But it was no good. Tanner was way too far gone to come back.
Angelo closed his eyes and didn’t open them again until he heard boots thumping in his direction. He blinked. Landon and Ivy were standing above him, concern on their faces. Angelo pushed himself up into a sitting position with a groan.
“About frigging time you showed up,” he said. “I thought maybe you stopped for breakfast or something.”
Landon reached down and helped him up. “Sorry about that. It took a lot longer to get here than I thought. You okay?”
“Yeah,” Angelo said.
Well, except for the concussion.His head was still spinning.
Ivy punched Angelo in the shoulder—hard. The thump made him stagger back a step, which was a good thing, since she probably would have poked out his eye with the finger she was pointing at him.
“Don’t you ever do anything that stupid again,” she said. “No matter what Landon tells you, or doesn’t tell you, to do! You could have gotten yourself killed.”
Ivy gave Landon a hard look, then touched the rings on the necklace she wore hidden under her shirt before turning and running back to where everyone else was clustered around Carter over by the rock wall.
“What the hell was that about?” Landon asked.
Angelo opened his mouth to tell Landon that Ivy obviously didn’t appreciate his chivalrous attempt to sacrifice himself for her, or the fact that Landon had put him up to it, but a roar from one of the buildings reminded him that their work wasn’t done.
“You didn’t find Declan?” he asked, picking up his M4 and falling into step beside Landon.
Landon flipped him a magazine, which he caught and smoothly loaded on the run. “Never got a chance. Had to come save your ass, remember?”
“Well, let’s hope you didn’t lose one friend trying to save another,” Angelo said.
It wasn’t hard to figure out where Declan was. If the growling and snarls didn’t give it away, the big-ass hole in the side of the building did.
Angelo swore. What the hell kind of fight had the bear shifter gotten himself into?
***
Kendra darted across the room to see if she could get a shot lined up at Marcus and almost got crushed between him and Declan and the wall. She stifled a scream and quickly darted behind a filing cabinet. Throwing the barrel of her rifle on top of it, she sighted in on Marcus and started to squeeze the trigger. But almost as if he somehow sensed what she was doing, the big hybrid suddenly twisted Declan around so that he was the one in her sights instead.
Kendra clenched her jaw and aimed at the hybrid, but he moved out of her sight again.
Dammit!
She wasn’t going to be able to wait for a perfect shot. But the way Marcus seemed to know what she was doing made it even more likely than ever that she’d end up hitting Declan if she did shoot. As if proving her right, Marcus jerked aside the next time she started putting pressure on the trigger.
What the hell was giving her away? Could he hear her squeeze the trigger?
Shifting the weapon, she took aim again, but this time she didn’t sight in on Marcus, she aimed at Declan. It was dangerous to shoot anywhere in his direction, but she didn’t have time to think about it. They were moving too quickly.
Kendra said a quick prayer, then squeezed the trigger. As she hoped, Marcus jerked Declan around…and put himself right in the path of her bullet.
She only grazed his leg, but the fact that she hit Marcus at all surprised the big hybrid so much that he twisted around with a glare. Lip curling into a snarl, he advanced on her.
Declan moved faster than she’d ever seen him move. He jerked Marcus around with one hand at the same time he slashed the hybrid’s throat with the claws of the other. The hybrid went down but regained his feet just as quickly and came at her again.
Kendra stumbled back, falling over her own feet. She landed hard on her butt, her rifle sliding across the floor out of reach.
Marcus reached out and got a crushing grip on her boot, dragging her toward him. Kendra screamed and tried to kick him with her other foot, but she couldn’t reach him. Marcus growled and yanked even harder.
A deafening roar echoed in the confines of the small room, and she covered her ears afraid they might actually burst. Eyes wide, she watched as Declan reached out and wrapped a hand around one of the creature’s big fangs, then twisted his head all the way around backward. She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to watch.
And then there was silence.
