His finger tightened on the trigger, the muscles in his face contracting as he took aim.
Before I could react, Aunt Inla loomed behind him, hefting her frying pan, bringing it down hard on the back of his head with a sickening crack I felt in my bones. The guy dropped his gun in the dirt, and he followed it down, not moving after.
I sprinted the last few yards to Hail, my heart in my throat. Up close, his injuries looked worse. A deep gash along his hairline was seeping blood, and bruises darkened his jaw. His lip was split, and one eye was beginning to swell.
Rage roared through me, a beastly thing.
When I skidded to a stop in front of him, he looked at me with a crooked grin.
“There’s my mate.” His voice was both tense and amused at the same time. “Come to rescue me.”
Chapter 27
Hail
Allie dropped to her knees beside my chair, her hands flying to the ropes around my wrists. Her fingers shook as she worked at the knots, and her composure cracked at the edges, her breathing coming in short bursts.
“Hold still,” she said, her voice cratering as she sawed at the rope with a kitchen knife. “These are so tight.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” The sight of her here made my chest ache with both relief and terror. She’d walked into Will’s trap just as I’d feared, but somehow she’d brought an army of chumbles and my entire family with her. “How did you?—”
“Later.” The rope around my right wrist parted, and blood rushed back into my fingers in a painful surge that made me grit my tusks. She moved to my other side, attacking those bindings with the same fierce concentration. Her hands trembled worse now, and her tears spilled despite the determination on her face. “Are you hurt? Your head?—”
The anguish in her voice and the way she kept glancing at the dried blood matting my hair told me how much she cared. She was breaking apart seeing me injured, and trying desperately to hold herself together long enough to free me.
“I’m alright.” I flexed my freed hand, wincing at the raw burns the rope had left. The skin was torn and bloody. “Allie, you shouldn’t have come.”
She paused in her cutting to look up at me, her eyes blazing through her tears. “Like hell I shouldn’t have. Nobody takes my mate.”
The way her voice broke made my throat tighten with pride and pain. She was claiming me as fiercely as I’d claimed her and was ready to face armed criminals rather than lose me.
The second rope gave way, and I pulled my arms forward, rolling my shoulders to work out the stiffness. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest, my joints popping after being locked in position for so long. A coppery taste filled my mouth where I’d bitten my tongue, and my shirt clung to my back with dried sweat and blood.
After cutting the bindings at my ankles, Allie dropped the knife. Her hands went to my face, her fingers gentle as they traced the cut on my forehead.
“They hurt you.” Her voice was steady now, but rage was building underneath like water behind a dam.
“It’s not as b-b-bad as it looks.” I caught her hands, needing to touch her, to prove that she was real and here and safe. “The head wound bled, but you know that is. Even a small cut gushes.”
She touched my split lip, and I winced at the sting. I’d reopened the cut when I tried to grin.
“Your wrists are a mess.” Her voice cracked again, and she pressed her lips together hard.
I glanced down at the raw, bloody circles where the rope had bitten into my skin. They’d heal. What mattered was that we were both alive.
Around us, the furor continued. Chumbles shrieked and darted between abandoned buildings like huge, pink-scaled hornets. The smell of their musk hung in the air, mixed withdirt and the metallic scent of blood. Tressa stood between us and the chumbles, her hackles raised, diving toward the birds whenever they hinted they might want to rush away. Will and his men remained trapped inside the dark opening. Every few seconds, one of them would try to rush out, only to be driven back by Tressa’s warning growls and the snapping beaks of the chumbles.
“I need to tell you what Will said.” I struggled to stand. My legs felt unsteady, my muscles cramped from hours of being pinned. Allie wrapped her arm around my waist to support me. “He hinted that he’d killed your father.”
All the blood drained from her face at once. “What? The coroner said it was natural causes.”
“He told me Howard’s death wasn’t an accident. Brake lines. And his partner, Simon died from another accident. But he gloated about their deaths.” Will had been so casual about it, so matter-of-fact.
Allie stared toward the mine entrance where Will was trapped, her expression cycling through shock, grief, and fury. Her breathing grew shallow, and her body went rigid against mine.
“He killed my dad?” The words came out barely above a whisper.
I tightened my arm around her, wishing I could take away the pain of learning the truth about her father’s death. She’d suspected, but having it confirmed was a different kind of wound altogether.
