“Yes,” the newcomer snapped.
Erin knew these four voices. They were the ones who didn’t have an agenda beyond revenge. She swallowed and glanced around the darkness, as though she could find a way out she hadn’t discovered yet. She’d combed over every inch of the wall, wearing her fingernails down to the nubs trying to find a way out.
“Come on. Get her out of there. We’re going.” The newcomer in charge stopped outside the cellar door.
A key fit in a lock. Metal rattled. Another lock was undone.
She’d tried to break her way out yesterday, but the door was too sturdy. The locks weren’t a joke either. They intended to keep her here until they were ready to act.
The cellar door swung open.
Erin held up her hand, shielding her eyes from the kitchen light.
A man grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her up the steep stairs. Her head ached and her eyes couldn’t quite focus after being in the dark for days. Someone spat curses at her while another jerked her scarf down, covering her face.
She saved her breath. These people had been hurt and wronged. They wanted a target for their anger. Begging them to see her as a person wouldn’t change them. With any luck, her compliance would make them lazy. When they underestimated her, that would be her one and only chance out of this.
“What are you doing?” a woman demanded. The only woman Erin had heard.
“We’re going,” the man in charge of this faction said.
“No. No, you are not,” the woman said.
“We have been here too long. It is not safe.”
“You cannot go anywhere now, you idiots. Weren’t you listening? The truck isn’t working.”
Several people muttered curses.
“What’s going on in here?” More men, more voices.
Erin swallowed.
The kitchen was—what? Ten by twelve?
Were they going to cram nine people in here, some carrying weapons?
With the tempers hot this sounded like a great way for an accident to happen.
“Americans!” Someone from across the home shouted.
Please...
A metal clang made Erin’s skin break out in goose flesh.
“Look out!” someone yelled.
She knew that sound.
A bright flash of light dazzled even Erin’s eyes, and hers were closed with fabric wrapped around her head.
The smoke filled the room in seconds. The people around her choked and coughed, some shouting orders that counteracted what someone else wanted. A pair of hands hauled Erin sideways. She ran into a table, stumbled over a chair, all while holding her breath.
This might be her opportunity.
Erin bounced off a doorway. She spun and her feet went out from under her. The hands holding her slid.
She rolled onto her knees and clawed the scarf from around her face.
The night sky spread out over head. Another person rushed past her, choking for air.
Erin shoved to her feet and jogged a few steps out into the night air. People yelled from inside, voices answered.
This was her chance.
The house was at the very edge of what looked to be a small village. She didn’t know if the house was being attacked or if she was being rescued.
“Where is she? Someone find her,” one of her captors yelled from inside.
Shit.
Now or never.
Erin bolted, sprinting as fast as she could move her legs. She vaulted over the low fence keeping the household animals contained and hit the dirt street on the other side. She kept going, arms pumping. She turned at the first opportunity, weaving between the homes.
A dog rose out of the shadows.
She saw the shape too late.
Her foot caught on the animal and she pitched forward.
The dog yelped and cried as it scampered away.
Erin coughed dust and shook her head. Her body throbbed with adrenaline, her limbs ached.
Feet crunched the ground behind her.
She would not go back there.
Erin shoved to her feet and swayed. Days without regular food or water were taking their toll.
“Erin Lopez?”
Dangerously Taken
Aegis Group Lepta Team 1
The mission: Rescue an executive translator being held hostage in Iraq without falling in love.
Erin Lopez never thought her life would be more dangerous as a civilian. She hoped she'd put her days dodging bullets behind her. Now, her only salvation is in the arms of a slow-talking man who makes her heart remember what it's like to love again.
Retired Army Ranger Riley Smith knows what it's like to fight the past every time he closes his eyes. Erin's dark, haunted eyes only tell a fraction of her story, and when she reaches for comfort, he can't tell her no. She makes this broken man want to be whole again.
The closer Erin and Riley get to the truth behind Erin's kidnapping the more dangerous their path becomes. Someone wants Erin silenced at any price. Riley can’t let that happen, but keeping her alive means facing that their no strings attached arrangement is a lie.
Dangerous in Love
Aegis Group Alpha Team 1
He follows orders.
A good SEAL, Shane York values chain of command. Following the rules means staying alive. All of that is wrecked when his team is sent to Jamaica on a hostage rescue. She’s not the mission, but they leave no one behind.
She breaks the rules.
Travel blogger Lacey Miles lives for today. Thanks to her unexpected rescue from certain death, she has a shot at tomorrow. She wants her mercenary captors to pay, and she has the evidence to ensure it—if she lives long enough to deliver it.
Opposites spark an unlikely romance in the heat of danger.
Delivering the intel and keeping the hostages alive becomes priority one for the Aegis Group Alpha Team. The last thing Shane and Lacey have time for is love. As the team races home and bullets fly, rules fall by the wayside and lines begin to blur. With a traitor in their midst, will love be a distraction or a strength?
Dangerous in Action
Aegis Group Alpha Team 2
He doesn't like complications.
Retired SEAL Shane Cohen believes pleasure and work can coexist. What begins as a typical save the girl and get home job is anything but. Soon it's not the girl who needs saving, it's his team.
Her whole life is complicated.
Playing the part of a madman's girlfriend nearly got Tanya killed. Two years undercover and the death of her partner have taken their toll. She doesn't know who she can trust, until him. The man who catches her when she falls.
Their no strings situation becomes a tangled mess of emotions.
It's a race against time to prove Tanya's story is real. If she's telling the truth, the whole eastern seaboard could be in danger. If not, Isaac could be falling for a woman more deadly than anything he's ever encountered.
Dangerous in Transit
Aegis Group Alpha Team 3
He takes his time.
Retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Felix Larson thought this job would be like any other. Get in, get the girl and get out. But this trust fund princess isn't like any other woman he's met, and she's ready to take on the whole Alpha Team to get her way.
She lives in the moment.
Jackie Davis is relieved when she and her medical team are rescued while on a humanitarian mission in the African country of Mauritania. Her thanks is short lived when she butts heads with a particularly infuriating Viking-like man, intent on telling her what to do.
The magnetic attraction of two lovers might keep a whole country together.
When the Alpha Team is attacked and their team scattered, Felix must get Jackie out of the country to stop a rogue political faction from using her as a tool in their civil war. But when their friends are taken hostage and a deadly secret emerges, it might ruin their budding romance.
Aegis Group
Dangerous Attraction
Dangerous in Training
Dangerous Games
Dangerous Attraction
Dangerous Protector
Dangerous Heat (coming 2018)
Aegis Group Alpha Team
Dangerous in Love
Dangerous in Action
Dangerous in Transit
Dangerous in Motion
Dangerous in Charge
Aegis Group Lepta Team
Dangerously Taken
Dangerously Involved
Dangerously Deceived
Dangerously Broken
Dangerously Entwined
Gone Geek
Beauty and the Geek
Mr. Purr-fect and the Geek
The Jock and the Geek
The Gamer and the Geek
The Adorkable Girl and the Geek
Twisted Royals
Alpha Prince
Her Prince
Bad Boy Prince
Noble Prince
Tarnished Heroes
Spy Games
Assassin Games (2018)
Traitor Games (2018)
Texas SWAT
Fighting Redemption (2018)
Stolen Redemption (2018)
Drive
Shift
Chase
Bayou Bound
Picture Her Bound
Duty Bound
Bound Memories
Bound & Tamed
Other BDSM Titles
Committed
Bound with Pearls
Collar Me in Paris
Festive Seduction
Electric Engagement
So Inked
Under His Skin
The Harder He Falls
His Marriage Bargain
Fighting His Desire
Standalone Titles
Falling for His Best Friend
Dream Vacation (free read)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
It can never be said that NYT & USA Today Bestselling author Sidney Bristol has had a ‘normal’ life. She is a recovering roller derby queen, former missionary, and tattoo addict. She grew up in a motor-home on the US highways (with an occasional jaunt into Canada and Mexico), traveling the rodeo circuit with her parents. Sidney has lived abroad in both Russia and Thailand, working with children and teenagers. She now lives in Texas where she splits her time between a job she loves, writing, reading and fostering cats.
COPYRIGHT © 2018 BY Sidney Bristol.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Inked Press/Sidney Bristol
www.sidneybristol.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
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Ordering Information:
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Department” at the address above.
Dangerous in Motion / Sidney Bristol.—1st ed.