Read Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) for Free Online Page B

still alive.
    It was against Order protocol to leave a situation unmanaged like they were doing right now. They needed to break down those attackers, find out who they were, and why they were after Lily. Proper strategy would entail taking another five minutes to secure the situation before going after Lily. They were not following protocol, and they both knew it.
    But Lily was too important. They needed her too badly to let her go.
    They needed her for the mission, yeah.
    But as dark tension fueled Gideon’s pursuit, he knew it was more.
    Much, much, more.
    He just fucking needed her.
    * * *
     
    Lily tensed as the Hummer skidded around a corner and the rear slid out, sending the front end straight toward the ditch.
    She hauled the steering wheel to the left as her right tires careened down the incline. The truck bounced back up on the road and shot across the lanes from her overcorrection. She jerked the wheel back to the right, slamming on the brakes as the truck swerved back across the road and skidded toward the embankment. She clenched the steering wheel desperately as the truck slid down the ditch. “Come on!” she shouted. “Stop!”
    The truck skidded to a stop, partway into the gully.
    For a moment, she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, terrified the earth would give out and the truck would fall the rest of the way into the ditch. The only sounds in the truck were her panicked breathing and the thundering of her heart.
    It took a full minute before she finally realized the Hummer had stopped. It was over. She hadn’t crashed. “Oh, God.” She shoved the gearshift into park, her body shaking so badly she could barely make the lever move. “It’s okay, Lily. You’re okay.”
    She draped her arms over the steering wheel and dropped her forehead to the cool leather, trying to catch her breath. But it was too much.
    The two years of despair and hopelessness that she’d kept locked up for so long broke free. The fear, the terror, the loneliness, she couldn’t hold it off anymore. It welled up and burst out, like a dark night of doom and loss crushing down on her. Gone was her strength, her courage, her rigid control.
    Emotions consumed her, stripping away her defenses, piercing her with an intensity she didn’t have the resources to fight off anymore. Lily moaned and pressed her palms to her eyes, rocking back and forth as the sobs shattered her defenses. For two years, she’d never cried, and now that it was over, she couldn’t stop. She cried for all that she’d lost, for all that she’d suffered, but most of all, she cried for how scared she’d been for so long. The relief was overwhelming. After holding on so tight, she didn’t have to do it anymore.
    It was over.
    But even as those words she’d been dreaming of for so long filled her mind, denial flooded her with cold warning.
    It wasn’t over. She wasn’t safe yet. She had to pull herself together again. No sobbing. No crying. The time for that would be later.
    Lily scrunched her eyes shut and took a shuddering breath, willing the loneliness, the fear and the uncertainty back into the box she’d kept it in for the last two years. “Only a little longer,” she whispered. “Just keep it together a little longer.” She fought to find that strong woman she’d been, but it was so hard to go back there.
    She didn’t want to be strong. She didn’t want to be brave. She just wanted to cry.
    Lily lifted her head and took another breath, this one less shaky than the last. Her throat thick with emotion, she peered out at the dark night. A sliver of moonlight danced in the black sky, thousands of stars sparkled across the horizon, and hundreds of miles of barren Oregon high desert stretched in all directions.
    She was stunned by the vastness of the sky and the endless expanse of earth. No fences. No walls. No constraints. Just space to run as far and as long as a person could go. She’d forgotten what it was like to stand outside to