Chapter 45 #2
“We’ll be fine,” I say before he slinks off into the darkness. I watch him go before turning to Alex. “You ready for this?”
He nods curtly. “I’m ready to have Ollie back in my arms.”
Same. “Alright, time to get our girl.”
It takes us ten minutes to sneak around before we’re finally able to see both the door and our prey.
Harlow, like the good dog she is, stays quiet and low to the ground, eagerly following Alex’s silent commands as if they’ve been training together for years. I’m pretty sure she’s the only thing that’s kept him sane since Ollie and Rhys’s kidnapping.
We’re crouched behind an abandoned tractor as the small group of Scourge members stand guard outside the door to the building where Ollie and Rhys are.
They talk quietly as they stand to attention like some wannabe idiots playing soldiers with their weapons ready at a moment’s notice.
I’m relieved to see that Luke isn’t here.
Maybe we can actually get away with this hare-brained scheme.
Alex nudges my arm, drawing my attention to him. He points to the left of the tractor and then at me before pointing to himself and then to the right. His message is clear; I go left and he goes right.
I nod and give him a thumbs-up before slinking to the left side of the tractor while sliding my knife out of its sheath.
My heart pounds against my chest as that heady mix of adrenaline and fear surges through my veins.
When Tobias finally unleashes his distraction, we’re going to need to strike hard and fast before they can react and turn the fight.
Waiting those last few minutes for the distraction is almost torture. I just want to get this over with so I can have Ollie back.
“Come on, come on,” I mutter under my breath as my hand tightens around the handle of my knife. And then I hear it.
It starts as low, confused murmurs from the group next to the ruined house, but those quickly turn into shouts of alarm. A gunshot blasts in the night, causing our targets to jerk in surprise and look at each other nervously.
“One of us should see what’s happening,” one guy says as he shifts nervously from foot to foot. The others remain quiet, causing him to sigh in resignation. “Fine, I’ll go.”
He stomps off, disappearing around the side of the outbuilding.
I catch Alex’s eye from the other side of the tractor. He’s poised and ready to strike, a predatory gleam in his eyes that mirrors my own. He nods once and holds up his hand, counting down from five all the way to one.
As soon as that final finger drops, we explode into action.
I clap my hand over the mouth of the nearest man and savagely rake my knife against his throat. Blood bursts from the wound as he gurgles and gasps while feebly fighting against my hold. I drop him and step over his body, my focus on the next man who’s staring at his dying friend in shock.
He has no time to react before I’m on him. The cut to his throat is much less precise than on the first guy, digging deeper than I intended and causing his blood to spray in a wide arc, only barely missing me. As he slumps against me, his fight draining along with his life, I glance over at Alex.
The ex-rugby player looks like a terrifying ancient Viking, grinning manically and covered in gore as he drops the body of the man he just killed. There’s not a flicker of remorse or hesitation in his eyes as he zeroes in on his next target.
I’m concerned, especially since he’s terrified of becoming like his father. Not that he’s ever been capable of that. But now isn’t the time or the place for this conversation, not when we still have two more men to kill.
These last two put up more of a fight, with one of them having enough time to bring up his gun.
Luckily his aim is shit, so Alex and I jump out of the way as the deafening crack of his gun echoes in the night.
The other wields a barbed-wire covered bat that he gleefully swings in Alex’s direction.
Alex ducks and before the guy can swing again, he grabs him and ends his life with a savage stab to the throat.
That just leaves one guy alive.
I see the moment he realises because his eyes widen and his hands tremble on his gun as he aims to take another shot.
But I don’t let him get that far, closing the distance between us with brutal efficiency and slashing the knife across his throat.
And then it’s just me and Alex amongst a pile of dead bodies with shouts and gunshots echoing in the background.
Alex glances toward the tractor. “Harlow, you can come out now,” he calls a moment before the dog trots out.
She cautiously sniffs the various pools of blood and bodies littering the ground before going stock-still. Her eyes laser-focus on the door to the outbuilding before she lets out a high-pitched yelp and races to the door. Once there, she scrapes at it while whining and crying.
Alex and I exchange wide-eyed looks before rushing to the door.
“Ollie? Rhys? Are you in there?” I shout as I bang on the door. “Please tell me you’re alive!”
“Open the door, sweetheart,” Alex says, adding to the banging with his own fist.
A second later, the door flies open, and we’re tackled by something small but fast. I stumble backwards with a grunt, my injured leg threatening to buckle beneath me as the beautiful face of Ollie greets me. Tears shine in her emerald eyes as she clings to me and Alex, her body trembling.
“Oh God, I can’t believe you’re here! You’re alive! I missed you so much!” she babbles as she peppers Alex and me with desperate kisses. Harlow bounces around behind her, still whining and wagging her tail.
The feel of her in my arms is like coming home. Everything but her falls away; no pain, no worries, no fear. Just the overwhelming emotions I have for this amazing woman.
I place my hands on either side of her head and pull her face towards me, sealing our lips together. As our tongues tangle together, I pour every ounce of my relief at seeing her alive and my love for her. She moans into my mouth, her hand tightening on my shoulder as she melts into the kiss.
However, it ends too soon as Alex wrenches her away from me to devour her lips with a passionate kiss of his own.
The heat alone from the two of them is enough to have my blood burn with arousal and my cock hardening against my jeans.
If we were in any other place, I’d have jumped on that and worshipped Ollie’s perfect body until she was screaming our names.
Unfortunately, we’re in the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield during the night.
“So glad to see that you two missed me, too,” Rhys asks in his usual dry tone from the doorway.
He looks like shit. His face is bruised and slightly swollen, like he got into a fight and lost, and the dark circles around his eyes tell me he hasn’t been sleeping well. The way he’s standing, with his left side slightly protected, leads me to think he probably has injuries beneath his clothes.
“You feeling left out?” I ask him with a grin. “Because I’m happy to give you a hug and a kiss too.” I waggle my eyebrows at him.
He snorts. “Think I’ll pass.”
Alex finally pulls away from devouring Ollie’s lips to glance over at our best friend behind her. “Glad to see you’re not dead.”
“Me too.” Rhys’s gaze flicks to where the shouts and gunshots can still be heard, although far more distant than they were before. “We should get going before whatever distraction you two cooked up wears off.”
“Good idea.” I pry Ollie’s fingers from me, hating that I can’t have her stuck to me like glue due to how fucked my thigh and ass are. I’m pretty sure I’ve torn out at least a couple of stitches.
Alex eagerly takes Ollie from me and practically carries her as the four of us—plus Harlow—rush back to the safety of the trees. Much to our relief, Tobias meets us there, looking a little worse for wear but alive and unharmed. He lights up when he sees his sister.
“Thank fuck you’re not dead,” he says with a sigh.
“Same,” Ollie says, before throwing her arms around him and hugging him like her life depends on it.
The two of them whisper to each other, but their voices are too low to make out what they’re saying. Something like a sob catches in the back of Ollie’s throat, and Tobias’s grip tightens around her in response.
“He’ll be fine,” he says, rubbing her back. “We found the infection in time and he’s doing good.”
Ah, he must be telling her about Andy.
“As sweet as this is, we need to move,” Rhys says, urging Ollie to release her brother.
She does while blinking back tears, and even Tobias’s eyes look a little shiny in the moonlight.
Unable to stomach seeing her crying, I cup the back of her head and press a kiss to her forehead. She sighs as her eyes flutter closed, but the moment is cut short as the yelling gets louder. The Scourge have realised something is wrong and are coming back.
Rhys curses and growls at us to get moving. Which we do without question, the five of us scurrying into the dark forest and towards Haven. The journey is hard and fast, trees and bushes cutting through our clothes and into our flesh as we hurry through dense woods.
We don’t stop running until we see the outline of Haven’s walls in the distance. Only then do we slow to a walk and finally step onto the road. By this point, I’m a panting, sweaty mess and almost hobbling. My ass and thigh are throbbing, and my vision is wavering with each agonising step.
“Uh, Theo? Why is your ass bleeding?” Ollie asks, staring at the area in question.
I glance over my shoulder as I limp along the road. “Oh that? Don’t worry about it,” I say, waving her off. Only a few hundred metres and then I can get myself properly looked at. Although the doc isn’t going to be pleased.
Unfortunately, Rhys doesn’t have the same thought.
He grabs my shoulder, halting me before he grabs the front of my trousers. I barely have time to comprehend what’s happening before Rhys is unbuttoning my jeans with a dexterity that’s as shocking as it is impressive.
“At least buy me dinner first,” I huff as I try and fail to step out of his hold.
“I’ve bought you plenty of dinners,” he says before yanking down my trousers, boxers and all, until my dick is flapping in the cold breeze.
“What the fuck, man?” I yelp as the cold hits my nether regions.
“Jesus, Rhys!” Tobias curses as he snaps his head away from my dick. “Couldn’t you have waited to do whatever weird, kinky shit you guys do with one another until after we’d got back behind those walls?”
We all ignore him.
“You got shot in the ass?” Ollie says with a strangled gasp, although it suspiciously sounds like a laugh.
My narrowed gaze snaps to her as she fights to keep the smile from her face, even as her eyes twinkle with mirth.
Alex barks out a laugh, not at all hiding his amusement. Prick. “He sure did.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever been shot there before,” Rhys says with a chuckle as he shakes his head while staring at my injured ass. “Or seen anyone else get shot there either.”
The audacity of these people.
With a huff, I grab my boxers and jeans and yank them back up, covering my injuries and my junk. “I’ll have you know, I got that trying to protect the people of Haven and for being a hero. It’s a legitimate injury!” I try my best not to crack beneath their amused looks, but damn it, it is funny.
It’d be even funnier if it’d happened to someone else. Especially since it hurts like a bitch.
Still chuckling, Rhys claps me on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go home and get that seen to.”
“That was my original plan before you stripped me in the middle of the road,” I grumble as we start moving again.
“Without warning,” Tobias adds, still looking anywhere but at us. “I think I need bleach for my eyeballs.”
“Only because you’re jealous,” I shoot back to hide my wince of pain. Fuck. I can’t wait to dose myself up on painkillers.
Ollie gags. “Nope. You’re not having a dick-measuring contest with my brother!” she snaps with a shudder while glaring at me.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “I’ll behave.”
“That’ll be the day,” Alex mumbles as he moves to grab my waist to take some of my weight.
The relief from most of the pain is immediate, and I sigh, almost sagging into him. He tightens his hold, silently telling me he’s got me, and I squeeze his shoulder in thanks.
And that’s how we walk back into Haven; covered in blood and sweat, exhausted and injured, but alive.