“Yeah, man, I found the… witch,” Noc answered, saying the words like he really wished he didn’t have to say them.
“You must take us to her,” Tor commanded.
Noc stared at Tor another second then mumbled, “Fuck me, this shit is whacked.”
“Sir, you must take us to her,” Tor ordered again, definitely losing patience.
Noc lifted a hand and nodded his head. “Yeah, yeah, I get that. Let Cora down so she can get in the SUV with me,” he replied and Tor’s body got tight.
Oh dear.
“She will ride with me, we will follow,” Tor decreed.
“Uh… Tor, yeah?” Noc asked his name.
“That is me,” Tor confirmed his name.
“I gotta point out, man, that it’s raining and you’re on a fuckin’ horse,” Noc noted.
“I’m aware of that,” Tor retorted.
“And your babe is pregnant. She needs to be in a car where it’s warm, dry and safe, not riding on the back of a horse in the rain,” Noc remarked sensibly and logically and, I will add, sweetly.
I so totally had to hook him up with Phoebe.
Tor’s arms convulsed around me and a low growl escaped his throat. He didn’t want to let me go but he knew he should.
God, I loved my man.
Noc moved a step forward and continued in a quiet voice. “I understand that you two have been separated awhile and had your souls torn apart and shit but I swear I won’t let anything hurt her. She’s safe with me. Yeah?”
Tor scowled at Noc but I watched his face gentle when his neck bent so he could look at me.
“You will ride with the other me,” he said softly.
“Okay, honey,” I whispered.
His arms gave me a squeeze and his lips brushed mine. Noc moved closer as Tor lowered me off of Salem and Noc’s hands caught my waist and steadied my descent. This made Tor’s jaw get tight and I had to admit, it was a weird sensation to have the hands of two of the exact same, but entirely different, men on me.
When my feet were on the asphalt, Noc grabbed my hand and pulled me a couple of steps away from Tor and Salem.
“We cannot waste time,” Tor announced, his eyes moving from Noc’s hand in mine to Noc.
“I got a lot more horsepower under my hood than you’re sittin’ on,” Noc pointed out.
“We will keep up, just proceed with haste,” Tor commanded.
“Proceed with haste, gotcha,” Noc muttered under his breath and his voice was shaking with laughter.
I squeezed his hand at the same time I shook it. “Tor’s from another world,” I hissed at him. “You know they talk differently.”
Noc looked at me with amusement in his eyes.
It was a good look.
“Right,” he muttered then the amusement fled from his eyes as they moved over my face. His hand got tight in mine as I watched it hit him that I was who I said I was, not some crazy head case he was tagging and this was really happening. “Right,” he muttered again, his tone soft, even tender and he nodded before he whispered, “Let’s get you two home.”
Jeez. Totally a sweet guy.
We started to the SUV and as we did, Salem stamped a hoof and shook his neck. I looked toward the horse as I moved with Noc and saw Salem stamp his hoof again, throw his head back and whinny.
Then he started dancing with agitation.
Oh shit, I didn’t get a good feeling about this.
I stopped, Noc stopped with me and we both looked at Salem.
“Salem, what do you feel?” Tor asked urgently, Salem danced, swung his head to Noc and me and whinnied more anxiously. That was when Tor shouted, “Get her to your transport!”
Noc looked from the horse to Tor. “What?”
“Now!” Tor roared, pulling the sword out of the scabbard in Salem’s saddle and Noc got still at my side when we heard the steel hiss as it went. Tor’s eyes were pointed into the dark distance but it was too late.
The air all around us turned blue, I knew what that meant, my system flooded immediately with adrenalin but I had no time to react. The next instant the air surrounding us exploded in blue sparks that shot everywhere, filling the space, bouncing off our bodies.
“What the fuck?” Noc shouted, his hand grasping mine hard at the same time and he started dragging me to his truck.
But we didn’t get there because the sky was swarming with vickrants and worse, what looked like an army of hunched beings with two arms, two legs, huge, deformed pointed ears, wrinkled faces, bald heads and bulging eyes were marching straight at us.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Assistance
“Head down!” Noc shouted, I was tucked into his body as we moved in a near-crouch around his truck to the passenger side, the blue sparks of the vickrants Tor’s sword was slicing through as he and Salem provided us cover bouncing off our bodies.
Noc pulled the door to the SUV open but it was rocking, those other… things were at the other side of it, pushing at it to turn it to its side, probably doing this so we couldn’t use it to get away.
Keeping me tucked to him, Noc didn’t delay. He reached in, pulled down the door to the glove box and grabbed a gun and two clips.
He extended the clips to me. “Take these,” he ordered.
I took them and shoved them in my back pockets as he pulled back the slide on the top of the gun and yanked us away from the shuddering SUV just as it teetered over and slammed on its side.
“Cora!” Tor shouted, I peeked out from under Noc and looked at Tor. He was swinging his sword at vickrants one-handed at the same time pulling a dagger out of his belt.
I ducked out from under Noc, raced swiftly to Tor, took the dagger from him and he reached around his other side and pulled out another one. I took that one too.
“Rocks!” Noc yelled at Tor, his arm snaking around me, he tucked me back into him and we raced off the road, through some scrub and into the sand toward some huge rocks. The whole time, Tor and Salem followed us, continuing to provide cover overhead as Noc aimed his gun at the legged creatures advancing on us from behind.
He pulled the trigger and one of the creatures howled, dropped to his back and exploded in blue sparks.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Noc muttered, but didn’t hesitate, aimed again and pulled the trigger. Another creature howled, collapsed and exploded in blue sparks.
The rest kept advancing as we kept going toward cover, not an easy thing to do through sand.
A vickrant flew low, sailing under Salem’s neck, the horse whinnied but I swung my arm down across my body, yanked it back up and I sliced through the vickrant’s chest, blue sparks shot into my face and the vickrant disappeared. Another instantly followed and I did the same with the other dagger, catching the thing at its throat, it vanished in a shock of blue embers. I did all of this as Noc kept shooting and moving us, me in the middle, Salem and Tor close to my side.
I took down another vickrant before we made it around the tall rock the underneath of which the sea had eroded away, giving us an overhang and cover from the vickrants who, unable to get to us but coming just the same, flew straight into the top of the rock in their kamikaze mission, exploding themselves.
Whoa.
