Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers, #4)(16)

Briony sighed. “Save your strength. Just keep walking. I’ll get you to the city, and my brother can figure out a way to get you out of Kinshasa.”

Jack kept putting one foot in front of the other, determined not to pass out. He’d be damned if a female was going to carry his butt, and damned if she wouldn’t do it if he couldn’t walk. There was something about her that just plain got under his skin. He’d long ago chosen his path, and it didn’t include a woman of his own or a family. Briony Jenkins was a woman made to belong to a man—heart and soul. She was the kind of woman that a man married and knew with a certainty she’d stick it out through good or bad, right beside her partner. Worse, she was the kind of woman a man might kill over, and he certainly was more than good at that. It made for a bad combination.

Briony glanced up at the man leaning more and more of his weight on her. He was swearing over and over under his breath. Sheer will kept him on his feet. “Do you need to rest?”

He didn’t answer, but kept walking. They made it back to the stream, and Briony stopped him, sitting him on a fallen tree trunk. It was a measure of how far gone he was that he didn’t protest when she helped him to sit. Her bizarre childhood training was suddenly an asset. Somewhere close by she sensed several men. She waited as long as she could, giving Jack a chance to rest before dragging him up again and setting off toward Kinshasa. She had to skirt around groups of soldiers hunting in the forest. Each time, their scent gave them away before she ever came close to them.

Once inside the city itself, she hoped they looked as if they’d been drinking. It was difficult to hide the sniper rifle and he wouldn’t release it to leave behind, so she kept it locked between them, hoping their bodies hid it from anyone who might spot them. She chose the deserted streets and alleyways as she made her way with him back to her room.

“A few more steps, Jack,” she said encouragingly. The man must have a will of absolute iron to keep going. He never faltered, stoically walking in spite of the raging fever. His body was hot and dry, desperate for something to drink.

She kept to the shadows, skirting around the pockets of people they encountered. She avoided all contact with the soldiers on the corners, careful not to draw their attention. Once they were in the alley beneath the window of her room, she leaned Jack against the wall.

“I’m going up to open the window. Do you think you can make the jump?”

Jack slid down the wall to sit on the ground. He nodded, but didn’t look at her. Briony wasn’t so certain. She crouched and made the leap, catching the windowsill by her fingers. She drew herself up onto the narrow ledge and pushed open the window.

Jack. She was afraid to call out to him, all too aware of the soldiers and the possibility that the rebels had followed them into the city. Can you make it?

He didn’t answer. Briony put one hand on the sill and leapt back down to the ground, landing lightly on her feet beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take the rifle.” She reached for it.

Jack came alive, jerking back, his movement graceful and smooth, practiced, sliding away from her, coming to his feet, the rifle coming up. He shook his head. “Sorry. I’ll keep it. It belongs to my brother.” He sagged back against the wall. “Where the hell are we?”

“My room is right up there, Jack. Can you make the jump? I don’t want to bring you through the hall where someone might see you. This is safer for both of us.” Safer for her brothers as well. She still had lingering fears that Jack might be in Kinshasa for reasons to do with her oldest brother.

Jack wiped sweat from his face. “I think so.” But he didn’t move. He closed his eyes, allowing the rifle to hang by the sling around his neck, his hands dropping to his sides as if his arms were too heavy.

Briony heard a slight noise and turned to see a soldier entering the alleyway. She clenched her teeth. This had to be the night from hell. They were never going to get into the safety of her room at this rate, and how could she possibly keep the soldier from seeing Jack’s tortured body or the gun slung around his neck?

Desperate, Briony shoved Jack against the wall, her arms sliding around his neck. She leaned her body into his and lifted her mouth. The darkness surrounded them, enfolded them, so they became a shadowy silhouette the soldier could barely make out. She heard his footsteps approaching. If he saw the rifle now hidden between them, or saw the condition Jack was in, they were both in terrible trouble.

Jack. She whispered his name intimately, needing to rouse him, to make him more aware of the danger they were in. His name came out soft in her mind. An ache. Her lips feathered over his, tiny kisses along his bottom lip.

Jack’s heart seemed to drop away. He felt her rising fear, but she stuck it out, stood with him, in front of him, protecting him, just as she had in the forest. Somewhere deep inside, that small spark of humanity he had left yawned wider, stretched, and the longing he rarely allowed himself to think about now had a name. Briony.

He breathed her into his mind, inhaled her into his lungs. One arm came up around her, drew her even closer, hand sliding down her spine, although he never opened his eyes. The other hand went between them to the knife at his waist. There was nothing sexual in the way he touched her, he wanted only to comfort her, but somehow the shape and texture of her body still managed to find its way through his fingertips and imprint the memory on his brain.

His hand settled in the wet strands of her hair and he pushed her face against his shoulder, wincing as she came into contact with his wounds. Don’t look. Just stay still. He slowly withdrew the knife from his belt.