Page 30

THIRTY

Sorsha

I snatched up the box of CDs, jammed it back into my armpit, and bolted for the back door. Unfortunately, one of the guards came charging around the play area’s shelves at the same moment, blocking my way.

What could I do but make use of what was in front of me? Clutching my loot against my body, I dove for the ball pit.

As I shoved my free arm in, the plastic spheres rattled against each other and bounced over the walls. I snatched up one and then another to pelt the guard in the face as hard as I could. He stumbled backward in a mix of pain and—probably mostly, since they were kiddie balls—shock.

The other guard was pounding toward me from somewhere behind. In a matter of seconds, they’d have me cornered. I hurled one more ball, crashed straight through the pit, and braced a foot inside one of the ride-on cars: a rather stylish red convertible.

Pushing off with my other foot as if it were a scooter, I careened past the guard down the nearest aisle, smacking him aside with my elbow for good measure. He let out an oof and then hurtled after me.

The hiss of the car’s wheels against the tiled floor must have tipped off the other guard, because those footsteps skidded and spun to follow in the neighboring aisle. I rammed my sneaker against the floor harder, pushing the toy car as fast as its wheels would go.

“Is it one of them ?” the second guard hollered to his colleague, in a horrified tone that told me they knew what business their employers were really in—and they weren’t any more fond of the shadowkind than the rest of the sword-star bunch.

“I don’t know—doesn’t matter. Just stop her!” the other shouted back.

Forget that. I whipped out into the wider space between the shelves and the checkout counters. The plastic wheels made an ear-splitting squeal as I swerved sharply with a jerk of my foot. I raced the car three aisles over, wrenched it around again to zoom down the one that would lead to the store-room door—and two of the wheels popped right off.

Clearly that ride wasn’t built to stand up to a proper car chase. I flung myself off it, wobbling as I caught my balance with the weight of my cargo and wincing when the edge of the computer jabbed me harder. This machine had better contain what we needed, or I was going to shove it up its owner’s ass. Assuming I got the chance to find out what it contained in the first place.

As I righted myself, my own ass bumped into a display of dark-cloaked action figures at the head of the aisle. “Intruder detected!” a host of them cried out in their tinny digital voices. “Fire when ready!”

For the love of gravy, the whole store was out to get me. But as I sprinted down the aisle, it occurred to me that their suggestion wasn’t such a bad one. With my free hand, I snatched a dart blaster toy off the shelves. Already loaded with five foam darts—my lucky day.

A guard had reached the end of the aisle. I glanced back just long enough to take a couple of shots behind me. One of the foam bolts bounced off his shoulder, but the other hit the edge of his glasses, knocking them askew. Score!

I was almost in good spirits again when a second set of footsteps rounded the corner. I didn’t look back, firing blind as I ran on, but the click of a safety releasing reached my ears clear as anything.

These guys were taking the whole “fire when ready” idea to a much more serious level.

With a lurch of my gut, I threw myself forward even faster. My feet slammed against the tiles, the impact radiating through the soles with an expanding ache. My arm holding the computer was outright throbbing now.

“Stop right there!” one of the guards yelled as they pelted after me—as if I were going to play nice now. I veered back and forth in an attempt to make myself a more difficult target, and I’d like to think that inspired maneuver was what saved me.

A bang split the air, and an instant later, a deeper agony than anything I’d experienced so far seared through my shoulder. On my right side, thank fluffy puppies, because if it’d been the left, I’d have dropped my sole reason for being here. As it was, my arm jerked with the impact, my fingers spasming with the rush of pain, and the toy gun tumbled to the floor.

Gritting my teeth, I tore onward. The door was in sight. I could make it—but I wasn’t sure any more that simply leaving the building was going to guarantee my freedom.

I forced my fingers around the knob and yanked, a cry I couldn’t contain breaking from my throat at the fiery sensation that stabbed through my shoulder at the effort. My head reeled, but I managed to stumble into the stockroom just as another shot rang out. The door vibrated with it.

Shit, shit, shit. My shoulder was on fire, tears prickling at my eyes. I dashed across the room for the outer door. The guards barged after me with a volley of shouts.

As I heaved the outer door open with a smack of my good shoulder that echoed into the wounded one with another flare of pain, a sharp little impulse shot up inside me.

Burn them. Burn the two of them down, right to the fucking ground. I didn’t have my lighter in my hand, but the heat that pulsed through me with the frantic thrum of my heartbeat felt potent enough to leap straight from my fingers in a burst of flame.

The thought gripped me for a moment, and then I recoiled from it with a jolt of horror and the wash of the outside air over my face. Even if I could have done it—which obviously I couldn’t have; how crazy would that have been?—burning people alive was a little beyond what I could stomach, even if they seemed intent on murdering me.

I choked down a sob at the pain now splintering right through my chest and raced into the parking lot with all the speed my legs could produce.

I could run pretty fast, even lugging heavy computer equipment under one arm, even in a haze of agony. But it was a big parking lot with no cover at all except for the Clothes for the Recently Deceased donation box way too far across that open stretch of asphalt. As the guards barreled out after me, it was only a matter of seconds before I became one of the intended recipients of the charity.

Pumping my legs even faster, I made for that one bit of shelter. Another gunshot crackled behind me, missing me but close enough that the tremble in the air crossed my cheek. Twenty feet left to go, my breath rasping in my throat... Fifteen… Ten…

Bang. A bullet I was instantly certain would mean my doom exploded from the gun—and a huge, speeding body crashed into me out of nowhere, slamming me off my feet and hurling us both the last short distance to the donations box.

The burly arms that had caught me managed to turn me as we whipped through the air and around the bin. I hit the ground on my back rather than face first, although the pain that lanced through my shoulder at the impact wasn’t anything to celebrate. I choked on a groan and found myself staring up into Thorn’s face.

I knew it was his face because of the scars that decorated it and the white-blond hair falling in disarray on either side, not to mention the hulking body looming over me. But the planes of his features had turned even harder than before, and amid them, the eyes that stared back at me smoldered as if they were made of dying embers—no pupils, no whites, just pure, dark red.

And then there was the fact that two immense, black-feathered wings had sprouted from his brawny back, arcing over us like a shield. Holy mother of mothballs. Of all the forms he could have revealed, I’d never have expected that.

The first inane words that fell out of my mouth were, “They could have shot you.”

“They were going to shoot you,” Thorn said. His voice had the same low gravelly rumble, but with a sort of reverb to it as if it were resonating through a majestic cavern. His eyes flashed an even starker red, and his lips curled back to bare his teeth. “They already did. They would have killed you.”

Was there something wrong with me that I was abruptly all kinds of heated up myself with those bulging muscles just inches from my prone body and that kind of vehemence lighting his gaze? Maybe it was just the adrenaline messing with my head.

My next words weren’t all that much more sensible than the first. “And here I thought you saw me as just a nuisance.”

I felt the warrior’s glower as much as saw it, washing over me in another hot wave, but a touch of gentleness came through the defiance in his tone. “You are irritatingly irreverent and infuriatingly obstinate, m’lady, but I’m finding that the thought of someone hurting you makes me want to rip out their entrails and choke them with their own intestines.”

It wasn’t heat but warmth that fluttered inside me then. He’d practically composed a poem for me. I beamed up at him, slightly delirious from the pain, and said, “Right back at you.”

Something flickered in his expression, and I half expected him to lean in and kiss me. Then thudding footsteps reached my ears over the roar of blood rushing through my head. The guards hadn’t given up the chase. Had they even seen what had dragged me to safety?

Somehow Thorn’s hard features managed to stiffen even more. He sprang off me and charged to meet them with a bellowed battle cry that rattled my eardrums.

One of the men let out a yelp. They’d seen now. Then all I heard was the sickening squelch of smashed flesh and the crunch of shattering bone, followed by skin and muscle rending with a meaty tearing noise. Neither they nor Thorn spoke another sound.

I’d pushed myself up into a sitting position when Thorn strode back into view around the donations box. He’d returned to the mortal-ish form I was used to, nothing otherworldly about him other than the crystalline glint of his knuckles.

Two heads, ripped from their bodies, dangled by their hair from one of his broad hands, the stumps of their necks dribbling blood and smatterings of gore. He held them up. “I didn’t know which one lodged that bullet in you, so I present you with both.”

My stomach churned, but I couldn’t say I didn’t appreciate the sentiment. “Um, thank you. I think we can leave those here, though. I’m not really a trophy type of gal.” At least not the bloody body part kind of trophy. “It’s not as if we can avoid the people who own this place realizing something major went down here tonight anyway.”

Thorn sneered at the detached heads and tossed them behind him. “You said I could ‘come after’ anyone who attacked you outside the building,” he reminded me.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Good thinking, me.” I rubbed my head. It was easier not to think about the wrecked bodies that were lying farther across the lot when I didn’t have to see them. Easier not to care about their deaths with my shoulder still gripped in the jaws of agony.

At this point, he’d needed to kill them. If we’d left them alive, they’d have immediately sounded the alarm so the rest of the people could start damage control. As it was… we had until shift change to make the most of the booty I’d fled with.

The computer booty. Get your mind out of the gutter.

The computer in question had landed on the ground next to me. I examined the metal shell and determined it was only mildly dinged. In my not-at-all expert opinion, it should still work just fine.

Thorn scooped the device up as if it weighed no more than a kitten, putting my arm strength to shame. When I reached for the box of discs, he grabbed that too.

“We should return to the others,” he said, holding out a hand to help me up. He’d reverted back to his usual cool demeanor, but I was too woozy to be offended this time.

He’d saved my life in the most literal sense. He’d slaughtered men on my behalf and offered me their heads as a gift of devotion. No matter how he liked to play it, he couldn’t really pretend he wasn’t a teeny bit fond of me.

“Ready when you are,” I said, managing not to sway. “Let’s bring these bastards down.”