“Stay here,” he blurted. “That’s what it was. I have to stay here with you.”
And yet that didn’t sit right. He just couldn’t seem to recall why, as if his memory was like the landscape on the far side of the foggy boundary. Too far away to read.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
Forcing himself to leave the ether alone, he looked at the female who was lying naked in his arms. “I want… you.”
“Then take me,” Nadya said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Under the Fuck-It rule of warfare, when you were out of ammunition and in a position that was not offering sufficient coverage to be considered even remotely defensive, and when no backup was making an appearance, there was only one thing left to do.
You took the pin out of your aggression-grenade and did something so outrageously stupid, the enemy was briefly frozen in disbelief.
“I’ll take care of this,” Apex said to no one in particular.
Where was that fucking wolven?
“Where are you going?” Rio shot back as she looked up from Lucan.
“Out for a stroll in the woods.”
“Apex—”
Closing his eyes, he dematerialized into the field of battle, re-forming behind the only guard who’d stayed in the same position. The rest of them moved around, shifting from tree to boulder to tree. Not this guy.
Mr. Static was either shitting his pants at his first combat experience. Or he was wounded. Or maybe he just liked the view.
In any event, Apex was on him before the bastard knew it, a sharp blade opening a barn door in his carotid artery while at the same time leaving his windpipe nonfunctional. No more high or low notes for him.
Catching the body when it started to slump, Apex laid it on the ground, stripped the weapons, and waited.
Three…
Two…
One—
Another guard was in a forward position about twenty feet over. Leveling the muzzle of the handgun he’d just taken, Apex waited for the flash after the other trigger was pulled—and then he discharged a bullet of his own at the target that revealed itself: There was a strangled yell, and then the oh-so-lovely sound of a sack of potatoes hitting the ground.
With a quick check of the magazine, he confirmed he had seven bullets in the chamber. Not enough. Keeping his eyes on what was in front of him, he patted down the bled-out guard, feeling the body heat still radiating from the torso, and he found—
“Toss the weapon and hands up or I shoot you in the head.”
Apex cursed and considered trying to dematerialize. Until he felt the precise circle of a gun muzzle on the back of his skull.
“I’m waiting,” the guard snapped.
As Apex pitched the handgun, the loss of ammo stung just as much as the loss of the weapon itself, and then he put his palms up in classic stickup fashion. The clink of handcuffs was a musical sound, and he felt his right wrist get taken in a rough hold and cuffed with steel. But he didn’t care about that. He was waiting for the spin-around.
Because, really, somebody needed to welcome the sonofabitch with a head butt.
The second his body was sent for a little turn, he—
The gun was shoved right into his face, with such force it bent his nose. The guard was not one he recognized, but then it wasn’t like he’d gone to a cocktail party with any of the fuckers.
“If you make me shoot you right now, prisoner, you won’t know whether your friends made it out of here alive.”