Chapter Forty-Three
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WATCHING RAMIEL HUNT down his targets filled Caterina with awe all over again. Her male was focused on his task and executed the humans with precision that she envied. Five of the six guards went down in mere seconds, but the sixth one sounded the alarm by firing at her knight.
Her heart was lodged in her throat as Ramiel dodged the bullets. His shiny silver and gold sword flashed in the light of the camping lamps. His foe collapsed, but the rest of the bandits were surging towards him.
Abandoning the women they’d been abusing, the four marauders yanked their pants up.
Caterina was holding six knives. She sent four of them spinning through the air.
The weapons lodged in her targets’ backs, wounding them, but not fatally.
It was enough to disable two of them. The other two staggered, then turned to fire blindly into the trees.
Already on the move, Caterina tossed another knife and it skewered a bandit in the eye. He fell backwards, finger clamping down on the trigger. His companion screamed in agony as bullets thudded into him. The final one blew his brains out and they both fell.
Staying in the shadows, the cambion continued to throw knives at the cannibals.
The two women who’d been taken from the cage took off running without looking back.
Caterina was glad she’d taken the keys from the truck.
While she wished the females well, she didn’t want them to steal their vehicle.
The other prisoners were screaming in terror or shouting in glee, cheering their rescuers on.
Ramiel was a deadly force of nature as he used his enhanced strength and speed to wipe out his opponents. Only two were left when his luck was extinguished. He turned to face one of the humans and was shot pointblank in the chest.
“Ramiel!” Caterina screamed, feeling his agony. She dropped the backpack and sprinted over as the bandit lifted his gun to finish off her knight. Clamping her hands on his head, she poured her magic into him. The human’s eyeballs popped and steam came from every orifice as she fried his brain.
Dropping the corpse, Caterina snarled when she saw the final marauder pointing his rifle at her. A sword flashed between them, severing his arms. Stumps spurting blood, the man turned in a dazed circle as if wondering where his limbs had gone.
Sobbing in terror that she was going to lose the man she loved, Caterina knelt beside Ramiel. He’d dropped down to one knee with his hand over his wound. “Did it hit your heart?” she asked, barely coherent.
“No,” he rasped. “But it stings a little.”
The bullet was stuck inside him and this time she didn’t think she could dig it out. Not without potentially causing him too much harm.
“Let us out!” one of the captives begged.
“What the hell are you?” a skeletally thin man asked incredulously.
“Ramiel is a Knight of Order,” a voice said from behind Caterina. She hadn’t even sensed anyone arriving.
“It’s about time you found me, boss,” Ramiel said in relief.
Caterina looked over her shoulder to see a handsome man with black hair and obsidian eyes. He was accompanied by a beautiful blonde woman and another stunning male with Asian features.
The blonde hurried over and put her hand on Ramiel’s shoulder.
“You’ll be okay,” she said in a kind voice.
“I’m Qiana and I’m a cambion, too. I have healing abilities,” she explained.
“We need to take you back to our base and extract the bullet before I heal you. It’s too close to your heart to risk your body expelling it if I use my magic on you just yet. ”
“We need to free the captives,” Caterina said, feeling like she was back in her strange nightmare.
All three of these strangers seemed somehow familiar.
She had a flashback of her dream where she’d been dying over and over.
In the final one, she remembered seeing a glimpse of a blonde woman healing the Asian man who was watching her back.
“Check the captives for injuries, Qi,” the commander requested, then helped Ramiel to his feet. Caterina stood up and put her arm around her knight. “I’m Amaros,” he said, although she already knew his name. Ramiel had told her a lot about them.
“I know,” she said. “He’s got to be Kochab,” she added, hiking her thumb at his companion.
Amaros nodded, then held his hand out. She took it and felt power sweep through her. “I just scanned you to make sure you haven’t led a life of evil,” he explained. “It’s standard when we’re adding someone to our family.”
Ramiel was hunched over, wincing in pain. “I have a lot of questions, boss,” he said.
“I’m sure you do,” Amaros agreed. “I’ll fill you in as soon as we reach our base.”
Kochab had broken open the door to the cage while they’d been talking.
Qiana healed the humans who were injured, then Kochab used magic on them.
Caterina figured he was using mind control, since it was apparently one of their skills.
“Head to New Jersey,” he instructed them, then gave them directions of where to go once they arrived. “You’ll be safe there,” he said.
They nodded woodenly, then left the cage and started searching the camp for clothing. Qiana strode over to Caterina and put her hand on her shoulder. “You’re perfectly healthy,” she said with a smile when she scanned her.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” Caterina said, confused at how they’d turned up without her detecting them.
“It’s time to go home,” Amaros said and motioned for them to move into a circle.
“We left our gear in the truck,” Ramiel said.
“We’ve already got everything you need, brother,” Kochab assured him.
“Ramiel doesn’t want to leave his twenty-book long alien warrior romance series behind,” Caterina said. Her knight lifted his head high enough to give her a surprised look. “Yeah, I know you’ve been reading them,” she admitted. “I think it’s adorable.”
“That’s good, because most of our mates have read that series by now,” Qiana said with a smirk. “We have two full copies of that series.”
Caterina laughed, relieved that Ramiel’s friends had somehow found them and that one of them was a healer.
“I just need one thing,” she said, then raced to grab her black box of precious mementos.
She was still coming to terms that she wasn’t the only cambion when Amaros used magic to teleport them to a new location.
Feeling dizzy, Caterina reached out and grabbed hold of Amaros. “Sorry,” she said when her vision cleared. She let go of his arm.
“It’s always disorienting the first few times,” he said. While he seemed stern on the surface, she had a feeling he wasn’t as rigid as he looked. “Grace will show you to a room while Qi heals Ramiel,” he said.
A tiny teenager with blonde hair raced into the room that Caterina realized was an infirmary. “What’s your name?” the kid demanded with a grin.
“I’m Caterina Blaze,” she replied.
“Heh, this is awesome,” Grace said. “You two are now Cat and Ram,” she announced. “It’s a weird pairing, but it sounds cute.”
“I’m still dreaming, aren’t I?” Caterina asked.
“Nope,” Grace said, looping their arms together to lead her out of the infirmary. “This is real life,” she added. “It just seems a bit crazy sometimes.”
A yowling noise in the distance rapidly grew closer, then a gray half-grown kitten with darker gray stripes caught up to them.
The feline looked up at Caterina, then began scaling her bare leg.
“Have you got knives for claws?” Caterina asked, picking the animal up before she could claw her flesh off.
“That’s Angel,” Grace said with a grin. “She loves everyone, but Sin is her favorite person.” She watched the purring kitten snuggling against the newbie’s chest. “We’ve got two cats now!” she exclaimed, then giggled.
Caterina already felt at ease as her guide led her down the hallway and along a short passageway.
“This is the north wing,” Grace said, waving her hand at the long corridor with doorways on both sides. There were twenty rooms in total. “You can use this room if you want,” she said, opening a nearby door. “It’s still available.”
“It’s nice,” Cat said, already used to the nickname some of her cousins used to call her. Some of the doors had carvings on them. The details were incredible.
She sat down on the bed and Grace sat next to her. Caterina put the black box on the nightstand. The teen put her hand on Caterina’s arm a moment before pain lanced through her chest. Hissing in agony, Cat folded forward, hugging Angel and trying not to squeeze her too tightly.
“Ram will be okay,” the kid said soothingly. “Qi’s a surgical prodigy as well as having innate healing abilities.”
She was right and the pain vanished completely as soon as the bullet was extracted.
Tears of relief that they were alive and safe came over Caterina.
Grace put her arm around her and handed her a tissue from the nightstand.
“Thanks, kiddo,” Cat said, grateful to have someone so kind and understanding with her.
“I’ll give you two the tour as soon as Ram’s cleaned himself up,” Grace said, obviously looking forward to it.