Highland Wolf (Highland Brides, #10)(94)
Stephanie opened her mouth to tell him and everyone else that the house was about to explode, but the words never left her lips. Like lightning before thunder, the blast hit her first. Stephanie experienced a jolting sensation like nothing she’d heretofore known. She imagined it was similar to how it would feel to be hit by a freight train.
Since it was the blast wind that picked her up and threw her backward, the fact that there was suddenly no oxygen for her lungs was a bit confusing. Stephanie had no time to ponder that, and was sailing through the air before her ears picked up the boom of the explosion.
She landed hard on her back in the overgrown grass, and found herself briefly staring up at the brightening sky before she could find the wherewithal to move. But then Stephanie gathered herself enough to stumble to her feet again. She was vaguely aware that she was swaying as she scanned what she could see of the yard and the people in it. Most of the hunters in her view seemed only mildly injured. There were a few moans and cries of pain from those who had suffered broken bones, or head wounds, but more were on their feet and checking the injured than were down.
Mirabeau and Tiny were among those up and about, helping the others. Decker, she saw, was crouched over Lucian. Obviously, the head of the North American council and unofficial leader of the rogue hunters hadn’t got out of the house before the explosion, but she presumed he’d been close enough to the door to be tossed out by the blast. Judging by the smoke wafting off him, he’d also caught fire, if only briefly, which suggested the bombs had been incendiary in nature.
Stephanie waited until she saw Lucian move before turning her gaze toward the woods in back of the house again. This time she didn’t have to work hard to hear the thoughts of the lone man. He was a calm mind amid the pained and upset hunters in the yard, and the chaos and agony of the panicked rogues trapped in the now-burning house. He was glued to the camera monitors, his focus now on her as he wondered how she had known there were bombs.
Her brain not yet firing on all cylinders after the shaking it had taken, Stephanie burst into a run toward the back of the property. Her only thought was to catch the bastard before he made his escape.
The woods behind the house were much deeper than those at the front, but there was something of a path through it. Just a dirt trail wide enough for a person to slip through the densely growing trees. Stephanie took it at a dead run, using all the speed her body could give her. It made the trip much faster than it would have been for a mortal, so fast that she was caught a little by surprise when she suddenly burst out of the woods into a clearing around a second house.
This yard was no better kept than the other. What had probably been a beautifully manicured lawn at one time was now overgrown with waist-high grass and weeds. Stephanie slowed as she approached, her gaze sliding over the light shining from the windows of the dilapidated old Victorian two-story house as she neared the dark wood door. It was solid, without a window to see inside. She was reaching for the door handle when the chaotic thoughts from the scene she’d just left faded enough for her to catch the thoughts of the man inside. He knew she was there. He was waiting.
Stephanie released the handle and retreated a couple steps as she reached around her back for the gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans. It was loaded with darts full of a drug that had been developed specifically for rogue hunters to use. It was the only thing that could take down a rogue immortal with any certainty.
“Steph?”
She jerked around in surprise to see Mirabeau sprinting out of the woods and hurrying toward her. The fact that she’d left the scene of the explosion rather than staying to help with the wounded had obviously not gone unnoticed. Neither was the fact that she now had her gun out. Mirabeau’s expression was both surprised and concerned as she focused on the weapon. Which was completely understandable, Stephanie supposed. She usually left the actual capturing of rogues to the others. Her presence at these hunts was generally to tell them how many rogues they had to deal with and where they were. She also helped with the questioning after, pulling the answers Lucian was looking for from the captured rogues’ minds like plucking cat hair off a sweater. But, despite her years of training alongside the hunters, she was always kept back from the actual takedowns.
“What—?” Mirabeau was halfway across the overgrown yard when she began to ask her question. The one word was all the woman managed to get out though before her gaze suddenly shifted past her. Mirabeau’s eyes went wide with alarm a heartbeat before she suddenly stumbled and fell.
Stephanie instinctively started to move toward the other woman, but then just as quickly whirled back to the house. The door was now open, and a man stood in the doorway, tall, blond and attractive. He had a gun aimed at her, and even as she recognized it as one the hunters used, one like the one she was holding, he pulled the trigger. She felt a sharp pain in her chest, and glanced down at the dart piercing the edge of her left breast just over her heart, then she too fell as a warm wave rushed through her and every muscle in her body suddenly abandoned her. Stephanie didn’t lose consciousness though, nor feeling, and would have winced if she could have as she slammed to the ground and her head bounced off the hard-packed dirt path.
She came to rest on her side with her eyes closed, but her mind still functioning. Stephanie heard movement and tried to open her eyes, but didn’t seem to be able to manage that. All she could do was listen to the sounds he made as he approached. He must have squatted next to her, or bent over to reach her, but whatever the case, she felt his hand on her shoulder and then was turned onto her back.