Page 160 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

Careful with each step.

Hunting an animal.

Finally, I see it, the flicker of movement. But the thick foliage conceals too much to clearly see what I’m up against.

You can’t hide from me…

This is where I’m most at home.

Out here.

In the trees.

With an axe in my hand.

There isn’t anywhere else I’d rather have this showdown with the man who ripped my family away from me.

I circle well out of the way behind him until I’m close enough to see where he’s crouched, rifle set up on a log aimed directly at where we were advancing down the trail when he started shooting.

The camouflage he wears helps him blend into the heavy brush, but he can’t conceal his movements.

He keeps scanning the area.

Vigilant.

Alert.

Yet too fucking stupid to know that I would just backtrack and circle around him.

Gotcha.

By the time I am close enough to grab him, it’s too late.

He whirls, finally sensing me behind him, but I’m close enough to knock the barrel of the gun away with my axe and grab him by the fucking throat, tightening my hand around it and slamming him back against the fallen log he was using as a sniper’s perch.

Wide, frantic eyes sweep over my face as he struggles in my grasp, his hands tightening around my bloody wrist as it seeps down from the wound in my arm that he created.

But it’s nothing compared to the one he tore into my soul, knowing what he did to Willow, knowing what I lost with her.

Being there for her through her pregnancy. Watching her belly grow with my child. Talking to him. Loving them both. Holding her hand when she was in agony, giving birth. Holding my son.

All of it.

My tears burn as they leak from my eyes, but they do nothing to quell the heat of my fury. I tighten my hand around his throat and watch his face start to go purple. “Where the fuck is he?”

His nails claw at my wrist.

The bite of pain doesn’t stop me from tightening my grip even more.

“Don’t kill him, Killian!” Willow’s voice cuts through the fog of my anger and bloodlust. “Killian! Stop!”

Frantic footsteps fill the afternoon air.

I glance over my shoulder to find her racing through the woods toward me with Connor and Liam hot on her heels.

Fuck.

Why didn’t they keep her away?