By Royal Command

Oh God, she thought, struggling violently, you utter moron, Lauren Porter!

Hand still across her mouth, he hauled her into the thicker darkness and slammed her against the trunk, judging his strength so that although she was crushed breathless between his body and the unforgiving tree, she wasn’t hurt. Imprisoned by his strength, she felt the iron strength of muscles flexed for action.

Think! she adjured herself, fighting the terror that tried to freeze her brain. Buying time and hoping to take him by surprise, she slumped against him and sucked in air, visualising just what she’d do to disable him.

His words pitched only for her ear, he said, ‘I can hear voices, and I don’t know who they are.’

Lauren strained to listen, but apart from the sweet singing of the waterfall she could hear nothing.

Eventually, still in that same chilling monotone, he said, ‘Stay still and don’t make a noise.’

Eyes enormous above the ruthless hand that compelled her silence, she nodded.

His grip relaxed. Instantly, fingers curving into claws, Lauren reached for his genitals and opened her mouth to scream.

His cruel hand stifled any sound. With lethal strength Guy quelled her struggles and pulled her against him, locking his other arm around her.

‘Shut up!’ he said in a low, fierce thread of a voice that terrified her anew.

When she tried to fight with her teeth and her nails, he shook her hard enough to jar her, then muttered, ‘Listen, damn you! What can you hear?’

Above the softly lyrical music of the waterfall came voices. Male voices chanting something—the guttural rhythms becoming louder. Tension dried Lauren’s mouth and drove more adrenaline into every cell. The primitive fear of assault and rape was replaced by an even more basic one—that of death.

Yet possibly they were just villagers out on a fishing trip, and Guy was making sure there’d be no witnesses to—to whatever he wanted to do.

She had an instant to make up her mind whether or not to trust him. Later she’d convince herself that her decision was based on sheer pragmatism—she’d have a better chance of survival if she had to deal with only one man.

Yet it was instinct that convinced her, not common sense or good judgement.

In her ear he murmured, ‘Don’t move, don’t say anything.’

She nodded. Stealthily, slowly, he eased his hand away from her mouth. In spite of his size he moved as silently as a cat, positioning himself with his back to her, shielding her, she realised, with his body from whatever danger lurked out there. Terrified for his safety, she took comfort from the steady pounding of his heart as her apprehension condensed into ice.

The voices receded, but still Guy stayed motionless.

She was stiff and shaking when at last he stepped away.

‘Who—?’ she whispered.

Guy’s lethal, slashing gesture stopped the words in her throat. He was looking towards the sea; as she watched he moved with a fluid lack of noise to part the leaves on one of the branches that sheltered them.

Beneath his breath he said, ‘There—yes. Can you see them?’

They were some distance away, but the moon shone on lithe oiled bodies, already almost on the beach. About twenty men, carrying what appeared to be spears.

‘Out to sea,’ Guy said quietly.

Narrowing her eyes, she squinted into the glare of the moon. Small black shapes seemed to be skipping across its path over the sea.

‘Canoes?’ she whispered.

‘Dugouts. Banana boats, which have outboards, but they’re not using them tonight. And they’re coming from the wrong direction—heading towards the resort.’ He made up his mind. ‘Come on, we need to get out of here. Get into the Land Rover, but don’t slam the door until I turn the engine on. Then lock it and keep down.’

Numbly, Lauren obeyed. As the vehicle burst from beneath the tree, she locked the door and prayed that no one lay in wait along that narrow, treacherous track.

Guy had the night sight of a predator; without headlights, he drove at high speed through the thick darkness, confidently following the track Lauren couldn’t see. On the way to the waterfall she’d enjoyed the difference between the exotic vegetation and the woods she was accustomed to; now the jungle threatened, hiding who knew what danger.

‘Do you think they were going to join the canoeists, or fight them?’ she asked once they had left the waterfall and its black pool behind.

‘I don’t know, but that was a war chant,’ he said curtly.

Fighting a sickening knot of fear, she swayed as the vehicle swung around corners and surged through potholes and ruts. A sense of danger—palpable and chillingly pervasive—settled around them. Once, in a small clearing, she caught a glimpse of Guy’s profile against the moon, and a memory teased her mind with fugitive recognition.

She’d seen a photograph—and then the tantalising image vanished, wiped from her brain.

Where—and how—would she have seen a photograph of a beachcomber from Sant’Rosa?

He glanced at her and suddenly swore in a liquid language that sounded vaguely Italian before ordering, ‘Pull my shirt out of my trousers.’

‘What?’

He flashed her a feral grin. ‘Contain yourself. You’re showing far too much gleaming skin—far too obvious. Cover it with my shirt.’

‘But that leaves you exposed.’

‘I’m much darker than you, so I’m harder to see.’ The amusement was gone; this time it was an order. ‘Pull the shirt out from my waistband and haul it up over the arm furthest from you; I’ll tell you when to drag it over my head.’

‘Surely stopping—’

‘I’m not stopping,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know who else might be around. Get the shirt off.’

Lauren gritted her teeth as her questing fingers skidded over sleek skin padded with muscle. Once his arm had been freed she waited, the material gathered in her hand.

‘There’s a straight length of road— OK, haul it over my head. Now!’

She jerked the soft, warm garment over his head in one smooth movement.

‘Get it off my other arm—now!’ he barked.

He made it easy for her, lithely shrugging free of the shirt. ‘Now cover yourself,’ he ordered in a tone that lifted every tiny hair on her body upright.

Silently she hauled it over her head, shivering as the material settled around her shoulders. The faint scent of his skin—vital, potent—almost banished the metallic taste of fear in her mouth.

Guy commanded, ‘Crouch down on the floor and stay there until I tell you to get out. Cover your face and your hands. If we stop, don’t move unless I tell you to. If we get stopped, don’t say anything—try not to breathe.’

The ice beneath her ribs expanding, she obeyed, folding herself into the foot well and praying that the maverick instinct to trust him hadn’t played her false. ‘Those men were aiming for the resort, weren’t they?’

He didn’t try to evade the truth. ‘That was the direction they were heading towards.’