Page 8 of Dalla’s Royal Guards (Second Chance #3)
Four
He placed his hand over the brooch and curled his fingers around it. Rage twisted with helplessness inside him. The gunfire farther down the street had grown quiet.
Had his brother and their team been killed or captured? He lifted his head to stare over the merc’s shoulder toward the center of the city where Dalla’s statue stood proud and defiant.
May Dalla protect us, he thought as two more mercs walked toward him with menacing, almost gleeful expressions.
No sooner had the thought swept through his mind than the two men’s expressions changed from triumph to shock.
Twin shafts from a bow protruded from their chests, still quivering as the men twisted and fell.
The merc in front of Nasser jerked the barrel of his gun, following a threat that Nasser couldn’t see, and then the merc’s head snapped back as something slashed outward at a blinding speed, striking him across the chin and opening a long cut.
The merc’s finger tightened on the trigger of his weapon, and a spray of bullets pitted the brick and plaster of the building behind them.
Nasser grabbed his M4 off the ground and shot the merc before he could recover. The man’s comrades across the street sprayed the ground in front of them. It was only a matter of time before a bullet hit the leaking Range Rover.
“Protect the woman and child.”
Nasser flinched at the sharp command of a woman’s voice above him. He glanced up, but all he could see from his position was someone standing boldly on the undercarriage of the Range Rover.
His eyes widened with disbelief when the figure fitted an arrow into the longbow she was holding. She pulled back the string and released it. His gaze instinctively followed the flight of the arrow. It struck a merc on the second-floor balcony across from them.
The man clutched his chest before he tumbled over the railing.
“Nasser!” Musad was crouched behind a delivery van fifteen feet away.
Nasser pushed off the ground and reached a hand behind him for Nanna. Musad motioned to him, but his brother’s eyes were fixed on the person standing on the overturned SUV.
Musad suddenly rose to his feet and released a burst of cover fire at a merc that appeared from behind a parked car. Nasser twisted and fired as well, shielding Nanna and Cianna between his body and the Range Rover.
“Now!” Musad said.
Nasser gripped Nanna’s elbow and helped her to her feet. It was awkward with Cianna in her arms, but the older woman didn’t murmur a word of complaint. Nasser jogged toward his brother while Musad, Donovan, and the other two men in their team covered them.
“Donovan, you and the others take Nanna and Cianna to the waiting cars and get them to the safe house,” Musad instructed.
Donovan and the two men flanked Nanna and Cianna, quickly guiding them down a back alley that was partially protected from view by the van. Nasser looked back at the Range Rover. The woman who had been standing on the vehicle was gone. A thick plume of smoke now rose from the engine compartment.
“Where’s Colin?”
Musad’s inquiry drew a curse from Nasser. He had forgotten about Colin. His gaze moved to the Range Rover.
“Shit!” The curse slipped from him.
He started forward only to be blown back into Musad when the gas leaking from the Range Rover ignited and the vehicle exploded in a fiery ball.
Nasser rolled onto his side. His ears were ringing from the explosion.
He shook his head in disorientation. Reaching out, he swept his hand across the debris-littered sidewalk, blindly searching for his weapon.
Waves of thick smoke rolled off the burning vehicle.
The acidic cloud caused his eyes to burn.
Beside him, Musad staggered to his feet.
“What…” Musad’s voice faded.
Nasser braced one hand against the van and pulled himself to his feet. Like a mirage emerging out of the desert, a woman appeared with one arm around Colin and the other gripping a longbow. Colin stumbled as they drew closer.
“Take him,” the woman ordered.
Nasser and Musad both reached for Colin at the same time. The older man sagged in pain. Before either of them could speak, the woman cut in again.
“Move.”
He and Musad were already ducking and moving to the side when the woman pulled a long shaft from the quiver on her back, fitted the arrow, and pulled the string back. When she released it, Nasser stiffened as the arrow whistled less than an inch from his ear and over his right shoulder.
A sickening thud confirmed her aim was true. The force of the impact lifted the merc coming up behind them into the air and threw him back. The man slammed into the windshield of a parked car.
“Let’s go,” Musad said.
Nasser nodded and tightened his grip around Colin’s waist. The older man grunted in pain but didn’t complain. Nasser kept glancing over his shoulder as they moved down the narrow alley. The woman followed them, also keeping a watchful eye for more enemies.
Tires screeched at the alley’s end—a sound Nasser welcomed. Henri jumped out of the driver’s seat of a sand-colored Land Cruiser and opened the back door. Nasser supported Colin and helped him into the back seat while Musad slid into the driver’s seat.
“Enrique and I will take care of anyone trying to follow you. Do you need a doctor?” Henri asked, glancing curiously at the woman who had her back to the vehicle.
“No, we have one with us,” Nasser replied. He reached out and gripped the woman’s arm, motioning for her to get into the front passenger seat. She silently climbed into the vehicle, and he shut the door. “Thank you. Please give our thanks to your brother and the others for all their help.”
“I will. May Dalla protect you,” Henri said with a nod, his voice and expression shifting into confusion and awe.
The woman started and twisted in the seat to stare after Henri as he crossed the road and climbed into another car. Nasser suspected that neither awe nor confusion was common for the man.
When he climbed into the backseat beside Colin, Musad hit the gas before Nasser had even closed the door.
Behind them, half a dozen vehicles pulled out to create a traffic jam for the vehicles coming up behind them.
Ahead of them, Enrique and three more vehicles made sure the intersections were clear.
Musad expertly navigated through a maze of streets before exiting the city via a highway that would lead them deeper into the desert.
“Where are we going?” Nasser asked.
“Henri suggested Plan C. Hellman’s mercs have the waterway and bridges leading east, west, and south closed. The only option is to head north. We’ll meet up with the others at a safe house near the mountains. How are you doing, Colin?”
“Hurts like hell, but I’ll live thanks to our new passenger,” Colin replied through gritted teeth.
The mention of their passenger drew everyone’s attention to the woman who hadn’t spoken since they left the city.
Nasser waited to see if she would respond, but she remained silent.
Now that he was finished patching Colin up as best as he could in the moving vehicle, he sat back in his seat and turned his attention to the weapon she was holding between her legs.
The bow appeared carved from a single piece of oak. There was a single notch carved at the top and bottom, and from the way she had it angled, the damn thing was a good four and a half feet long. It looked like something out of the Middle Ages.
He leaned forward. “What’s your name?”
Her shoulders stiffened, her voice low and unreadable, and between the noise of the road and her soft voice, he wasn’t sure at first if he had misheard her. Musad’s low hiss told him that his brother had heard her just fine.
“What did you say it was?” he asked again in a voice laced with disbelief.
This time, the woman turned in her seat and returned his stare. She reached up and jerked away the cloth that had been covering the lower half of her face. Nasser sat back in stunned silence. She was… breathtaking!
“I am Dalla Bogadottir. I wish for you to tell me what year this is.”
New York City: USA
Harlem Jones descended the stone staircase, his footsteps soundless against the century-old steps worn smooth by his own passage.
The heavy iron door groaned as he pushed it open, the weight a deliberate design.
There were no electronic locks here once someone reached this section—just stone, metal, and secrets.
The soft swell of Lacrimosa drifted from hidden speakers, Mozart’s mournful requiem wrapping around him like a shroud. It had been his choice tonight—he preferred the melancholy tones when he came down here, as if the dead deserved their own symphony.
The sub-basement was his sanctuary—a cathedral to memory and mortality.
Vaulted ceilings rose high, the walls lined with dark mahogany shelves heavy with tomes bound in cracked leather and faded silk. Titles in a hundred languages—some dead, never to be spoken aloud again—stared out from the shadows.
Clay tablets from Sumer rested beside bamboo scrolls inked by forgotten hands.
Ancient Egyptian papyrus, brittle and yellowed, were displayed beneath glass, the hieroglyphics hand-painted by scribes long since turned to dust. A single scroll, wrapped in fine red silk, lay open on a pedestal—its delicate gold ink shimmering in the low light.
There was also a complete compilation of the fragile pages of Anaxagoras, a relic even the most powerful collectors believed lost to time.
A thick rug, Persian and priceless, sprawled across the stone floor. Faded reds, midnight blues, and threads of gold ran through the intricate designs. Harlem knew every knot, every story woven into the pattern—he’d traded three months of his life for it once, and had no regrets.