Free Marshal of Hel Dorado by Heather Long Page A

should have told us you
weren’t feeling well.”
           “Not safe,” she tried again. She didn’t
want to burn him. She didn’t want to burn anyone.
           But the fire was a living presence inside
of her, coiling like a snake, building up pressure, and rattling a warning that
it could strike at any moment.
           She struggled against the bed, slippery ice
trickling down her sides, soaking the mattress beneath her bare back. Sam’s
hands came to rest on her shoulders, forcing her back. His hands were
deliciously cold on her naked flesh. Scarlett paused, reality dousing her
overheated mind more effectively than the ice melting on her chest.
           She was naked. Her nude body bathed in ice
that was rapidly melting. Her gaze dipped downwards, skating over the flushed
skin and hard peaks of her nipples that strained towards the ceiling. Her hips
were soaked, but damp cloth clung to them. The cotton pantaloons with their
single drawstring were nearly transparent with wetness.
           Her startled gaze skittered back up to meet
Sam’s. His cheeks dimpled with a sheepish smile that had her fighting for
breath all over again.
           “My apologies, Miss Scarlett.” He cleared
his throat, his gaze remaining fixed on her face, even as his hands left her
shoulders. “You were burning up and you couldn’t breathe. By the time I got the
dress open, I could see the fever in your skin.”
           His fingers stroked the damp hair off her
forehead, so utterly gentle in their ministrations and he was bathing her face
again. The almost sweet smile stretching his full lips was a beautiful thing.
           The roiling heat in her belly shifted,
clenching and rippling. She shivered, the icy trickles tingling over her
nipples and she pulled her hands up defensively, covering them. Her gaze
dropped to Sam’s chest.
           His bare chest.
           Her heart squeezed. Her lungs flamed.
           A whole new heat raged along her skin.
           Her brothers were going to kill her.
           Worse.
           Her brothers would kill Sam.

Chapter
Seven
           C ody
lay flat against the rocks, his ears pinned back and a low, rumbling growl
escaping his throat. He’d shifted hours ago, criss-crossing their back trail
and erasing it, but still the posse followed them. It made no damn sense. The
man leading them, however, seemed to have the same grit and determination in
chasing them as Cody did it trying to evade that posse.
           Three days since they’d had to abandon
Scarlett in Dorado. Three days of cutting south and west until they were in the
high desert and its hard, stone escarpments promised them no trail left behind.
Below, horses picketed, the armed men were sitting around a fire, dining on
beef jerky and bad coffee. Their leader, though, he was studying the rocky
outcroppings, watching the landscape and time and again, his head turned to the
overhang Cody hugged.
           His rested his muzzle against his paws, fur
bristling. If he could angle the maneuver, he wanted to get close enough to
their leader to sniff him. It was unnatural how well he stayed on their trail.
Ike could do that, but Ike was gifted. He could track across blank landscape,
following some sense that only he could see.
           But Ike was a part of the Gang of Seven, he
was raised by Quanto and like his brothers, he was marked. But Cody knew they
were not alone in this world, that there were others like them. Others who
would hunt Quanto for what he knew.
           The growl rumbling in his throat threatened
to increase in volume, so he snapped it off, letting his lips curl away from
his teeth instead. If their hunter was indeed one of the others, then Scarlett
was in even more danger, because they would recognize her.
           They would want her.
           Few of the females survived the fever.
Fewer still were as powerful as she was. The thought of Scarlett did