Well, guess that was why the bastard was taking his time with that left-wrist thing.
As the guard nodded a signal, there was a rustling from behind the boulders, and as Apex glanced to the sound, he saw Mayhem and Rio being marched out of that foxhole behind Callum’s little pool party location. There was a pair of guards with them.
Lucan was being dragged by his arms and appeared to be unconscious.
“You fuck around with me,” the guard said, “I will order all three of them shot. Right here and now.”
Apex cursed in his head. Yes, they’d been outnumbered, but goddamn it. And it went without saying that they were being taken back to the camp and would be used as examples of what not to do.
Those pegs on that stained wall were going to have a new set of body weights to hold in place.
“Let’s move them out,” the guard said. “Do we have the all-clear—”
As the question was cut off, Apex didn’t pay attention. He was too busy running probabilities on escape ideas—and calculating how many coffins were likely to be required with each scenario.
And then he realized the gun being pointed at him was gone. So was its guard.
Apex looked down.
Well. This was unexpected. The male in the uniform appeared to have spontaneously ruptured his entire throat: Glossy red blood was everywhere.
The question was who had done the handiwork with the knife.
The two guards who had daisy-chained Mayhem and Rio started shouting, and it was with a feeling of total unreality that Apex watched as something came out of the darkness and went for their throats.
It was not a vampire, that was for sure. It was more like a tree trunkthat had suddenly taken on a life of its own, moving with a sinewy grace. Attacking with deadly accuracy.
The mountain itself defending her own.
Both of the guards dropped to the ground, one after the other.
And then Rio threw herself over Lucan, putting up her handcuffed wrists like she was prepared to use them as battering rams to protect him.
She was clearly far more scared of whatever was roaming around the darkness than of the guards and the prospect of being taken back to the prison camp and tortured to death.
What thehellwas out there?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
For Callum, the descent to his garage at the base of the elevation was lightning fast. Even though his wolven side wanted to run, he dematerialized to the supply hideout, and the second he arrived, he went down to the gun closet. After draping himself in bullet delivery devices of various calibers, he accessorized with enough ammo to wage a siege on a military installation.
The trouble started when he reemerged and made sure the bolt-hole was secure. As he stepped out of the garage, he caught the scent in the air.
Blood.
And it was one of his own.
He tracked the scent into the woods a couple of hundred yards, and he found the slaughtered wolven just off the side of the trail. Sinking down on his haunches, he closed his eyes briefly… and then scented the corpse’s fur.
Vampire.
Not a human poacher.
It was definitely a guard, but how in the hell had they found this place? There were thousands of square acres, and they just happened toshow up here? Bullshit. Glancing back in the direction of the garage, he wondered where the tracer was. A piece of clothing? Or had they done something subcutaneous to the prisoners that they didn’t know about?
With a shaking hand, he touched the still-warm flank and whispered an incantation to the Gray Wolf to see the male safely to the sacred grove. Later, he would come back and take care of the remains—
The sound of two males talking floated over on the breeze, and he had to make a decision: Stay armed and on two legs to track them… or increase his senses and ability to travel.