Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(81)

Oh God. She couldn’t let him touch her.

She rolled away and kept rolling as he lunged after her. How long before his hemorrhaging heart brought him to immobility, unconsciousness? Would it be soon enough?

He sprawled full length, his grasping fingers scant inches from her ankle. She glanced back at him. He fought to get his knees underneath him again.

Gunfire exploded nearby. She realized she’d been hearing gunfire in the background for a few minutes now.

The Deceiver grabbed for her ankle again. His fingers brushed the cuff of her jeans and hooked underneath the hem.

“WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE!” she screamed at him.

She kicked him in the face. His head snapped back, and blood sprayed from his nose. Jackknifing away, she got to her hands and knees. The weight made her injured shoulder pulse with agony. She curled her left arm around her torso and scuttled away like a wounded crab.

After five feet, she sent a terrified glance over her shoulder.

He had to be close to death. He had to be.

He had abandoned his pursuit of her. He lay curled on his side, his psychic presence as malignant and as powerful as ever. The soldier that had opened the limousine door for him walked toward him. The man’s aura was smudged and dark, his expression blank.

The soldier bent over the dying man with the stiff disjointedness of a marionette puppet. Not-Justin grabbed the soldier’s hand. The soldier convulsed then collapsed on top of him.

She didn’t dare wait to see any more. Instead she pushed to her feet and lurched down the gravel driveway in a stumbling run, supporting her injured arm with the other.

Ahead of her, Michael lunged around the bend in the gravel drive. He was limping badly, sweating profusely and bleeding from several wounds. In one hand, he held an automatic weapon. In the other, he gripped a foot-long knife that dripped ruby liquid. The savage expression on his hard face made her sob.

She tripped and almost went down. He limped up to her, slung the gun onto his shoulder and sheathed the knife. Then, with as much care as if she were made of spun glass, he put his arms around her. She dropped her forehead to his collarbone. Heat poured off of him in waves.

“Thank you, God,” she whispered.

“Where is he?” His voice was gravel. His chest heaved.

“Back there.” She pointed with her good hand toward the clearing as she leaned against him, hungrily soaking in the sensation of his strong body next to hers.

He held her away from him. “Christ, you’re covered with blood.” His voice shook. “How bad is it?”

She shook her head and forced herself to take a deep breath. “It hurts, but I’ve slowed the bleeding. Michael, somehow he was in my ex-husband’s body. I induced a cardiac arrest. He went down, but it doesn’t feel like he’s gone. One of his soldiers collapsed when he touched him.”

“All right.” Michael turned an executioner’s expression toward the clearing. He asked, “Can you keep running?”

Words exploded out of her with violent force. “I’m not leaving you again!”

Sword gray eyes met hers in brief, perfect understanding. He let go of her, took his gun in one hand and started down the drive. “Come on then.”

A car revved to life near the cabin. Michael spun, grabbed her good arm and dragged her into the tangled brush. Her aching body whimpered at the headlong pace. One of his hard hands clamped on to the back of her neck and pushed her to the ground.

“Stay down,” he hissed.

She ducked her head and stayed down.

Gleaming black metal flashed between gaps in the foliage as the limousine roared past them. Michael stood and sprayed it with gunfire, but the car was armored. It disappeared. The Deceiver’s raging presence faded.

Silence descended. No birds called. No wind rustled the trees. The mass of dark spirits had scattered. The scene seemed as peaceful as it had been before the intruders had arrived.

She sensed Michael scanning the area before he shouldered his gun again and knelt beside her. That was when her body exerted control, and she started to shake so hard her teeth clattered.

He eased an arm under her shoulders and lifted her to a sitting position. Then he wrapped his arms around her so tightly she thought he might break one of her ribs.

“Easy,” she gasped as her gunshot wound gave a warning throb, and his hold loosened. She could feel tremors shuddering through his long hard body. He pressed his hot face into her neck.

She managed to get her good arm around his waist.

“Shoulder wound?” he asked. His hands passed compulsively down her back.

She nodded. “I’m okay,” she gritted. “If I get enough quiet time, I think I can heal it. You?”

“I’ll be okay.”

Pulling back, she glanced down his body, noting the tears in his clothing that indicated injuries underneath. No matter what he said, those wounds needed attention. They needed to get back to the cabin. She needed her first aid kit.

She looked up and their eyes met. He said between his teeth, “What the hell were you doing?”

She struggled to speak coherently. “I did what I had to. I thought—I felt him start to tear you apart somehow. I didn’t know there could be anything so horrifying. And there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep from feeling that again.”

He rocked her. His voice vibrated in her ear. “I’m so pissed at you I can’t see straight. And grateful too. We’re both alive and that’s what counts. Come on. We don’t have time to dissect what happened.”