She was alive.
Finally he let his brain wrap itself around that fact. The knowledge filled him like Sydney's scent
still clinging to him, overriding the dank must of the sand under him.
He should be relieved. Grateful. But he couldn't feel anything more than the scrape of the desert floor against his skin and the dense haze of something too violent even to call anger.
His hands clawed at the ground, propelling him forward. He'd known the bastards would rape her. Knowing it, and facing the tangible reality were two different beasts.
Blake inched across the last patch of ground. He landed in the hollowed trench still empty of his partner who'd been monitoring guard patterns for him, feeding possible threat info through the small boom mike headset.
He stowed the briefcase-size UWB sensor—ultra wideband motion detector—that could track the movement of people through walls in 3-D. The cutting-edge technology should have kept him from risking going all the way inside to see Sydney.
Except nothing could have kept him away from her.
He forced himself to lie flat, breathe, hold back the urge to slip into the compound again. He could do it, too. Easily. See her one more time before his shift ended when he and Carlos would swap out with another pair before sunrise to snag some sleep.
But he shouldn't risk it. Less than forty-eight more hours. Hang tough.
Some other poor bastard had lost a sister, girlfriend, wife to the stoning today, but not him, and he forced himself to remember to be grateful for that much and not think about those goddamned bastards brutalizing Sydney.
Pricks of light popped from the training field. Shouted orders in Arabic echoed, muted to unintelligible by the wind and distance.
He forced breaths in and out. He would uplink and give his report back to the command post in a minute. First, he needed to let his body switch gears and taper off the adrenaline buzz from stealthing into the compound. A few seconds more and his hands would stop twitching.
And what would he say when the time came? If he told command post about her being pregnant, they would know he'd gone in against orders. Not that he gave a shit about much of anything right now except getting Sydney out of here. But the information had no bearing on the rescue attempt.
She wouldn't want him to tell. He knew that. So he would keep his mouth shut and not broadcast it over the radio waves. He wished he could prepare her sister, but there would be too many listening ears over the frequency.
God, things had been easier when they hadn't known everything about each other. When he and Sydney were still in those early days of discovering...
Sydney snuggled close to him, soft, warm. Her contented sigh purred up her throat and vibrated against his bare chest.
Even hoo-ya or words like "great sex" didn't sum up their first night together. Never before had a morning after felt so... mellow.
He stroked his knuckles along her back and up again. "Tell me about Red Branch, Texas.''
"Not much to tell.'' She tucked her head under his chin, her tousled, toffee-colored hair tickling his nose. "It's just a wonderful sleepy tiny town. Nothing you 'd be interested in.''
"You came from there. I'm interested."
She tipped her face to smile up at him. "You're too sweet.''
"I'm trying, lady, I'm trying."
She stretched to skim a gentle kiss over his mouth before nestling back against his side. "Like I said, sleepy town, small.''
"Family? Parents?"
"Mom and Dad met in the auto parts factory where they both worked. Settled down. Had some kids. Got divorced.''
"That must have been tough.''
"At first maybe, but everything worked out okay. Being in a little town made things easier on my dad, I think, with all the close-knit feel, and my big sister is a whiz at keeping things organized.''
He couldn't miss her positive spin on life, admired that, needed it in a world that was showing him the dark side of humanity far too often lately. "You stayed with your dad?"
"Yeah, my mom moved overseas, so legally she couldn't take us.''