Page 103 of The Last True Hero

Adam stalked across the timber stand. Vex and her reivers were between him and the exit. He could go back over the fence, but there was no way out at the end of that tunnel.

Shit. He'd backed himself into an unintentional corner. Of course, he'd also expected to have Colton at his back right now.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked, as the female reiver crouched low and stalked him.

She grinned, revealing rotting teeth. "She said she wants you alive. That doesn't mean you have to be in one piece. I'm going to cut off your balls and wear them in a pouch around my neck, wolf-man."

She attacked, coming in low with her own axe. Adam jumped her swing, and buried the sharp end of his own axe in between her shoulder blades. She went down with a scream, and then the rest were upon him.

Weapons flashed as they swung at him. Adam cut and hacked, kicking reivers in the face when they got too close, and then slamming his heel on vulnerable ribs when they went down.

There were too many of them though. His arm started to shake, his ribs burning with the pulse of his lungs. One of the reivers he'd downed grabbed his heel, and Adam took the full brunt of a baseball bat right in the ribs. Then there was a giant trying to rip his head from his shoulders.

Move, he screamed at himself.Or die.

Grabbing hold of the bastard, he drew his fist back for a punch, but the reiver's eyes widened at something over Adam's shoulder, and he started scrambling to get away.

What the hell?

Wargs scrambled up the fence like monkeys, launching themselves into the crowd from the top of the wire. Reivers screamed as some of the wargs went full shift, rending with claws and teeth.

Colton hadn't fled. Instead he'd gone back into the warg cells and set them all free.

They tore through the crowd, a wave of monstrous fury that cut the reivers down with impunity. Vengeance, hot and bloody, and suddenly the sounds of reivers reveling in the spill of blood—warg blood—turned to shrieks of pure fear as the reivers found their own blood wasn't quite as entertaining.

He'd never been a bitter man, but there was a small part of him that enjoyed the sudden turnaround.

Adam punched the reiver in his grip, and turned to survey the chaos. This changed everything. Suddenly he wasn't one man battling against dozens, he was on the winning side.

Colton landed beside him.

"What took you so long?" he demanded.

"Slight fucking problem with the guards." There was blood splashed across Colton's cheek. "And I thought you could handle a few reivers."

"Are you insane?" Adam breathed, looking around at the wargs. Nothing would stop them now. Wargs were monstrous at the best of times, but after being tortured and forced to fight? They'd be insatiable. "There are still slaves here. Innocent people...."

Colton's dark eyes narrowed. "None of these wargs asked to be a monster. They were innocent too, once upon a time. And I'm not going to leave them to rot here so the reivers can get their fun. Some of them might be monsters, but they deserve a clean death, not to be a fucking spectacle."

Adam grabbed him. "Mia's out there."

Colton's fist curled in his collar. "Then you better get to her before they do."

His heart kicked in his chest. The crowd was running, screaming, being mowed down by a flurry of vengeance. And a part of him liked it. A part of him reared its ugly head and smelled the blood in the air.Yes. Hunt,it whispered.

Adam reined it in.Mia, he told himself, forcing his lungs to work steadily.

Mia, the warg echoed, as if it wasn't quite certain what to think about her.

Adam shoved his way through the crowd of reivers. They were all trying to get through the narrow exits, and that was where they died, packed in like schools of fish. Vex and her party vanished through her personal exit, and she'd left her guard behind to hold the wargs at bay.

By himself he wouldn't have been able to escape, but with the wargs set free.... He couldn't help admiring Colton's sheer ingenuity.

"This way," he said, and started leaping up the stands toward Vex's exit.

"You want me with you?" Colton called incredulously.

Adam turned. "Help me get Mia and the others out, and the debt you owe me is cleared."