Page 21 of Ruined Omega

I peel out in a spray of debris, weaving the motorcycle between the obstacles of the alley—an overflowing garbage dumpster, stacks of wooden pallets, empty oil drums.

Behind us there is more shouting.

A burst of automatic gunfire.

Three rounds thump into my back.

The bullets stab into my flesh, but my Alpha hide is tough enough to keep them from passing all the way through. Hines is protected, and that’s all that matters.

Those assholes should have aimed for the tires.

I’m not going to give them a chance to correct their mistake.

As I reach the end of the alley, I swing the bike into a sharp turn, and with Hines still surrounded and shielded by my body, we race off into the night.

CHAPTER 8: HINES

Rain spilling from the upper tiers spatters my face, shocking me into alertness. After the heart-stopping drop from the fire escape, followed by Tal’s impossible catch, I went into a kind of panic-induced trance. Now, the cold rain and sound of gunfire from behind brings me back to my senses. I’m bundled in Tal’s heavy leather coat and cradled in the protective cocoon of his body as he races a motorcycle down a dark alleyway toward the open column of light at the end.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Three sharp impacts vibrate through Tal’s body. The Alpha merely grunts, more in annoyance than pain.

It occurs to me dimly that he’s just been shot in the back. Even more distantly, I register the fact that his body must have actually stopped the bullets.

None of this seems real.

It’s like watching a movie happening to somebody else.

A split second, however, is all it takes for that to change. Drastically.

As we reach the mouth of the alley, Tal finesses the brake handle, barely more than a caress. He throws the bike into a sickening swerve that drops my stomach into my bowels.

The rear tire fishtails over the wet pavement, seemingly out of control. Then, with a subtle motion of Tal’s body, the bike straightens, aimed dead center down the open street.

He twists the throttle hard.

The engine roars like an angry dragon.

I gasp aloud as the vibration of raw power hits me directly between my open legs and penetrates deep into my core.

The bike accelerates, pressing me back into the hard wall of Tal’s body. His bare arms form a living cage around me.

Wind whips at my hair and dirty raindrops dripping from the higher levels of the city plop against my cheeks, running my makeup. I squint my eyes.

“Are you okay?” Tal shouts.

“Yes,” I reply, my voice ripped away by the wind rushing past. “What about you? You’ve been shot!”

“I’ve had worse.”

He’s had worse?

Seriously?

He just took three high-caliber automatic rounds into the meat of his back. No bullet-proof vest. Not even a coat—that’s wrapped around me—yet he’s talking about it as if it’s no big deal. Like he fell off his bicycle and scraped his knees or something.

Tal’s body tenses around me protectively as he steers.