Page 46 of Thrown to the Wolves

So much for diplomacy.

“I guess you can try,” I tell him with a smile. With a lazy flick of his wrist, he signals his men forward. They advance to surround us. “No killing,” I hiss at Scarlett, meeting her startled gaze. “Non-lethal force only.”

For a beat, she looks like she might protest, but a roll of the eyes is all the confirmation I need. And then we begin, moving in unison, dancers in a lethal tango as the first attack crashes over us.

A fist swings toward my face, sloppy and telegraphed. I catch the man’s wrist, using his own momentum to send him tumbling into his cohort.

Scarlett is using an economy of motion that is nothing short of impressive. She ducks a wild haymaker, sweeping the attacker’s legs out from under him before bringing her elbow down in a crunch against his nose.

But a cry of fury draws my attention toward the mouth of the alley. There are more of them.

Fuck. A lot more of them.

“Heads up,” I manage to holler to Scarlett, just before the bear of a man who seems to be their leader barrels toward her, all subtlety abandoned in favor of brute force. His meaty fists are clenched as he zeroes in on Scarlett.

An image flashes through my mind—Scarlett, broken and bloodied at this animal’s feet.

He’ll kill her if he gets his hands on her.

The thought propels me forward with renewed urgency. I slam into his side, dropping into a textbook tackle that drives the air from his lungs in a guttural wheeze. We tumble away from the fray in a blur of grappling limbs, trading vicious blows until I manage to slam him down against the unforgiving concrete of the street.

But my head snaps to the side as something hard and blunt glances off my temple, rocking me back with a burst of white-hot pain.

Looks like his friends want to play too.

A kick in the mid-section sends me backward, and the dazed leader is still alert enough to grab my foot and pull, hard, so that I crash to the ground. I kick out, get my foot free, then roll aside just as a steel-toed boot comes crashing down where my skull was moments before. Rising in a low crouch, I lash out with a vicious front kick that sends its owner stumbling back, clutching his abdomen.

I dart a glance toward Scarlett, who has her back against the alley wall, using it to fend off three attackers at once. Even as I watch, her foot lashes out in a wicked crescent, laying one of them out cold with a sickening thud.

A battered groan draws my attention as the leader struggles to his feet. He staggers forward, pure vitriol blazing in those dead eyes as he locks onto his target once more.

Scarlett.

CHAPTER 23

Lyssa

Time seems to slow to a crawl as I trace his trajectory. Before I can even think, I’m moving, hurling myself forward to put myself squarely between them.

His ham-sized fist slams into my chest like a freight train, lifting me clear off my feet with the sheer force behind the blow. I hit the ground hard again, the impact reverberating through my very bones as the world tilts and spins in a sickening vortex.

I try to blink away the haze clouding my vision, just in time to see the leader bring back his foot and start to kick out. I twist away on instinct, but searing pain lances through my shoulder as his boot connects, a howl ripping free from my throat. I roll, stagger to my feet, watch him come at me again?—

Only to stagger backward a beat later, clutching at the blade buried to the hilt in his back.

His legs buckle, sending him crashing to the filthy alley floor in a boneless heap.

Scarlett stands over him, chest heaving and eyes blazing with murderous fury as she wrenches her knife free.

God, she’s beautiful. Even as she yanks out the knife, even as she heads my way with murder in her eyes…

She’s beautiful.

I brace myself for another attack from her, but it never comes. Instead, she turns on her heel and levels the remaining thugs with a look that would strip paint. They break and scatter into the night like roaches exposed to light, until only the two of us remain amid the groaning, semi-conscious wreckage.

“He’ll probably live,” Scarlett says. She nods at the guy she just literally stabbed in the back. “But, sorry, I guess. I didn’t have much choice. He was about to kill you.”

Before I can respond, a searing jolt of agony lances through my left shoulder—definitely dislocated, if not worse. I grit my teeth, swallowing back the groan that tries to claw its way free.

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