Jes
sprinted down the hall without giving it a second thought. Grabbing the last
man through the door by the collar of his jacket, she yanked him backward,
flipping him over her hip and slamming him to the floor before he knew what was
happening.
Balling
her hand into a fist, she punched him in the throat hard enough to stun him,
then ripped his pistol out of his grasp while he was gasping for air. Refusing
to think about the brutality of the situation, she placed the barrel of the
large-caliber automatic against the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger. In
this position, the recoil of the big weapon was ferocious, but she ignored
it—and the resulting blood—focusing instead on snagging the extra magazine from
the man’s underarm holster.
Getting
to her feet, she approached the room carefully. The last thing she needed was
to catch a stray round from one of the guards—or Jake.
Pressing
her back against the wall outside the open door, Jes darted to take a quick
look inside. The room was filled with acrid smoke from the flashbangs, but she
could still see the dead bodies strewn across the floor. Jake and Misty were
nowhere in sight and something told her they’d taken cover behind the heavy
desk that was flipped over.
The
piece of furniture was thick enough to stop the spray of bullets the men were
popping off, but the gunfire was so intense Jake couldn’t even try and get off
a shot in return. Since the bad guys were already spreading wide to circle
around and come at the desk from both sides, the situation was only going to
get worse.
What
if Jake had already been hit?
That
thought scared the hell out of her. She’d heard a werewolf could absorb a lot
of damage, but how much was too much?
“Backup’s
arrived,” Jes announced loud enough for Jake to hear her in his earbud, even
over the gunfire, then took aim and started shooting.
The
moment the men realized someone was coming at them from behind, they turned
their weapons on her. At the same time, Jake popped up from behind the desk and
began blazing away with the automatic in his hand. Bodies started dropping
under the combined effort.
Jes
was sure they’d gained the upper hand, but then a flashbang came at her through
the light haze of smoke still filling the room from the previous ones. Cursing,
she leaped back into the hallway to keep it from blowing up right in her face.
She hit the floor hard, the air getting knocked out of her. Ears ringing, she
scrambled around and lifted her pistol, knowing a bad guy would be coming to
finish her.
But
no one did. A moment later, the shooting stopped. It was immediately replaced
with a roar and a growl that seemed to echo through the house and make the
entire third floor vibrate.
Jes
quickly climbed to her feet, only to fall on her butt again as Jake and Damien
crashed through the wall. Somewhere along the way, they’d lost their weapons
and were now locked in hand-to-hand combat, like two enraged monsters. Jake
wasn’t the only one with claws, either. Damien had them, too.
Jake
had been sure the creature that had attacked Jaime and Neal wasn’t a werewolf,
but seeing Damien fight, she was beginning to think Jake had been wrong.
Jes
got up on one knee, trying to get a shot at Damien, but he and Jake were moving
way too fast as they smashed each other into first one side of the hallway,
then the other, fists slamming into their opponent so hard she could hear bones
break.
She
was about to say the hell with it and take a shot at Damien regardless of the
risk, but then he slung Jake bodily across the hall, bouncing him off the wall.
Even though it had to hurt, Jake immediately jumped to his feet and kicked
Damien in the center of his chest, shoving him halfway down the hallway.
Jes
didn’t waste the opportunity. Lifting her weapon, she emptied the remainder of
her magazine in the man’s chest. Damien flew backward from the impact of all
those rounds hitting, slamming into the floor so hard she felt it. She didn’t
give a crap if he was a werewolf. That many bullets through the center of his
chest had to mean he was freaking dead.
Dropping
the spent clip, she quickly slammed a new magazine in and chambered a round.
The son of a bitch had killed Jaime and Neal and tried to do the same to Jake.
It took everything in her not to put all the bullets in the fresh magazine into
him. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that she might need them if
they had to fight their way out of the manor.
She
was so focused on keeping her weapon trained on Damien where he lay on the
floor, she didn’t even realize Jake had disappeared back into the room until he
ran out with a limp Misty in his arms. Jes’s heart sank like a stone.
“We
need to go,” Jake said, striding past her and heading down the hallway away
from the steps. “We’re about to have more company.”
Jes
didn’t ask how Jake knew that. She simply chased after him.
The
fight with Damien must have caused him some serious damage, but Jake carried
Misty without slowing down. They were almost at the end of the corridor when
she heard the thud of footsteps on the stairs behind them.
Jes
glanced over her shoulder to see at least ten armed men reaching the third
floor. That was bad enough. But then Damien sat up, shirt covered in blood and
looking pissed as hell…and not nearly as dead as he should be. Suddenly, the
group of armed men didn’t seem like a big deal. Damien worried her way more.
Turning,
she sprayed the men—and Damien—with half the rounds in the magazine just to
make them duck, then ran after Jake again. She expected him to seek refuge in
the last room along the hallway. Instead, he yanked open the french doors at
the end of the corridor with one hand, exposing a small Juliet balcony.
What
the hell were they going to do with that? It wasn’t like they could hide out
there. The balcony was too shallow. Besides, Damien and the rest of Darby’s men
had already seen where they were headed.
Jes
was about to ask Jake as much when he gently placed Misty on the floor. Before
she could question the move, he turned, put both hands on Jes’s waist, then
swung her over the metal railing of the balcony, holding her by one wrist and
dangling her like a toy.
“When
I let you go, grab the railing of the veranda below us,” he said, dark eyes
intent on hers.
Wait.
What?
Jes
opened her mouth to tell him he was insane—that she wasn’t a werewolf with
superstrength and animallike reflexes like him—but she was already falling. She
released the pistol she didn’t even realize she was holding, somehow
miraculously grabbing the railing on the second-floor veranda before she fell
to her death.
Crap. It
felt like her shoulders were being ripped out of their sockets.
She
was never doing that again.
Jes
was still hanging there in midair when she felt as much as heard Jake leap past
her. She looked down just in time to see him land on his feet on the lawn below
her, Misty wrapped firmly in his arms.
He’d
jumped from the third floor of a building—with someone in his arms—and landed
on his feet.
Double
crap.
Setting
Misty on the ground, he scooped up the automatic pistol Jes had dropped, firing
it at something above her. She flinched when the bullets struck the metal
balcony, but then felt like cheering when the men up there grunted as other
bullets struck flesh.
“Let
go!” he shouted to Jes before shooting another volley at the floor above her.
“I’ll catch you.”
That
idea was even crazier than the first one, but Jes did it, falling at a dizzying
speed. She opened her mouth to scream, unable to stop herself, but then strong
arms snatched her out of the air before setting her on her feet. She barely had
a chance to catch her balance before Jake grabbed her hand and dragged her away
from the manor.
He
scooped up Misty in one arm on the way even as bullets kicked up the grass all
around them. Seconds later, the big Rolls-Royce SUV was barreling across the
lawn toward them, Harley at the wheel. The moment it skidded to a stop, Forrest
jumped out of the passenger seat to take Misty from Jake while Caleb got out of
the back and fired a MAC-10 machine gun at the remaining men on the third
floor. Jes wasn’t sure if he hit anyone, but they sure as hell ducked.
Jake
led Jes past Caleb and practically shoved her into the backseat, then jumped in
after her, deftly climbing over her to take the window. The big omega followed,
sitting on the other side of her and yanking the door closed as Harley floored
it, tearing the grass to all hell as they sped away.
***
Excerpted from Wolf Under Fire by Paige Tyler. © 2020 by Paige Tyler. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of
Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.
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