Chapter 7

Seven

Roc

The silence that settled over me was like a shroud, blocking out all sound but the ringing in my ears. The rumbling of the plane’s engines had stopped. The screaming of the metal hull being dragged across treetops had stopped. The pilot’s bellowed warnings had stopped. The only thing I was sure hadn’t stopped was the trembling of the woman beneath me.

I peeled myself off Harlowe, aware that I’d been practically laying on top of her. “Are you hurt?”

Her hands were interlaced behind her head as she remained curled over her legs, eyelids squeezed so tight they appeared to be glued together. I gave her small frame a quick assessment. No blood. No bruises. No unusually bent limbs.

The grateful gush of breath from my own throat startled me. She hadn’t been hurt in the crash. Scared, definitely, but not hurt or killed.

“Harlowe?” My tone was more insistent now, and I bent over her with a hand on her back.

She jerked up, her eyes wide as her gaze darted around the plane. “We’re alive?”

“Unless we both got a low-rent version of heaven.” Now that I was certain my protectee was safe, I unhooked my seatbelt and scanned the interior. Aside from overhead bins dangling open and a few bags strewn across the floor, the cabin appeared intact. I retrieved my cell phone, frowning at the absence of any reception.

I stood and glanced at the cockpit door. Since the captain had yelled for us to brace, I hadn’t heard his voice again. I made my way toward the faux-wood door, pushing it open and steeling myself for what I might find.

Both the pilot and co-pilot were upright in their seats and in the process of unfastening their restraints and rubbing their necks. I peered beyond them to a field of tall, green stalks that were partially flattened around the nose of the plane.

“You landed us in a corn field?”

The silver-haired pilot glanced at me. “We got lucky.”

“The corn didn’t,” his copilot added, groaning as he removed the belt crossing his shoulders.

“Where are we?” I could assume that we weren’t near LA, but I had no clue where there was farmland like this.

“Our navigation went out before our engines, but we should be in Oregon.”

Oregon? I cut another look at the field. When I thought of Oregon, I imagined coastline and hipsters, not farmland.

“How is the other passenger?” the pilot asked without taking his gaze from the controls.

“Unhurt but shaken.”

He grunted and scraped a hand through his close-cropped hair. “I’ll open the doors. We should disembark until we know the plane isn’t a fire hazard.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that the plane could still be dangerous, but now that I thought about it, the idea of staying in a metal box filled with fuel and malfunctioning equipment did not appeal. I left the cockpit and strode back to the small interior of the plane where Harlow still sat in precisely the same position she’d been in when I’d left.

I crouched in front of her and unhooked her seatbelt. “We need to leave the plane.”

Her dazed expression snapped to me, and her fast breath hitched. “Why?”

I took her hand and pulled her to standing. “It isn’t safe to remain on board.”

She nodded as I scooped her shoulder bag and carry-on from the floor and then grabbed her roller-board suitcase from the overhead bin. The co-pilot had opened the door of the jet and lowered the stairs, nodding to us as I led Harlowe to the exit.

She paused at the top, glanced outside then looked back at me. “It’s a field.”

“Better than a freezing lake,” the co-pilot muttered behind us.

“I’ll go first.” I stepped down the stairs and jumped from the last one to a patch of flattened stalks. I dropped her bags, turned, and extended my arms. “I’ll catch you.”

With a reluctant glance behind her, Harlowe descended the stairs, took a breath and leapt. I caught her by the waist and lowered her to the ground, forcing myself not to dwell on how close her body was to mine as her breasts nearly brushed my nose. I kept my lips pressed together to keep from emitting a growl and set her down gently in front of me.

I pivoted back to the jet, expecting the pilots to join us. The co-pilot followed, jumping down from the stairs and making his way around the bruised hull of the white jet as he shook his head. Once he’d made a complete circle and returned to the stairs, his brow wasn’t as wrinkled.

“No fire. That’s good.”

“So now what?” Harlowe asked. Her rapid breathing and shocked expression had faded, replaced by a look of irritation.

“The captain and I need to arrange a rescue and salvage, but that might take a while.”

Harlowe looked to me. “Should we wait here?”

My gut told me that we should not stay in a crashed plane, especially since it would be nighttime soon. I shook my head. “This is a cultivated field, which means it’s someone’s farm.”

She snapped her fingers. “Which means there has to be a farmer.”

Hopefully, one who wasn’t livid that our plane had scorched a trail through his field.

Harlowe twisted her head from one side to the other before scooping up her bag and carry-on from the ground. “Which way do we walk?”

I eyed the flattened stalks behind us and the dense ones in front of us. “The easy way.”

With a reassurance to the co-pilot that we would send help when we found it, I led the way back through the path of battered crops dragging her small rolling suitcase behind me. Harlowe walked silently by my side, the only sound that of our feet crunching the crushed plants. I usually welcomed quiet, but this silence hung leaden between us, the corridor of remaining stalks buffeting us and keeping everything unsaid from escaping.

“Thank you.” Harlowe’s voice interrupted our rhythmic footfall.

I slid my gaze to her, but she walked with her head facing forward and her chin lifted high. “For…?”

“Saving me. You covered my body with yours. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I did.”

She let loose an impatient moan. “I’ve had bodyguards before, Roc. None of them would take a bullet for me.”

“I am not like them.”

She tipped her head to meet my gaze, studying me for a beat. “No, you aren’t.”

Before I could wonder about the various ways she was comparing me to her human bodyguards—they weren’t green, didn’t have tusks, didn’t have a violent streak—she smiled shyly and looked away. My heart squeezed, blood rushing in my ears just like it had when I’d cocooned my body over hers as the plane had gone down. But this time it wasn’t the potent cocktail of fear and the need to protect that fired my blood.

She’d smiled at me. Not the kind of tight smile I was accustomed to receiving when humans wanted to pretend they were accepting but were fighting back the urge to run or scream. It had been a warm smile that sent heat buzzing across my skin.

Maybe she wasn’t like most humans. She’d told me that it wasn’t me that she’d objected to but the presence of a bodyguard in the first place. I had to accept the possibility that she wasn’t opposed to me because I was an orc. It was hard to let go of the assumption that humans feared me since I’d found it to be true again and again. But Harlowe wasn’t like most humans I’d known, and she was entirely different from the previous famous actors I’d protected.

Of course, she is. She’s Jack’s daughter.

Jack’s daughter. That truth doused my heat like a torrent of freezing water. It didn’t matter if Harlowe wasn’t like other humans or other actors or other women. It didn’t matter if she had no issue with me being an orc or even if she had an orc fetish. She was still my friend’s daughter, and I was her bodyguard.

“Hold it right there, orc.”

I froze, berating myself for losing focus and practically walking into the grizzled man holding a shotgun. I lifted my hands as Harlowe stilled, her own hands going into the air.

“Our plane crashed,” she said before I could explain. “We need help.”

The old man lowered his weapon and eyed her, his gaze shifting to the path behind us. “I can see that you crashed into my field.”

“I’m very sorry.” Harlowe’s voice sounded so sincere and apologetic I no longer wondered why she was finding success as an actress. “Our plane malfunctioned, and we couldn’t make it to an airstrip. We’ll reimburse you for your crop.”

The farmer grunted and dropped his shotgun to his side. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead. You weren’t flying it, were you?”

Harlowe shook her head. “Our pilots stayed with the plane. We came looking for help.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “You look familiar.” Then he grinned. “You’re on that show my wife watches.” Without waiting for her confirmation, he spun on his heel. “You’d better come on in. The missus will have my hide if I leave you standing in the field.”

The old man seemed harmless enough now that he wasn’t leveling a gun at us, but I couldn’t relax. Not yet. Not until I got Harlowe to safety.