Free Guarding the Princess by Loreth Anne White

appearing behind Jacob’s shoulder.
    “Yes, boss.” He moved faster after Jock, who was heading out onto the lawn. But as the dog entered more dense vegetation, he lost the track, began scouting for it again. He got it, and tail wagging like a metronome he snuffled forward.
    “Good boy,” Jacob whispered, running after the dog again. But out near the high riverbank where there were no trees and rain fell heavily, pooling on sand and running in little rivers, Jock lost the scent again.
    “Too much running water in the grass over here, boss,” Jacob said as he crouched, motioning for a handheld spotlight to be brought closer. A man handed him a spot, and Jacob put his cheek almost to the ground, shining the light at an angle. He saw faint depressions under the water—the man’s tracks. By the depth and spacing between his prints, the man who made these was big—over six feet. Strong. Moving fast. There were no woman’s tracks nearby. He was still carrying the woman at this point.
    Jacob doused the spotlight and peered silently into the raining darkness.
    “What is it?” Amal snapped impatiently.
    “They went that way,” Jacob said quietly. “Toward the Tsholo.”
    “The border!” Amal said to Mbogo. “They’re heading for Botswana!” He turned abruptly and barked at his men. “Saddle up the horses! Get the jeeps fueled! Take whatever supplies we need from the lodge. We start moving within the hour!”
    * * *
    The air was growing thick with smoke. Brandt wiped rain from his eyes and quickly positioned the jack under the front bumper of the jeep where he’d dug out sand. Dalilah stood at his shoulder, rifle in her good hand as she nervously watched the advancing fire. He began jacking fast. Rain hammered down relentlessly, pocking the sand. Across the riverbed on the Botswana side, brown water was beginning to flow faster and deeper.
    “Get some of that driftwood,” he barked at Dalilah, jerking his chin to a pile of bone-white branches in the center of the river. Brandt hated asking her. She had to be in serious pain, but she was right about one thing—they’d get out of here faster if they worked as a team. And she’d shocked him with her ability, her resilience. Instead of being the whining, pampered hindrance he’d expected, Princess was a trouper, and he could use her.
    The flip side was that if the Tsholo did come down in a flash flood, as he’d seen happen before at the beginning of the wet season, they’d both be swept to their deaths.
    I’d rather face a flash flood than be raped by Amal’s men and have my head cut off...
    She was right about that. It would be better for her to die with him than be left alone at the mercy of Amal and his men. Determination fired into Brandt at the thought of what that jackal and his band of rabid dogs might do to Dalilah, and he held on to that, pumping the jack fiercely, shirt plastered to his back. He’d tear those bastards apart limb from limb before he allowed them to lay one hand on her.
    The image of another woman slammed suddenly into his mind—her throat slit. Her body brutalized. And for a nanosecond Brandt was blinded. He froze, hearing Carla’s screams in the wind.
    No. Not now. That was the past. History did not have to repeat itself. And it wouldn’t—not if he stayed focused, if he refused to allow himself to get too emotionally vested, or distracted.
    He bit deeper into his determination as he continued to work. Thunder boomed above, the sound rolling into the kloofs and hills. He could hear the crackling of fire in branches now. Smoke burned the back of his throat and his eyes watered.
    Finally the jeep chassis began to lift from the sand.
    Dalilah returned with a bundle of dry wood under her right arm. She dropped the driftwood to the sand at his feet, exhausted, hair sticking to her cheeks as she bent over to cough and catch her breath. Compassion speared through Brandt. He quickly started packing the wood under the front wheel then