Page 91 of Hunted

14

Ellie

MATTEO ROSSI STOOD OVER RIVER, a gun pointed at his head, the scene playing out exactly like it had in all of my nightmares. The Colorado River roared below us. Moonlight shimmered over my skin. It was all so eerily familiar, a vision of the future come to pass. But I was wrong. I had to be wrong. Seers were among the rarest type of magic users among shifters. And I was human.

My heart thudded, panic slamming in my veins.

“Ellie,” Hayden screamed, desperate to reach me.

“Get down!” Brody shouted, unable to get to River and Rossi with so many people crowding the narrow walk space.

My vision tunneled until nothing remained at the edge of the darkness but Rossi and River. I wouldn’t let him take my mate from me.

The burning in my side from the gunshot wound had gone strangely numb. Maybe I only had seconds left to act before unconsciousness took me. I shifted, suddenly remembering the hard cylindrical object Jori had pressed into my pocket, knew there was only one thing it could be.

Being underestimated can be a tactical advantage.

The water thundered below us, dark and violent. One slip would be all it would take to send any of us plummeting to our deaths. Rossi’s attention wasn’t on me. He couldn’t afford to take his eyes off River and Sofia Caldwell beyond him, her hands extended in a mage pose.

I’d read somewhere once that with enough force applied at the right angle, you could break zip ties. I bared my teeth. Raising my wrists over my head, I brought them down hard against the metal railing. The plastic tie snapped like it was nothing. I gripped the tie looped around my ankles, breaking it almost effortlessly.

Pulling the auto-injector syringe from my pocket, I staggered across the walkway towards Rossi. Black spots appeared before my eyes. I had no idea how much blood I’d lost, but if the front of my cardigan was any indication, I should probably be in a hospital bed, not trying to take down the most dangerous werewolf alive.

“Ellie, no!” My sister’s voice was hysterical. “Ethan, get her back.”

I turned, saw that Vlad was grabbing for Ethan and Hayden, and I was throwing a wrench in his plans to dematerialize all three of us to safety.

“We need to go,” he shouted. “There’s no time.”

“I can’t,” I gritted out through the pain. “I won’t leave him.”

“No,” Hayden lunged towards me, still cuffed in silver shackles, eyes pleading. “Don’t do this.”

I flashed back to the time in elementary school when a group of boys had caught me taking uneaten carrot and celery sticks from the lunch trays in the trash cans, washing them in the long metal sink over by the wall and putting them in a plastic bag to take home to my rabbit, Marigold. Trailer Trash Girl had been my nickname for two days until Hayden had overheard, marched up to the tallest boy and smashed her lunch tray over his head. It had been spaghetti day. She’d been given detention for a week. And those boys had never bothered me again.

I couldn’t leave River. On some level, Hayden understood this just as surely as she would never have left Ethan. The mated bond linked two wolves in a way that their souls became irrevocably bound. To lose him would mean to forever lose a part of myself. My sister would never forgive me for what I was about to do. But just like she’d protected me that day in the school cafeteria, now it was my turn to protect her.

“Get her out of here!” I shoved Hayden into Ethan’s waiting arms, backing away out of reach as she clawed for me.

“Ellie,” she screamed. “Come back.”

At first my sister’s expression registered only shock and horror. Then as Ethan read the determination in my face and with resignation, his arms locked around her, preventing her from coming after me, hurt and betrayal caused her eyes to flare a furious shapeshifter gold. But worst of all was when I didn’t turn back, when she saw I really meant to go through with it. Hayden read the grim determination on my face and her eyes widened with panic.

“Ellie.”

Her scream died soundlessly as an echo on the wind as Vlad ghosted her and Ethan away.

“Drop the gun, you bastard,” Brody ordered, leveling his service weapon. “It’s over.”

Rossi flinched, starting to tremble, unable to withstand Sofia’s mental attack as each fought to overpower the other. I pushed past Brody, scrambling across the bridgeway. I had to get to River.

“Goodbye, Cousin.”

The gun discharged.

Once.

Twice.