Chapter 27 – GEO #2
We lower our weapons slowly, neither of us quite willing to be the first to completely drop our guard.
I keep my movements deliberate and visible as I gather Cosima back into my arms. She mumbles something in her sleep, nuzzling closer to my chest, and that small show of trust does something funny to my insides.
The sheltered spot is actually pretty good.
Protected on three sides by rock, with decent sightlines to the fourth.
I settle her carefully on the softest patch of sand I can find, making sure her head is supported.
A strand of silver hair falls across her face, and I reach out to tuck it behind her ear before I can stop myself.
"Twenty paces," I mutter, more to myself than to her. "Try not to get yourself into any more trouble while I'm gone."
The walk feels longer than it should. My injured knee protests every movement, but I keep my gait steady. No point showing weakness now.
Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
Thane and I turn at the same moment, guns rising in perfect synchronization.
His shot cracks first, the bullet singing past my ear close enough that I feel the heat.
Mine follows a heartbeat later, equally close, equally ineffective.
We're both too quick, too used to living a hair's breadth away from death.
Then we're moving, both ducking for cover as we empty our clips at each other. Bullets spark off rocks, kicking up sand and turning the air into a deadly lottery where the prize is keeping your blood on the inside.
My gun clicks empty just as his does. The sudden silence feels louder than the gunfire.
"Fuck," I mutter, tossing the useless weapon aside.
Thane does the same, and then we're closing the distance. No words needed. We both know how this goes now.
He moves like a soldier, every movement economical, every motion drilled into muscle memory through years of training. I move like a rabid dog used to fighting for his right to every breath.
His first punch comes straight and fast, textbook perfect. I duck under it, my street-fighting instincts kicking in as I drive my shoulder into his rock-hard midsection.
We hit the sand hard, grappling for position.
He's strong, and we'd be evenly matched if I wasn't sporting more bruises than skin and running on fumes, but I didn't survive this long by fighting fair.
My elbow finds his solar plexus, my knee drives toward his groin.
Every dirty trick I've ever learned comes into play.
"How's that retirement treating you, soldier boy?" I grunt, managing to land a solid hit to his ribs. "Must be nice, all cozied up with your omega in a Surhiiran penthouse while the world burns."
"It's a villa, actually," he responds dryly, slamming his elbow into my gut and driving all the wind out of my lungs with a whooshing woof. "And it's been relaxing," he adds, dodging my return strike. "Until now."
We trade blows, neither of us able to gain a real advantage. Doesn't help that I have a little Raven in my head the entire time, yammering things like, "Oh no, the daddies are fighting!"
Fuck, he'd better not be an angel on my shoulder now. I'd have to seal him in a jar and throw him into the damn ocean.
The abrupt thought fucks me up just enough for Thane to manage to flip me over his shoulder.
Or tries. We both end up crashing to the ground, struggling to get our hands on each other's throats.
The bastard knows tricks I didn't expect from someone so by-the-book.
His thumb finds a pressure point in my wrist that makes my whole arm go numb, and suddenly our positions are reversed.
"Every soldier has his bad day," he growls as his hands close around my throat. "Looks like this is yours."
The pressure is immediate and devastating. My vision starts to narrow, black creeping in from the edges as my lungs scream for air. I claw at his hands, but his grip is iron, positioned perfectly to cut off blood flow to my brain.
This is it. This is how I fucking die. Getting choked out by a Ghost in the middle of fucking nowhere while Cosima lies unconscious and Raven might be—
The shadow falls across us just before the rock comes down.
The crack of stone meeting skull is sickeningly loud. Thane's eyes roll back, his grip loosening as he topples sideways. I shove him off, gasping and coughing as precious air floods back into my lungs.
When I can see straight again, Cosima is standing there, swaying slightly, a huge bloody rock still clutched in her hands. Her violet eyes are clearer than they were, but there's still something off about them. Something not quite all there, but fighting for it.
That's my girl.
"How's that chivalry treating you now, soldier boy?" I bark out a laugh at Thane, the sound rough from my abused throat.
Thane groans, trying to sit up while clutching his head. Blood seeps between his fingers, but he's still conscious, which is more than I expected. Tough bastard. He looks at Cosima with equal parts surprise and grudging respect.
"I'm reconsidering some personal values," he growls.
I haul myself to my feet and snatch the gun off his holster along with the knife strapped to his thigh before he can regain his bearings. Adrenaline overrides the various aches and pains competing for my attention. "Come on," I say, reaching for Cosima. "We've got to run."
But she's already shaking her head, that stubborn set to her jaw that I'm beginning to recognize as trouble even if she's barely half-conscious.
This godsdamned omega is ten percent human, ninety percent sheer stubbornness in living form.
"The others… we can't leave them," she says, her voice slightly slurred, like she's in a waking dream.
I clench my jaw, ready to fling her over my shoulder again even if she'd probably tear me up with those claws like a feral cat. "Cosima—"
An earth-shattering roar splits the air, cutting off whatever argument I was about to make. The sound seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, echoing off the rocks until it feels like the desert itself is roaring.
"Knight," Cosima breathes.
Her eyes are clearer all of a sudden, like something in that nightmare sound just woke her up a little. Whatever the hell it is that connects these two, it's beyond my ability to understand.
Thane does a double-take, still struggling to get to his feet without collapsing. If he wasn't an alpha, that head wound would have put him in a coma. "Knight? The Vrissian alpha with the metal arm and mask is with you?"
But Cosima's already moving, taking off in the direction of that roar like she's been shot from a cannon. I lunge for her, trying to snatch her back, but my fucked knee chooses that moment to remind me it exists and I stumble.
"Cosima!"
Gunfire cuts me off, bullets stitching a line in the sand between us and where she was heading. I grab her arm and snatch her back behind me as chunks of rock fly up around us. We all freeze, suddenly very aware of how exposed we are.
"Oh, you're not going anywhere."
The singsong voice makes my blood run cold.
Valek steps out from behind a cluster of rocks, his white clothes somehow still pristine despite the chaos, that fucking knife of his glinting in the harsh sunlight.
On second glance, there's blood on his pants where he's clearly been shot—guess one of the others managed to tag him after all—but he moves like it doesn't even bother him.
I know Valek. The only gunner out of our crew fast enough to get a hit on him is Raven, but if Valek is walking around, that means…
Something in my ribcage I thought had died out a long damn time ago twists and aches worse than any of the wounds I've accumulated so far on this quaint little suicide mission.
No. No, I can't go there. Not yet.
I reach for the gun I took from Thane, remember it's empty, and curse under my breath. I've still got the knife, so I grip that tightly, ready to defend against human quicksilver. Behind us, Thane is in no shape to fight, still swaying from Cosima's impromptu geology lesson.
And from the other direction, I hear what sounds like all-out war. Explosions, gunfire, the clash of metal on metal.
We're fucking trapped.