Free Hard Core (Onyx Group) by Jennifer Lowery

against her bonds. Once again
they held tight.
    Alana glared at the empty bed and stiffened when she heard
someone at the door. Not quite daylight, so it couldn’t be Leya. Her father,
come to check on her? She couldn’t let him see her like this.
    Her heart pounded as she struggled to free herself. The door
opened behind her. Dammit, she would castrate Cristian when she got her hands
on him.
    The door closed and she cursed under her breath.
    Time to pay the piper for her misplaced trust.
    A hand landed on her shoulder.
    “ Senorita , I’m sorry to wake you, but you must come.
Your father needs you--oh, what has happened to you?” Leya gasped. “Where is
your patient?”
    Alana scowled. Yeah, that’s what she’d like to know. “Get my
knife, Leya. Cut me loose.”
    Wide eyed, Leya hurried over to where she kept her knife
hidden and looked back at Alana with frightened eyes. “It’s gone.”
    Fire burned through Alana’s gut. Not only had he tied her
up, he’d stolen her knife. That knife had special meaning to her. It had been
handcrafted by a tribesman after Alana had set his son’s leg after a bad fall.
They’d thought he would to lose it, but she managed to save the limb.
    She hoped Cristian died a slow, miserable death out there in
the jungle.
    “Run to the church and grab a scalpel.” She barely kept a
lid on her temper.
    Leya nodded and ran out the door. She returned a couple
minutes later and knelt behind the chair to cut the laces at Alana’s feet. “He
did this to you? The elders will be very angry for this disrespect.”
    She’d saved Cristian’s life and this is how he repaid her?
It didn’t bode well for him. At this point it didn’t matter if he was one of
Ross’s men or not, he would be hunted and killed for what he’d done.
    Alana shuddered. The tribe would have their honor in her
name.
    Oh, God. What had she done?
    “Leya.” Alana rose from her chair and rubbed her shoulders.
“No one can know about this. Promise me you won’t tell anyone what he did.” She
grabbed Leya’s slim shoulders and gave her a stern look. “Promise me.”
    “But…”
    Alana shook her head. “No. I’m fine. The elders can’t know
he tied me up and stole my knife. It will bring war with Senor Ross and
we can’t have that.”
    “But he is one of Senor Ross’s soldiers.”
    “We don’t know that, Leya. We don’t have the facts. For now
we have to--” A knock on the door stopped her mid-sentence.
    “Alana? Open up. We seem to have found something you lost.”
Her father’s voice drifted through the door.
    “Not a word,” Alana warned Leya and went to open the door.
    Three tribesmen carried her unconscious patient inside. His
deathly pale face bobbed against his bare chest. They deposited him in her bed
with more care than the last time.
    Her father came in behind them, his gaze on her. “You should
have asked for relief,” he chided. “He must have slipped out in the night while
you slept.”
    “Yes, he must have.” She glared at her patient, who now
slept comfortably in her bed. “Where did you find him?”
    “Near the edge of the camp. He passed out.”
    “He’s nowhere near healed. I’m surprised he made it that
far.”
    Her father studied her closely. “Are you sure you’re all
right?”
    Alana nodded and squeezed his arm. “I’m fine. I’ll keep a
better watch over my patient from here on out.”
    Her father shook his head. “No. We’ll work in shifts now. It
isn’t safe for you to be alone with him. I don’t trust him.”
    She rubbed her forehead. Cristian had already managed to get
the drop on her. And for his sake, he better hope the tribesmen let her be the
one to remove his pants, because her knife could be nowhere else. How he’d
gotten into his pants in the first place she didn’t know. Then again, Cristian
was anything but typical.
    Exactly the reason she wouldn’t leave her father alone with
him. What if he did to him what he’d done to her? Her father