“Thank God.” Samantha whispered the words, but Thor heard them.
“We found al Harzi hiding in the back. He let all of his men die for him and then hid behind women. We killed him, dragged his body back to our vehicle, stripped him naked, and dumped him in the crater left by that IED. We wanted all of the AQ forces in the area to know who had killed him—and why. Then we drove back to base, parked the vehicle, and snuck back into our beds. I didn’t sleep at all that night.”
“You could have been killed.”
Thor nodded. “In the morning, word got around that US forces had found al Harzi’s body in the exact spot where our men had died. Our commanding officer called us into his office, asked if there was anything we’d like to tell him. We shook our heads. He let us go. And that was the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t the end.” She reached up, touched Thor’s face. “You carry this with you still. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I thought I had let it go while I was in Greenland, but I had a nightmare about it a couple of nights ago. You were there. You watched me kill a man. You looked at me with horror on your face, and you screamed.”
“I’m not screaming, Thor. You haven’t scared me away. I can’t judge you for what you did that night. Besides, you’ve already judged yourself.”
He looked into her eyes, saw only compassion. “I turned into a monster, Samantha. Do you understand? That beast still lives inside me. Tonight, when I thought you were dead, I felt that same rage, that same bloodlust. I wanted to kill Hardin. I wanted to rip him to pieces.”
Samantha sat up, took his hand. “That doesn’t make you a monster, Thor. That makes you human.”
Her gaze shifted to his shoulder, and her eyes went wide. “You’re hurt.”
“Yeah. Hardin shot me with my own damned pistol.”
“Heshotyou?”
Thor realized she had no idea what had happened, so he told her what the bastard had done. How he’d used her to get Thor into his office. How Thor had seen her lying motionless on the ice on Hardin’s webcam and had given Hardin everything he wanted without a fight. How Thor had found her, untied the ropes, and carried her here.
She glanced around their Mylar tent. “Where are we?”
“The café out in Summer Camp. We were both hypothermic and have early frostbite. You were drugged, too, and in a lot worse shape than I was.”
She was staring at him. “You carried me all the way out here with no cold-weather gear and a freaking bullet in your shoulder?”
He slid his fingers into her hair, his fingertips still tingling from frostbite. “I wasn’t going to let you die.”
“Malik said you’re the toughest man he knows.”
“Jones talks too much.” Then Thor kissed her.
* * *
Samantha savored Thor’s kiss,the warm brush of his lips against hers proof that they were both still alive. “I can’t believe I’m not dead. You could have shot him. You could have killed him. But instead, you came for me.”
He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Of course, I did.”
What he’d suffered was written on his body. Lines of pain and exhaustion on his face. Patches of red skin on his cheeks, forehead, nose, chin, and ears from frostbite. The bloody bandage covering the bullet wound in his shoulder.
“And now he’s got the Golden Horde components?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure what he’s planning to do next. He’s stuck here just like everyone else.”
Then it came to her. “Where are the others?”
“Locked in the life pod. Hardin has the station locked down.”
“That bastard!”
“He didn’t take your radio, which is the only reason I’m in touch with them.” Thor reached for the replacement radio he’d given her.
“He took the other one—and my phone. He didn’t know about this one.” She shivered, the horror of what the bastard had done snaking through her. “He was socoldabout it. He lied to me, told me he needed help answering some questions from Patty’s parents. But when I got there, he injected me with that sedative. I tried to fight him, but the drug made it hard to think, hard to stand.”