Heart of Venom

lay. Too bad for them that they hadn’t, because they weren’t going to walk away from this spot.

The guy drove his fist into Owen’s face, then hit him with a brutal one-two combo to his ribs. Owen hissed with pain, but he didn’t give the guy the satisfaction of screaming.

“I’ll ask you again, where is the woman?” the leader demanded. “Tell us where she is, and we might let you live.”

By this point, Owen’s face was bruised and bloody, but he gave the guy hitting him a haughty smirk. “Is that all you’ve got? My sister can hit harder than that.”

“A wise guy, huh?” the leader snarled. “Have it your way. She can’t have gotten far. Not after taking a plunge like that. We’ll just find her ourselves. Who knows?

Maybe we’ll have a little fun with her before we drag her back to Grimes. Maybe we’ll even let you watch.”

The men laughed. Owen surged forward, but together the two men were stronger than he was, and they held him tight.

The leader chuckled at Owen’s struggles, then drew back his fist for another blow. I hefted the rock in one of my hands and the stick of wood in the other, positioning them just so, then strolled out where they could see me.

“Are you boys looking for me?” I drawled. “Well, here I am.”

Before they could react, I threw the rock from the fire ring at the leader. The stone zipped through the air and beaned him in the head like a baseball, leaving a bloody welt behind. Even as he stumbled away from Owen, I was already racing forward.

One of the men holding Owen turned to face me and yanked his gun out of the holster on his belt. I stabbed my stick into his hand, knocking the weapon away. The guy growled and lunged at me, but I stepped up and head-butted him in the face, crunching his nose with my forehead. The second his head snapped back, I raised my stick and drove it into his throat. It didn’t sink all the way in, not like one of my knives would have, but it did enough damage, especially when I yanked it back out.

The guy fell to the ground, gasping for air, and I fell on top of his back. I ground his face into the dirt and leaves until he quit fighting, and I knew that he was dead.

Owen had turned on the final man, pulled the guy’s gun from his holster, and shot him in the chest three times with it, dropping him.

That left the leader, who had finally quit staggering around like a drunk. He gaped at Owen and me and backed up, as if to turn and run. I grabbed the second man’s gun from the ground, and a couple of bullets solved that problem.

I got to my feet and scanned the forest, in case there were any more of Grimes’s men lurking around who might come running at the cracks of gunfire. But a minute passed, then another one, with no signs or sounds of anyone heading our way. Those three must have been all that were in the area. So I shuffled over to Owen, who had his hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back.

“Are you okay?”

He wiped a bit of blood off his face, winced, and straightened up. “Yeah. Although now I think I know how you felt getting tossed around in the river yesterday.”

I grinned at his black humor, but I still kept looking and listening at the woods around us. Just because no one had immediately appeared didn’t mean that they weren’t headed in our direction.

“c’mon,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get off this damn mountain.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Owen quipped.

Chapter Twenty-six

We packed up our things and headed out. Owen insisted on carrying his backpack and all of the supplies that he’d brought. He offered to carry me too, but I refused. I might be injured, but we’d make better time with both of us on our feet. So instead, he found a tall, sturdy branch that I could use as a walking stick to help me hobble along faster.

To my surprise, we made it back down to the parking lot at the foot of Bone Mountain without any problems.

We hunkered down in the trees and watched Roslyn’s car for several minutes, but no one was waiting to ambush us. Still, I made Owen check under the hood to see if one

 of Grimes’s men had planted a bomb there, just in case.

But the car was clean, and thirty minutes later, Owen had stopped the vehicle outside cooper’s house.

Quite a few cars were clustered together in the driveway now, facing out and forming a solid metal barricade

in front of the house. I recognized Finn’s Aston Martin, Bria’s sedan, and Phillip’s Audi. The battered gray pickup truck had to belong to Warren, given the rifle in the gun rack attached to the back window.

Owen and I got out of the car and shuffled up to the house. At this point, he was dragging his backpack along the ground with one hand, while I had both of my hands wrapped around my walking stick, despite the splinters digging into my palms. Neither one of us was in the best shape of our lives, but we’d made it back alive.

A few soft murmurs of conversation sounded as we

headed around the side of the house and stepped into the backyard. The others were sitting around the table outside on the patio, almost as if they were waiting for us to show up. Finn in a perfect suit and tie, Phillip wearing the same thing, the two of them looking as cool as icebox pies, despite the sweltering afternoon heat.

Bria in her usual jeans and button-up shirt, her badge and her gun both clipped to her black leather belt. Eva wearing shorts and a tank top. Roslyn in an elegant sleeveless sundress.

They were all leaning in toward the table and talking quietly, with Finn leading the conversation, judging by the wild way that he was gesturing. He was the first to spot Owen and me, and he stopped in mid-sentence to stare at us.

I grinned. “Honey, we’re home.”

The others scrambled to their feet. Eva raced over and gave Owen a long, tight hug, while Phillip clapped him on the back and almost sent him and Eva tumbling over.

Bria came over and hugged me, along with Roslyn, and

then the two of them stepped to the side so Finn could get in on the action.

He stopped in front of me, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave me a critical once-over, his green eyes as sharp and bright as emeralds in his handsome face. “You look like hell,” he finally said.

My grin widened. “You should see the other guys.”

Finn sighed and opened his arms. “come on, come

on, you know you want to hug me and get blood, mud, dirt, and who knows what else all over my brand- new suit.”

“Why, I thought you’d never ask,” I drawled.

I stepped into his arms, and Finn carefully hugged me, mindful of my injuries.

After a moment, he pulled back and sniffed in that haughty, superior way of his. “I told you to wait for me.

You wouldn’t be beat up nearly as badly if you’d done that.” His tone was rough and grumbly, but I could still hear the worry in his voice.

“I know,” I said, patting his shoulder and trying to soothe his ego and his concern. “Next time, I’ll definitely wait for you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he warned.

“I know you will.”