Samurai Game (Ghostwalkers, #10)(18)

My hearing is messed up as well. But there are more than four of them on our left side. I think both vehicles and the helicopter were meant to drive us to the foot soldiers. Oh, God. The moment she opened her mind fully to him to push her thoughts to him, he flooded her mind with—him.

He filled her, all those dark lonely places she kept hidden from the world—from the ones she’d come to love. There was no way to hide from him. He was warmth and strength and everything she didn’t believe in and distrusted. Loneliness lived and breathed in her. She was careful to keep who she was hidden, especially from Daiki and Eiji. She didn’t want them to know the darkness permeating her, and yet she was instantly exposed and vulnerable to this total stranger. Worse, once he flooded her mind with his strength and purpose, with the essence of who and what he was—that brilliant, determined, and very confident warrior—she felt more connection to him than she did with any other human being.

I agree. They’re using military tactics on us.

Azami hesitated before venturing her opinion, but she’d thrown her lot in with this man, at least until they were out of the situation. I think the mercenaries are considered expendable. They had no idea you have a military compound anywhere close to them. They were too relaxed. The real soldiers are in front of us.

For one heart-stopping moment her breath caught in her throat as his lips seemed to press ever-so-briefly against her ear. I think you’re right. So the real question becomes, who really is after us, because they sure as hell know about the military compound and that they’re on a time limit. My people will be coming in hot and fast.

She turned her head to look at him. The moment their eyes met, his so dark and velvet soft, her stomach reacted with that strange fluttering. She smiled at him. Then we’d better get to work before someone else gets all the fun.

A slow grin spread across his face and reached his eyes. Approval was there and in spite of her determination to remain unmoved by anything else this man did, warmth spread through her.

My boss would kick my ass for deliberately taking you into combat.

I’m very proactive when it comes to saving my own life, she assured him. Or going after someone who endangers my brother. We need to know who is behind this. Thorn put steel into her voice.

She wasn’t going to back down. The attack hadn’t been directed at the compound itself. More than likely the threat was to her brother, and she’d been the one to allow him to take her place in the public eye. She moved subtly, telling him to let her go.

Sam nodded and signaled straight ahead. She liked that in him. They weren’t going to waste time and energy on the expendable mercenaries hired basically to get killed—he was going after the real threat. And he didn’t waste valuable time trying to argue with her; he recognized that she was no liability to him but rather a seasoned warrior.

They moved slowly, using the sounds of their enemy to cover their presence. Thorn would have preferred the night, but she could be invisible during the day nearly as well. The soldiers would be on high alert, hunting the two of them.

In the trees, she warned. Three o’clock.

Another at nine o’clock. Branches are too thick at twelve. Maneuver around and see if you can spot him. Take him out with your bow. I’ll handle the other two.

Her stomach muscles protested. The trees were a good thirty to fifty feet high. If he used a gun, the noise would draw the enemy in numbers. She could . . . Thorn stopped abruptly as another thought occurred. Sam was an enhanced GhostWalker. She hadn’t seen him cross that slope to get to the mercenaries, but he’d killed three of them before she shot the driver. True, she’d been distracted by the helicopter, but still, he’d moved too fast for anyone normal. Was it possible that he moved the way she did? Faster than the speed of light? A form of teleportation? Could there be two people capable of such a thing?

She slipped past him, careful not to disturb leaves as she used an animal’s tunnel to scoot through the heavier brush. She went about three feet before she turned to look over her shoulder. Sam wasn’t there anymore. She glanced toward the tree at nine o’clock and then tried to see the one at three o’clock. The view was entirely obscured, and in any case, she had a job to do.

Sam needed privacy to work his skills. Sending her off to find the enemy was a calculated risk. Could he kill both snipers in the trees before she was spotted? He didn’t waste time, taking the closest tree, the one at three o’clock. The man was up high, about thirty feet, sitting in the crotch of the tree, his rifle resting on the branch snaking out to provide both cover as well as support.

Trees were extremely dangerous when using teleportation. Too many sharp edges and the potential for missing smaller, unseen twigs made the idea terrifying, but his enemy was sitting up in that tree with a sniper rifle, hunting him and Azami. He wasn’t about to let that go. In any case, the foot soldiers had told him nothing about this particular attack. He wanted to find a way to follow the thread back to the snake’s head and he had to do it before Azami got hurt.

It was difficult not to think of her as a soldier. She was too well trained and it was easy to see her as a warrior rather than someone he needed to protect. She felt capable. She felt, gut-deep, like a partner. Still, he had to get into both trees and take out the snipers if they were to hold out until help came.

He studied the tree carefully, taking great care to find the perfect place to insert his body without damaging it and still get to the sniper before the man could alert the others—or kill him. He watched as the wind blew through the leaves and shifted the branches subtly. It was fortunate that the crotch of the tree was fairly bare of snapped-off branches, lessening the chances of making a mistake. He didn’t want to end up with a stake stuck through his leg—or any other part of his anatomy.