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No. That wasn’t true.

She’d felt not just alone but abandoned after her parents died. Living in California under an assumed name, terrified each time someone looked at her a fraction of a second too long…

Then Declan Sanchez had come into her life, and everything changed.

A sob rose in her throat. She choked it back, but not for long. Tears filled her eyes; she turned her head, buried her face against her shoulder and cried for all she had lost. Her parents. Her freedom. And Declan, the man she would never forget, the man she had fallen in love with.

The man who surely despised her.

At last, overcome by exhaustion, Annie fell into a dreamless sleep—and woke to a man’s big hand clamped over her mouth and the face of a monster staring down at her through four huge, bottomless eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

A scream bubbled from her throat, but the monster’s hand forced it back.

If she couldn’t scream, she could still fight. Kick. Flail. Twist.

“Stop!”

Despite everything, she almost laughed. Stop? Stop? One of them was crazy and it wasn’t her.

“Princess. Listen to me.”

Annie grunted, jerked her chin down and sank her teeth into the creature’s hand.

“Fuck,” the thing growled, shoving her flat on her back and straddling her. “Dammit, you want to get both of us killed?”

If that was what it took to get this thing off her, yes. She wasn’t the compliant creature her uncle and Fat Man wanted her to be. Her parents had raised her to be strong and courageous, and if that meant fighting until there was no life left in her…

“Dammit, Annie, it’s me!”

Dec felt her go still. An eternity seemed to pass. Then he felt the whisper of her breath against his palm. She was saying something. He couldn’t really hear it.

Had she spoken his name?

There was only one way to be sure she knew it was him. The darkness. Her captivity. The four-eyed night goggles.

Dec yanked at the straps. The helmet came off and fell to the floor.

“Night goggles,” he whispered. “See? It’s me. Declan.”

The woman he’d known as Annie stared up at him.

Thanks to a sliver of pale moonlight that had worked its way through a crack in the wall, he could see her face. She wasn’t convinced. Well, why would she be? She was handcuffed to a post; she’d endured hours of terror. She’d been dragged before the pig who led this bunch of outlaws and humiliated. Slapped in the face…

Dec felt a muscle knot in his jaw. He and the rest of his unit had seen it all from their observation point in the hills above the camp.

He’d almost gone crazy over that slap.

Chay had grabbed his shoulder.

“You’ll get her killed,” he’d said, and after a long minute Dec had nodded, let out his breath and settled back to wait.

There was a plan to get her out. All he had to do was follow it. They’d get the ambassador and his wife, but liberating Annie was the primary mission.

Correction. Liberating Princess Anoushka.

Right now, she was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before.