In defense, Riley tried to roll, to reach cross body for her gun. The savage kicks to her ribs, to her back, her belly stole all breath.
Sasha laughed.
A nightmare, dreaming. Not real. Engulfed in pain, swimming in shock, Riley struggled to unsheathe her knife with her left hand.
The sound she made when Sasha’s boot stomped on her hand was a high-pitched shriek. Her vision wavered; her stomach pitched.
Then her friend’s artist’s hands closed around her throat.
• • •
Doyle strode into the kitchen where Annika happily put groceries away, and Sawyer sniffed a fat tomato.
“Still more, right?” Sawyer set the tomato aside. “I’ll bring it in.”
“You going to make that salsa?”
“As advertised.”
“Do that.” Doyle grabbed a cold beer from the fridge, took a long pull. “I’ll get the rest.”
“There’s a deal.”
After one more swig of beer, Doyle set the bottle down, started back through the house. A beer, he thought, some chips with Sawyer’s salsa would be a solid way to offset Annika’s shopping enthusiasm.
In any case, they’d gotten everything they should need for a good week. And next time, somebody else would deal with the mermaid.
He glanced up, momentarily baffled when Sasha jogged down the steps.
“I didn’t hear you get back. I was painting on the other side of the house. How—”
“You’ve been upstairs?”
“Yes, I went by the tower library just now to see if I could help Riley, but—”
“Jesus Christ. Get Bran, get the others. Riley’s in trouble.”
“What? How?”
“Get them.” He drew his sword from the sheath on his back, was already running. “She’s in the woods.”
He’d barely reached the verge when he heard her scream.
He didn’t think, just moved. The sound had been agonized, and he already might be too late.
He caught the sound of laughter—horrible, gleeful—and sprinted toward it off the track. No time for stealth, and his instincts demanded he make more noise. The sound of someone coming, and fast, might stop whatever was being done to Riley.
He didn’t pause when he saw Riley crumpled on the ground, bleeding, unmoving, and Sasha—or what had taken Sasha’s form—standing over her with a wide, wide grin.
“She’s dying,” the thing said with Sasha’s voice, then long teeth shimmered between Sasha’s lips, claws sprang from her hands. “You’ll all be dying soon.”
Even as Doyle charged, it delivered a vicious kick to Riley’s head. When Doyle’s sword cleaved down, it struck empty air as the thing coiled down into itself and ran through the trees with preternatural speed.
Doyle dropped to the ground, pressed his fingers to the pulse on Riley’s raw throat. Found a pulse, thready, but beating.
Bearing down on fear, on rage, on a kind of grief he’d sworn never to feel again, he ran his hands over her, checking her injuries. Her face, sickly gray under the bruising, bleeding, abrasions, was the least of it.
He heard running, shouting, tightened his grip on his sword, prepared to defend Riley should foe join his friends.