Rancid blood and foul, rotting mud, like something from the bottom of a swamp.
Sawyer shouted a warning, but Harley was already racing back the way they’d come, hunching over to protect the girl in her arms. She glanced over her shoulder to see the vampire and a handful of his goons coming into view, weapons coming up as they blocked the path between them, fresh air, and freedom.
Multiple rounds slammed into the back of Harley’s tactical vest and the girl in her arms screamed as she and Sawyer ducked back down a side corridor and the protection it offered. Harley leaned against the wall for a second, evaluating if her vest had held up as she gathered herself for a sprint back the way they’d come.
Beside her, Sawyer’s head snapped up. From the way his nose was working, this situation was about to get worse.
“Bad guys coming this way,” he shouted over the hail of automatic gunfire the vampire and his friends sent skipping along the concrete floor near where they were hiding. “We’re going to be pinned down in the crossfire with nowhere to go.”
Harley’s stomach plummeted. They’d been played from the moment they’d started this operation. The ceiling dropping to split everyone up, two weak and injured kids left in locked cells, the big, green shifter creature drawing Caleb and Erin away while they herded her and Sawyer down this path into ambush. They were being divided into smaller, easier-to-handle pieces by a group of international traffickers who seemed to know everything they were going to do before they did it.
Sawyer set the still-unconscious boy on the floor against the wall as gently as he could. Harley did the same with the little girl. She clutched at Harley’s arms, terror in her eyes.
“No, baby,” she said softly, carefully extricating herself from the girl’s tiny grasp. “You have to stay here. I have to fight and can’t do that with you in my arms.”
Harley had no idea if the girl understood her, but at least she didn’t try and grab on to Harley again as she stood up.
“I’ll take the ones coming this way,” she said, moving to face the direction Sawyer had smelled the bad guys approaching from. “You keep the vampire and his crew busy.”
Sawyer gave her a nod, then pulled his MP5 off his back and darted around the corner to send a spray of bullets down the hallway they’d just escaped. Harley heard the thud of bullets impacting flesh, screams, and then the sound of boots scuffling on concrete.
“They’re charging us,” Sawyer said calmly, like he was commenting on the weather.
A moment later, four men came at Harley from the end of her side of the corridor. She barely had time to put herself between the shooters and the kids before bullets began to thud into her tactical vest…and other unprotected areas of her body. Pain tore through her and she screamed.
Not pausing to think about anything other than the need to protect Sawyer and the two children, Harley ran forward, going for head shots. She closed the distance between her and the four men, seeing their eyes grow round as she let out a growl that would have made Caleb proud. She would have loved to flash her fangs right then and really make them piss their pants, but while she could definitely feel a tingle in her gums and fingertips, that was as far as her wolf would go, even in the middle of a gun battle that had her bleeding like a stuck pig.
She shot two of the attackers in the face. The upper receiver of her Glock locked back on an empty magazine, but rather than bother with reloading, Harley dropped the weapon and reached out to grab the arm of the nearest man who was still breathing, yanking him to her body to use as a shield as she advanced on the fourth gunman.
Harley felt the man jump and twitch as the other guy shot him multiple times, but she kept charging forward until she was right on top of the last gunman. Dropping the body of the guy she was holding, she reached out to jerk the gunman’s rifle out of his hand, then used the butt to smash in his throat.
She’d ended up getting hit two more times in the short fight, once in the left thigh and the other through the muscle along the outside of her right shoulder, but the four bad guys were down, and they weren’t going to get back up.
Harley hefted the AK-47 assault rifle she’d taken from the last man and spun around. The sounds farther down the corridor told her the fighting was still going on, and she was terrified of what she’d find when she got there.
Bodies were strewn about the corridor and the two kids were wedged tightly up against the wall, the boy awake now, his stick-thin arms wrapped around the girl to protect her from all the violence around them.
Even though there were handguns and assault rifles lying on the floor, Sawyer and the vampire seemed to have no interest in them. Instead, they tore into each other with claws and punches, slashes and bruises crisscrossing both their faces. Seeing Sawyer bleeding like that broke something loose in her chest and anger rippled through her, finally making her fangs come out.
But her anger evaporated in an instant as the vampire backhanded Sawyer across the face so hard she heard bone break. Sawyer flew backward through the air, slamming into the far wall with a cracking sound, making a dent in the concrete. The vampire took a step forward, almost assuredly intending to finish Sawyer while he was stunned senseless.
Harley wouldn’t let that happen.
“Hey!” she shouted, pulling the trigger on the large caliber assault rifle even as she
