Page 8 of Kai (Alpha Heroes #13)

Kai

The seconds turned into centuries as the fog parted and allowed the moonlight to show me the impossible details.

Cece didn’t hesitate, and the brute never saw her coming.

She attacked from behind, threw her arms around the burly merc, and, cinching his hips and pressing her front to his back, locked her arms over his middle, trapping his right elbow.

“What the fuck?” The merc twisted one way and the other, trying to break her hold.

I was already up and running as Cece clasped her hands and secured her clutch with the tight grip of an impressive gable hold.

Hoofing it across the distance, leaping from one volcanic rock to the next, I unclipped my ruck and let it drop just as the merc got yet another burst of fire out of his carbine.

I hit the dirt. His rounds pinged against the lighthouse, missing my head by less than an inch and sending shards all over. The onslaught stopped when Cece completed her maneuver and locked down his shooting arm. She yanked at the fucker’s elbow. The carbine fell out of his hands.

By then, I had my Glock in my grip. And yet, from where I stood, I couldn’t shoot.

The smoke puffing out of the lighthouse obscured my target, and Cece was in the mix, tangled with the merc.

He fought to get out of her hold. Horror lifted my hackles.

Unless I got to her right now, she was gonna die right before my eyes.

Not gonna happen.

Racing from one side of the cliff to the other, I sprinted toward the fight, dodging blowholes as I went. Pumping my hands and legs, I increased my speed, negotiating the treacherous terrain, crossing over the rocky ledge as fast as I could manage.

As I came to the end of the ledge, the breeze shifted, clearing some of the smoke and fog ahead. The merc was at least three heads taller than Cece and over two hundred pounds heavier, but this didn’t deter Sorceress from her suicidal course of action.

She braced on staggered feet, pulled back and to the side, and used gravity to her advantage to rob the brute of his balance. Putting her weight on her back foot, she swept her other foot behind the merc’s heel and tripped him.

She tripped him!

Admiration and disbelief fought it out in my roiling stomach as my racing heart attempted to jump out of my throat. In a fight that was anything but fair, the woman slammed down her opponent as if he wasn’t a killing machine.

It was a masterful takedown, and the merc landed face down on the ground. Keeping her hold, Cece threw her weight on his back and kneed him in the liver. The human tank beneath her grunted and tried to roll to his side.

She was fiercer than a lioness and fast as the devil, but if he managed the roll, he could pin her to the ground and squash her to death. She proved me wrong, tightening her chokehold and digging her knee into his back. Despite his superior strength, she kept him down using her excellent technique.

My heart remained wedged in my gullet, but I kept going.

I had just crossed the ledge when a second merc showed up. He raised his weapon and aimed at Cece’s back. Even as I sprinted, I lifted my gun. I landed a round on his forehead before he could pull the trigger. I registered the bloody mist as the man released his weapon and dropped.

One down. One to go .

The merc fighting Cece attempted another roll. I spotted his hand grappling for the knife sheathed around his calf. A last burst of speed brought me into range.

I bent over the man, pressed my handgun against the back of his head, and snarled. “If you move, you’re dead.”

“I give up.” The bastard went still. “I surrender.”

“She’s gonna move off you in a moment,” I barked. “My gun will remain on target. If you wanna keep breathing, follow my instructions to the letter. Got it?”

“Got it,” the man rasped, his back heaving beneath Cece’s knee.

Cece waited until I gave her a nod. Keeping her weight on him and her knee staked on his back, she leaped away from the merc, grabbed his carbine, and aimed his own weapon at him.

“Turn around.” With my arms outstretched and my Glock up and ready, I took a step back and kept my aim on him. “Hands in the air.”

The man rolled onto his back, showing me his bare palms. A bunch of scratches added viciousness to an already brutal face. Blood flowed from his nose and poured over his lips. The gruesome twist that crooked the bridge of his nose was a recent development.

“You broke my fucking nose.” The merc’s deep voice dripped with incredulity as he shifted his toad eyes toward Cece. “Nobody breaks my fucking nose.”

“She did.” I flashed my teeth, and keeping my eyes on him, spoke to Cece. “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Fine,” she rasped, still pointing the rifle at him.

She was so fucking brave. And beautiful. And smart. I’d been told that she’d won a shit ton of trophies and tournaments in her life, but given her opponent, this was next-level fighting competence.

“Hello there, Cersi Astor.” The merc grimaced a bloody smirk and blinked the tears off his eyes. “We got off to the wrong start. I’m here to save you.”

“Save me?” She sneered, raising her chin in the air. “I don’t need anyone to save me. Who are you supposed to save me from?”

“From him, of course.” The merc tossed me a sullen glance before he returned his gaze to Cece. “He’s here to take you back to your father. I’ll set you free.”

“Right.” Her face set into an icy scowl. “And why would you do that?”

“Someone who loves you very much hired me to take you to safety.”

A scoff escaped my lips. The fucker knew enough about Cece to sabotage me.

“You’re a fucking liar.” The sheer ferocity of her glare should’ve given the merc the runs. “If I have to choose between his brilliant aura and your putrid one, I’d choose his every single time.”

I blinked at the words, but it was the merc who uttered the question.

“Did you just say aura? ” The merc frowned.

“Shut the fuck up!” she snarled and nudged her head in my direction. “And I’m going with him. ”

I inclined my chin. “Good choice, Sorceress.”

“Who the fuck are you?” the merc demanded from his place at my feet, even though I still aimed my gun at his head.

“You don’t need to know that.”

“Listen to me, sport.” The merc studied me with cold calculation. “I’m here for her. This is just a job. Nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal, my ass,” Cece spat, clearly incensed.

“All you have to do is leave,” the merc continued in an eerily benign tone, ignoring Cece and keeping his calculating eyes on me and my gun. “Walk away. We’ll take care of the rest.”

I lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “The rest?”

“The bitch.” He launched a murderous glance in Cece’s direction. “Leave her to us.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you and I are the same,” the merc said, as if it should be obvious. “We work for money. Only you work for a little money while I work for the big leagues. That could change, though. Walk away and I’ll make sure you get a fat deposit in your account.”

Why the fuck did the NWO mercs think they had a chance in hell of turning any of us to their cause?

“I’m not into murder for hire.” My lips curled in disgust. “You’re a piece of shit who’s gonna die today. Unless you’d like to delay your meeting with the devil and give me some useful info on your employer and his associates?”

“Boss?”

I craned my neck to find a third merc standing near the base of the lighthouse. I’d been so focused on this merc that another one had sneaked up on me. He frowned in confusion, but his weapon was up and aiming at Cece.

I lifted the gun in my hands and pulled the trigger, scoring another perfect hit between the newcomer’s eyebrows.

My shot took him out on the spot, and yet, the moment I made my decision, I knew there would be consequences.

Asshole-in-chief didn’t waste any time. When I looked down, he was no longer where I’d left him.

Instead, he was coming at me like an eighteen-wheeler.

Bursts of rounds hit all around him, abruptly changing his trajectory.

He rolled to my eleven o’clock, scrambled on his feet, and dove behind a rock.

With her eye on the scope and her cheek pressed to the butt of the rifle, Cece kept firing as if she planned to chisel the rocks out of her way with a barrage of rounds.

She must’ve hit him at least once because the man let out a high-pitched squeal.

I scurried to one side with my weapon at the ready, trying to get a shooting angle.

I was about to flank the fucker when the carbine that Cece held clicked and went silent.

The moment Cece ran out of ammo, the merc took off.

He dashed like the coward he was, aiming to make it to the ledge and cross to the other side to escape us.

I took aim and pulled the trigger. The guy made it to the other side, but he staggered once, lurched forward, tripped, and fell… right into a roaring blowhole.

Cece heaved, her eyes wide, her mouth frozen in a wince. “Did we kill him?”

“Only one way to know.”

With Cece at my heels, I jogged across the ledge and edged up to the blowhole.

When I looked down, a body floated face down in the churning water.

Between spurts of spray, I spotted tendrils of blood staining the frothy surf.

The roiling churn tossed the corpse against the rocks before the vortex sucked it down and out of view.

“I’m gonna say he’s a goner.” I met Cece’s horrified gaze. “His death is not on you. He was still running and alive when he fell into the blowhole. Don’t blame yourself for justice that was bound to happen.”

“Of all the things I regret in life, he’s not one of them.” She stood there, her crystalline eyes as wide as the full moon, staring at me as if she’d never seen me before.

“We’ve gotta go.” I grabbed her hand and rushed across the terrain.