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“Don’t break your ankle,” he told her.
He said the sweetest things.
He dropped her.
She tried to land on her feet, but her legs were jelly. They melted right out from under her, and she dropped straight to her butt, then her back on the floor. She hit two chucks of stone—a small one bumping hard enough to make bruises of its own in the small of her back and another whacking her shoulder. That would probably bruise, too, but for now, she barely felt it. She stared up, watching as Christian quickly lowered himself to dangle by both hands, judging the distance he had to drop before taking the risk.
Of course, he landed on his feet. He was so much stronger than she was. One day... one day she wanted to be like that, but right now, she couldn’t even get up off her back. She had no strength, not even to lift her hand when he reached for her.
He grabbed her, quickly unfastening his belt from around her wrist just as the scrambling of hurried footsteps and calling voices began to echo through the foyer from somewhere overhead. Picking her up, he covered her mouth and carried her deeper into the shadows under the staircase, hugging as close to the wall as he could get.
Not that she was about to say anything. Disoriented as she was, it barely registered that she was shaking, shivering uncontrollably, though it wasn’t the cold she felt. Not with the heat of her back growing, spreading its insidious warmththrough her until now, she wasn’t just shivering, she was sweating.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, his narrowed eyes following the echo of their searching pursuers footsteps up through the two balconies that hid them from sight. “I’ve got you, baby. Just be as quiet as you can, all right?”
She nodded, locking her jaw in an effort to keep her teeth from chattering, then from crying out when he hooked her arm over his shoulders again and half-carried, half-dragged her through the destroyed foyer, ducking into shadows and behind pillars to avoid being seen by the three men stalking the length of the hallway above, searching the rooms, searching the rubble in the foyer around them.
“There’s no sign of them. They had to have gone out the window.”
“Find them,” Fariq’s cold voice filtered down from above. “Aliya is not to be harmed. No one hurts her but me. Go.”
She shook, but not because of his words or even because she feared they might actually be caught. Tucked up against Christian’s side, all she felt was safe.
And hot. Her body was pulsing, the heat drowning out the pain. She still felt it, but it felt distant, inconsequential.
Something was wrong with her.
“I don’t feel good,” she mumbled, her head drooping so heavy and low, try though she might, she couldn’t summon the strength to raise it.
“Stay with me, Princess,” he soothed, soft as a whisper, his focus still fixed on where Fariq was coming down the stairs as far as the hole. Aliya could hear the slow, familiar tromp of his movements. She wanted to look up, but her head was spinning. She was so hot, so tired.
“I know you’re here,” Fariq called down. “I know you can hear me. You can probably even see me, tucked up like a ratwherever you’re hiding. I just want you to know, you can leave. Just go, I won’t hurt you. Given a few months to get over the pure, unadulterated piss-off of your betrayal, I doubt I’ll even think of you again… so long as you leave her here. She is not for you, and you know it. She is mine. She has always,alwaysbeen mine to do with as I wish. If you take her with you, I will hunt you both and won’t stop until I’ve killed you.”
A small rock came tumbling down through the broken gap in the staircase.
“You know me,” Fariq said, the soft, gravelly grind of pebbles under his shoe suggesting his shift in position as he lowered himself to squat at the edge, no doubt craning to see far enough under the ledge in the direction he thought they were hiding. “You know I’m as good as my word.”
The world suddenly spun, and the next thing Aliya knew, Christian had her tossed over his right shoulder. He kept hold of her wrist, pinning her limp arm over his left shoulder to prevent her from falling off. His other arm clamped across the back of her legs.
How very Neanderthal of him, dominant, and oh, so sexy. This wasn’t something that happened in the real world, but one of those things fantasy alpha men did when their women weren’t cooperating, and they were all done putting up with it. Instead of possessive, it felt protective, and despite the dig of his shoulder into her midriff, she liked it. If she weren’t so cold and tired, trying with all her might not to throw up, she’d have told him so.
Slowly letting go of her wrist, Christian drew one of his guns. On silent feet, he circled in the shadows, abandoning one pillar to duck behind another with a far better view of Fariq squatting on the stair. He wasn’t alone. At the very top of the stairs, two of her brother’s men were scouring the upper hall and what part of the open foyer they could see from way up there.
Christian had the advantage. Sick as she felt, even Aliya could recognize they had a better view of them and in particular, of her brother.
“I won’t let you keep her,” her brother announced.
“Funny,” Christian coldly replied. “I was just about to say the same to you.”
He shot just as Fariq stood, the bullet missing where his head had been to ricochet harmlessly off the marble steps behind him.
Fariq ducked behind the stone rail for cover, but the men behind him were already charging down to protect him.
Firing repeatedly, Christian hit one of them before ducking down the hall to the main doors. There were men all over the perimeter wall. Holding onto Christian’s belt with her free hand to keep from bouncing against his back, she saw them. She knew they’d been seen, but Christian’s betrayal of her brother must not yet be common knowledge. The men looked right at them, then away again, more preoccupied with the helicopter now winding up its attack.
“I will never stop hunting you!” Fariq’s furious shout echoed from the fortress behind them.
Christian didn’t stop running or even look back as he carried her across the courtyard into the garage.
