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While his head was up high, emanating his confidence, the pressed lines of his face told me it wasn’t going as he had planned.
The longer he stood there, the more that hope started to slip away, only solidified when his features turned into a scowl.
Before I could react or shout for his attention, two men leaped from behind the trees with cattle prods extended, and the forest came to life with bright currents as they sank them into his sides.
Pinned in place by the pure energy of it, shock overcame Liam’s face, and we both seemed to realize at once that things wouldn’t be so easy.
He dropped to his knees once the prods stopped, and he hung his head, looking exhausted.
In response, an empathetic pain surged through me, and it was impossible to see a way out.
Chapter 28 - Liam
I realized my mistake when it was far too late.
That electrical current ran through me, stopping me from making any moves. As hard as I tried to move, it rendered me useless—even my ability to heal.
While I could regenerate enough to keep myself alive, the current was too strong for me to do anything beyond that.
When the prods moved back enough to give me a break, I crumpled forward, catching myself with my first before I could fall completely to the ground.
Taking in my haggard breaths, I tried to find that strength within me. The power I needed to get myself out of that position and to somehow get Cora to safety.
But from my position, I knew I severely underestimated their numbers. While I had been aware of their size before, it seemed they had bumped their gang in the time I had been gone, and they had no intention of letting me slip away.
They may have been human, but there were far too many for me to take on myself, especially with all their weapons, the cattle prod, and how they had Cora. Even through the currents that periodically went through me, I could see her back there with a knife against her throat.
Just seeing it made my heart ache, but my current state wouldn’t allow me to charge over and take out Zain behind her.
No matter what happened to me, I couldn’t let anything happen to her.
I could only hope that Kai and the others weren’t far behind.
Pinned on the spot, I ran everything through my mind as quickly as I could, analyzing for the sake of trying to devise a new plan.
I tried to honor their wishes by coming alone and speaking to them outright, but when that smirk spread across Alphonse’s face, I knew something awful was coming.
They didn’t know much about shifters or supernatural folk, but they did know about electricity’s debilitating effects. They had seen as much when I accidentally struck an important cable on a job site and couldn’t heal as fast as I usually would.
I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt to see if they’d work with me on some sort of arrangement to free Cora, but it seemed they had no interest in talking. Instead, that current went through me again and again until Alphonse raised a hand at the two men.
They stopped but maintained a defensive stance, should I try anything.
Heaving in several deep breaths, I looked up at the two Gleason brothers and did my best to encourage the healing process.
Alphonse crossed his arms over his chest. “You know, we expected more from a big man like yourself. Whatever happened to all that fighting strength?”
Pushing myself up to my knees, I tried not to focus on Cora in the background, but it was impossible not to.
Her face was distraught as she watched, likely unable to hear the full extent of it. She was tied to the tree and at their mercy. I could only imagine how long she had been standing there in the cold, skin practically blue already.
Watching as wave after wave of fear ran through her, I couldn’t stand it. Everything inside me was screaming with the need to get to her. To give her a fighting chance and make sure she never had to face those men again.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Ricardo murmured as he was given a blade by one of their men. As he exposed it to me and anyone else who could see, a black substance glimmered on the blade in the low light. “We finally got you.”
A shiver moved down my spine, and I recognized it immediately.
Liquid mountain ash.
