Hiking his gun up and ready, Drew booted in the door to dark and dust. And a muffled moan. Weapons from his men clicked up and in place.
"Light!" Drew ordered. "I need some light here, damn it."
On command, flashlights arced beams into the room. Streaking across. Landing on a woman clothed in a black dress. She twisted, jerked against the wall without moving forward. Illumination flicked up to...Yasmine's face, a gag in her mouth, her wrists manacled above her head.
Chapter 19
Yasmine's arms burned in the sockets. She resisted the urge the arch closer to Drew. Wonderful, big and right-there-alive Drew with his beautiful blue eyes watching her above a camouflage cloth tied over his mouth and nose. During the thundering explosions she'd prayed he would be all right. Prayed he would come to her.
Prayed his men would not level the building first.
"Shit!" Drew charged across the dank cell, kicked over a chair on his way toward her. He reached up, unlooped her tied hands from the hook over her head.
Her arms fell like lead over his helmeted head to land across his shoulders, her hands still bound.
Forget being strong. She sobbed against his chest, from the fear of the past hours of being ambushed and interrogated, from the burning pain in her numb arms with nerve endings shrieking back to life.
From the excruciating thought that she might never see him again and have the chance to find forgiveness in his eyes. That he might be wounded. She'd heard so many cries of pain intermingled with the gunfire. Did not know who...
Drew's gloriously healthy hands worked behind her head to untie the gag.
She gulped in gasps of clean air filled with the scent of him. Sweaty, musky and yes, yes, yes, alive. "You are really all right, Drew? Nothing happened to you tonight?"
"I'm fine." His gruff answer from beneath his camouflaged face wrap didn't reassure her. "Not a scratch on me, ma'am."
Ma'am? How cruel he could be.
But he was rattled, too. She knew it. Believed it. Embraced it as firmly as she wanted to embrace him.
He ducked from under her arms, careful not to jostle her, then looked back over his shoulder at the soldiers standing wide-eyed. "Check the perimeter around this building, make sure it's secure before sight lines go to shit in the sandstorm. You've probably got about five minutes tops."
Once they cleared the doorway, he tried to untie her wrists. Puffy flesh swelled over hemp. Blood soaked the rope, pulling it tighter.
Drew's curse cut the air a second before he whipped out a knife. Large hands so gentle, he sawed through the binding, massaged feeling back into her fingers while she stared at the top of his helmet as he bent over his task. She bit back an instinctive cry of pain just to keep his hands on her again.
"How is my sister?" she finally dared ask. "How is Sydney?"
"She's fine, secured and under guard. Both of your sisters are safe."
Relief left her dizzy.
"Are you okay? They didn't—" his hands continued the tender touch in spite of his icy tones "—assault you, attack you in any way, lay one goddamned finger on you."
"No. No. They did not assault me."
The big man in front of her swayed. Then his eyes snapped open, snapped with anger, as well. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Tender time over.
"They set a trap for me, lured me out with a concocted story about a pregnant woman in labor. Please, please say the sergeant who accompanied me is all right."
"He's fine. Right across the path with my radio operator."
Drew swiped down his face cloth until it fell like a bandana around his neck. He picked up the radio from the floor. When had he dropped it? Perhaps when he'd reached to free her. Her eyes skittered to the hook. Shuddering, she wrapped her tingling arms around her waist and turned her back on the image.
Striding across the room, Drew barked orders into his radio. He opened the door. A blast of wind yanked it from his grip, slammed it to the wall. Sand exploded inside in sheets. So quickly these storms came, something she knew and even still it took her by surprise.
"Damn it!" Drew grabbed for the door, braced his shoulder on the back and forced it closed again.