept her smile to herself. She liked the rough edge in his voice and the way his eyes, such a startling silver, darkened with such intense hunger whenever she thought about touching his body. "It doesn't take much to get you going, does it?"

Ken swallowed his answer. It hadn't taken much prior to his capture in the Congo, but he'd thought that part of his life was long gone. Mari had changed everything. His body was hard and full and one painful ache with just the slight brush of her soft skin against him. Nothing had gotten him revved up since his return from Africa, nothing and no one until Mari. Could pheromones possibly be that powerful? So powerful that he was not only sexually attracted, but emotionally drawn to her as well?

He walked her across the room without answering her. Just thinking about sex was enough to make him feel wild.

After a few minutes. Mari emerged from the bathroom pale, her body swaying. Ken didn't wait for her to try to walk back to the bed. He swept her up, cradling her against his chest. For a moment she was stiff, holding her body away from his, resistance running through her.

"Don't fight me. You're as weak as a kitten right now. You can do push-ups tomorrow, but for right now, I'm putting you back in bed."

She stared up at him with her big, dark eyes and her sinfully full lips and a look somewhere between an innocent and a temptress, and he knew he was lost. "Damn it all to hell," he muttered, stalking across the room and placing her on the bed. "You can't look at me like that. Mari."

He bent down, framing her face, thumbs sliding over her soft skin once before he took possession of her mouth. He had -thought-hoped-that that first kiss had been a fluke, but the moment he touched her lips, teasing and tugging with his teeth until she opened for him, he was in instant meltdown. He kissed her over and over, stealing her breath, giving her his own, drowning in need.

She was frying his brain. He couldn't even think clearly, his head roaring, thunder in his ears, his heart pounding, and his body so hard and rigid, he rubbed his palm over the thick bulge desperate for relief. She had done that-made him come alive, feel like a man again. She'd given him back his life, and if he took what her dark gaze was offering, he might completely destroy hers.

Ken forced himself away from the edge of madness, jerking his hand away from her and stepping back to shove his fingers through his hair in agitation. His breath came in ragged gasps. He wanted her so much that for one moment he couldn't think coherently, couldn't think about anything but her soft skin and lush body. He took another step back. "This is crazy. Go back to sleep."

"I'm thirsty."

His gaze jumped to her face. "I'm doing my best to look out for you, Mari, and you're not making it easy."

"I'll be good, but I really am thirsty."

She sat up a little tentatively, and he leaned in to arrange her pillows. His arm brushed her breast, and he bit out a curse between clenched teeth. Ken poured water into a glass and shoved it at her, careful not to let their fingers touch.

She brought the glass to her lips, dragging his attention back to her mouth. He nearly groaned watching her throat work as she swallowed the water. He dragged a chair to the side of the bed and straddled it, leaning his arms on the top of the back and resting his chin on his hands. "You never wince or avert your eyes when you look at me."

Mari pressed the glass against her temple. "Do people really do that?"

"Of course they do, look at me."

"I have been looking at you." Her gaze drifted over his face and dipped lower to follow the scars disappearing into his shirt. There was blatant interest in her eyes. "People are idiots."

"God, woman, you're not safe." He took a breath, let it out, and forced his mind away from her sinful mouth, "Tell me about the compound. How could military personal and, I'm guessing, lab techs be there and not realize what was going on?" She was too much of a temptation to him sitting there looking vulnerable and drowsy and eyeing him like he might be candy.

She shrugged, hiding her smile at his reaction to her. "The compound is multilayered and they rotate the soldiers coming in fairly often. From the outside, the place looks fairly innocuous. The ground layer has a few buildings, sheds, the airstrip, helicopter landing, that sort of thing, with high fences and a security system. The regular military guards stay above-ground and are housed in aboveground barracks. Most of the regular lab techs have their barracks aboveground as well."

"You live belowground?"

"We always have. Four floors down. There are two laboratories above us. The first one is for show. That's where he takes men like Senator Freeman, and the techs on that floor sign contracts for six-month rotations. They never go below that level. We train on the fourth level and are airlifted to various outdoor sites, always under the eye of Whitney's guards. The fourth level has all kinds of workout rooms and training modules and simulators."

He listened for what she didn't say, the information between the lines-the stark, cold existence of being raised by a man who thought of using a child only for experimentation. It was no wonder she was so close to the other women. They had only had one another as they grew up.

"And Sean? Where does he fit in?" Because he felt the affection in her mind when she thought of the man, and it made him a little crazy.

"In the last couple of years we trained with several men. Sean is one of them. They're enhanced both psychically and physically. It was the first time Whitney ever allowed us to be around anyone else for prolonged periods of time. He even rotated our instructors so we wouldn't get attached to anyone. At least, at first, that's what I thought."

"But now?"

She slid down beneath the sheet, unable to sit up straight any longer. "I think he was afraid someone would get attached to us and they'd tell us what was going on or try to help us leave. At the time he brought in the men for us to work with, he also brought in his own guards. They're pretty aggressive and revved up all the time." Her fingers plucked at the sheet, the only sign of nervousness she gave.

Ken reached out and covered her hand with his. "And Sean isn't one of his guards?"

She frowned. "He wasn't. He was part of our team. We worked well together and went on several assignments. He and a man named Rob Tate were the nicest, as well as being the best at what they did. Brett worked with us for a while."

The mention of Brett made her wince inwardly. She hid it well, her face never changing expression, but he was touching her and her mind was open to his. She despised Brett.

"He's the man responsible for those marks on your back." Ken kept his face entirely expressionless, his tone neutral, but beneath his calm mask, adrenaline surged and ice-cold rage settled in the pit of his stomach.

"Everything changed when Whitney announced his breeding program. We were pulled from any assignments which took us outside the compound, and put in locked rooms. After that life became unbearable."

Her simple statement hung in the air between them. The walls rippled, and beneath them the floor shifted. Mari gasped and tugged at her hand. Ken glanced down. He was strangling her hand, crushing the fine bones as he made a tight fist. Instantly he loosened his hold and bent to examine the damage.

"I'm sorry, Mari." He brushed little kisses over the back of her hand. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. I usually keep my psychic and physical abilities under wraps."

She rested her hand on her back of his neck, feeling the scars there, the beginnings of ridges that weren't so precise as the smaller cuts crisscrossing his body. He rested his head in her lap, and she stroked soothing caresses along the nape of his neck and up into his jet black hair. "Except for the hand-crushing bit, it's nice to have someone angry on my behalf." She flashed him a small, teasing smile.

No one had ever cared enough to be angry-not even the women until Whitney had started his breeding program. Their lives had been all they knew-some of it good, some of it bad, but they didn't question how they lived or had been brought up. What was the use? She didn't know how it felt to have someone concerned about her, but it gave her a warm glow inside she couldn't describe.

"Ken, what happened to your back?"

There was a small silence. He started to shift out from under her hand, but she exerted pressure, holding him to her.

"Just tell me," she prodded gently.

He didn't want to tell her. The truth of it was, he couldn't think about it, think about the wrenching agony that never seemed to end. He didn't want to feel like those deer, swaying skinned on meat hooks at the senator's hunting cabin. He didn't want to hear the drone of flies, or the steady dripping of blood, or feel the hundreds of bites of insects that should have been nothing more than a nuisance in the middle of such an extreme torture, but at night, when he was alone, he remembered every vivid detail.

Her fingers tunneled in his hair and gripped as if gathering courage. "I don't cooperate with Brett and he hates me for it. Whitney won't let him mark my face, so he beats my back and legs with his belt and sometimes a cane. I still don't cooperate, so he forces me when I'm too weak." There was humiliation in her voice.

She didn't understand why she told him-only that she had to.

Ken stiffened. He could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his chest. There was a roaring of protest in his head. It had cost her pride to tell him. He wanted to smash something and go on a killing spree, taking down Whitney and Brett and anyone else who helped perpetuate such a vile crime.

She held herself very still. She had given him something important of herself, and she was waiting for his reaction. He couldn't tear down the walls and roar like a wounded animal. He had to give something equally important back.

"Ekabela had my skin peeled from my back. I guess they were a little tired of making all those nice clean cuts on my front and wanted to get it over with."

She was silent a moment, her fingers massaging his neck and scalp. He hadn't said a word about the pain or the fact that he couldn't possibly have escaped a major infection being in the jungle. It was a wonder he was alive. And it made her even more curious about how far they'd gone with that knife.

"Come up here with me," she finally said. "Sing to me. That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. I didn't have a single nightmare."

Ken slid onto the bed, curling his body protectively around hers, his arms holding her close. He sang softly while she drifted off to sleep, and then he lay still, tears burning behind his eyes and his heart pounding loud and desperate in his chest.