Small changes complete, Declan turned his focus to her. She cowered on the opposite side of the doorway, back pressed to the wall and the nine-millimeter handgun clutched between her breasts. She was shaking with terror.
He wanted to go to her, reassure her, but that would have to come after this was done. He waited for a lull in the shooting and whispered to her, “Abby.” Once he had her undivided attention, he issued orders. He was asking a lot of her, but there wasn’t anyone else around. “I’m going out there.”
She shook her head, her hair whipping through the air with her speed. He countered that with a sharp nod. “Yes, I am. And you’re going to lay cover fire.” He tipped his head toward the gun in her arms. “You don’t have to aim. Just make sure you don’t hit me.”
“No.” She mouthed the word, any sound lost to the renewed flurry of shots.
“Yes. Nonnegotiable. You’re going to lay cover.” He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, loosening up before he got to what he did best—killing. “I’m going to slip outside. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out.”
“What if they catch you and force you to yell for me and then—”
Declan’s lips twitched, and he managed to swallow the laugh threatening to break free. “Not happening.”
“They could—”
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, liking the way some of her fear bled away just a little too much. “There’s no killing me. I’ve been hunted, battled, and bled almost dry and I’m still here. They’re nothing.”
Her lower lip trembled. “Is that like the old ‘I had to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways’ thing?”
“No.” He shook his head. He had to give it to her. Scared out of her mind and she still tried for a joke. “It’s the ‘when I was fifteen I killed my alpha’ thing.”
Not exactly the way he’d wanted to reveal all that—fuck it, he hadn’t wanted to talk about it at all—but the shit was there.
He tipped his head toward their attackers. “Empty the magazine and then hide in here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Her face paled, eyes widening. Fuck, he hated seeing her scared. “A few…”
“Shoot, Abby.” He growled the words, adding a curl to his lip to expose a single fang. The threat was clear, the push one that she needed no matter how much he disliked the action.
She straightened away from the wall and rose to her knees. She changed her hold on the weapon, carefully wrapping her hands around the grip before she gave him a firm nod. “Okay.”
Declan grunted. “Good girl.”
He focused on the exterior, his wolf’s vision making it easy to pick out the location of their attackers. They hid within the brush, trees acting like cover for them. They didn’t realize the cover was for him. Each bush and tree was positioned exactly as he desired so that attack—retribution—was easy.
“Go.” He bit off the word and she reacted, peeking around the edge of the door and squeezing the trigger.
Pop. Pop. Pop. He counted each of her bullets, timing his actions based on how many she had left. Even with an extended magazine, he had only sixteen rounds—fifteen in the mag and one in the chamber—to get the job done.
The first was easy, a duck and then roll followed by a leap that put him behind attacker one. A snap of his neck and Declan slowly lowered the body to the ground.
Second required a little climbing, a shimmy up a tree—each movement precise and perfectly balanced so he didn’t upset the massive pine. That man ended up with a broken neck as well, a sharp twist doing the job.
Pop. Pop.
Abby still shot into the dark, and Declan moved to the next target. He swung to the ground and landed in a low crouch. He crept through the blackness, his beast allowing him to see and sense the ones who meant Abby harm. Sure, they probably wanted to kill him, too, but he wasn’t concerned about himself. Whatever happened, he’d live. He was too evil to die since the devil would just kick his ass back when he appeared in hell.
A soft crackle, the spit of a radio, came from his right, and he changed course. Low whispers drew him forward, two men arguing over something. It didn’t matter. Only their deaths mattered.
He moved until he stood no less than three feet from the two men, a whispered exchange joining the sounds of Abby’s shots.
Declan took advantage of their distraction. He darted forward, his movements quick and fluid. His wolf howled in excitement, the beast already prepared to revel in what was to come. He reached for the man on his left, half-shifted fingers curled and nails ready to pierce flesh. His claws sank deep into his opponent’s throat.
With his right, he grasped the back of the male’s neck and held him captive for a moment. Only long enough to finish killing his friend. Then he snapped the second man’s neck with a quick wrench.
Two more down, four total.
Not enough.
He tipped his head back and scented the breeze, the animal searching beyond the scents of death that surrounded him. The wolf identified two others. It’d been a six-man team sent after them.
He ducked through the brush, tasting the air and following the low sounds that came from the shadows. The rustle and snap of twigs and leaves acted like a beacon for his wolf.
He remained silent, letting Abby’s shots mask his movements and taking advantage of the men’s inattention. They worried about getting shot. Declan worried about how long it’d take him to kill the last two. He wasn’t sure how UH had found him, but if those idiots had figured out his location, SHOC wasn’t far behind. If they were behind at all. Were they just waiting to see if UH would do the job for them?
The snap of a branch cut through a lull in the fight and he turned left, heading back toward the entrance to the bunker. To his left and then a hint right. Clouds parted to reveal the moon, and he spied his quarry. He wasn’t carrying a handgun like the others. No, he had a rifle, one braced and ready to be fired—at Abby.
One hand went to the barrel, and Declan yanked the gun out of the man’s grip while his other hand…He reached around his neck, sank his claws in deep, and jerked, filling his palm with flesh and blood once more.
Which left him with one target—one last human intent on getting to Abby.
Declan focused on the sounds surrounding him, the ones that slipped through his body and reverberated in his bones. Except he didn’t have to be careful or cautious. Not when Abby’s shots came one after another, hardly a pause in between. Not when her piercing scream accompanied the sounds. Another weapon fired just as quickly, the source of the shots moving through the forest.
“Declan!” Pure panic that was more than just fear or terror. It delved into his soul and nearly wrenched him inside out with the unending need to be with Abby.
He didn’t think about himself or the dangers he faced by revealing his position. He broke into a dead run, dodging and ducking trees and branches, leaping over low bushes and sliding across the leaf-strewn ground. He didn’t slow and his steps didn’t falter when he burst past the tree line. In fact, he doubled his speed, the scene before him spurring his wolf to move faster, run harder.
A human male stood above Abby, dressed in black and with weapons strapped to his body. Declan didn’t care about what he wore, only about what he held.
A gun.
Pointed at Abby.
And then it fired.
Chapter Twenty-one
Being shot sucked. It sucked more than being chased by a killer whale, and Abby actually had been chased by a killer whale, followed by a polar bear and then a bull moose once. That had been a bad day.
Plus, she hadn’t even been allowed to hurt the guy who’d shot her, dammit. The least Declan could have done was leave the guy breathing long enough for her to shoot him back. Or kick him in the balls. Or even better, both.
Both sounded good.
“You’ll have to get over it. He’s already dead.” A tug and tear of cloth followed Declan’s words, and she turned her attention to the part
ially shifted wolf doing his best to do…something.
“Huh?”
“You can’t shoot him or kick him in the balls.” He paused and shrugged. “Well, you could, but he wouldn’t feel anything.”
“What are we talking about?” She frowned and squinted, trying to follow the conversation, but things weren’t going that well. Stuff looked very fuzzy.
“Abby, focus on me, okay?” Another tear of cloth and he jiggled her leg.
“I am focusing— Holy fuck what are you doing?”
Now she remembered. Before she’d gone off with her violent thoughts, she’d been shot. It seemed Declan’s method of fixing her was to cut her fucking leg off.
“I’m not cutting your leg off,” he growled, the deep rumbling more calming than threatening. Even his amber-hued glare soothed her ragged nerves. “I’m making sure you don’t die.”
“Dying would be bad,” she murmured. “This hurts really bad. More than the other time I got shot.”
Hurt didn’t describe the burning sensation, the fire in her blood, and the scrape of nails inside her skull. She’d bitch about her cat attacking her, but the feline was in just as bad a shape as her human side.
“Well, yeah. Poison bullets will do that,” he drawled.
“I don’t like that you’re not more upset about this.” And no, she couldn’t keep the grumbling growl out of her voice.
“Sweetheart.” A single finger beneath her chin lifted her head. When had it fallen forward? “I wish I could bring them all back so I could kill them again. Slowly. Painfully. They hurt you, and my wolf is fucking pissed that I can’t return the favor.” His eyes were all wolf—no hint of his human mind lurking in the background. “I’m very, very upset.”
“That’s nice.” She liked that he cared. Liked it more than she should since as hot as Declan might be, he wasn’t for her. No matter how loud the she-cat yowled.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “Nice.”
He pushed to his feet and she just sat there, staring up at six feet of hunky werewolf. So much power, so much dominance. She wanted to lick him all over.
“Baby, you can do whatever you want to me once I get you patched up and safe.”
Ugh. Baby. And apparently, she’d said that aloud. Nice. “I don’t want to do anything to you.”
Liar.
“Liar.” Declan echoed her thoughts. He had to be some kind of voodoo magician to read her mind that way. He sighed and shook his head. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
He ran a hand down his face and sifted his fingers through his hair. “You need medical attention.”
He tipped his head toward her leg, and she turned her attention there as well.
“Huh. There’s a hole in my leg.” She looked to the large werewolf. “Did we know there’s a hole in my leg?”
“Yes, we did.”
“Oh.” When had that happened? She glanced at her surroundings. Oh. Right. Dead people. Guns. Pop. “Are we going to fix it?”
“Does it hurt?” Declan answered her question with a question.
“No.” She shook her head, and he groaned.
“The poison is making it hard for your cat to do its job, and shock is settling in. We need to get you out of here. Lift your arms. I’m going to pick you up and you need to hold on.”
“I don’t think—”
Declan didn’t let her think. He only let her feel. As in, feel his arm sliding beneath her legs while the other went around her back. Then there was the feel of being lifted. And the feel of his tightening grip. And the feel of his fingers very, very close to the hole in her leg.
A scream rocketed up her throat, threatening to break free and dive right past her lips, but her cougar snarled at her to be quiet. Abby would show the cougar being fucking quiet, the little she-bitch.
But she understood the point the animal tried to make, which was why she didn’t scream. Instead, she turned her head and sank her teeth into Declan’s shoulder. Fabric filled her mouth, his scent filled her nose, and his taste crept past the cloth to dance over her taste buds.
Declan grunted but didn’t say a word. He simply turned and strode off into the dark with her cradled in his arms. Each jarring step sent a jolt of pain along her spine, but it disappeared as quickly as it arrived.
Shock was a beautiful, beautiful thing.
“It’s not beautiful,” he growled.
“Makes it not hurt,” she mumbled, and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Hurting reminds you that you’re alive.”
Abby snorted. “I don’t need the reminder.”
She’d never forget that she lived while others had died.
“Who died?”
Okay, she didn’t like that shock made her say all her thoughts out loud. “No one.”
Everyone.
“Abby—”
“How come I didn’t go into shock the first time I got shot? Would have made the swim easier.” By, like, a lot.
Declan shrugged in answer. “Who died?”
Abby shrugged. If it worked for him, it could work for her. She didn’t want to answer his question. “What kind of poison is in me?”
“We’re coming back to who died.” His glare came to rest on her shoulders, heavy and determined.
They’d never get back to it if she had her way. “I can’t go to the hospital.”
He snorted. “I didn’t survive this long by making stupid decisions.”
“That house was stupid.” She closed her eyes and groaned, burying her face against his shoulder. “I’m sorry. That was mean.”
“I don’t know how they found us, but I will find out before this is over. I’m also going to get a whole new set of fucking safe houses after I blow up the current ones.” The growl in his voice told her he wasn’t joking. “And it isn’t mean if it’s the truth.” Something soft and sweet brushed her temple. Declan’s lips? Nah. “The answer to your question—we’re going to see a dead man.”
For some reason that tickled her. It made her smile and giggle. She released his shoulder and waved at the darkness behind them. “There’s a dead man back there.”
“Six.”
“Six what?”
“There are six dead men back there.”
“Oh.” She stared at his profile, the strong length of his nose and the small bump. She kept her eyes on the carved edge of his strong jaw. She also observed the tension in his muscles when he clenched his teeth. “You killed six?”
He shrugged. “More like five and a half. You got a few shots into the sixth. He would have bled out. I just nudged things along.”
Abby’s stomach lurched and she swallowed hard, fighting to keep her nausea at bay. “I killed…”
“Would have killed, but didn’t.” His steps slowed, and he nudged her forehead with his chin. “Hey.” She tipped her head back and met his intent stare. “None of that blood back there is on your hands. It’s all me, understand? This is my world and those stains are on my soul, not yours.”
Her chin wobbled and tears stung her eyes, tears wholly unrelated to the hole in her leg and tied to the one in her heart.
“You hear me?” His yellow eyes were intent, the moon’s dim glow reflecting off the beast’s gaze.
“I…” she whispered, and he glared at her, the wolf’s anger prodding at her while he waited for her agreement. “I hear you.”
Declan grunted. “Good.”
He returned to his trudge through the woods, his pace even and measured as he traveled the randomly winding path.
“Declan? Where are we going?”
“Can you just go back to quietly dying for a little while?” he snapped at her, and she met his annoyed stare with a glare of her own.
“Well, excuse me for breathing, asshole.”
He continued stomping through the underbrush until they came to a long stretch of barren road. Lights shined in the distance, a low glow that acted like a beacon—luring them onward.
Curiosity
got the better of her and she spoke. “Is that where we’re going?”
“That’s where we’re stealing a car.”
“A nice car?” She raised her eyebrows. “Like a luxury car or something?”
“Want to ride in stolen class, baby?”
She didn’t even flinch at the endearment anymore. Her heart simply turned in on itself, shrinking smaller and smaller each time. “No. It’s just…If someone has an older car that needs to be fixed up, then maybe that’s all they can afford. If the person has a super-expensive, fancy ride, they might have better insurance or more disposable income.”
“A thief with a conscience?”
“Stop laughing at me and let’s steal a car already,” she snapped.
He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Declan carried her closer and closer to the distant light. His breathing remained even, and there was no hint that he grew tired. Soon they reached the source of the lights and he lowered her to the ground in a shadowed corner of the parking lot.
“You good?”
Abby nodded even though she was very, very not good. The shock had worn off and the pain returned, the pounding of her heart a physical throb in her thigh.
“Good. Stay put. I’ll be right back with a fancy car.”
“And the owner doesn’t have kids,” she rushed out. “Or anyone ill in their family.” She nibbled her lower lip. “And they can’t be ill either because—”
Rough fingers came to rest against her lips. “I’ll get a car from someone who will be mildly annoyed by the inconvenience but it won’t cause a major disruption in their lives, okay?”
Abby nodded once more, lips sliding over his scratchy skin.
“Good. Give me five minutes.”
Five minutes to steal a car. She wondered how long it’d be before they met with the man who was supposed to be dead. Then she wondered if maybe Declan had been shot and he was caught in the grasp of shock and poison, too. Maybe he thought they were going to see a zombie?
No. She mentally shook her head. She hadn’t scented his blood—only her own. She was the one off her rocker.
Headlights nearly blinded her, wrenching her from her thoughts, and she focused on the world around her once more. The world that included a vehicle slowly approaching. One with Declan behind the wheel.
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