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Chaya could hear the back door shattering as she slid into her bedroom and locked the heavy door carefully. The wooden look of the steel door wasn’t as heavy as the one on the safe room, but it would give her a minute.
She could hear gunfire outside, shouted voices, both English and Russian, and her only thought was to reach Natches.
He should have been at the house before the attack. He and Duke were supposed to pull back to the house if they saw a threat. And they hadn’t pulled back. There hadn’t been so much as a warning that anything was coming before that damned grenade was launched into the kitchen.
Running across the bedroom she paused only long enough to check outside the window for a threat before throwing the shade open and unlocking it. She was pushing the lower frame up when the first thump against the door reached her.
The door was stronger than most, but it would only take a few good hard kicks to bust past the reinforced doorframe. Natches had built the house for security, but not for a sustained force.
Another crash against the door and she heard the warning crack of the doorframe. She didn’t hesitate.
She jumped through the window, throwing herself to the ground before rolling and coming to her feet.
The blast that sounded stopped her in her tracks and sent her stumbling back a step or two rather than pushing off into a run.
She felt the bullet slam into her chest in a distant, hazy sort of way.
There was no pain.
She’d always imagined there would be pain, an agony unlike anything she’d known. Instead, it was just a rather distant ache as all the strength seemed to flow out of her body.
She looked down, saw the quickly spreading scarlet stain on the front of her once pristine white shirt as she felt her knees hit the dirt.
Slow motion.
How completely cliché, but everything was moving in slow motion.
Lifting her eyes she stared across the yard to the tall, dark-haired male that stood just inside the natural fence. Ice-blue eyes stared at her with hatred, a deep scar cutting across his cheek, the gun in his hand pointing to her head, his finger on the trigger. It wasn’t enough to shoot her in the heart, she guessed; he was going to put a bullet in her brain as well.
She’d never imagined she’d die like this.
The shot that echoed through her senses didn’t even cause her to flinch as she waited for the blow. Instead, she watched as the side of his head just exploded. Blood, flesh, and brain matter flew in all directions as the body was thrown backward.
“Natches . . .” She whispered his name, the weakness that swept through her legs now spreading through her body as she felt herself swaying on her knees. “Natches . . .”
Her talisman. Her soul.
She didn’t want to leave him. She wasn’t ready to leave him. Life with him was always filled with so much laughter and unexpected adventure. And they’d promised each other they’d live to be old enough to torture their great-grandchildren.
She was breaking her promise.
She didn’t want to leave Bliss or Angel.
She’d only just found her baby. . . .
She could hear more gunfire, hear Natches screaming her name, his voice broken, his arms catching her as she began to topple to the ground.
She stared up at him as he laid her back gently, horror, stark, agonizing pain contorting his face as tears began to fall from emerald eyes.
“No! No! Don’t you do this to me!” he screamed, his face enraged, his eyes like green fire. “Don’t you leave me. Don’t you dare.”
She lifted her hand to touch the tears falling from his eyes. They were so hot, and she was so cold.
“I love you . . . so much. . . .” she whispered, fighting to breathe.
It hurt now. Oh God, it hurt so bad now.
Something pushed against her chest, someone. But she couldn’t look away from her wild man, the man that held the very depths of her soul.
