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“Let’s go. ” Tamber jumped to her, grabbed her arm and began pulling her back up the track. “Bitch. You are so dead anyway. And I’ll just come back for him. ”
A lion roared. Scheme’s gaze jerked to the side, watching as a huge, four-legged, sharp-toothed, fully grown male lion opened his mouth and roared a challenge before disappearing into the brush a second before Tamber fired.
There wasn’t a chance in hell Scheme was going any farther. She knew these lions, remembered the reports her father had received on them. They were trained to attack and kill intruders. The only time they wouldn’t attack was if the victim was on the ground, unarmed. Tamber’s bullet would hurt a hell of a lot less than those teeth. Scheme wasn’t going anywhere near that border and she wasn’t running any farther.
She shuddered before stumbling and letting herself fall to the ground. Her arms went instinctively over her head as she prayed not to feel the mercilessly large, sharp teeth of the predator.
“No, you don’t,” Tamber screamed, her foot driving into her ribs, sending shafts of agony to tear through Scheme’s body. “Get up. ”
Oh God. That hurt bad enough.
Snarling, Scheme reach out, gripping Tamber’s foot before the second blow fell, struggling to stay on the ground and at the same time to keep the bitch from breaking her bones. Dammit, this was not the way that party was supposed to end tonight.
“Whore, I’ll kill you,” Tamber shrieked as she managed to kick free.
A hard punch to Scheme’s stomach came as a gunshot splintered her hearing and black agony raced through her mind. Better to die here.
CHAPTER 30
Tanner rounded the curve in the old logging road, cursing as he threw the cycle to the side and jumped off in a crouch to grab David and haul him to the side of the road, out of the way of the cycles moving in behind him.
“Get her, Uncle Tanner,” he was screaming, crying, his bruised face twisted in fear and anger as he struggled in Tanner’s arms. “Tamber’s going to kill that lady. She’s going to kill her. ”
Turning, Tanner saw Callan pull his own cycle to a stop, jump from the seat and run to David.
“Tamber has Scheme ahead,” Tanner yelled, as the other bikes skidded to a stop. From the corner of his eye he watched Dawn’s Lionesses take off on foot around the mountain as Dawn jerked her rifle from the scabbard at the side of her bike.
Pushing David into his father’s arms, Tanner took off at a run. He could smell them now. Scheme’s pain and rage sliced into his senses, as did Tamber’s killing rage.
A second later his roars followed the lions’ as he watched Tamber aim the deadly pistol at Scheme’s head.
“No!” He was too far away. He couldn’t save her. He wasn’t going to make it in time.
The shot came out of nowhere. He was within twenty feet of them when the bullet tore into the center of Tamber’s forehead, throwing her backward as her eyes widened in disbelief.
“Scheme!” He raced for her as the lions converged on the area, roaring, enraged as they paced the perimeter, the sound of the approaching heli-jet warning them of the danger coming.
“Spread out,” Dawn was yelling to the female Lion Breeds she commanded. “I want that heli-jet down. Go!”
They all packed small, cylindrical rocket launchers on their backs, which they tore free as they ran to take up defensive positions.
“Scheme. ” Tanner fell to her side, his hands touching her, moving over her, shaking her as pure terror raced through him.
She was bloody, bruised, but she was alive. He rolled her over carefully, a roar ripping from his soul at the sight of her heavily bruised face and the blood that seeped from a wound in her forehead.
She was breathing. Thank God she was breathing. He buried his face in her neck. She was breathing.
At the sound of gunfire, he waved several Breed Enforcers over to her as he jerked the automatic rifle from his back and began to return fire.
The border was within sight, and somehow Tallant had managed to get his men in place with no advance warning. Which meant he had to have had help in Buffalo Gap.
“Cover her!” he yelled to the enforcers braced around Scheme and returning fire across the ravine. “Nothing touches her. ”
Several more raced in to circle her as David was pushed into the circle as well. Tanner covered the circle of men, motioning other enforcers racing in to cover them as well as more gunfire began to echo through the mountain.
“The heli is gunning,” someone yelled as the rapid fire of the heli-jet’s onboard guns began to cut through the forest. “Get them the hell out of here. Now. Dawn, get a bead on that bastard and take out those guns. ”
Someone, a Breed, grabbed David as Tanner lifted Scheme carefully in his arms and ran for the chopper landing in the small clearing below.
