Savage

By Gwendolen Hope

"You don't know what you really need until you slam your face into that something..."

Isabelle, an emergency room doctor, is suddenly catapulted to Australia in search of her father who has been kidnapped by a mysterious organization. In the wild forest of Daintree she meets Alec, a man who lives on the edge of civilization, with his own personal rules and who has chosen solitude as his life partner.
Alec will establish with Isabelle a conflictual and turbulent relationship full of sexual tension, he will protect her from the snares of kidnappers and a tormented and urgent passion will eventually arise between the two. 

"I glutted the water greedily as I thought about how to approach it. I was under his control, the domination of his body, the influence of all that testosterone that this uncivilized man exuded. There was something primitive about him, something primal and fascinating. His eyes looked at me without mercy nor filter. He was sifting through the goods. Again. I saw his gaze linger on my breasts and then on my hips, at the level of my pelvis. Even if covered by clothes, I felt like he was looking at me as if I were completely naked. What I had done with him only moments ago, he was now doing to me."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gwendolen Hope
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781071592250

Book preview

A woman is not beautiful when her ankle or arm wins compliments, but when her total appearance diverts admiration from the individual parts of her body.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Prologue

Charlotte – North Carolina

Will you hurry up!

Lucy stood still in the middle of the hallway. The temptation to step forward seemed overwhelming, but at the same time she was scared shitless. I could read it on her face. On one hand she had a point, if our parents had arrived, we would have been in troubles, and serious ones.

It was strictly forbidden for us to enter the basement of Villa Ross, it was a prohibition of the absolute kind, one which was not possible to negotiate. But it was her house, she shouldn’t have been so afraid!

Don’t be silly, it isn’t the first time we have been down here.

Yes, I know, but if we get caught, they will segregate us for life. And I really want to go to the Cloud Nothings’ concert.

And you’ll go, assuming you are going to hurry up, or else we’ll get old down here.

I turned my back on Lucy and walked down the hallway. We were twelve years old, hell, we weren’t little girls anymore that just had to obey. At least I was clear on that concept, Lucy a little less so.

She would follow me though; I was sure of that. She wasn’t my sister, but it was as if she was: our families were so close that I was more familiar with Lucy than my own blood cousins. The Kents and the Rosses had an unbreakable bond, it was that of our parents, united in work and friendship.

Lucy was a big scaredy cat, but at the same time curious, she wasn’t going to stay down the hall. She would have put her feet one behind the other and she would have followed me. In fact, even without turning around, I heard the patter of her footsteps and the soft muttering of a few sentences like, I think we should go back. 

I also was afraid of course, as she was, but the temptation to go and see was too strong to resist.

Our parents were upstairs, surely, they had stopped by the living room to get coffee and make those chatters so boring they might as well kill someone. That would have been the most tedious part of the Sundays our families spent together if we didn’t have our own personal diversion. Mine and Lucy’s.

In fact, it was at the same time also the most addicting part, because when we were guests at Lucy’s parents’ house, we could go downstairs in the labs, where it was strictly forbidden to go. Officially, at least. It wasn’t unusual for us to hear about the labs, since both our parents were doctors. But not those kind of doctors in the hospital that treat sick people, but those that spent their days holed up in big rooms with artificial lights, studying and experimenting.

We had been taught a standard answer to give at school or to anyone who asked: our parents were in the research business. That particular lab, in the basement of the Ross house, had a charm all its own.

I pushed open the double swinging door while Lucy was now standing next to me with an expression on her face that had to mirror my own. Enraptured and excited at the same time.

Do you hear how they do?

I smiled. Yes.

The animals had heard us and had become agitated. The cats had started to meow and the mice to scramble. We were welcomed by the environment we knew from the previous raids and its acrid smell. A big room with a grey linoleum floor and greenish walls.

There were no windows but only an air conditioning system and neon lights always on. Leaning against one of the walls, set one next to the other, there were fifteen cages of modest sizes. They contained small animals locked up.

There was a cat with a gray and striped fur, a completely black one, a small sized dog and other dogs and cats of small size. Other animals that we never seen before were similar to large mice. Some looked sad and particularly thin, other looked like they were on a roll.

Lucy and I looked sorrowfully to the cages where those animals that looked like they were always sleeping were confined. But there were also those who were excited and lively.

We loved to go down and play with the animals. Watching them, approaching them, study their reaction to our grimaces. Lucy put her hand near the cage containing the black cat and it came forward with its snout. Our arrival had wreaked havoc in the small community. I left Lucy next to the black cat’s cage and kept going on.

Isabelle don’t go. You know I am afraid when you go near it. Her voice had grown weak as a plea.

But I could not help it, I felt inexorably drawn. To him.

Just a minute. I only want to look at him, see how he is doing today.

Don’t get too close, last time I thought he wanted to bite you.

I swallowed a lump of fright at the mere memory. It was true, the previous week Lucy and I had gone down in the lab as usual and, when I had gotten close to his cage, he had suddenly jerked, like he wanted to attack me.  

I crossed the threshold of the small room; it was separated by the one we were in only by an arched opening without a door. There was a steel bed with straps that made me shiver. There was a cage there too, but only one and bigger than the others. Because this one didn’t contain an animal but a human being. A boy.

I found him as always: huddled up, with his knees close to his chest and his forehead against his arm. He was so thin that it looked like his bones could have pierced his skin. He scrutinized me. He had heard our footsteps and our voices even if we were whispering and he knew I would have come to him. The depth of those dark eyes amazed me as always, leaving me breathless. It seemed as if the iris has swallowed the pupil. He looked as unkept as ever, with his shoulder-length hair all tangled and disheveled. He wore an oversized gray t-shirt and a pair of briefs. His legs, even though curled up, were long and bony.

This time he didn’t stay still, as usual, but as soon as he saw me, he got on all fours and began to advance towards me to the edge of the cage.

My heart started beating fast. The previous time he got closer slowly and then, at the end, he had jumped nearly growling and I had heard my heart nearly burst from terror.

Lucy was convinced he wanted to bite me, but I knew he only wanted to scare me. I tried to stay impassible while he got closer to the bars. If I took a step back, it would have been seen as a sign of weakness and I didn’t want to look like a coward. I wanted him to think I was brave. But the truth was that I was scared, and the closer he got, the more I wanted to put the right amount of distance between us, the distance that would have made me feel safe. I was a fool. I already was safe because he was caged like an animal and I was free.

He walked over to the bars and cupped them with his palms. I could see his long fingers with black-rimmed, smudged nails gripping the iron. I stood still and watched those eyes as dark as onyx get closer and closer while I forced myself not to move.

It was terrible and fascinating at the same time. I had been going down there every Sunday for several months now and each time I saw him there, in his cage. Increasingly thin and in pain. I was afraid and at the same time attracted to him.

Hurry up, come on Isabelle, they will be looking for us!

Lucy’s words tore me from my hypnosis. Then her voice became closer, she was right behind me.

You know you are not supposed to go near him, we are just here to watch the animals.

The boy moved his face in her direction, his hands still around the bars. I couldn't tell if he had understood the meaning of those words or if ours was a strange language to him. He looked at Lucy just for a few moments, then he returned his eyes on me. In his gaze there was no plea, no resentment, there was no nothing. It was like emptiness.

I felt myself being tugged.

Come on!

I pulled the sandwich I'd taken from the table out of my pocket and slipped it between the bars, as I did whenever I could. Reluctantly I left the room and then the hallway. As we walked back up, I heard Lucy’s voice lecturing me as always that we should never do this again because it was too dangerous.

We ran up the stairs, and then to the dining room, only to discover that our parents already moved to the living room to have their coffee. Boring talks for a boring afternoon.

I looked at Lucy reproachfully, she was the usual wimp. They weren't even looking for us, we could have stayed downstairs a little longer. The next Sunday I wouldn’t have listened to her and I would have stayed longer, much longer.

But there wasn’t another chance.

That was the last time I saw the boy because the following week, when Lucy and I went down to the lab, the cage in the back room was completely empty.

Chapter 1

Someone should explain to me what he was doing!

That’s simple, he was walking down an Appalachian track when he was attacked by a black bear.

I shook my head in disbelief while I tried to keep up and follow the stretcher as it travelled at a rapid pace in the hallway of the Charlotte Medical Center. There were several hikers that followed that trail and many of them were totally unprepared. They thought they would only encounter white-tailed deer and wapiti, but instead there were also black bear to enliven the local fauna. And not always meeting one of them ended up being fun.

The paramedic that had given first aid to the wounded man was telling his vitals with the voice of someone who was ready to face anything. And what he was illustrating wasn’t promising at all.

I stopped with the stretcher as soon as we entered the emergency room. It would have been up to me to evaluate the urgency and, in that case, I had to admit that there really was little to evaluate given that the situation was clear and unequivocal.  Anyone attacked by a bear could have been considered as an urgent case.

I turned to Wang, the nurse that was flanking me during the shift.

Take some gauzes to swab the chest. Clelia! Another nurse materialized next to me.

Have OR three prepped for chest trauma. Very urgent.

With the stethoscope I auscultated the sounds coming from the battered chest of that careless or unfortunate hiker. Or maybe both. They were very faint.

I glanced at the wound, barely removing the towel that someone has placed on his belly. The bear had given a very strong hit. You could see the torn muscle bundles and other exposed tissue. I sincerely didn’t know if that guy would have pulled it through. I nodded my head to the two orderlies that had rushed by to push the stretcher toward the elevators. There was nothing more I could do for him, if not to push him to the last desperate attempt in the operation room. But I really didn’t know if or how he would have made it. It was very unlikely; it would take a miracle. I collapsed exhausted on the stool behind me.

Do you think he will make it? Wang came up beside me and made his latex gloves pop before throwing them in the bin.

I doubt it, I murmured distressed.

He arrived in terrible conditions, Isabelle. His hand dropped to my shoulder, strong and sure. I looked up, at that moment he wasn’t my fellow nurse, but my friend consoling me and reassuring me I did everything I could for my patient. Which was to say nothing, in that case.

I was an emergency room doctor, dealing with cuts, wounds, and accidents. But when people challenged nature, it was really hard not to feel defeated.

"What