Page 39 of Savage Redemption

A couple of years…?I’m baffled and utterly terrified. I briefly contemplate the chances of grabbing Erin and sprinting to the cliff path. Could I outrun him?

Not a chance. I could scream at the top of my lungs, then, and hope I can be heard from the castle. Equally unlikely. Or I could fight. I don’t much fancy my chances with any of my options, but I settle on screaming.

The first screech has barely left my throat before he darts forward, grabs me, and slams his hand over my mouth.

“Tranquilizarse. No te haré daño.”

His tone is low, and vaguely, achingly familiar. And it occurs to me, belatedly, that he’s speaking to me in Spanish. It’s been nearly two years, but the memories flood back. He’s telling me to calm down, that he won’t hurt me. His assurances don’t work. Sheer terror overwhelms me.

I fight. I fight as though my life depends on it, which it well might. My life and my daughter’s.

He lets out a curse in Spanish when I succeed in biting his hand. It gives me a moment’s respite in which I let out another scream, but it dies as a sort of strangled croak in my throat. I’m kicking, squirming, desperately fighting to be free while Erin watches the unequal struggle from the safety of her pushchair.

The man wrestles me to the ground and pins me there. His face is close, his breath on my cheek. He leans further in to murmur in my ear.

“I mean you no harm, Rosa.” English, now.

Rosa?

I inhale, the scent of him sort of familiar. I force myself to calm, to think clearly.

When I go silent, motionless, he speaks to me again. “Ah, perhaps you remember me now,querida. If you will remain quiet, I’ll move my hand. Do we understand one another?”

I blink, try to gather my wits. I need to protect Erin, at all costs.

“Rosa?”

That name again, that old name I so hated… Still, I nod. I have no other option.

He’s as good as his word. He slackens his grip and shifts his hand from my mouth, but I’m still unable to move.

“Please, don’t hurt my baby…” I manage.

“I have no intention of hurting her, or you. I just want to talk.”

“Talk? I don’t understand. Whoareyou?”

He relaxes his iron grip a little more and props himself up on his elbows. “Look at me,querida. Look at me, properly, and then tell me you don’t know me.”

I turn my head, meet his dark-chocolate eyes. Eyes I gazed into so many times before, at first fearfully, but later… less so. And, at last, the truth hits me. The impossible, unbelievable, inescapable truth.

“Adan,” I whisper. “But, how…?”

His sensual mouth curls in a smile. “It is good to see you, Rosa.”

“I thought you were dead. They… they shot you.”

“Alas, they did. In the leg. It was very painful.”

“But you were a prisoner. I saw them drag you away.” I’m incredulous. Until a year ago, I never doubted that he had died that day, or soon after, at the hands of Kristian Kaminski. Then I learned he was free, somehow, and stalking me and Erin. We’ve been in hiding for months.

“Yes, I was a prisoner, but no longer. As you see.”

“Let me go,” I whimper. “Please.”

He rolls off me and lays beside me, on his back. “I am sorry I scared you.”

“Erin? Is she…?”

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