He wouldn’t, but it wasn’t his safety he was concerned about. He didn’t care about anything except Zarina.
He kissed her again, then strode over to the door and yanked it open to find Spencer still waiting on the other side, two semiautomatic AR-15s in his hands. The hybrid’s eyes were glowing, and his fangs were extended. The guy was wound up already, and they hadn’t even gotten involved in the fight yet. Tanner was going to have to keep an eye on the man, as well as any other hybrids coming with them. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if the people helping lost control and hurt the people they were supposed to protect.
He and Spencer found Chad at the far end of the camp getting armed men loaded into the backs of three pickup trucks. Chad had already decided that while Malcolm could join Tanner and Spencer on the rescue team, Peter would stay there. That was smart as far as Tanner was concerned. They needed to keep at least one hybrid here for security.
Lillie was beside her father, checking the men as they climbed into the trucks, giving them words of encouragement and making sure they had enough ammo.
“How bad is it?” Tanner asked the older man.
Chad shook his head. “No way of knowing. They called the moment their perimeter guards picked up movement outside the camp. That was at least five minutes ago. You’ll lead the men when you get them there?”
Tanner hated the idea of being responsible for any of these men in a fight, but he knew he couldn’t avoid it. Who the hell else was going to do it if he didn’t?
“I’ll take care of them, but tell them it’s their job to reinforce and defend the camp. Spencer, Malcolm, and I will get there first and worry about dealing with the attackers ourselves.”
Chad frowned. “You aren’t riding in the trucks with the others?”
“No. It’s twelve miles to the Pyramid camp by truck but less than three if we go cross-country. We’ll be much faster on foot,” Tanner said, already envisioning the route he and the other hybrids would need to take as they crossed the four ridges that stood between them and the other encampment. “Make sure your guys know we’ll be out there. I have no desire to get shot by any of them.”
Giving Chad a nod, Tanner took off running, Spencer and Malcolm on his heels. He veered due north the moment they hit the wood line, heading in a nearly straight shot for the other prepper camp. Running full out up one mountainous ridge and straight down into the next valley would have been impossible if he and the others weren’t hybrids. A normal human couldn’t run up a nearly vertical rock outcropping or jump from a twenty-foot height to hit a steep slope. The pace bruised flesh and cracked bone on a hybrid. It would have killed anyone else.
As tree branches slapped his skin hard enough to draw blood, Tanner let his instincts guide him. With his mind free to wander, his thoughts immediately went to Zarina. The image of her lying back on the bed, hungry for his touch, immediately made him get hard all over again. Even with the stress of the moment pumping adrenaline through his body, one thought of her was all it took to excite him.
While he had no doubts about the direction he ran nor about what he’d do when he got to the other camp, when it came to the woman he loved, doubts abounded.
Was it right to leave her there? Was it right to sleep with her in the first place, knowing how dangerous it was to be around him? Was he simply setting them both up for pain and heartbreak later when things went bad and it turned out he would never be whole again? Even though Zarina made him think anything was possible, his life was scattered with dozens of moments when situations had gone bad and people he cared about paid the price.
Tanner determinedly shoved those thoughts from his mind as he got closer to the Pyramid camp. That’s when he realized he’d outrun Spencer and Malcolm while he’d been lost in thoughts of Zarina. They were barely a minute behind him, so that was okay. Actually, he preferred it. This way, he could get there first and figure out what the hell was going on before the other hybrids arrived and complicated the situation.
He’d been hearing sporadic gunshots for the past few minutes, but by the time he got to the edge of the camp, near silence reigned. There was a lot of whimpering and crying coming from the people who lived there, but no sounds of fighting.
He let his nose guide him, tracking the scent of smokeless gunpowder to the far side of the camp and back into the wood line. He picked up the scents of several men within a few more feet. It was difficult to describe how he knew it was the bad guys. They had a different smell to them—commercial cleansers in their clothing combined with the persistent stench of blood.
Tanner passed three injured preppers as he tracked the intruders’ scents, one woman and two men. All of them were alive, but they were in too much pain to do much more than point farther into the woods as he ran past them. He kept going, knowing Spencer and the others would find the wounded people and get them back to the camp.
He found five of the bad guys a mile later. They walked casually toward two large SUVs parked on the road, their weapons down at their sides as if they didn’t fear a counterattack. All the men wore military-grade tactical gear and night-vision goggles. Tanner frowned. They looked more like people the DCO would tangle with, not a group of preppers out doing their best to live their lives completely separate from the rest of the world.
Four
