Page 87 of The Piece You Stole

And then I can’t anymore. I have to let it out.

A scream breaks free, bursting out of me.

I pull away, but before I’ve even lifted my head, hands clamp down on my scalp, holding me still. Tearing my eyes open, my gaze clashes with Nathan.

He smiles, a dark expression that promises more pain to come.

Rylan lifts his head, and at first, I think it’s over, but then he lowers it again.

Agony rips through my mind.

Happily, I dive into the blackness, away from the agony shearing my mind.

I fall and keep on falling, hoping wherever I land won’t hurt me.

CHAPTER 21

ADEN

Angling my face away from the worst of the smoke, I press my mouth against my arm and smother the cough that wants to explode out of me. With my eyes burning from the smoke, the fumes making my throat itch and ruining my visibility, one thing is clear:

This fire is getting seriously out of hand.

Fun, Kade had said.Fun.

I knew I had a reason to be nervous.

His idea of fun is about to burn me right out of this tree.

A flash of movement to my right draws my gaze—and my rifle that way. This high up, with smoke billowing below, my shots are more about me feeling my way than seeing now.

A wolf with reddish-brown fur darts out from behind a tree. I squeeze the trigger.

I have a bare second to think,the shot is good,but the wolf is no longer where it was a second before.

Shit.

I search for my next target. Harder now because the wolves know I’m up here, and they know that not only can I shoot, but I’m shooting to kill.

Tonight is all headshots. Any other place on a wolf and he will shake it right off. But no wolf is getting up from a fifty-caliber bullet exploding his brain.

I don’t have to look far for my next target, because it finds me.

An internal alarm or just plain instinct makes me jerk my gaze down—directly down—beneath me. A reddish-brown wolf shifts to a man. He grips the lowest branch of my tree before pulling himself up.

As if he feels my attention, the man—a blond with ropy, lean muscles and gold eyes—lifts his head. He smiles.

I squeeze the trigger.

He flies back, his body bouncing twice when he hits the ground. I take in the size of the gaping hole in the center of his head before I turn my attention to the next target.

A long time ago, a sight like that would have had me hurling my guts up for a solid twenty minutes and then unable to sleep for a week. But when I think of what this shifter could have done to Saige, I’d happily bury five more bullets in him if I thought he’d feel it. And Rylan. I have a bullet with his name on it. He just has to show his face for five seconds to claim his prize.

Narrowing my eyes, I sweep my rifle scope through the forest. The only thing that seems to move now is the thick, white-gray smoke swirling gently around the trees and the bushes.

Occasionally I catch a glimpse of white fur. At times, I’m almost positive it’s Kade, but then a glint of an emerald stare confirms it’s Dariel.

Where Kade disappeared to remains to be seen. I haven’t seen him once since he leaped from my tree and charged into the forests ten minutes ago.

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