“Is that—?” one of my captors began, only to be cut off by Werther.
“Move!” Werther snapped.
Before he could take his own advice, the engine roar grew deafening and a large, dark shape hurled past me, so close that the wind of its passage ruffled my hair. The motorcycle sideswiped Werther, sending him flying. His body hit the pavement hard and rolled.
Tires squealed on pavement as the motorcycle slewed to a stop, and a dark form stepped off of it. My heart leapt into my throat as a familiar figure with wind-whipped black hair and the ethereal face of a dark angel strode toward us, reaching over his shoulder to pull a sword—a fucking sword—from a sheath strapped to his back.
“Rans?” I cried, wondering if I’d just suffered a psychotic break and was hallucinating wholesale now.
He spared me only a brief glance, and when he did, his eyes were glowing... lit from within by the bluest of flames. Before I could do more than gasp, one of my captors was rushing him, an extendable truncheon snapping to full length in his hand.
“Get in the car, worm,” hissed the one still holding me.
Only one option occurred to me, since I’d already had it proven that I didn’t have the strength to fight them. I went absolutely limp, flopping to the ground like a sack of potatoes despite the agony in my shoulders as the man tried to keep me upright using my bound arms. I forced every muscle to go lax, making myself a dead weight.
Let the asshole try to get me in the damned car now.
Somewhere behind me, metal clashed and I heard the thump of flesh on flesh. I wanted desperately to crane around and look, but I didn’t dare. Someone grunted, and the man trying to drag me the last few feet to the car hissed like an angry cat.
“Get your hands off of her,” said a familiar British accent, from very close by.
I did crane around then, only to find Rans standing a step away from my captor, towering over me like an avenging angel in black leather, sword in hand.
“Our Queen will hear about this, parasite,” growled the man holding me.
“I have no treaty with your Queen. And I did warn you,” Rans replied calmly. The sword flashed, and my captor screamed, staggering back to land with a thump against the black Mercedes as he clutched the stump of his right arm.
Something wet had flopped onto the pavement next to me. I very carefully didn’t look, but that didn’t stop my gorge from rising at the knowledge of what had just happened. Rans leaned in and grasped me by the upper arm, helping me stagger to my feet. He turned me to face away from him and murmured, “Hold still.”
With the faint rasp of a blade against hard plastic, the zip tie binding my wrists snapped and fell away. Pain shot through my shoulders as I jerked my arms free of the unnatural position they’d been bound in.
“Time to leave,” Rans said grimly, sheathing his sword and hustling me toward the bike.
I staggered, stumbling over my own feet, praying desperately that this unexpected final burst of adrenaline would hold long enough for me to cross the hundred or so feet separating us from the motorcycle. A firm grip kept me upright, and we were almost there when movement caught the corner of my eye.
“Werther!” I gasped, as the crumpled figure rose with impossible grace from where he’d been flung by a high-speed impact mere moments before.
Rans was already spinning me around, stepping sideways so that his body was between me and my miraculously recovered tormentor. I felt Rans’ body jolt with some kind of impact that drew a soft grunt from him. Before I could respond, we were moving again, and he was dragging me onto the bike behind him, gunning the engine.
I threw shaky arms around his body, scrambling for somewhere to put my feet. Werther was running... charging toward us, a vicious snarl twisting his too-perfect features. Panic clutched me as I stared at his fevered eyes. His outstretched hands. But then the bike peeled away, leaving me to cling to the solid form in front of me as Rans accelerated away from the scene of carnage in the parking lot.
My breath was coming in great, rasping sobs, and it felt like I couldn’t get enough air. I leaned against the broad back in front of me, and my eyes caught and held on the flash of silver metal and the finely wrought wooden handle protruding obscenely from Rans’ left shoulder.
It was a knife. Werther had thrown a knife at us as we’d been running for the bike, and Rans had purposely shielded me and taken the hit.
“Your shoulder!” I cried, the wind trying to whip the words away as soon as I uttered them.
“Least of our worries right now,” Rans called back.
A flash of light in the motorbike’s round little rearview mirror dragged my attention away from the horrible sight of the dagger protruding from Rans’ flesh, and I twisted to look over my shoulder. Car headlights followed us, careening crazily as the black Mercedes jumped a curb to come after us in the most direct line possible.
“Hold on, luv,” Rans warned. “Things are about to get interesting.”
TWELVE
MY HEART RACED AT about a million miles an hour as I maintained my death grip on Rans’ waist. He wove the motorcycle expertly along the darkened streets of downtown St. Louis, not allowing the Merc to gain ground. I was hopelessly disoriented, but I had the vague idea that we were circling back, approaching the Civic Center again. Rans braked sharply and swerved into an alley with cars parked along one side.
There was no way the big Mercedes could follow us,
