Page 80 of Vicious Betrayal

"I'm sorry," I sob out. "I'm sorry, Cormac, I have to pull."

I brace my boots against the dashboard and haul him toward the center of the cab with all the strength in my body. The torn leather screeches as it tears free from the metal. Cormac shudders violently before going limp again.

I kick my passenger door open with both feet. The door shrieks against bent hinges, swinging wide into the howling wind. The rain douses me instantly, freezing and plastering my hair to my face. I grab Cormac under his uninjured arm, hooking my hands beneath his armpit, and haul his dead weight across the console. He's solid muscle, and every inch I drag him feels like pulling an anchor out of deep mud.

My boots slip, and I stumble backward out of the door, tumbling into the mud and pulling him down with me. We crash into the drenched grass at the base of the embankment. Cormac's head lolls back, rain washing the blood from his forehead into his dark hair. I scramble to my feet, wiping water from my eyes, and look frantically through the thrashing trees.

Fifty yards up a slight rise, shielded by a dense thicket, sits the dark silhouette of a single-story house. No lights in the windows or tire tracks in the grass. An old wrap-around porch with peeling paint sags in front of it. I think it's abandoned.

"Come on," I whisper, my teeth chattering violently as I haul his right arm over my shoulders. "Come on, Cormac, you have to help me. Please."

I dig my boots into the slick mud, bending at the waist, and lift with everything I have. His heavy frame sags against my back, his breath hot and ragged against my neck. Step by agonizing step, slipping in the mud, crying from the sheer physical strain, I drag him up the hill toward the porch. My thighs burn. My lungs scream for air. Every few feet, my knees buckle, but I force myself upright, terrified that if I let him fall, I won't be able to lift him again.

We reach the wooden steps of the porch. I drag him up onto the weathered boards, out of the downpour, and let him slide down against the siding beside the front door. I hammer on the wood with both fists. "Hello! Is anyone here? Please, I need help!"

Only the howling wind and the drumming rain answer. I grab the brass knob and twist. Locked.

I don't hesitate. I pull the gun from my pocket, wrap my sleeve around the grip, and smash the butt of the gun through the small decorative windowpane beside the lock. Glass shatters onto the hardwood inside. I reach through the opening, unlock the deadbolt, and push the heavy wooden door open.

The air inside is dry and smells like old wood and dust, but not anything too bad. It looks like a seasonal hunting cabin, with furniture covered in faded sheets, a cast-iron stove in the corner, a braided rug over wide pine floorboards, in decent shape but with no one here.

I grab Cormac under the arms again and drag him through the entryway, leaving a smear of rainwater and dark blood across the threshold, before lowering him onto the thick rug in front of the empty hearth. He's deathly pale, his lips tinged with faint blue from the cold and his pulse fluttering weak and fast beneath the rough stubble of his jaw.

"Hold on," I whisper, my voice cracking as I brush wet strands of hair from his forehead. "Just hold on, Cormac. I've got you."

I sprint down the short hallway into the small bathroom. I tear open the drawers until my hands hit an emergency first-aid kit. I grab it, along with every clean towel from the linen closet, and run back to the living room.

I drop to my knees beside him on the rug. With trembling hands, I pull off his jacket and his shirt, leaving him bare-chested on the floor, the wound exposed. The laceration is deep and jagged, tearing three inches across the thick muscle of his shoulder, blood pumping steadily from it. My stomach heaves, but I force the nausea down. I pour antiseptic wash directly over the raw meat of the wound. Cormac's body violently arches off the floor, a choked, agonized groan tearing from his throat, his eyelids fluttering before he slips back under.

"I know, I know, baby, I'm sorry," I sob, pressing a thick stack of sterile gauze hard against the bleeding flesh. I lean all my weight onto my hands, watching his chest rise and fall beneath my palms. Lightning flashes through the bare front windows, illuminating his sharp, handsome features, followed by a crack of thunder that rattles the cabin walls.

I look down at the man who called me his enemy only hours ago, whose child I carry and whose ring I wish I still wore. The man I wish still loved me.

"You're not dying here," I whisper fiercely against the roar of the storm, tears dripping off my chin onto his bloodstained chest. "You're not leaving me alone."

23

CORMAC

Pain drags me up from the dark like a fishhook buried in my shoulder, tearing through muscle with every shallow breath I manage to pull into my lungs.

I try to move and immediately regret it. White-hot agony explodes across my left side, radiating down my arm and up into my neck. A rough, involuntary sound rips out of my throat, and my eyes snap open.

The first thing I see is Oksana.

She's sitting astride my hips, her blonde hair falling forward in damp, tangled waves around her pale face. Her hands are steady despite the tears streaking her cheeks, and she's holding a curved suturing needle, the tip poised above the ragged gash in my shoulder.

"Don't move," she says quickly, her voice hoarse and shaking. "I'm almost done. Just... don't move, Cormac."

I blink, trying to force my brain to catch up through the haze of pain and confusion. The ceiling above her is rough-hewn wood. The air smells like dust and the medicinal bite of antiseptic. Rain hammers against the roof, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rolls.

"What..." My voice comes out as a rasp, my throat dry as sandpaper. "What happened?"

"You crashed the car," she says, not looking up from the needle as she carefully pushes it through the edge of my torn skin. I grit my teeth against the fresh flare of pain, my right hand instinctively curling into a fist against the rug beneath me. "A deer ran into the road during the storm. You swerved to avoid it and hit a tree. The door frame tore into your shoulder. You were bleeding everywhere, and you were unconscious, and I—" Her voice cracks, and she pauses, blinking hard against fresh tears. "I got you out and dragged you here. This house was the only shelter I could find."

I stare up at her, my mind slowly piecing together fragments of memory. The storm. The logging road. The flash of white in the headlights. The sickening crunch of metal and the explosion of the airbag against my chest.

And then nothing. "How long was I out?" I manage.