Chapter Three

Through the Forest

Ella

“Sir?” Ella heard the panic flying in her tone, but after everything she’d been through with Tucker and so long on her feet, she hardly cared. “How much farther?”

Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, she would have cared. Back then, she’d been a proud woman, wrapped up in designer labels and concerns about which dress to wear to the next party of the season, but colliding with Tucker had changed her.

It had changed everything.

In the last few days, he’d stripped, bound, and ritualistically denigrated her. That was all bad enough. Discovering she actually reveled in his demeaning approach, though, had been something else. Ella was the victim in all of this, but it was increasingly difficult for her to portray herself that way when every time her captor grasped her hand, her heart skipped a beat. Not from fear or trepidation about what he’d do next, but from the touch of his skin. Even though it was insane, she’d started to develop feelings for him.

Stockholm syndrome.

Anxiety furled in her chest at her logical explanation. Could it really be true? Had she fallen for the beast who’d held her as his captive, and if so, how many years of therapy would it take to undo the damage he’d caused?

“Ella.” His tone suppressed what she suspected might be scorn, but at least he was attempting to hide it. “We’ve only been walking for a few hours. Do you need another drink?”

She considered his question, taking his temporary pause as an opportunity to lean against the nearest tree. Running through the terrain when she’d sought freedom had been dreadful enough, but this impromptu trek was worse. He said they’d only been moving for a few hours, but her aching muscles begged to differ. Her weary body was sure it was at least the best part of a day. Wasn’t it time they took a proper break or, even better, found whatever it was Tucker vowed to be looking for?

Christ, could it be possible that she was actually missing Tucker’s crappy cabin? She’d been so desperate to get out of there, yet exhausted in the middle of the wilderness, her prospects didn’t seem much brighter.

“Yes, please, sir.”

She opted for the drink just to lengthen the delay as he scooped the pack from his back and searched inside for the bottle of water. The last thing she wanted was to need another pee out in the open, although she accepted that, at some point, it would be the inevitable outcome of repeated water stops.

“Here.” He thrust the plastic bottle at her, his expression conveying how much effort it was taking for him to keep his cool. Evidently, Tucker didn’t think they needed another pit-stop.

“Thank you.” She reached for the bottle, brushing her fingers against his as she grasped it. “I guess I’m not as fit as I thought I was.” If she ever got back to her gym, she’d be sure to let her personal trainer, Randy, know she wanted a refund. Apparently, all those hours of posturing and flirting hadn’t helped her cardiac health.

“It’s okay.” The eagle-eyed way his gaze searched the trees, though, suggested he didn’t truly believe it. “We just need to keep moving when you can.”

“We will.” She gulped at the water, fighting the urge to follow his line of sight around the tree-littered landscape. Ella had no idea what she was looking for. She’d been lucky to survive her last scrape in the forest. It was probably best that she let Tucker do the navigation. “But can I ask what the plan is, sir?”

She’d probed for the information before, to no avail. Perhaps they were now out in the middle of the woods he’d feel more inclined to share. She deserved that much, didn’t she? Sure, he’d reinforced the fact he was in charge before they’d left the cabin, but he’d been quite the gentleman during the hike, seemingly happy to make small talk and even catching her on the couple of occasions she’d managed to trip on the jutting roots of giant trees. She could almost believe in the imitation of dignity their escape offered her.

“Ella.” His terse tone warned she should drop the point, but how could she?

They were wandering in the middle of nowhere, for God’s sake, with no apparent goal and no guarantee they wouldn’t run into Alexander. Her pulse quickened at the disturbing thought. She didn’t know what the future held, but bumping into Daddy in the woods didn’t sound like her ideal outcome. Tucker gave the impression he knew where they were going, but what if he didn’t? What if he was no wiser than she was? She didn’t see a compass in his hands, and neither of them had access to a smart phone.

“Please.” Her grasp on the bottle tightened. “I’m tired, sir, and scared. Where are we, and how can we expect to get out of here without any means of communication with the outside world?”

“Always so many questions…” His expression softened as he took a step toward her. “You think too much, little girl.”

“Do I?” It wasn’t an accusation she’d heard before. In fact, her mother had spent many of her teenage years persuading her to think a little more.

“Yes.” He took the bottle from her and sipped from the contents, though his focus never left her. “Leave that to me.”

“Do you think I’m not smart enough to cope, sir?” Her brows knitted as she contemplated his thinly veiled insult. “Because I might be smarter than you think.”

Her heart beat faster as she wrestled with her disgruntled feelings. They’d been getting on well since they’d last fucked, but that didn’t mean she’d accept every generalized gender-stereotype he decided to throw her way. Just because she was a blonde woman didn’t mean she couldn’t think. It was just that up until meeting Tucker, she hadn’t really had to…

“That’s not what I mean.” He closed the distance between them, effectively immobilizing her against the tree trunk. “I don’t doubt your intelligence, little girl. I only mean that having you freak out won’t help us. We need to—”

His sentence abruptly ended, his head rising to fix somewhere in the forest behind her.

“Sir?” She trained to turn and follow his stare, but his hips held her in place with frustrating ease. “What is—”

Her question was silenced as one of his hands rose, and a long finger was pressed to her lips.

“Quiet!” he whispered, and even though the deed had riled her, something about the urgency in his tone told her to comply.

Oh God.

She pressed herself into the bark, wishing she could calm her racing heart as Tucker’s glare remained fixed on some distant point between the trees.

“Someone’s out there.” His voice was barely a whisper as he nodded in the direction he meant, and as he withdrew his finger, he allowed her to turn toward it. “Can you hear them?”

Straining her senses, she listened. At first, all she could hear was the thundering of her heart, her irritation, confusion, and compelling attraction to the man clouding her senses, but as she tuned into the noises of the surrounding forest, the telltale sounds of other people out among the trees were suddenly audible.

From somewhere beyond the relative sanctuary of the trunk she was propped up against came the sounds of hard footwear marching against the ground, and as she peered back at Tucker, she was sure she could make out the occasional shout of a male voice.

“Oh, shit!” She mouthed the words. “Alexander?”

“Almost certainly.” The flash of anger in his eyes might have worried her more had she not been so concerned about the impending march of her father and his mercenaries.

In her mind’s eye, she imagined the snarling faces of the men and the types of evil-looking weapons they brandished. By the time she’d turned back to Tucker, her mind was made up. They had to run.

“We have to go!” She slipped past him, scanning the trees as though a signpost indicating which way she should go had suddenly appeared in the forest. Panic exploded, filtering through her senses in waves as she gasped for breath.

“Wait!” he hissed, catching her wrist and forcing the bottle back into her other hand. “We. Stay. Together.”

She nodded at his punctuated tone, her breaths ragged as he lowered to collect the pack and throw it back over his shoulder.

“This way.” He dragged her away from the incoming threat, his long strides meaning she had to jog to keep up with his pace.

“Do you think they heard us, too?” Suddenly, her greatest fear seemed to be being found in the forest by Alexander. He could be odious enough at the best of times, but with a band of men under his control, he’d be a nightmare. She decided then and there that she couldn’t let that happen.

Tucker had been a dick to her at times, but he’d offered her pleasure at others and the strangest sense of solace. Even when he’d been trying to win her over, Alexander hadn’t managed either of those emotions, and after being offered by him to pay for his debt, she couldn’t conceive of any future where he did. As far as Ella was concerned, she’d be happy to never see her father again.

“No,” came his reply, although the anxious glance over his shoulder conveyed a different meaning. “They’re talking among themselves, but we’d still do better to get out of here.”

“How far do we still have to go?” She heaved in air, trying to keep her voice lowered as they darted through the trees.

“Ella.” The hand that had led her by the wrist lowered so their fingers enmeshed. “Keep it down.”

Running for the next enormous tree, Tucker maneuvered her behind the trunk before he peered around to check if the coast was clear.

Long seconds protracted into agonizing minutes where the only noise was the insistent drumming of her apprehensive heart, but she dared not speak or move an inch to see anything for herself.

She wanted to ask if he saw anyone, if they’d sprinted far enough in the right direction to lose the foes, but she refused to cede to the words. Tucker would tell her; she knew that. He might be a lot of things, but he wouldn’t want to see her carted away with Alexander at gunpoint. If anything, his possessive streak implied he’d much rather keep her for himself. He’d said so, hadn’t he?

“Okay.” Relief echoed in his murmur. “I don’t see or hear anyone.”

Thank God.

“We lost them.” She felt better just saying the words aloud.

“For now.” He sighed, gripping her hand tighter. “But we should consider this a warning. Bennett’s guys are in the area. We need to keep pushing on.”

“We don’t know for certain it was Alexander.” She didn’t know why she pressed the point. She was the one who’d leapt to the obvious conclusion, and there had been no evidence to suggest the gang she’d heard were there for a more benign reason.

“It was him.” He glanced back at her. “I know these woods, little girl, and even the most experienced hikers rarely come out here. The idea that a large group would descend at the precise time I’d been threatened with Bennett’s arrival is too ridiculous to be a coincidence.”

“Right.” She couldn’t argue with his rationale. “Thank goodness he called you, sir, or…” Her sentence died as she considered it to its logical conclusion.

“I know.” His jaw tightened. “I can’t say I enjoyed the news, but yeah… it would be a lot worse if the first I knew was when his buddies had come crashing through the window in the middle of the night.”

Her stomach lurched at the alarming thought.

“Let’s keep moving.” His feet started on their previous trajectory again, but she noticed how his pace had slowed. “If we push, maybe we can get there before nightfall.” His gaze rose to the cloudy sky. “We could do without camping out here tonight.”

“Camping?” Fresh fear furled inside of her.

“Hey, Craig!”

Her heart jumped at a cry from behind them, and leaping around, she could just make out the outline of a man between the trees in the far distance.

“I see them!” the unknown male went on. “Two targets. Looks like one male and one female!”

“Get down and keep quiet!” Throwing off the pack, Tucker shoved her toward the nearest large tree and set off in the direction of the threat. She yelped as she hit the ground, looking up just in time to see him reaching for the pocket where he kept his blade.

Ella couldn’t believe how fast he was running, but as the culprit in the distance lifted what looked to be a gun into the air, her blood ran cold.

“Tucker!” she screamed his name as she glanced up from the dirt. “For fuck’s sake. Don’t die!”