Page 5 of Broken

Chapter 3

The circle of protection died as Riker hit the ground.

Cole was already moving—racing into the cellar with his gun in his right hand, drawing the combat knife from his belt sheath with his left. The blade gleamed with a faint magical light. He’d had it specially made—and paid a small fortune for it—as soon as the Outlaw Ridge team started fucking around with sorcerers.

He was about to get his money’s worth.

As he burst from the shadows in the back of the room, the monster pulled the whip lash tight and started to drag the girl toward him. The magical rope bit into her side, and she screamed in pain.

The bull-creature who’d taken Riker down had his hands out toward the fallen man, shouting a spell. Cole was going to have to go right between them.

He ran faster, straining his muscles, trying to beat the spell. He didn’t make it. Dark red light streamed out from the monster’s hands, striking Riker and pulling the gold bracelet off his wrist like a tractor beam. Cole dropped into a baseball slide, right under the red beam, his knife raised to cut the whip as he slid beneath it.

His glowing blade passed through the magical light, unexpectedly cutting it off. Riker’s bracelet dropped to the floor and rolled away. The monster roared in fury, and Cole, still sliding across the floor, aimed and squeezed the trigger in a burst of bullets that knocked the creature back.

But he was losing momentum—he wasn’t going to make it to the girl. In desperation, he drew back and threw his knife at the taut whip cord. Everything seemed to slow down as the glowing blade rotated through the air. Then it hit the whip and sliced cleanly through, severing it.

There was a flash and a boom as the magic in the whip short-circuited. The creature holding it lost its balance and stumbled back.

The woman rolled to her knees, shaking off the remnants of the severed whip. She raised her hands, chanting. A ragged burst of blue-white magic appeared briefly and sputtered out again.

Cole slammed a new magazine into his pistol and fired from the floor, almost ripping the creature with the whip in half. It went down.

But the monster who’d tried to get Riker was back up, snarling. It launched itself toward the woman. She tried to do another spell, but it too fizzled and died. Cole, scrambling to his feet, barely had time to get between them.

The creature hit him like a freight train, slamming him to the ground and landing on top of him, hot and heavy and smelling of rotten eggs. It was stronger than he was, even with his shifter strength, and its claws made huge gouges in his military-grade body armor.

This thing could rip him in half.

He struggled with it, trying to keep those lethal claws away from his exposed throat. His muscles strained and tore, the veins bulging out in his arms, all his strength and will focused on one singular goal—not dying a bloody, painful death. Its burning orange eyes bored into his.

Then suddenly the creature’s eyes bulged, and greenish-black blood rushed out of its mouth, hitting Cole in the face and burning like acid. With a roar and a grunt, the monster collapsed on top of him.

Cole looked up to see Ireland standing over them, face like an avenging angel. She had his magical knife in her hand, the blade dripping with the creature’s blood. She’d severed the damn thing’s spine.

With a great heave, Cole pushed the body off him and sat up. The skin on his face was still burning, and he used one of the few clean patches of his shirt sleeve to wipe it off. The shirt immediately started smoking, and he ripped the sleeve off at the shoulder and tossed it away.

The creatures were all down. So was Riker, lying in a growing pool of blood.

Ireland didn’t wait to find out if the stranger was okay. She raced across the room to Riker’s side, snatching up his bracelet from the floor as she passed. She flung herself to her knees next to him, ignoring the blood pooled on the floor and trying not to look at the mess the magical missiles had made of his lower abdomen.

Somehow, he was still breathing. “Hang on, hang on,” she muttered, fumbling with the bracelet. She picked up his arm and tried to clasp the bracelet around it. It was a cuff bracelet with a hinge down the middle that allowed it to open and close. She squeezed the two halves together around his wrist. “Here you go,” she murmured. “This’ll work.”

The Protector’s bracelet had healing powers, in case the Protector was injured. Riker was still alive. It could heal him.

But nothing happened. The bracelet wouldn’t lock on to him; it just kept trying to pop open. And if it didn’t lock on, it wouldn’t work.

“Come on,” she pleaded. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t.

Vaguely, she was aware of the other man standing over her—the one who’d run in at the last moment and saved her. He spoke, his voice brutally quiet.

“He’s not going to make it,” he said. “And he doesn’t deserve to. We need to go.”

White-hot rage burned through her. Who was this guy, who dismissed Riker like he was nothing? Who said he didn’t deserve to live? She felt a strange rippling along her skin, and a sound burst out of her that was almost a growl.

“Shut up,” she snapped. “He’s still alive. We can’t just walk away. What kind of heartless bastard are you?”

“The kind who doesn’t want to get caught by any backup these creatures brought with them.” His tone grew more determined. “Now let’s go.”