Page 64 of Phoenix Falling
“No, I can’t go!”
“You’re safe, little one. Don’t be afraid. We’re here to rescue you.”
Azrael shared the words in my head as well as hers. I was supremely aware of time ticking away, of Risk watching us close by, of the female shaking in my arms. We needed to go.
“I can’t go; you don’t understand. They have my sisters.”
Risk stiffened next to me.
“Your sisters?”
“If I leave with you, they’ll kill them. I can’t go.”
I looked to Azrael, one brow quirked in question. He nodded. So the female spoke the truth.
“If we don’t take you, they might kill you and them anyway,”he said in her head.
“I won’t take that chance, not with their lives.”
A commotion out in the street said company was on its way. “We’ve got to go, Azrael.”
I stood, the female, still in my arms, coming with me. Her nails dug into my forearm. “You can’t take me. I’ve got to stay here.”
I let her feet slide to the floor, though I couldn’t force myself to release her completely. I looked to Azrael, torn.
“We can’t help you if we leave you here, little one,” he said aloud.
Risk let out a disbelieving whimper.
The psych shook her head. “You have to. I have to return to my sisters.”
That kind of loyalty I understood. Though it went against every grain of demand in my body, I understood the need to take care of others. I’d lived my life by that code, after all.
“What can you tell us about—”
The sound of the front door crashing open interrupted my question. The guard, probably, impatient by a lack of response from the dark warrior still pinned to the wall. Mere seconds stood between us and discovery.
Azrael flashed across the room, almost faster than my eyes could pick up, and jerked his knife from the shifter’s eye socket. “Better than you deserve, bastard,” he growled down at the slumping male.
The psych backed away from me. “Go, please!”
Azrael was already at the rear door to the office. I hesitated a second longer, watching as the psych slumped back down onto the floor. “Go!”
I ran for the exit. Suddenly realizing Risk wasn’t behind me, I turned back at the same moment the front door to the office flew open. Shouts filled the room as soldiers piled in. I grabbed Risk and sped through the back door.
We’d almost made it to the hall when the sound of metal swishing through the air reached my ears. A sword. I looked over my shoulder just as the hilt struck the back of Risk’s head. She hit the floor in the next second.
I threw my own knife with much better aim. It buried fully in the shifter’s neck, deep enough to reach his spinal cord. A flash of light filled the room.
Scooping Risk up on the run, I made a mad dash for our escape.
Shouts followed us, but Azrael and I made it out to the back before anyone caught up. Running with shifter speed, we were at the SUVs in seconds and piling in. It wasn’t until I settled Risk onto my lap that I noticed anything was wrong.
“Who the hell is that?”
I looked down. Instead of Risk’s bright red hair and garish tattoos, I saw thick brown curls and clear, creamy skin. Skin I knew intimately. “What the—” I arched back, nearly dumping the female into the floorboard before getting a grip on myself. “Who—”
“Dude!” Cale gripped the back of my seat and stared over my shoulder. “Where’d you find her?”
