Page 88 of The Piece You Stole

More smoke fills the air. I smother another cough.

Kade and hissmallfire.

Rylan still has to be down there. Somewhere. To leave, he’ll have to pass directly beneath my tree, and I’d see him.

My eyes continue to burn.

IhopeI’d see him.

I make another slow sweep of the forest. A wider one this time. My rifle picks through every bush, every tree, every last—

What was that?

I jerk my gaze back a couple of inches, but whatever I saw isn’t there any longer, yet something tells me not to move on just yet. So, I listen to my instincts, and I wait.

Seconds pass and nothing stirs. And then something does. A brief flash of pale skin.

A second later, another flash has me readying a shot.

Rylan. He’s hiding behind a tree.

There’s no way he’d have put Saige down if he suspects we came here to get her, so he’ll be holding her.

I don’t dare look away in case he moves, and I lose him.

Kade is still nowhere to be found, which means I’m going to have to draw a nice, big target right around Rylan.

I lift my rifle barrel a couple of inches. A fifty-cal bullet will punch through a tank, so a tree is nothing. I squeeze the trigger four times.

Even with a suppressor, the booming noise is nearly deafening.

And then I wait.

Nothing.

I squeeze twice more.

A flash of white darts toward the tree I’m cutting in half.

Let that be Kade because despite what I told him, I’m not entirely sure I trust Dariel around Saige. Not after seeing what his wolf is capable of tonight.

For the first time since he disappeared into the forest, I see him again. Rylan Treveiler. The dark-haired, blue-eyed shifter who made Saige’s life hell.

My jaw tightens as I aim my rifle right at his head.

I squeeze the trigger.

He whips his head out of the way. For one second, his blue eyes glint at me, and then he’s back to holding Saige directly in front of him, like a shield.

Fuck.

To get him, I’d have to shoot through her.

Not going to happen.

Kade comes out of nowhere. A lean white wolf lunging at Rylan.

I prepare to take my shot.

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