Wild and Free (The Three #3)(68)

“By a lot,” Lucien shared. “Close ranks. They’re almost here.”

The men moved in to close ranks.

Lucien’s tone had deteriorated a f*ckload when he kept his eyes to a window but said to Gregor, “You’ll explain how this happened when my bride and the rest of The Three are safe.”

Callum was circling the outside of the group, growling low and snarling with his wolf lips curled high over his teeth, and Abel wondered briefly if he should turn wolf.

He had no time to wonder more.

They were there.

He lifted his sword as the doors flew off its hinges, front and back, and armed vampires and wolves burst through the windows, glass flying everywhere.

Abel knew in an instant, that instant being the next second when he was battling four-on-one, that he’d dreamed this. The location a blur because the action was too intense, but he’d dreamed it. And in the dream, he knew they were outnumbered and he knew they were all going to die.

He’d just never dreamed the end.

Now he knew how that dream would end.

But Delilah was there.

And she was breathing.

So he fought.

Viciously.

The room was a cyclone of activity. Grunts. Growls. Snarls. Gunshots. Steel clashing against steel. Wind wafting as bodies shot around the room. Flesh thumping against walls and floors. Blood spraying.

Within moments of the fight starting, he heard, sensed, and smelled Snake go down and knew the man was dead before he hit the floor.

The only other thing that could enter his mind was to fight until he died so they wouldn’t get Delilah.

So he did that. Even when his flesh was torn away by wolves’ teeth. Even when a blade sliced into his thigh, then his forearm and through his side, he didn’t falter. He didn’t tire. He took head after head because his mate’s life depended on it.

“No!” He heard Leah shriek, sensed Lucien dart toward the table, and Abel knew all was lost.

But Delilah was still safe.

So he kept fighting.

“Chen!” Delilah shouted. Abel tensed to pounce, knowing he was going to her instead of his brother, his heart squeezing so tight he thought it’d explode.

And then the vampire and wolf he was fending off dropped, both headless at the hands of two women he’d never seen in his f*cking life who’d materialized out of goddamned nothing and were floating in the air.

They didn’t float long.

They, and dozens of others beside them, were darting around the room, unarmed but seriously f*cking power-packed and in a motherf*cking fury.

And they were on the good side.

What the f*ck?

Abel didn’t give it more time to process. He kept fighting with the others, pushing the enemy back. With their reinforcements joining the battle, they reestablished the perimeter around the center table and forced them back.

“Withdraw!” a vampire shouted, and as one, the enemy turned and shot through the windows and doors, the floating women charging after them.

Abel stood, breathing heavily, bleeding heavily, staring out the windows and listening to Delilah’s rapid, but healthy, heartbeat.

Lucien didn’t stand. He moved in a blur and ended another blur, slamming Gregor’s body into the floor in front of Abel with his hand at the vampire’s throat, Lucien kneeling over him, face an inch from Gregor’s.

“Fucking explain how that f*cking happened right…f*cking…now,” he snarled.

“Lucien—” Gregor choked.

“They touched my bride,” Lucien bit out.

As Abel watched this, something cut through him, nearly bringing him to a knee. He twisted and saw Delilah on her knees on the floor bending over Snake, Hooker on Snake’s other side, the rest of the bikers, his brothers, and Jian-Li gathered close.

“He’s not dead. He’s not dead. Tell me he’s not dead,” Delilah chanted, her hands moving over Snake’s prone body frantically, her words and the rasping emotion behind them cutting Abel to the quick.

Abel bolted to her side.

“Fuck me, f*ck, f*ck me,” Hook whispered, his fingers pressed tight around Snake’s neck like he could stop the flow. But the blood rush was done. Abel knew it at a glance, seeing as Snake had no throat left, the entirety of it torn out by wolf teeth.

“We need a doctor, Abel,” Jian-Li said softly beside him. “There are many injuries.”

He crouched beside Delilah but tipped his head back as he did, his eyes to Xun.

His brother had cuts and bites, but he was relieved to see they were only flesh wounds.

“Call our guy,” Abel ordered.

Xun nodded and moved quickly away.

Abel’s eyes shot swiftly through the group.

Jabber was in trouble. He was down on a knee, his arm angled over his chest, his fingers curled into his shoulder, blood dribbling from his mouth, his wound hidden by his arm but bleeding profusely. His eyes were to Snake. Poncho was squatting close, hands on his friend to keep him steady, but Jabber was wheezing.

Wound to the lung. Or worse.

Abel kept looking and saw with a slice through his gut that Chen was also bleeding. An injury to his middle side. His brother was standing only because Moose was holding him up.

“Talk to me,” he demanded to Chen.

“It doesn’t feel great, but it won’t kill me,” Chen replied.