Matthias

“Wake up.” Rem’s voice came from far away, along with a hard shake that jolted me alert. I opened my eyes and found Rem’s blue eyes piercing through me like the painful light of the flames burning around us. I lifted my hands to my forehead and kneaded my temples. After a moment I sat up with a grunt, fighting to get my bearings. It was dark as hell beyond the fires, but a shy sliver of light at the horizon announced the end of the longest night of my life.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Rem harped, his voice painfully shrill to my ears. “We could’ve killed you, you damn fool. If it hadn’t been because of Mei, Sarah, and Lara, we would’ve leveled this place and you with it!”

So, Rem had received my messages and at the last moment, those efforts had saved my life. His mouth was moving, but I interrupted him.

“Jade?” I croaked. “Where the hell is she? Did you find her?”

Rem shook his head. The lines of his mouth settled into a grim line. “Zeke contacted me. Three girls flagged down his rangers near the reserve’s north boundaries. They’d gotten there fast by catching a ride on a fisherman’s boat. They said they’d fled the poacher’s compound with Jade. They had this as proof.” Rem held a jade elephant earring.

I snatched the earring from him and inspected it closely. “How did you get this?”

“I had it flown out here by helicopter,” Rem said. “Matthias? The girls said Jade was wounded and bleeding a lot.”

My body shrunk around my gut. My knees went liquid. I dropped the jade earring in my front pocket and pushed myself off the ground. Fighting a wave of nausea and dizziness, I groped over my holster, verifying that my gun was still there.

“I’ve got people looking for her,” Rem babbled on. “Zeke and the rangers are on it too, but it’s a lot of terrain to cover…”

I retrieved my M4 from the ground and checked it for damage. The magazine clicked in place. The weapon was solid. Like Jade. She was out there.

I turned to face Rem. “I need a helicopter.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Rem said. “The area is not secured. There’s tangos running every-fucking-where. What you need is to be checked out by a doc, make sure you are all there, before you go half-cocked into a goose chase that’s likely to get you killed.”

“Rem?” I said. “I’m not gonna ask you again. You took Lamba out because of Jade. Get me a goddamn helicopter or I swear, you’re never gonna see me again.”

“Okay, fine.” Rem let out a deep sigh and called one of his birds on the radio for a landing. “But it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack—”

“I’ve got this.” I pulled the tracking device out my pocket and held it up. “So I’m gonna find Jade. And when I do, she’s gonna be alive.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Rem said over the roar of a helicopter, touching down nearby.

“Because she promised me,” I shouted, before I leaped onboard.

* * *

Jade

Matthias’s anguished voice came from some distant place. “Babe, wake up, talk to me.”

I opened my eyes, but the light hurt, like every bone and muscle in my body. The sun was high on the horizon, casing Matthias’s dark outline in a blinding circle of light. He was a terrifying sight, half his head caked with blood, his chin dark with stubble, his clothes filthy, wearing his M4 slung on his back, looming over me like a vengeful angel come to collect my soul. Well, fat chance, guardian angel. I was set on keeping my soul.

I figured it was just another delusion like the ones I’d been having throughout the night. Like the one about me springing the closet door open, and my bio-mother, telling me she was sorry. But then a hand cradled my head, a hard surface pressed against my lips, and water moistened my lips and trickled onto the desert of my mouth and down my parched throat.

“Drink, babe.” More blessedly soothing water. “That’s good. Are you with me, marine?”

“I’m with you,” I mumbled.

“That’s my girl.”

Matthias lifted his weapon over his head and settled it on the ground next to him. With an equal but opposite motion, he unslung a red duffel from his shoulder, unzipped it, and took out a pair of shears from the bag. Working carefully, he cut off the fabric around my wound. He cursed under his breath when he exposed the bloody flesh.

“Don’t look so worried.” I forced a cocky smirk. “It’s just a bullet. I’m going to be fine.”

“You bet your fine ass you’re gonna be fine,” he said, examining the wound. “But Jesus, Jade, why the hell did you have to go get shot?”

Laughter bubbled in my throat. Even if giggling hurt, I couldn’t stop myself.

He gave me a curious look. “What’s so funny?”

“You said the same thing in my hallucinations.” I laughed and flinched at the same time. It was hilarious. Apparently, laughing was how I dealt with shock and blood loss.

“Easy now.” He rummaged through his med kit. “You’re still losing blood. I’m gonna take care of business.”

“Go for it.”

He pulled out a sterile bag from the bag, ripped it open, and pulled out a XSTAT device.

“How did you get here?” I asked. “And where did you get that thing?”

“I hitched a ride on a Black Hawk,” he said, cleaning the wound. “Been flying all goddamn morning, looking for your signal. Damn helo couldn’t land here. Ground’s too soft. So, I jumped out. The med kit I borrowed from the helo. Sorry, babe, but this is gonna hurt like hell.”

“You’re not…fucking…kidding.” I hissed, gritting my teeth and digging my nails into my palms as Matthias pressed the XSTAT to my leg. Crap, crap, crap. I had a hard time holding still. I saw red and added a few colorful cuss words to my repertoire. At last, the pressure eased.

“All right, that should hold us over.” Matthias exhaled with the same relief I felt and met my eyes. “You okay?”

“I’ll live.” But I never, ever wanted to do that again.

Working quickly, Matthias wrapped a bandage around my thigh. He fished out a thermal blanket from the duffel and tucked it around me, before he clicked on his radio. “Rottweiler, this is Hawk, ready for pickup. Over.”

“ETA, five minutes,” Rem’s voice announced over the radio.

“Roger that,” Matthias tucked his radio in his belt. “You’re going to feel better in a sec here.” He grabbed a syringe from the med kit and injected the painkiller in my arm. “It’s just to take off the edge. I need you conscious, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, feeling supremely weak but also elated when Matthias gathered me very gently and propped me against his chest.

“How are we doing, marine?”

“Cold,” I mumbled between chattering teeth. “Really cold.”

“Hang on.” He rubbed my arms. “Next thing you know, we’ll be having pina coladas on the beach.”

“Can’t wait,” I said. “The girls?”

“Made it. The sharp cookies hightailed downriver by boat and rushed to deliver this.” He pulled my elephant earring out of his shirt pocket and kept talking as he hung it back on my lobe and clicked it in place. “They were able to give us a general idea of your location, which allowed us to narrow the search and detect the ring signal about twenty minutes ago.”

I lifted my hand and stared at the jade band. “I’m never taking it off.”

“Jesus, Jade,” He kissed the top of my head. “I was so afraid when Rem told me you were hurt.”

“You told me to hang on,” I said. “You told me not to quit on you.”

“And you didn’t.” His lips brushed against mine, soft, warm, and firm, the most efficient painkiller in the planet. “For that, I’m gonna be eternally thankful.”

I kissed him back, my sweet, sweet man.

“She came, you know,” I mumbled against his lips.

He pulled back and questioned me with a frown. “Who?”

“Bibi,” I said, “and her herd.”

Matthias’s eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?”

“They were here. There was something hunting me. They defended me.”

“There’s a lot of fresh evidence of elephants around,” Matthias admitted, scanning the area. “We even tracked lions from the air, a large pride. But I’ve never heard of elephants guarding humans against predators.”

“Dr. Valdez is going to have a field day with this one.” I smiled and winced at the same time.

“Fuck this.” Matthias got on his radio again. “Rottweiler, this is Hawk, over. My girl’s in pain. Where the hell is that bus?”

Rem’s answer crackled over the radio. I heard something about taking fire and refueling, but movement caught my attention, a rustle among the grassland and a quick, passing shade.

“Matthias?” I murmured between stiff lips.

He hadn’t moved, but his body tensed and his eyes took me in, bright and alert. “I know.”

* * *

Matthias

The back of my neck prickled. My hackles went up. We were being watched. I looked down on Jade. She was pale and weak, hanging on by pure grit, but her eyes sparked with awareness and her senses were as sharp as mine. My gaze shifted to my M4, laying on the ground next to me. There was no way to get Jade out of the line of fire. One careless move on my part and she’d be dead.

She surged up, brushed her lips against my mouth and murmured. “You’ve got a plan?”

“Of course I’ve got a plan.” I hugged her close to me and glided my right hand beneath the thermal blanket, concealing my movements as I slid my Sig Sauer out of my holster and pressed it against her shaking hands. “Do you remember how the pride hunts?”

“I do.” Her fingers closed over my gun, but her eyes were fast on a specific place behind me.

I turned my head as Kumbuyo stepped out of the grasses, lithe and silent like a deadly leopard. He stood before us, skin gleaming with sweat and blood, aiming his AK-47 at us.

“Did you think you’d won, game warden?” He flashed his chilling grin. “Did you think I was going to get routed with the rest so easily?”

“I had my hopes.” I eyed my M4, calculating my snatching speed versus Kumbuyo’s bullet velocity.

“You touch that thing and you’re both dead.” Kumbuyo edged around us and kicked the gun out of my reach, before backtracking and resuming his position some six feet away from us.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

“First I tracked her blood and believe me, there was a lot of it.” Kumbuyo smirked. “Then I tracked the helicopter.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I said casually. “The moment you touched Jade, on that first night? You were dead.”

“Fancy big words.” Kumbuyo laughed, a nauseating, cocky sound. “I’m shaking with fear.” His eyes steeled as he motioned with his weapon. “Step away from the woman. I’ve got plans for her future, and they don’t include you.”

How wrong he was. But I wasn’t gonna tell him that. I was gonna show him instead.

“What do you think, Jade?” I kept my eyes on Kumbuyo. “Should we do what he says?”

“I don’t think we have another choice,” she said. “He’s the one with the gun.”

Slowly, I straightened on my legs and took a step away from Jade, my gaze shifting between her and Kumbuyo. It killed me to move away from her, but I forced myself to take another step back, and then another. She’d been through so much. She was wounded and tired and yet her eyes gleamed with love and trust.

I love you, babe, I said without words, before I raised my hands in the air and turned to confront Kumbuyo. “We’ll do it your way.”

Kumbuyo’s leer widened, as if I were talking about his way.

One moment Jade was sitting on the ground, the next moment the thermal blanket was out of the way and she held my gun, aiming at Kumbuyo. Instinctively, Kumbuyo’s AK-47 swiveled to Jade, my brave, beautiful lioness.

In that instant, I snatched my knife from my boot, shifted my weight from one leg to another, and swung my forearm at the elbow. I followed through with a straight arm and released my perfectly balanced knife. My Ka-Bar flew across the air, hit Kumbuyo, and sank into his chest with a muted thud.

His mouth dropped in surprise. He fired his AK-47 as I leaped across the air and tackled him, weapon and all. If only one of us was gonna live, it was gonna be Jade. And if I had to die today, I was gonna take Kumbuyo to hell with me.

* * *

Jade

Shots rang. Kumbuyo’s bullets plinked everywhere. My hands quaked, my strength was zapped, and I couldn’t shoot, not unless I risked hitting Matthias. And then it was done. Both men lay intertwined on the ground, inert like the dead. Blood pooled around their bodies, a macabre little lake growing on the dirt.

“Matthias?” I whispered hoarsely. “Matthias!”

The gun fell out of my trembling hands. My own breaths came ragged and hard. Whatever little strength I’d been able to gather ebbed, until I could no longer brace myself. My back hit the ground with a defeated thump. I closed my eyes, all too aware of the total silence that surrendered me. I was out of strength and out of courage. If Matthias was dead, so was I.

I clung to my consciousness by sheer willpower, fighting the pain jarring my body for what seemed like an eternity, not just the physical pain but the anguish of knowing that Matthias hadn’t survived. When I forced my eyes to open, I saw only Africa’s blue sky. Tic toc. Each second that passed shoved me closer to agony.

And then Matthias’s face broke into my frame of vision and my heart jerked in my chest, because he was alive and that’s all that mattered.

“Babe?” He knelt next to me. “You okay?”

“I am now.” I reached out for him and clung to his hand. “You?”

“Close call.” He wiped the blood from his arm, where a bullet had grazed his bicep. “But it’s done.”

“Kumbuyo might be done,” I said, filling my lungs with new breath. “But we’re only just beginning.”

“I like the sound of that.” He kissed me ever so softly, and yet the hint of his passion persuaded my body to forget fatigue, exhaustion, and pain in favor of craving much more than his lips.

“I should tell you,” I murmured against his mouth. “I’ve decided that I do want to take a shot at that survival of the species, passing on the genes thing.”

The intensity in his eyes ramped up. “Jade Romo, is this your roundabout way of asking me to marry you?”

My heart fluttered. “I didn’t exactly say those words.”

“Your answer is yes,” he said. “It’s only a matter of when, babe. Your call.”

And then he flashed his sexy smile, the one that warmed me all the way to the heart, my very own forever man, the game warden who’d captured my heart, the guardian who watched over my soul.