The Lawgivers: Gabriel (12 page)

She was just embarrassed enough at the
direction her thoughts had taken and the realization of just how
foolish she’d been to have entertained them at all—about how stupid
she’d looked to the others—that she stubbornly persisted in the
face of a growing certainty that she was more likely to get caught
than to get clean away. As soon as she’d reached a point where she
was fairly sure that no one on the plateau could see her, she
started down the trail.

She didn’t know what Gabriel and his
people had in mind for them, but she wasn’t going to hang around
and find out, she told herself. Her embarrassment had nothing to do
with the decision. It was just plain stupid to let an angel-demon
lead her off with no idea what his people might do to
them.

She almost ran smack into the man
before she realized he was there. She was too busy scanning the sky
worriedly for any sign of Gabriel and mentally reconstructing the
back trail in an attempt to figure out the best way to run to pay
much attention to her immediate surroundings. The movement caught
her eye, however—too late. She had a split second to assimilate
that it was a man and that he was practically on her, enough time
to feel a surge of danger induced adrenaline and to tense for
self-defense and nothing more as he leapt at her.

It might still have been enough if the
man had been alone. She managed to elude his arms as he made a grab
for her and drive her elbow into his belly. He grabbed at her,
tearing her ragged shirt as she bounded away, but she slammed into
a second man as she did.

“Fucking bitch! Somebody shoulda taught
you a lesson a long time ago!”

Chapter Seven

It coalesced in her mind like a
lightning bolt that her attacker was the man Gabriel had humiliated
for attacking her that first day out. This was the retaliation
she’d feared—and then dismissed while she entertained stupid,
fanciful imaginings about Gabriel!

She was about to get the shit kicked
out of her—at the very least!

She fully intended to inflict as much
damage as she could, however!

The fight was woefully short for all
that. She might have managed a better account of herself if she
hadn’t been too crowded to get any force behind her punches and
kicks, but then they were also restricted, at least until they
overbalanced and fell. There was enough slope to the trail where
they struggled that they rolled as they hit the ground. The second
man fell over the two of them as he raced down the hill to help the
first and then rolled away. Briefly, Lexa was free. Before she
could scramble to her feet, however, the man launched himself at
her, managing to pin her hips and legs with the weight of his body.
Lexa tried to heave him off, or wrench her lower body free of him.
When that didn’t work she levered herself up far enough to pound on
his head and shoulders with her fists. She couldn’t find a
vulnerable spot to clobber him, though, beyond his temples and ears
and that didn’t seem to have any effect beyond enraging him
further. Before she could break free, the second man recovered and
caught her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. The first
man pushed himself up far enough to slug her and since her head was
pinned to the other man’s chest and she wasn’t able to move away
even though she saw it coming, she caught the full brunt of the
blow.

The blow was hard enough to stun her.
Her ears rang. Black spots filled her vision in a flood that
quickly turned the whole world dark. Encapsulated within her body
by the blow that dulled all other senses, she lost awareness of
everything but the smothered sounds and the pulling at her clothing
that told her they were tearing them off and what was coming next.
It was enough to prompt her to struggle feebly against her
attackers, to flail her arms with fingers curled into claws to rip
at any flesh she could manage to make contact with as she was
buffeted by the jerking at her clothing, back and forth, up and
down.

The sudden roar of rage that rent the
air sent a stinging torrent of ice through her veins. She was
lifted and then slammed back against the ground. Dirt scoured her
bare flesh. Tiny rocks dug into her and then, abruptly, she was
free of the weight of both men. It took her many moments to realize
that the sound of blows she heard didn’t make impact on her. Her
sluggish brain finally registered the fact that she was no longer
restrained, however. With an effort, she opened her eyelids and
struggled to focus her vision. Darkness still prevailed, but she
finally managed to make out the two forms directly in her line of
sight and to register that it was the first man and
Gabriel.

The man was dangling from the hand
Gabriel had around his throat, his head bobbing with each punch
Gabriel slammed into his face—which looked like mush
already.

Relief didn’t register. Guilty
knowledge did.

And fear.

Gabriel was back and it wouldn’t take
him long to figure out she’d been caught running away.

That thought and the fear that rose up
to choke her from the look of pure rage on his face was enough to
help her summon the strength to roll to her side. Rolling in the
dirt was sufficient to jog her mind into the realization that
they’d torn most of her clothes off and with them her supply
bundle. She couldn’t survive without them.

Despite her desperation to gather her
stuff, it was all she could do to reach for the bits closest to her
and curl her fingers around them to retrieve them. A palsy seized
her. She began to shake so badly her teeth began to clack together
and the shaking made it harder still to try to gather up her
belongings. She was so focused on the necessity of that task that
she didn’t realize the fight was over until Gabriel crouched beside
her.

She squinted at him, trying to bring
his face into focus and judge his temper. He was breathing hard but
she was inclined to think it was from rage rather than exertion
because his expression was stony.

Still furious, she decided, but more in
control than he had been when he’d been making mincemeat out of the
two men he’d left lying on the side of the hill like broken
dolls.

“How badly are you hurt?”

Lexa blinked at the question, partly
because she was surprised he’d asked and partly because she hadn’t
taken the time to do a mental assessment. She thought about it when
he asked, though, trying to sort through the pain and decide if the
men had broken anything. “I don’t think anything’s broken,” she
said finally. “Coupla teeth loose. Lots of bruises.”

“Did they … were you raped?”

She tried to shake her head but the
movement, slight as it was, sent a wave of dizziness through her.
“No,” she responded, closing her eyes and holding her
head.

He was silent for some moments. “I’m
going to lift you and carry you back.”

Lexa struggled to rise, grunting. “I
can walk.”

“Maybe but I’m not going to let you
try,” Gah-re-al responded grimly.

Realizing she really wasn’t up to
arguing, Lexa didn’t try. “I gotta get my stuff. Somebody will get
it.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to
inform Lexa that they’d be damned sorry if they did but the fear in
her voice of losing the little she had made Gah-re-al hold his
tongue. Instead, he looked around, rose, and gathered up what he
saw scattered around her. Bundling it, he handed it to her and then
scooped her off the ground.

Her weight surprised him. She had very
little body fat, far less, he was certain, than was healthy for her
given that she was a female, but apparently what she had in the way
of flesh was muscle. She felt far more substantial than he’d
expected—not heavy by any means, but he’d thought she couldn’t
possibly weigh much of anything.

She was compact, though, and muscular
and that made her feel substantial enough in his arms to make him
very aware of her small body pressed against him as he carried her
back to the encampment. She was shivering. He knew it must be from
shock and he hated to suggest anything that might endanger her
more, but there was so much blood he couldn’t tell whether she had
wounds that needed attention or not. He took her straight to the
pool, therefore, and settled her beside it.

“I need you to bathe off so I can see
if you have any wounds that need stitching,” he said flatly when
he’d settled her beside the pool.

Lexa didn’t grasp the half of what he’d
said—little beyond the suggestion that she bathe off–but she was
eager to oblige, mostly because she was desperate to wash the smell
of the two men off of her skin. Beyond that, she thought the cold
water might help soothe the hot, pounding bruises from their
fists.

Gah-re-al straightened when he’d
released her and lifted his communicator. “Command—this is Lawgiver
Gah-re-al. I have …,” he hesitated for a split second, “a young
female in my charge in need of medical attention.
Advise.”

“A what? One of the
savages?”

Gah-re-al’s lips tightened. As many
times as he’d used the term himself it angered him—not just the
word itself but the connotations, the surprise that he would even
ask about medical attention for one of them. “She’s a member of the
group I was ordered to relocate. She was assaulted by two of the
males.”

The response to that was a prolonged
silence. “Hold while I consult with a superior.”

Gah-re-al had expected as much, but the
response still angered him.

He crouched down again while he waited
for a response. Seeing that she’d bathed her face, he lightly
pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped her
head up so that he could examine her face. It made his gut clench
when she yielded to the unspoken command.

Her face was so swollen and misshapen
he doubted he would’ve known who she was if he hadn’t noticed she
was missing when he returned and gone to look for her—and found
her. He’d recognized her then by the color of her hair added to the
fact that no one else was missing that he could tell.

Not that he’d done a head count. He’d
begun searching for her even before he landed. She’d separated
herself from the rest of the group even before the incident that
had convinced her everyone thought she was his woman. After that,
there’d been an even wider gulf. It should have made her easy to
pick out even if he hadn’t been looking for that unusual hair
color.

His immediate reaction had been a
strange mixture of anger and fear—anger because it immediately
leapt to his mind that she’d taken the opportunity to flee while
his back was turned. The fear twisting at his gut was a little
harder to put his finger on—mostly because he didn’t want to
examine it too closely.

“Lawgiver Gah-re-al.”

Gah-re-al released his grip on Lexa’s
chin when he was hailed. “Lawgiver Gah-re-al here.”

“I’ve been told to advise you that
medical treatment of the primitives is not allowed under
non-interference protocol. If the female is not able to travel,
leave her. You’ll be expected to rendezvous per your original
delivery date.”

There had been a time, not long past,
when Gah-re-al would have thought nothing of such orders, when he
would neither have questioned them nor felt the least bit surprised
or perturbed. The fact that it infuriated him now might have
disturbed him if he’d been in any state to consider why it did. He
wasn’t. He was so furious for several moments he couldn’t think of
anything at all to say. Fortunately, by the time he’d been prompted
to acknowledge the order some modicum of sanity had
returned.

“Lawgiver Gah-re-al, acknowledge
receipt of your orders.”

“Acknowledged,” Gah-re-al ground
out.

For many moments after his communicator
went silent, Gah-re-al stared at nothing at all, struggling with
his rage and the desire to vent it while images flickered through
his mind of Lexa dying a slow death on the rocky ledge, or ending
up as dinner for one of the beasts his people had reintroduced
because she wasn’t able to flee or defend herself. Those images
made him sick to his stomach. It took an effort to banish them, but
as his anger subsided, he became aware that Lexa’s teeth were
chattering. It was the sound that finally penetrated his
preoccupation.

He looked down at her, feeling a wave
of nausea at her battered face. Swallowing a little sickly, he
shrugged out of his duster and carefully draped it across her
shoulders while she was struggling to repair her torn clothing by
tying the pieces together. She glanced up at him quickly, obviously
startled.

Gah-re-al met her gaze for a long
moment. Frowning, he looked away. “I’m no medic,” he said roughly.
“Do you have any broken bones or cuts that need to be
bound?”

“I’m ok,” she said after a few moments,
slowly, as if wondering at his motives for asking. “I can
walk.”

He snorted. He doubted that, but he had
his orders. They had to reach the rendezvous he’d arranged and at
the time he’d designated.

He felt like kicking himself. If he
hadn’t been in such a damned rush to be rid of his charges …. But
that couldn’t be helped now. He’d told him when and where he would
deliver them and they were going to hold him to it. He looked
around speculatively. Without surprise he saw no branches that
could be used to make a litter. “I’ll have to carry
you.”