Master of the Abyss

“Something Goliath might carry,” she said, laughing-she thought she was laughing, but tears blurred her vision. “You asshole, he might have killed you.” She ripped a sleeve from her shirt and pressed the fabric against his neck. But the cut had almost stopped bleeding.

Virgil touched his forehead and winced. “Good thing he didn’t get in a solid hit.” Then he grabbed her shoulder and shook her hard. “I heard you. What the hell were you thinking? He-” He choked and muffled the rest of his increasingly foul curses.

He was definitely alive. Her vision blurred again as she smiled at him. A second later, she felt a soft touch on her head and looked up, but Jake had already moved away. He walked over to where his brother knelt in the grass.

Logan glanced up. “Considering your lack of grace, that was a nice job of getting up close and behind him.”

“He wasn’t paying attention to anything except his sacrifice.” Jake shot Kallie a furious look that made her wince, then bent down. “How is he?”

A whine. Kallie’s heart clenched as Thor struggled to his feet. The yelps she’d heard…

Logan ran his hands over the dog’s body. “Gonna be sore, but doesn’t feel like anything’s busted.” His voice roughened with anger. “Why the hell didn’t you shoot the bastard, Masterson? You drop your weapon or something?”

“Or something. He threw your damned dog at me. That’s a fucking heavy dog, Hunt. He knocked me on my ass.” Virg snorted in disgust. “I should have shot through it. Couldn’t.”

Silence. Logan’s hand paused on the dog’s fur, and then he sighed. “It’s hard to fault you for that. Thanks for not killing him.”

“No problem.” Virg looked over toward Andrew’s body, and his mouth thinned. “Worked out. Good job there, Jake.”

Jake grunted acknowledgement-why do men do that?- and glanced at Kallie. “I had help. Nice throw.”

She stared at him and couldn’t think of a thing to answer, not with the memory of the club swinging for him.

Jake knelt beside the dog. “Stupid beast. Learn to dodge better.” His arms around the whining dog belied the cold words. The wagging tale said Thor knew better than Kallie did how a man expressed his love.

Hell, her eyes had blurred again. Had she gotten struck on the head?

With a few more curses and still holding the ribs on his left side, Virgil struggled to his feet. “It’s going to hurt like hell to laugh for a few days,” he muttered. “You tell any jokes, little bit, and I’m going to thump you.”

Yeah, he was all right. The surge of relief made her dizzy. “So, cuz, what did the prostitute say to the priest?”

He barked a laugh and groaned, then pushed her over with his foot.

Right onto her aching hip. Her yelp of pain sounded like Thor’s.

Not a second later, Jake shoved her cousin to one side. “Bastard, she’s hurt,” he growled and knelt beside her. “Let’s see the damage, sugar.”

With those words, the same words he’d used in the ClaimJumper so long, long ago, her defenses shredded, and a sob ripped out of her.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest, and she knew- no matter how many other civilizations thrived out there among the stars-his embrace was the safest, warmest place in the universe.

Dammit. Jake had tried to stay away and let Virgil care for her. She trusted her cousin. Not Jake. Not anymore. He’d have to regain her trust somehow, but right now she didn’t need any more emotional upsets.

He really had tried to stay away. But now, as she clung to him, he knew he’d break Virgil’s face before he let her go.

“Is she…? Kallie, I didn’t mean…” Virgil bent and touched her shoulder. “Come here, little bit. Let me check you-”

“She’s mine,” Jake snapped, then amended, “I mean, she’ll be all right.”

A corner of Virgil’s mouth turned up. “Got it.” He straightened, hunted and found his pistol in the grass, then walked over to check Secrist’s body.

Jake returned his attention to what was important in his world. “Shhh,” he murmured, her sobs hitting him harder than the cudgel had. He gathered her closer, so tiny and so brave. She’d terrified him, walking out of the forest to plant herself in front of a murderer twice her size. His little Toto, growling and never backing down. How could a man feel so much pride and fear all at once?

“Don’t ever do that again,” he murmured and rested his cheek on top of her head.

She cried a little longer, and then-all too soon, in his opinion-shut down her tears. Macho sprite. But she couldn’t stop the shivers racking her fragile bones.

Virgil had kept an eye on Kallie, and when she sat up and wiped her face, he walked back across the clearing. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her cry before,” he muttered to Jake, his face strained with more than pain.

Jake understood completely. She needed to cry, but each sob had stabbed through him like a knife.

Virgil offered Jake a hand. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll send a team up for the body.”

The narrow trail demanded they walk single file, and silence reigned on the way down the mountain, except for the occasional curse when the bad footing jarred an injury. In an emotionless fog, Kallie marked that Jake swore less than the others, probably because of her presence. Virgil groaned more. Logan was the only uninjured one, she thought, until she realized he limped as badly as Jake.

“Logan, how’d you get hurt?” she asked, her voice startling her.

Logan glanced back at her and huffed a laugh. “In case you haven’t noticed, my brother has the grace of a hippopotamus on drugs. He tripped over a log right in front of me, and I piled into him. Wrenched my knee. Then we had to untangle, find the flashlights, and locate the trail again. It’s why we didn’t all get there together.”

“Well, bro, if you hadn’t been trying to run up my ass, you’d have had time to stop.” As he’d done all the way down, Jake turned to help her over a log, and she took comfort from each time his warm hand closed over her cold one.

A few minutes later, a couple of deputies rushing up the trail barreled into Virgil, and after some discussion, turned around and accompanied the group back down.

By the time they reached the edge of the forest, Kallie felt as if she had five pounds of mud dragging down each boot. Jake put his arm around her, and she gratefully sagged against him.

They stepped out into a world of flashing lights and noise. A short distance away, two officers blocked Wyatt and Morgan from the trail, and her cousins sounded ready to explode.

Thor gave a sharp bark, attracting everyone’s attention, and within a second, far too many people converged on them. To Kallie’s relief, Virgil pulled his brothers and the cops off to one side, leaving her with Jake and Logan.

Logan stopped in the center of the gravel yard, and Thor waited beside him, tail drooping in exhaustion. “You heading back now, Jake?”

Stay here. Please. Kallie took a breath and released it slowly, then tried to move away. He should go. Don’t start this all over again.

Jake tightened his arm around her. “Thanks, but no. I have a few problems to deal with here.”