Page 15 of Traitorous Lies (Prey Security: Charlie Team #6)

Chapter

Eight

The temperature had dropped dramatically.

Worryingly.

Jax knew they were both getting weaker. While they’d been able to replenish their water bottles every time they found a river so they weren't dehydrated, and Monique had continued to find them sources of food so they weren't starving, neither, was her little fox friend, but they weren't replenishing their bodies’ supplies quickly enough.

Add in the fact they’d both been injured before they even started walking, and they’d just wrapped up day four of hiking through the French forest, and he wasn't sure how much longer they’d be able to keep going.

Of course, Monique never complained, but she needed more regular breaks and he could tell she found it harder and harder to get back up on her feet. Feet that were a mess, covered in blisters, some of which he was becoming worried about .

If an infection set in and they couldn’t find their way out of the forest in time …

The last thing he wanted was to sit by helplessly and watch Monique wither away and die while he could do nothing about it.

“Sorry, this is going to be cold,” he told her as he held the water bottle above her feet.

“It’s okay, I know we need to wash them so they don’t get infected,” Monique assured him. There were dark circles under her eyes, and he was sure she was getting paler as the days went by. Leaning back against the tree trunk, she looked utterly wiped out. But she was hanging in there.

In her lap, she clutched her little fox, bundled in the sweater from the dead guard.

With the temperature dropping the way it was, they would have to have a conversation about that.

She needed the added warmth more than the fox did.

It was made to live out there, and its fur would keep it warm enough. Monique didn't have the same ability.

Pouring a little of the cold water on her feet, he felt Monique tense even as she didn't make a sound. Taking the handkerchief he’d happened to have with him in his back pocket when he went to the ball, he wiped her feet down, removing all the bits of dirt and stick that had managed to get inside the shoes as she walked.

The handkerchief was still stained with some of their blood from that first day when he’d cleaned them both down after they’d fled the scene of their would-be murders, and now more blood stains were being added to it.

The more he dabbed and cleaned, the tenser Monique became until she finally winced and hissed as he touched a particularly big blister.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“Why are you sorry, princess?” She had to know he didn't expect her to be anything other than human. She was holding it together, doing everything he asked of her, doing her part in keeping them going, but she was allowed to hurt, to be in pain, to need a moment to fall apart.

“Don’t want to complain.”

“Hardly complaining to be in pain,” he reminded her, sure there was an underlying reason for her hesitation to show even the slightest bit of discomfort. Hell, he’d complained more than she had over the last four days, and he had training and experience in being in situations like this .

Her gaze skittered away until it was fixated on something over his shoulder. “Don’t want to make you mad,” she whispered.

“Why the hell would I be mad at you for being in pain when your feet look like this?” Jax lifted the foot balanced on his knee that he’d been cleaning to remind her that she wasn't whining about nothing.

Her feet were beat up and had to be extremely painful just resting there let alone walking on them.

Monique shrugged and didn't answer, but he wasn't letting that slide.

So far, he’d been working hard not to push her, fighting against his instincts to find out all her demons so he could slay them one by one. But not any longer. She’d opened the door by apologizing for something she hadn't done wrong, and he was going to walk through it.

Barge through it if necessary.

“Tell me,” he said, firmly but gently.

Ever so slowly, her gaze crept back to his, tears shimmering in her gray eyes. He could feel her resistance, but he also sensed a desire to share her pain, allowing someone else to shoulder it with her.

“I'm here for you, princess. This is a safe place. No judgement.” From what little she’d said, he could put the pieces together and come up with a vague idea of what she’d been through, but he wanted—needed—to hear it from her. Even if listening to the words cut him up inside.

“When I was fourteen, I was abducted from my school,” she began, her voice taking on that faraway tone that told him she was reliving this while speaking the words.

“It was a kidnapping for ransom. One of the teachers had a gambling problem, was in deep with several loan sharks, and thought I’d be an easy target since I was introverted and didn't have a lot of friends. He kept me for three days before my dad paid the ransom, and he let me go. Since I knew who had taken me, I told the cops, and he was arrested. I don’t know why he didn't do a better job of hiding his identity. He got sloppy, and it led to his downfall.”

The story all sounded so neat and tidy, but her words from earlier, telling him she’d sold her body, told him that a lot more had happened in those three days than she was letting on.

Reaching out, Jax scooped up the sleeping fox and set it in Monique’s lap. The little creature stirred but quickly settled, and he gathered them both and put them on his lap, circling his arms around Monique, trying to create a bubble of safety for her.

Giving her time to get herself together, he didn't push, just smoothed his palm the length of her spine, offering her comfort and he hoped strength. Not because Monique didn't have strength in spades, but because every now and then, everybody needed a little boost.

“There was another girl. He didn't mean to take her. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Saw him shoving me in the back of his car. He didn't have a choice. Had to take her or she’d tell. She was younger than me by a couple of years and so scared. He said she was expendable, not worth anything because she was a scholarship student and didn't come from a family with money, but she was a human being, that made her worth something. It’s not money that gives us worth. When he got the money, he was going to kill her and let me go, but I begged and pleaded, and in the end, he asked what I was willing to pay to secure her life.”

Monique didn't have to say what she’d paid for the other girl’s life with.

Her own body.

Raped when she was only fourteen.

“When I got home, my dad and grandparents wanted me to act like it never even happened. They said I was alive, and dwelling on what I’d gone through wouldn't be productive. Any time I cried or had a panic attack, they acted like I was being unreasonable. So over time, I learned to bury my feelings, let them out only when I was in private.”

Trauma on top of trauma.

By not letting her deal with her ordeal and getting her help, they’d only compounded things. Things like that never just went away, and you didn't just get over them, especially when you were only fourteen years old.

“That night, when we were run off the road, I thought it was because of me. That they were taking me for ransom, and you were going to be collateral damage.” Tilting her head up she met his gaze squarely.

It was still swimming with tears but so far she’d held them in.

“I don’t think this was a ransom abduction. ”

The urge to tell her everything was on the tip of his tongue, but instead, Jax just shook his head. “I don’t believe it was.”

“And I don’t think it was because of me, was it? These were your enemies. You said sorry to me in the car after the crash. Everything is blurry, but I remember that.”

“My enemies,” he agreed, offering her what truths he could without piling on more pain when she was already so emotionally vulnerable.

“The weather is getting colder. Soon it’s going to be too cold for us to survive even with the fire, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And we’re still lost.”

“Still lost.”

Shifting the sleeping fox back to the ground, Monique shifted until she was facing him, her hands framing his face. “I don’t think we’re going to survive.”

“I’m going to do everything?—”

She cut off his words by crushing her mouth to his. “I know you’ll do your best, and I don’t blame you,” she whispered against his lips. “But if we’re going to die out here, I don’t want it to be without having made love to you. Please don’t say no this time.”

November 4 th

6:40 P.M.

If Jax said no this time, Monique wasn't sure what she was going to do.

Despite the freezing air around them, inside she was burning with fiery desire and only Jax could quell that dizzying need.

“Please only say no if you don’t want me,” she murmured. “I don’t care about any other reason, I just want you. Need you. So unless you don’t want me then please say yes. Please give me what I need.”

Monique couldn’t explain it, she just knew she needed him.

Rejection—again—would shatter the thread of trust that had been there immediately upon meeting him and only grown in the last several days. That thread was already almost unbreakable, and she wanted to feel it solidify, the connection between them acknowledged and acted upon.

Especially if they were going to die out there.

While it was way too soon to say that she was in love with this man, what she felt for Jax was unlike anything she’d ever felt for another man. It was the beginning of what could one day turn into love if it was nurtured and cared for.

Something she might never get a chance to do.

Dying was a real possibility, more real with each passing hour, so if she didn't have the time to fall in love with him, then she at least wanted to feel him inside her.

Those dark eyes of his studied her carefully, searching for the truth, to see if this was what she truly wanted.