Page 26 of Protective Assignment (Warrior Peak Sanctuary #1)

She stumbled behind Ryker, doing whatever she could to stay upright as he dragged her through the freezing woods.

She heard a commotion through the trees, but she wasn’t sure what was going on.

The whole forest seemed to be alive with people rushing around, calling to each other, but she couldn’t figure out why.

Had someone found them? She could only hope they had.

“Hurry up, bitch!” Ryker spat at her, and she did her best to match his pace, but her body was aching from the cold and the bindings. She couldn’t keep up.

“Slow down,” she protested.

He spun around and lashed out so fast she had no time to react. She started falling back and he reached out and yanked her to his chest, his eyes flashing with anger. “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” he snapped. “Not after all the crap you’ve put me through.”

River wanted to protest, but she was sure there was no point.

He was in a rage and there would be no reasoning with him.

He’d already decided it was all her fault, when he was the one responsible for this nightmare.

If Ryker had just let her go and not followed her, none of this would be happening.

But no, he had decided that he was owed something from her, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got it.

He wasn’t going to stop until she was tied to him for life.

“I didn’t want any of this, Ryker!” she protested, hoping she could get through to him somehow.

He reached out again, grabbing her arm, pulling her forward.

She mustered up all the strength and confidence she could as she tracked in his footsteps.

If she got lost in this forest she likely wouldn’t survive.

“You made your vows to the Shepards like everyone else,” he reminded her.

“You think I wanted to make those vows?” she demanded. “I was a child. I was forced to! You would have hurt my family. And it didn’t protect my father, did it? He’s dead!”

“He’s dead because he tried to walk away from everything my father gave to him,” he snarled back at her, his voice dripping with venom. “He owed us. If he hadn’t been a coward—”

“Don’t you call him that,” she snapped, her voice colder than she had ever heard it.

Her ability to speak to him like that surprised her, but she had put up with enough.

Her father was a strong man, stronger than so many of the people who had been nothing but cowards.

People who were willing to go along with what the Shepards demanded from them.

They could see the evil that was being done, the harm they were causing, but they allowed themselves and their families to remain a part of it because they were terrified of the retribution.

Well, not her father. He had tried to get them out. And, in the case of Haven and her mother, he had succeeded.

River just needed to find a way to leave this all behind, and she would have fulfilled his last wish.

He spun around to face her and drew his hand back, landing a sharp slap on her face. She gasped at the pain, her head reeling.

“I’ll call him whatever I want,” he sneered at her. “Come on. We’ve got to get to the meeting point. Then we can get out of here.”

Get out of here? River slowed, trying to pull him back, but he grabbed the ties still binding her hands and yanked her forward.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of it that easy. I’ll get what I’m owed yet,” he told her, and dragged her onward.

“How did you find me?” she suddenly asked, tripping over her own feet trying to keep up with him. Maybe if she could slow Ryker down some, she could try to make an escape.

He stopped suddenly and River almost ran into his back. He turned with a scowl on his face and she was almost sorry she’d asked the question, but she really wanted to know.

“I’ve been looking for you since you pulled your stunt and took off.

I’ve had the guys branching out in all directions since we left home searching in every hidey-hole along the way.

Just so happened a couple of the guys decided to stop by that lodge where you’ve been staying and thought they recognized you.

Since we hit a warehouse not too far from here, I decided to stop in for a look.

We’ve been keeping an eye on you since, looking for an opportunity to get you back without one of those men around you. ”

River’s eyes widened at his reply. They’d been watching her, so she’d never been safe like she’d thought.

She couldn’t stop the horrible what ifs running through her mind.

Thank goodness they’d just waited to take her away from the lodge instead of doing something more violent.

If they’d attacked the others to get to her, she would have never forgiven herself.

He quickly turned and jerked her forward again. She did her best to follow him, but she was so cold, the freezing air clinging to her skin and making her shiver hard. Ryker looked at her, shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“You’re getting soft, River,” he scoffed. “But don’t worry, we’ll get you hardened back up once we get back to base. I can’t have a weakling as my wife. How will you raise our children if you can’t even stand a little cold?”

River’s teeth chattered too hard to reply, but her mind registered the horror of what he’d just said. Their children? She couldn’t imagine having kids with this monster. She couldn’t even imagine him touching her without feeling ill.

He continued to pull her along behind him and she felt like a yo-yo.

She was beyond frozen and her body was becoming so stiff she didn’t know how much longer she could go on.

Not that Ryker cared about her well-being.

He just kept yanking her behind him until all at once, her foot caught on a rock.

Unable to brace herself, she toppled forward and crashed down on the ground, bringing him with her.

“Damn it!” he exclaimed. For a split second, he let go of her. River’s mind raced—she had to take this chance. She might not get one again. If he got her to the meeting spot and managed to haul her out of here, she would never see anyone from the lodge again.

She forced herself up as quickly as she could manage and willed her body to move, darting off into the woods, her breath tearing from her lungs in huge gasps.

She heard Ryker screaming after her, but she didn’t dare turn around to see where he was.

She had to put as much distance between herself and that man as she—

Suddenly, the earth dropped away in front of her, and she came to a sharp halt.

She was next to a drop-off that led down a steep slope to the frozen river below.

She was trapped! She had nowhere to go. She could hear Ryker slashing through the trees, his heavy footsteps getting closer.

She looked around frantically and spotted a large, jagged rock sticking out from the snow.

With her frozen fingers, she tugged it out of its spot, clutching it in her closed hands.

It was the closest thing she had to a weapon right now.

“There you are.”

Her heart stopped when she heard Ryker’s taunting voice. Spinning around, she found him standing a few feet away from her, with a maniacal grin on his face.

“I’ll jump!” she threatened him.

He shook his head. “I don’t think you have the nerve,” he replied calmly, and he reached under his shirt and pulled out a gun. River stared at the black barrel aimed at her and wondered if this was similar to the last moments of her father’s life before he was murdered.

“Go on, then, jump,” he told her, motioning to the cliff’s edge with the gun. Her foot skidded back slightly, and she looked down toward the water. It was frozen solid. The drop alone would break her legs, or worse.

“That’s what I thought,” he remarked, taking another step toward her, his feet crunching on the snow as he drew closer to her…

and closer still. Her heart sank and she realized this was it.

She couldn’t escape, there was nowhere to run.

The only way she could survive was to willingly go with him.

But if she did that, she feared she would never see the lodge—or her friends—ever again. And Cade…

She gripped the rock tighter, wondering if she had it in her to fight him off.

He was almost on top of her now, and she stepped back on instinct, her heel skidding over the sharp drop to the openness below.

She felt the world shrinking around her as Ryker took the final steps to stop in front of her, and she knew this was it.

No more running, no more trying to escape.

This next moment would determine if she’d live or die.

Would Ryker grab her and force her to their next destination or would he finally decide she’s been enough trouble and kill her where she stood?

Either way, it was over.

Then she saw it. A slight movement in the woods behind him. Her lips parted, her eyes widened, and her heart leaped when she realized who it was.

“Cade,” she breathed.

“What?” Ryker demanded, and he spun around to see where she was looking.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion for a moment while she debated what to do. The rock was still in her hand, and she was close enough now to take a swing. If she was going to do this, she had to do it now.

She lifted the rock above her head with both tied hands, and used the momentum to bring it down with a sickening crack into the side of Ryker’s head.

He fell like a stone to the ground, not even making a sound as he dropped. River’s eyes widened and she gasped. The rock slipped out of her fingers. Had she killed him? His eyes were blank and vacant, the same way her father’s had been when she had seen him laid out on the ground of their driveway.

Cade rushed toward her and pulled her into his arms.

“Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” he murmured, and quickly removed the bindings from her wrists before he gently took her face into his hands.

River knew she should say something, acknowledge Cade in some way.

But she couldn’t take her eyes off Ryker’s body on the ground, unmoving.

Dead . Before she could stop herself, she let out a wail of shock, the sound bouncing off the trees as she tried to wrap her head around what she had just done.

“Are you okay?” Concern laced his words as he waited for her to answer. She still couldn’t look away from the body. Cade leaned forward and kissed her forehead before wrapping her in his jacket and trying to move her away from the scene.

She felt like she was floating outside her body and had to force her feet to move. She was shaking so hard from the cold, she thought she’d crumble into pieces.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he told her, and leaned down to check on Ryker’s body before he led her away from the clearing. She was crying, her body wracked by enormous sobs that she couldn’t control. Cade pulled her closer to his side and continued walking them away.

Once he had gotten her out of the clearing, he paused to let her catch her breath.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, looking her over.

She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even breathe right now. Had she killed him? She’d killed him, right? She saw him lying on the ground, empty eyes looking up. He was dead. He had to be. Was it…over?

Cade checked her for injuries, and she let him.

She couldn’t react to anything he was saying.

Her body was in lockdown, both shock from the cold and the adrenaline leaving her system.

His hands were strong and sure as they moved over her, and she wondered how she could have done that.

Had she had that in her all along? Was she really capable of it?

Killing someone? Why hadn’t she done it before?

He really was gone, right? Dead. So many thoughts.

Too many questions. It was suddenly too loud in her mind, but silence surrounded them.

Finally, she was able to speak again.

“Is he dead?” she croaked, her voice sounding broken. It had started to snow even harder, the cold closing in around them. She knew they couldn’t stay out here much longer, but she needed to know for sure.

Cade nodded. “He is, River. He is,” he assured her. “There was no pulse. You killed him, River. It’s over. It’s really over.”

She felt her legs turn to mush and heard Cade’s startled “umph” as she collapsed into him. How long had she been waiting to hear those words? She couldn’t believe it. Ryker was dead, just like his father. There was nobody to lead the Shepards anymore.

She couldn’t believe it was really true. Ryker was gone. His followers had no leader. He was lying dead in the woods while they were all trying to run away. No one knew. She wanted to laugh out loud, or scream, or…something. Her emotions were scattered all over the place.

She kept replaying the moment where she swung the rock at his head, the feel of it thud against his skull, even the sickening cracking sound. Seeing him fall lifeless to the ground. His dead eyes. She’d done that.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Cade told her. “You need to get warm and we need to get you checked out for real.”

She shook her head and her eyes suddenly felt heavy. She felt like she was wading through mud. It must be the adrenaline crash. Cade seemed to realize this and stopped to pick her up.

“No, I need to walk on my own. I can do it,” she said more confidently than she felt at the moment.

Cade nodded and wrapped his arm around her again to steady her.

He seemed to know where he was going, so she allowed him to guide her through the trees.

It was a relief to rely on him because all of these trees looked the same to her.

She’d get turned around in a heartbeat, especially in the state she was in now. She trusted him to get her to safety.

She might have been dragged into this forest as a victim, as just another one of the dozens of people the Shepards had hurt over the years, but she wasn’t walking out of it as one. She had finally done it. She’d stood up to Ryker and finally ended his reign of terror. She was free.

The elated feeling was almost more than she could take, and she nearly felt drunk on it, knowing she had freed herself and her mother and her sister and many others from the clutches of a man as evil as Ryker. But she also felt guilty, knowing she had taken a life, even if he had been a monster.

She clung on to Cade for dear life, and kept her eyes fixed ahead of her. She didn’t know what she was going to do now that she didn’t have to run anymore. One thing she was sure of, though—whatever came next, she could handle it.