Cole's Redemption (Alpha Pack #5)(26)
Micah grinned. “With assistance from the crabs you caught from that hooker last month.”
“Shut up, needledick. She did not give me crabs.”
Zan snickered. The banter of his teammates was just about the only positive that got him through the long days and nights in the arid terrain of this shitty country.
“Hold up,” Jax whispered, coming to a halt. Tensing, he studied the mountain forest around them and frowned.
Zan listened. Somewhere hidden in the brush, a footstep crunched to their left. Another to their right. More from behind. He saw Ryon and Micah exchange a fearful look. He knew this area was supposed to be clear, and they couldn’t have reached their target’s stronghold already. In that instant, he knew they were toast. Their enemy had them surrounded.
Then the forest went silent. Never, ever a good thing. Because when the smaller creatures went still, that meant they were hiding from something much bigger and hungrier than themselves.
Thud, thud, thud.
The ground trembled and the leaves shook. Zan thought distantly that he’d seen and heard this very thing in a movie long ago. When a deep-throated roar split the air, Aric jumped, pointing the muzzle of his M-16 into the trees, hands rock steady, a bead of sweat dripping off his nose.
“Fuck,” Micah whispered. “What the f**k is that?”
Zan stared in stupefied horror. The thing that broke through the foliage to their left stood erect on two legs and was more than seven feet tall. Covered with a thick mat of grayish brown fur, it had a long torso, two arms, muscular shoulders, and a head sporting two upright ears and a long, snarling snout full of sharp teeth.
It looked like a creature that was half man, half wolf. He and his team stared, mouths open, fingers frozen on their triggers.
The situation might have been salvaged, disaster averted. But their buddy Jones started screaming, pumping bullets into the beast’s chest. After that, everything went to shit.
The creature staggered backward and then rallied quickly, rushing Jones. With a swipe of a paw the size of a dinner plate, the big bastard ripped out Jones’s throat, tossing him aside like a twig. Then it pounced on Raven, biting into the vee of his neck and shoulder as the man screamed.
They opened fire just as several more of the beasts emerged from the forest. It quickly became apparent that while their bullets could wound, it would take something with far more power to kill them. He saw Aric drop into a crouch and palm a grenade as his friends fell all around him, waging a battle they couldn’t win.
The creature who’d killed Jones shook Raven like a rag doll, released him, and ran toward Aric, who let a grenade fly. It hit at the target’s feet and exploded, sending the damned thing to hell. But more and more of them took its place.
Micah went down, his knife in hand, slitting one’s throat. But another jumped on him, and his struggle was short-lived, his scream terrible. Jax fell next, then their CO, Prescott, Nix, and so many others. All of them, one by one. Dead or dying.
As Aric unsheathed his knife to fight one, a beast rushed Zan. It hit him with the force of a runaway truck, knocking him backward and sending him skidding along the ground. He rolled to avoid the claws that swiped down at him, but they raked his side, splitting him open through his camos. There was no time to acknowledge the fiery pain spreading through his torso. He kept moving, dodging several blows.
Suddenly, he heard a cry in his head.
Help me, somebody! Oh, God—
Nearby, he saw Ryon fighting with a creature of his own and losing. Had the plea come from him? Or was it a figment of Zan’s overwrought imagination? The beast plunged its claws into Ryon’s stomach, and the man screamed, a horrible sound.
Aric dispatched it, but it might have been too late.
Zan scrambled backward, trying to put enough distance between him and the beast to level his weapon and fire. But he hardly had the barrel lowered before the beast slammed the gun out of his hands. Zan quickly drew his knife and went on the offensive, running into the beast’s body rather than away.
With a powerful upward swing, he thrust the blade underneath the bone of the thing’s sternum. Drove it at an angle, as deeply as possible. The beast’s screech was cut off abruptly, and it went down.
Zan staggered and fell. How long he was sprawled and bleeding in the dirt, he didn’t know. He only knew he had to get up. To use his gift on everyone he could save. His conscience wouldn’t let him do any less.
He found Aric first. Called forth his healing gift and sent it into his friend. Repaired torn arteries and shredded skin. “Come on, man. Don’t die. Stay with me.” Painstaking, exhausting work, and when he was done, he wanted to sleep. But there were so many left to go.
He got moving, crawling to Ryon. The man was crumpled on the ground, staring into the sky. His chest was moving, but Zan could see the light fading from his eyes.
“Ryon, hang on,” Zan ordered, touching his shoulder. “I’m a Healer, and you’re going to be okay.”
Disbelief was reflected in that solemn gaze, normally so full of humor and life. No one ever believed at first. And then the few who finally did, like Zan’s dad, called him a freak and an abomination. Told him that he was a minion of Satan.
If the bastard were here, he’d know what Satan really looked like.
Sending his warmth into Ryon, he spent long moments healing him as well. And then the next fallen brother and the next. When at last he’d helped everyone he could, his body simply quit.