Darkest Before Dawn

With tenderness he didn’t think he possessed, he pushed away the tendrils of hair obscuring her face and smoothed away the lines marring her face from the dream she was having. Fear radiated from her in tangible waves, and something deep inside him twisted and turned uncomfortably as he took in the fact that her entire body shook with those silent sobs.

In a whisper, so his men couldn’t hear, he brushed his lips over the shell of her ear.

“You’re safe, Honor. I’ve got you. Nothing will hurt you tonight.”

Tonight was all he could give her. He had no idea what tomorrow would bring, though if he was successful in his mission, he knew what the immediate future would bring. He closed his eyes to ward off the images of Honor hurting. Damaged.

Dead.

It was doubtful that she would escape Maksimov unscathed, but even if that unlikely event occurred, she would then be turned over to the very group Hancock was fighting so hard to protect her from now. The irony burned. And she’d certainly not be escaping them unscathed—or at all. Whatever Maksimov dished out to her, it would be a mere fraction of what A New Era would give her.

He risked his life, the lives of his men. All to wrest Honor from the grasp of A New Era simply so Maksimov could use her as a bargaining tool. And hand her over to . . . A New Era.

Her fate was inevitable. Because the right thing to do was to turn her over to Maksimov, giving Hancock unfettered access to the man he’d made his sole mission to take down. But doing the right thing didn’t always feel right.

Sometimes, doing the right thing was ten different kinds of fucked up.

CHAPTER 10

HONOR woke and stretched, her body immediately protesting her forcing her muscles into action. She blinked, bringing her surroundings into focus, and then glanced over the room to see some of Hancock’s men still sleeping. There were four present, minus Hancock and one other, but she imagined they’d taken turns on watch through the night.

For that matter, she had no idea where they were or where they’d sought refuge. It felt like a cave. Stifling and claustrophobic. No windows or light, the air stale without the renewal of a breeze.

She took the few stolen moments of quiet and solitude to ascertain her condition without Hancock’s close scrutiny through eyes that saw too much. She flexed her knee, relieved to find that it wasn’t as stiff or swollen, though it was still painful and resistant to movement. Her head didn’t ache as vilely as it had the day before, but that could be due to the remnants of the pain medication that had made her oblivious to all else.

She took several long seconds to do a self-evaluation, time she hadn’t had the luxury of before in her desperate need to keep moving. There was no doubt she was bruised and had suffered cuts and lacerations in dozens of places on her ravaged body, but the only two injuries that stood to hinder them in any way were her head injury and the injury to her knee. Everything else was manageable, and for that matter, she wasn’t about to allow herself to be an obstacle to the thing she wanted most.

Her ultimate escape. Freedom.

For that she could endure anything. She had endured everything over the last several days, pushing her body beyond its limits in her desperate effort to survive.

But now she had help and despite Hancock’s taunt about looking a gift horse in the mouth, she wasn’t about to make things harder by not cooperating fully. She might not like the man, and he might make her teeth grind in irritation, but if he got her out of this mess she’d bite her tongue and not do anything to make him regret rescuing her. Liking him was purely optional, though if he did manage to get her out in one piece, it made her nothing more than a petty, sulky child for holding a grudge over his less-than-congenial personality.

She decided then to stop acting like a petulant twit and keep her mouth shut from here on out. He wouldn’t hear a single argument or complaint from her if it killed her.

She started when she heard a noise and glanced rapidly in the direction of the sound to see Hancock and one of the other men descend the steps into the tiny room that housed the rest of the sleeping men.

For a moment their gazes locked and even in the dim lighting, there was something . . . She shook her head as a fleeting memory chased through her mind, continuing before she could grab on. She frowned because there was something she was missing. Something nagging at her.

“Time to move out.”

He didn’t speak loudly, but then he didn’t have to. Evidently his men were trained to wake on command and be alert and ready to roll out. The room became a flurry of activity. She pushed herself upright on the cot, recoiling at the nausea that formed in the pit of her belly. She recovered quickly—or so she thought—not wanting to give them pause for concern. Over her dead body would she delay them when she wanted to get the hell out of here worse than they did.

Hancock, damn him for never missing a single detail, immediately crossed the room and hunkered down next to her cot.

“Are you ill?” he asked in a low enough voice that it didn’t carry to his men.

She was absurdly grateful that he hadn’t embarrassed her or made her appear weak in front of the others. Her pride was important to her. It was all she had left. That and hope. Those two things would be all that saw her through the coming days.

“No. I just moved too quickly. I’m all right. Really.”

“When was the last time you ate anything?” he asked, that piercing gaze raking over her bones as if he could see all things.

“Day before yesterday,” she said with a grimace, remembering the tasteless, bland MRE she’d eaten on autopilot, chasing it with the last of her water reserves.