Page 10 of Echoes and Oaths
Her mother reached out, took the sleeping child from her arms, and cradled him protectively. “Be careful, mi amor.”
Eira stepped off the porch and watched as their converted milk truck, a battered, rusted-out military vehicle with a five-hundred-gallon stainless-steel tank welded to its back as it rumbled away from the dairy yard. The thing looked like it had survived three wars, and maybe it had. But it did the job, hauling milk to the nearby village where her uncle turned it into cheese in his shop.
After the painfully slow milk truck passed through the narrow front gate, three black SUVs skidded to a halt and lined up in front of the house. They hadn’t come to barter. They hadn’t come for cheese.
She didn’t wait for an invitation.
Eira walked straight toward the middle SUV, full skirts swaying with every purposeful step. Her boots crunched over gravel and dry grass. She stopped as the vehicle door opened and one of Ortega’s enforcers stepped out. Marco, the bastard. Oh, she knew his type. Clean beard, pressed shirt, combat boots. Dangerous in all the wrong ways.
He let his eyes rake over her body like she was property. Eira slipped her hand into the deep pocketof her skirt and curled her fingers around the grip of a small revolver. It was the only thing Mateo had ever left her. That and her son, who was now safe inside her house.
“What do you want?” she asked coldly.
The man sneered. “If it weren’t for Ortega, you wouldn’t be so disrespectful.”
“If it weren’t for Ortega, you’d be dead,” she shot back, her tone like steel wrapped in velvet.
His face twisted into something feral, his upper lip curling to show his teeth.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.
“What. Do. You. Want?” she asked again, sharper that time.
He hissed something low in his throat but motioned toward the back seat of the SUV. The rear door opened, and inside was a beautiful Belgian Malinois. The dog was trembling violently, thick foam leaking from its jaws.
Poison.
Eira’s chest tightened, but she didn’t show it.
She turned her gaze to the driver, the quiet one, the one who hadn’t spoken yet. “You,” she said, pointing. “Pick him up. Carefully. And bring him with me.”
Without waiting for a response, she spun on herheel and headed toward the small stucco building beside the main house. A simple, two-room structure with whitewashed walls, tiled floors, and metal fans spinning lazily from the ceiling. It was small, but it was hers. It was enough.
The driver followed, carrying the dog as gently as he could manage.
“Put him on the table,” she instructed, pulling gloves on and snapping the light above the exam table into place.
Her hands moved with purpose, her voice firm. She checked the dog’s pulse, felt the trembling muscles, and lifted the dog’s lips to expose the gums and check their color. Then she pried open the jaw to inspect the foam and vomit at the back of the throat.
“He’s been poisoned,” she said without hesitation.
The talkative enforcer scowled, glancing at the driver. “Are you sure?”
She didn’t even look at him. “Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped. “Now, get out of here so I can work.”
They hesitated. She didn’t.
Eira was already reaching for activated charcoal, drawing a syringe, and grabbing the saline drip. She didn’t have time to suffer fools. Not when an innocent animal was fighting to breathe.
She worked on the animal and stabilized it. Giving it a sedative, she made it as comfortable as possible in her limited space. She stroked the dog’s fur as she glanced around the small clinic. Her dream had been to help animals for as long as she could remember. She’d nursed squirrels that had fallen out of nests, tried to fix broken wings on birds, brought every stray animal she’d ever come across home, and loved and cared for them all. The biology of animals was an immediate curiosity for her, and it formed her path as an adult. Animals had no one to protect them. Man was the ultimate predator, and she was their guardian, at least in this small portion of the world.
CHAPTER 4
Jinx and Raven lay motionless on the rugged mountainside, their bodies pressed into the earth, blending with the scrub and shadow. The sun had long since passed its peak, casting the jungle in dusky gold and deepening shadows across the valley below.
It had taken them over a week of crawling through the dense terrain to find the military encampment rumored to house the man known only asEl Fantasma, The Ghost.
At least, that was the intel Guardian had provided. But something about it felt … wrong.
