Captured By The Obsessive Billionaire King

The damp, rotting smell of the West Virginia forest floor clung to Helen's flannel shirt. She knelt in the mud, her fingers expertly separating the roots of a rare medicinal fern.

A sudden shift in the wind hit her face. It carried the heavy, metallic stench of fresh blood.

Helen stopped breathing. Her eyes, usually calm and indifferent, sharpened into the predatory stare of a hunting cat. She dropped the fern. Her right hand moved to her thigh, her fingers wrapping around the cold, textured grip of a black tactical combat knife strapped to her leg. She pulled it free without a sound.

She lowered her center of gravity. Using the massive trunk of an old oak tree for cover, she moved forward. Her boots made zero noise against the dead leaves.

She pushed aside a thick cluster of ferns. A man lay face down in the mud.

He wore a torn Armani suit. The expensive fabric was soaked and ruined, completely alien to this harsh wilderness.

Helen didn't rush to him. She stayed crouched behind the ferns, holding her breath. She scanned the tree line, listening for the snap of twigs or the heavy breathing of trackers. She waited for a full minute. The forest was dead quiet.

Only then did she step out. She walked to the man and looked down. His face was pale, slick with cold sweat. His breathing was shallow, a wet rattling sound in his chest. A deep, jagged knife wound tore across his abdomen, pumping dark blood into the dirt.

Helen crouched beside him. She pressed two fingers hard against his carotid artery.

His pulse was erratic, racing and then dropping dangerously low. Her mind calculated the symptoms instantly. The blade had been laced with a neurotoxin.

The second her fingertips pressed into his skin, the man's eyes snapped open.

Damian's gaze was lethal. Even bleeding out in the mud, his eyes held the raw, violent intent of a dying beast. He forced his arm up. His large, blood-stained hand clamped down on Helen's slender wrist like a vice.

Helen's face remained entirely blank. She didn't flinch. Her eyelashes didn't even flutter.

Damian gritted his teeth, trying to use her arm to pull himself up. His muscles trembled, failing him. He realized with a surge of frustration that he was too weak to move her an inch.

Helen twisted her wrist. The movement was a blur. In a fraction of a second, she broke his grip and bent his wrist backward, locking his joint in a painful hold.

She leaned over him, her face inches from his. "Let go if you want to keep breathing," she stated. Her voice was flat, devoid of any warmth or panic.

Damian stared at her. The absolute, chilling calm in her eyes forced his survival instincts to kick in. His fingers went slack.

Helen released him. She took her knife and sliced straight up the center of his ruined Armani shirt, ripping the fabric apart to expose the wound.

Damian let out a low, guttural groan. His stomach muscles locked up tight, his body instinctively fighting the blinding pain.

Helen ignored his suffering. She pulled a waterproof medical kit from her canvas backpack. Her hands moved with mechanical precision, wiping away the poisoned blood. She pulled a crudely carved wooden vial filled with a foul-smelling, dark liquid from a canvas pouch. Without hesitating, she pried his jaw open and forced the bitter mountain remedy down his throat, massaging his neck to force the swallow.

Damian's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together. "Who the hell are you?" he rasped, his voice rough with pain.

Helen didn't answer. She grabbed a roll of rough, unbleached cotton cloth and wrapped it tightly around his waist, pulling it hard to apply pressure.

A flock of crows suddenly exploded from the trees a quarter-mile away. The faint, rhythmic crunch of heavy boots hitting the dirt echoed through the woods.

Helen froze. She shoved the bloody wrappers and the empty wooden vial back into her pack and zipped it shut.

She stood up. She looked down at Damian, her eyes calculating the weight of his body against the speed of the approaching killers. She was deciding whether to leave him here to die.