Guarding the Princess(58)

Dalilah was watching him oddly. Brandt lurched to his feet, grabbed his gun and the headlamp.

“Get some sleep,” he snapped, desperate to fight the PTSD nipping at the corners of his brain. He didn’t want her to see him like this. He didn’t know how far he was going to be pulled back this time. “Where are you going?”

“To get more wood. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

Outside, in the endless, cold dark, Brandt relieved himself then went looking for more wood. He dumped a fresh bundle outside the window, and peered inside.

She was bundled up in the sleeping bag, face turned into the corner, fast asleep. Good. She needed it.

He slid his back down the outside wall, knees propped up, gun at his side. Switching off his headlamp, he dug into the pocket of his cargo shorts for his flask. He took a shot, then another, then a third, his eyes watering as he put his head back against the wall and stared up at the velvet sky spattered with stars.

He knew why he was getting these flashbacks again. He was falling for Dalilah, and it scared the crap out of him. It was also pathetic—the princess and the pauper? He gave a soft snort and took another drink.

Even though she was obviously physically attracted to him, too, so what? They had sexual chemistry. That’s all it was. She might as well be attracted to the palace manservant. He was simply the wrong side of the proverbial tracks.

After another swig from his flask Brandt cared a little less, and a nice soft buzz blurred the edges of his mind. He allowed himself to slip into the comfort of the whiskey’s warm embrace.

Then suddenly he heard her voice again in his mind.

What are you seeking alcoholic relief from, Brandt...why do you take pictures, Brandt...?

He hated the hypocrisy in himself. Yes, he sought relief from his memories, from the flashbacks. Through mindless sex. Plenty of drink. Death-defying adrenaline highs. But still, he’d been compelled to shoot photographs in war zones—needing to keep touchstones, to remind himself why he’d done what he had in the past. And why he had to stop killing. The photos still hung on the walls of the house he’d built on his farm.

It was his private hell—this dichotomy inside him.

But the images that truly haunted him were not captured on film. Those he would never escape.

They rose now from the dark depths—Carla’s beaten, abused body. The pierce of her screams, like knives in his heart. The image of men raping her as the buildings around them burned. The pain, the impotence, of being shackled to a pole, bleeding, forced to watch, to hear, to smell. That was the thing he’d tried to kill with whiskey. But it didn’t work like that—you couldn’t just go in like a surgeon and blot out one part of a whole.

And there were other images, going further back, also burned onto his retinal memory, but deeper, as if he’d shot them on film himself. His ex-wife, caught naked with his own brother in their marriage bed.

Their mauled son lying in the grass. His brother shooting Brandt’s dog.

This part of Brandt’s past had been buried very, very deep, and he didn’t like to let it surface. Ever. But Dalilah had opened a fissure, and slowly it had been oozing to the surface.

Brandt drank some more, watching the sickle moon rise higher, the stars move over the heavens like a giant celestial timer. He emptied the flask and allowed bush sounds to embrace him, like a familiar and safe lover—crickets, frogs, the rustle of a porcupine not far from him. The distant cackle of a hyena. The whoosh of an owl hunting overhead in the darkness.

Then suddenly, a soft, guttural huff.

Brandt went from drunk to stone-cold sober so fast it felt like an electric shock zapped his body. Quietly, he clicked the safety off his rifle, chambered a round, reached slowly up for the Petzl lamp on his forehead, clicked it on. Shadows leaped and shimmered as he scanned the darkness.

A pair of eyes glowed green, looking right at him maybe twelve feet away. The wide-spaced eyes of a big predator. Jesus. A chill washed over him and Brandt pushed himself slowly to his feet, his light and gun trained on the animal. It moved across the beam and he saw a ghostly pale pelt. Dark mane. Lion. Male. Huge. Every nerve inside him screamed to flee. Brandt swallowed, holding dead still—facing the animal square, his brain racing. The lion’s tail swished and the beast gave another soft warning cough. He was unafraid. Alone, which was unusual. Dangerous.

Slowly Brandt reached for the windowsill behind him.

The animal came closer, jaws slack. It was breathing him in, testing the air around him, getting his scent.

Brandt eased up onto the sill.

The lion’s tail swished again.

Ever so carefully, Brandt dropped back into the room.

He paused, keeping the beam of his light on the male’s face.