Dark and Dangerous, page 1
DARK AND DANGEROUS:
CLAN OF THE BEAR
By
Madelaine Montague
( c ) copyright by Madris DePasture writing as Madelaine Montague, September 2021
Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, September 2021
ISBN 978-1-60394-
Smashwords Edition
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
Stealth wasn’t exactly their strong suit. Connor and Korin Artos were big men and under any circumstances that made it difficult to sneak up on an enemy. In the South American jungle—where they were currently working—that difficulty was directly proportional to the thickness of the jungle growth they had to wade through.
For that reason, they tended to stick to jungle paths even when they might have made a more direct connection between point A and point B by making a new path through the undergrowth—because they could manage stealth a hell of a lot better.
And, exposed or not, it actually wasn’t a problem for them.
Their hearing was excellent—due entirely to their heritage.
They had no trouble hearing a human, however good they were at stealth, and smelling them, long before there was a problem, giving them plenty of time to leave the trail and melt into the jungle—either to launch a surprise attack or to preserve their covert approach.
They had another advantage over the predators generally to be found in the jungle.
They had been expertly trained in every form of warfare by the U.S. Government as Army Rangers before they’d struck off on their own as Mercs.
Being Mercs paid better, and they hadn’t been thrilled with the leash the Army kept them on.
They’d had enough of that in the old country before they’d migrated to the U.S.
Not that the government back home exerted any influence upon them at all—it was the fact that the only way they could ‘blend’ in the old country was to wear human skin. There was no freedom to just be themselves. Bears had been wiped out in the old country for over a thousand years and they didn’t dare appear—any member of the clan—in their own skin for fear they’d have the entire country up in arms and trying to track them down.
In all honesty, they—Connor and Korin—didn’t understand why any of the clan stayed—or were drawn back to the homeland wherever they might wander.
Well, there was the little matter of finding a mate, but since neither of them felt any great rush to settle with a single female and make little cubs in their image, they figured a trip home could wait a bit.
Connor, in the lead, glanced up at the sky to gauge the time as they neared a rushing brook—which they could hear just a short distance from the path—and signaled a break to Korin.
They’d been walking for hours and Korin was definitely not against it—regardless of the urgency of their task.
Because the bastard that had hired them had allowed a criminal amount of time to elapse before he’d even called them in.
He figured if they didn’t stop soon, though, the bastards were going to hear them coming from his growling stomach.
When they’d found a spot near the water and settled, Connor dropped his pack, dug out a couple of trail bars and bit the first in half as he dragged his map out of his pocket to study it.
Korin took his canteen and Connor’s and refilled them at the brook and then returned and settled with his own protein bars.
Lifting his head after a moment, Connor sniffed the air and turned his head slowly.
Thinking he must have noticed something Korin echoed his movements and then frowned, wondering if Connor was pulling one on him. He didn’t hear or smell a damned thing.
“We should be catchin’ up with tha bastard any time now,” Connor said quietly when he was sure there was no one close enough to hear his voice.
It was one of the downsides to jungles or forests—whatever they were called. They prevented line of sight, but they magnified sounds.
Korin frowned. “Somethin’ about this doesna feel right ta me.”
“Ye always say tha’,” Connor muttered. “It comes with tha job.”
Korin’s lips tightened. “And I wouldna ken this?” he growled. “I mean tha tale tha man wove fer us.”
Connor nodded. “I dinna like tha smell of him, neither, if ya want tha truth of it. I’m thinkin’ there’s a big lie there somewhere, but …. We’ll get paid. If I have ta choke it out of tha son-of-a-bitch.”
“It ain’t tha money tha’s botherin’ me, Connor.”
Connor shook his head. “He’d have nae reason ta set a trap fer us.”
Korin studied his ‘elder’ brother—who was elder only by virtue of having been born first—with more than a little irritation. He shrugged it off after a few moment’s thought, however, with the reflection that Connor was as aware of the flaws in the tale as he was—and no more certain of what his instincts were warning him of. He was satisfied enough that they were working off the same page.
They made short work of the rations they’d allotted themselves and got up to go, stopping to search the jungle with their senses once more before they returned to the trail they’d been following.
As Connor had predicted, they came upon the encampment before another hour had passed and settled to studying the situation.
It didn’t take them five seconds to realize that absolutely nothing about the ‘picture’ was right.
There were maybe a dozen ‘locals’ camped in the clearing they’d found and all indications were that this group had not been there very long—a matter of days, maybe. They had camped on top of an older, more established camp that the brothers realized fairly quickly was the camp they were supposed to find—or at least had been told they would.
Two had become a dozen and now were down by one if the stinking corpse just off the campsite was anything to go by.
And they thought it was.
And there was a woman—being held captive—in the lean-to that had been hastily erected from local materials.
Connor and Korin exchanged a long look.
The woman damned sure wasn’t the kidnapper.
The man that had hired them had indicated that his partner had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom.
He hadn’t said a damned word about his partner being a female, but the body they’d found was white male. The other ‘rambos’ in the camp were local yokels.
They were damned if they could figure out why he’d lied—by omission at least—about his partner. Shouldn’t he have pointed that out immediately?
And who’d sent the new group?
They weren’t buying that they’d just stumbled upon the kidnapper.
Shaking it after a moment, they retreated a short distance to figure out the best tactic for removing the woman without risking getting her killed in a crossfire.
They had to get her out first, they decided.
Which was going to be difficult to say the least.
Because stealth really wasn’t their strong suit.
* * * *
Dana was exhausted from the terror alone that she’d endured since her capture.
She could barely force food down. She could barely sleep—couldn’t at all until sheer exhaustion dragged her from consciousness. And she was dehydrated from the sweltering heat.
To say nothing of the bug bites.
She hadn’t really been afraid—at first—when Eddy, her ex, had kidnapped her and hauled her off into the jungle. Sure he was a bastard—or he wouldn’t have been her ex—and he was a lot of other bad things—lazy and greedy included. But she hadn’t really believed that he would hurt her.
He was just looking for an easy payday. Easy money.
He was always looking for easy money.
The bastard thought manual labor was a Mexican farm worker.
She’d never figured out what was wrong with him that he seemed to think he shouldn’t work like the rest of the human race, but that was Eddy.
Mostly she was just pissed off at the inconvenience to begin with.
Then she’d discovered that his plot was to force her to sign over her shares in the company where she was COO—second only to the CEO Bart Brandon.
That discovery had sent a cold chill through her since it occurred to her forcefully and very quickly that the only way he could get away with the theft was by her death.
Thankfully, it occurred to her before she’d pointed that out.
Not that she thought he wouldn’t already have figured that out, but she didn’t want him to know that she was expecting it.
She’d bought a little time by refusing to sign them over.
Just enough to get Eddy killed.
Contrary to what she’d hoped, though, the scary group of Hispanic mercenaries didn’t seem to have come to rescue her.
She’d been afraid before they’d killed Eddy.
After she’d witnessed that, she’d been mindless with terror—too frightened to even feel the full brunt of the gang rape that had followed the murder of her ex-husband. She’d been far, far away by then, trying not to think about the anticipation that they were going to murder her when they got done raping her.
She still hadn’t managed to figure out why they hadn’t—yet.
&n
bsp; She couldn’t convince herself that they were enjoying raping her so much that they were keeping her alive just for that.
That was just a ‘side benefit’ to them as far as she could tell.
She was a woman. She was there. They were waiting for something. And while they were waiting and she was handy ….
She’d fought them the first time and they’d nearly beat her to death.
She didn’t try to fight after that.
It would wash off, she told herself.
When … if … she got away from them she was going to soak in bleach until all the nasty was gone.
The swelling, thankfully, had receded from her eyes enough that she could see a little—enough that when she saw the massive man crawl into the hut with her, she realized he was a white man—not one of the horrible men who’d been assaulting her.
And he was wearing a military uniform.
Joy and hope instantly leapt to life inside of her.
When he looked up at her and laid a finger across his lips, she nodded, virtually holding her breath.
Her heart skipped a beat when he pulled a knife out of his boot that was easily as long as her forearm, but the frantic tattoo subsided when he slipped it under the rope that was binding her and sliced it loose.
To her stunned surprise, instead of urging her up and running with her, he gathered her close and moved over her—as if he was shielding her with his body from … something.
“Doan be afraid, lass,” he murmured in a voice so low she almost didn’t notice it even though his lips were directly beside her ear.
The warmth of his breath sent a shiver through her. It made her nipples pucker.
She told herself he wouldn’t notice.
But the warmth between their bodies seemed excessive even with the jungle heat.
Perhaps five seconds passed and then all hell broke loose.
She felt … something smack into the man laying on top of her, felt his body jerk at the impact—like someone slamming a hammer into him.
He uttered a choked breath and gathered her more tightly.
“We need ta move,” Connor said, “before tha others get here.”
Grunting, Korin rolled off of the woman, shoved to his feet and hauled her with him. “Can ye walk, lass?”
She grunted with pain—having been tied up so long she’d lost circulation.
He scooped her up and draped her over his shoulder. “Sorry, lass. We have ta move and I need a free arm ta shoot if it comes ta tha.”
“Were ye hit then?” Connor asked when he saw Korin was limping.
“I took a coupla rounds, but I can manage.”
“Give me tha woman.”
Korin discovered he was reluctant. “I can carry tha lass. It’s like carryin air.”
Connor’s lips tightened, but he dismissed it. He’d discovered there were probably two dozen guerrillas bearing down on the camp just about the time he’d sent Korin in to protect the woman—no doubt in his mind that they were close enough to hear the firefight—and they couldn’t afford to be chased all over hell’s half acre.
Not that they were slow, but they were big men and they were not the swiftest runners. And he had no desire to risk the woman in another fire fight. And the best way to avoid it was to move at their best speed and do what they could to throw the bastards off their back trail.
* * * *
For the first little while, Dana fully expected to feel a bullet tearing through her back where she was draped across the soldier’s shoulder. Eventually, though, she simply let go of her fear by losing consciousness.
She didn’t know if she’d slept only minutes or hours, but when she came to they were still in the jungle.
She placed her hands on the soldier’s back and pushed herself up, leaning close to his ear to speak. “I think I can walk now,” she said in a quiet voice.
She felt the shiver skate through him from the tickle of her breath.
Amusement flickered through her until she felt something beneath her foot swell.
He nudged her foot off of it. “Can ye see then?” he asked, his voice slightly strained.
She looked around and realized she couldn’t see at all well.
Releasing a sigh of resignation, she lay down again.
Her head was pounding anyway.
She thought it might be from hanging over his shoulder, but it could have been a hunger headache. Or just a garden variety headache.
In point of fact, now that she’d had a little time to get past scared to death, she’d begun to feel all sorts of aches and pains.
That was no great surprise.
Eddy hadn’t done more than slap her a few times out of rage because he couldn’t make her sign over her shares—which she would have done to avoid even that much pain because she was allergic to it—except she knew he’d kill her before the ink was dry.
The men who’d killed him hadn’t been constrained by anything, though. They were pure animals.
Worse, actually, because animals didn’t generally prey upon their own kind and they weren’t inclined to just beat the shit out of each other for the hell of it. She couldn’t tell that they’d actually been trying to get information out of her.
They’d tortured Eddy for information, though—also unnecessarily because he’d spilled his guts as far as she could see before they’d even started torturing him.
He’d said something, though, just before they’d blown his brains out.
She couldn’t for the life of her remember what.
The gunshot had blown her mind, too, thrown her into such a profound state of shock that she couldn’t remember anything beyond the brain matter and blood that had spattered her all over.
She couldn’t even remember what the guy who’d done it had looked like when he’d been standing less than three feet from where she was tied up.
She’d screamed hysterically until one of them had hit her so hard it was lights out.
They’d been raping her when she came around.
She’d tried to fight the guy off and he’d punched her hard enough to loosen several teeth. She’d been too stunned by the blow to try to fight him anymore, but she hadn’t learned her lesson until the fourth one.
After that, she hadn’t been able to fight and they hadn’t beat her up.
So, when they started again, she just lay beneath them like a dead thing and closed her eyes and pretended she was invisible.
She didn’t want to think about that, though—any of it. She wanted to forget.
She was glad she had the blank spot in her mind. She just wished more of it was blank.
They stopped after a while and the man carrying her lowered her carefully to the ground and put his finger to his lips again.
She discovered that she could actually make out a few details about his face.
It didn’t actually occur to her to wonder why, though, because he was so amazingly handsome it sent a mind obliterating shockwave through her.
He studied her as thoroughly as she studied him.
But there was no awe or admiration in his expression, she realized after a few moments.
There was rage.
Fear trickled through her. Her mouth went dry.
As if he could sense it he touched her bruised face. “Doan be afraid, lass. I’ll nae hurt ye.”
She swallowed with an effort, feeling some of the fear dissipate.
He took out a canteen and took the lid off of it, handing it to her.
Dana thought she could actually smell the water. She was so thirsty. It took two hands to lift the container to her mouth and she thought she spilled more than she got into her mouth, but it was like pure heaven.
He took it from her before she’d managed to swallow more than a few gulps. “Just a wee bit, lass, or ye’ll make yerself sick.”
She felt her chin wobble with the treat of tears. She couldn’t decide if it was because he’d spoken kindly to her or because he wouldn’t let her have the water.
But he made a sound of impatience. “Whsst, lass. Doan go blubblerin’ on me. Ye’ll give us away.”
That was bracing! Dana sniffed the urge back and glanced around uneasily.
That was when she realized that it must be getting close to dawn.
Or maybe there was light coming from somewhere?
Chapter Two
The other soldier returned just as that occurred to her.
To her surprise, he wasn’t wearing the military fatigues she’d thought he had been before. Either she’d been wrong or he’d changed.
