Team members hustled captives toward the tunnel while Elijah blew out the chandeliers, raining glass on the remaining buyers.Sable moved through the scrum with predatory grace, cutting down hostiles with boot, blade, or bullet, while her colleagues cleaned up the rest.
Crossing the ballroom in a blur with Dante close behind, Elijah grabbed Mara by the arm.Hustling her toward safety, he was stopped by Sable’s warning cry.A hostile had him in their crosshairs.Sable dropped the enemy with a clean shot.For an instant, her gaze locked with Elijah’s, but then another wave of slavers surged from the back of the hall.
Mara was cowering behind a pillar, hands over her head.Scooping her up, Elijah ran, firing at the enemy while Sable provided covering fire—until a charging hostile took her out.
Dumping Mara into another team member’s arms, Elijah returned to snatch Sable out of danger.
“Thank you.”
“Always.”
He didn’t stick around to waste words.There were padlocks to blast off the cages and a cleanup to finish in the hall.
Survivors who hadn’t been chosen for the auction poured out of their squalid confinement.Shaking and exhausted, they were at least alive.
Once again a team of two, Elijah and Sable took up the rear to ensure no straggler, victim, or slaver was left unaccounted for.A scream drew Sable’s attention back to the old building, where Anna Marie was being dragged by her hair.“Cover me!”Elijah barked.
She took out the thug holding Anna with sniper precision, but as she reset, a brute built like a brick wall launched himself, slamming her against a pillar, his blade at her throat.She ducked, but the angle was wrong.
Elijah was back.
Cracking the three of them into a wall, he sent the thug’s knife skittering across the floor.Kicking it away, he yanked Sable clear.
“You’ve been hit!”she exclaimed, gasping for breath after her winding.
“Let me deal with this first,” he warned.
He chose his strike well.The thug wouldn’t trouble them again.
“You saved us,” Anna gasped as Sable supported the shaking girl.
“Saved both of us,” Sable added.
“Leave it,” Elijah snapped when Sable attempted to take a look at the wound beneath his blood-soaked tunic.
“You’re leaking all over me,” she retorted, resorting to humor.
“What’s new, honey?”
“Idiot!Don’t you dare die on me!”
Thankfully, medics had arrived to help Anna to the boats, and, with a quick hug, the two women parted.The first-aid crew ignored Elijah.Would they dare suggest he needed help?
He must have read her mind.Was that a smile on his face?Cheeky fucker!“You should have gone with them.Can you walk?”
“You gonna carry me?”
Ignoring that, she turned practical.“I need to get you back.That wound needs immediate attention.”
“I can walk, run, and fuck.Which would you like me to do first?”
“Add ‘off’ to the last option,” she suggested.
* * *
The explosion ripped the night apart.Heat punched their backs.Throwing themselves into the tunnel, they covered their heads as everything behind them turned to fire and thunder.
Dragging her close, Elijah became her shield as dust rained down.“You look like a ghost,” he growled, pulling back to stare into her face.
