Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
They used rubber raiding boats, Elijah’s preferred choice for silent insertions. The team slipped overboard the instant the engines cut. Weapons raised, they waded through the shallows, making swift progress toward a stony beach.
The sky was black overhead. No moon or stars lit their way. Silent offshore, the Seraphim was invisible behind an outcrop of rock.
Night goggles let them spot the drainage tunnel they were heading for. Mica stayed with the boats to provide supporting fire if the mission went to hell.
Elijah led, his hands slicing through the dark to direct the team. Sable covered him, their old rhythm reinstated as if it had never paused.
The team froze in place when he raised a fist.
Elijah beckoned Sable forward, the two of them taking point as they moved down the dank, oppressive tunnel.
It wasn’t long before they found the first cage.
Conditioned to expect danger, the occupants shrank into each other.
He reassured them with the universal sign for peace.
Hands clawed through the bars, so he returned the first V-sign reversed with a fist to his heart in a pledge of support and rescue.
Retracing his steps while Sable, speaking several languages, reassured the captives, he waved the team on. The tunnel ended at the foot of a flight of stone steps. At the top was a torch-lit courtyard. Beyond it, a grand, if dilapidated, building glowed obscenely bright.
A stage dominated a room of well-dressed buyers sipping champagne.
Barefoot girls dressed as biblical slaves in scratchy hessian robes served drinks to the leering punters.
Chandeliers that had seen better days sparkled above them, casting a crazed light over threadbare red velvet seats, while their occupants laughed and gossiped as if the slaves they were waiting to see were merely another luxury item, like jewelry or designer clothes.
It was a sickening sight and a call to action, but he signaled to the team to stay in place for now.
* * *
Sable waited tensely for Elijah’s signal. The sale had begun, each precious life reduced to a number in a catalog. Stumbling onstage, shielding their eyes from the spotlight, the victims were mocked by the crowd, as a glitter-drenched viper served as auctioneer.
The only good thing about the escalating noise was that it served as a helpful distraction. At Elijah’s signal, Sable and the team mounted the roof and then climbed down to the upper gallery overlooking the scene.
Finding a place, she slipped into the shadows. Each crack of the gavel was like a blow that fueled her fury. Her jaw ached from clenching in impatience to begin.
“And now the star of tonight’s collection…”
The room fell silent as two burly guards dragged a young woman into the light.
Mara.
Dressed in silk and jewels, with golden shackles on her wrists and ankles, she had dark circles beneath beautiful eyes that burned with defiance. Proud, furious, and unbroken, her courage was plain to see.
“You can see her spirit,” the auctioneer crowed. “Imagine taming this one.” She paused for a sickening laugh. “Shall we say a hundred thousand to start?”
The first bid was a million. As the room erupted, Elijah took it as the signal to make his move. Weapon raised, body tense, only Sable’s hand on his arm stopped him. “No emotion,” she warned. “Wait for the gavel,” she added as the bidding for Mara continued.
A counterbid of one million five drew gasps from the audience, but with no further bids, the auctioneer paused to confirm. Big mistake. The clap of the gavel coincided with Elijah abseiling from the balcony, firing from the waist as he dropped.
The scene descended into chaos. Surprise had always been the team’s deadliest weapon. Mara had the good sense to dive for cover as black-clad Blood and Thunder operatives hit the ground like a plague of shadows.
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.
“You don’t look so good yourself,” she pointed out.
“Thankfully, I’m very much alive,” he retorted, wiping soot from his mouth.
His hand remained firm on her waist, reminding every sense she had of what it felt like to be wanted by Elijah. But this was just safety in the field, she reminded herself. Nothing more guaranteed.
And who was to blame for that?
“That wound needs a dressing now,” she insisted, reaching for her pack.
“There’ll be time for that later. These people need care first.”
“Which you won’t be able to give if you’re dead,” she said, following Elijah’s gaze to where the captives stood.
“Sable! Move the fuck on!” As he spoke, another blast shook the tunnel, and flames poured from its mouth. Tucking her under his arm, he ran.
“Where would I be without you bleeding all over me?” she gasped when Elijah finally set her down safely distant.
But this was no time for banter. The rescued were huddled on the shoreline, bewildered, waiting to be escorted—maybe to another hell, for all they knew.
“Our priority is to reassure these people and get them to safety,” Elijah told her. “Then we can talk. In fact, you can do anything you want when we get back.”
With blood soaking through his clothes? “I’ll bandage you up. Then you can reassure the prisoners without frightening them half to death.”
“Fearsome sight, me? They’ve seen worse.”
She huffed with amusement. “You think?”