I preferred the dream.
“Someone is firing at us.” Scooping an arm under my back and knees, he hauled me from the bed. Whisper hissed and jumped off the mattress, headbutting my bodyguard’s hip as if demanding he put me down.
Dillon ignored the panther and ran for the door. “They shot all the Snowflake Corp guards. We have to go. Right the fuck now!”
Chapter Six
I SLAMMED AWAKE FOR THE SECOND time.
The room swam. Blinding sunlight and bleeding watercolours slowly manifested into my bedroom in Ashfall Cliff.
A pounding headache threatened to split my skull.
What happened?
Where was the snow? The need? The blissful return of the fire warming my bones?
“Lucien!”
My head snapped to the side. My gaze locked on another man carrying my woman and every scrap of lingering haze turned into possessiverage.
“Get your fucking hands off her,” I snarled, shoving upright even as the room tilted.
Seeing him carry her to the door made something primal and ugly claw its way up my spine. The urge to burn him alive came with vicious intensity, but...the fire never ignited. If I wanted to teach him a lesson, I’d have to do it with my fists—
Gunfire cracked outside with sharp, staccato bursts. A window beside the closed double doors shattered as masculine shouts rang out then silenced.
“What the fuck is going on?” Half-marching, half-staggering toward Dillon, I grabbed Rook’s wrist and tugged. “Put her down.”
“She won’t be able to run,” Dillon snapped, already moving away from the door, heading toward the circular window framing the view of the valley. “Trust me to carry her and focus on staying upright. You’re both as weak as each other.”
I bared my teeth, lurching after him on unsteady legs. “What’shappened? What—?”
Another crack of gunfire sounded.
The double doors smashed inward as Uncle Wen stumbled through, blood streaking the side of his face from a gash above his eyebrow. He gripped his cane in one hand while his other arm was wrapped tight around Auntie Mei.
“Xiao Lu,” Auntie Mei whimpered, her eyes wide with fright. “You need to run. Both of you!”
True fear shot through me.
Uncle Wen’s panicked gaze found mine. “They’re on the wall.”
“Shit.” Dillon shifted Rook in his arms, touching the silver piece of metal in his ear. “Jon? You there? Magnus? Anyone?” Spitting another curse, he looked at me with worry. “No one is answering. Not one of the guards I stationed outside has replied.”
“What do you mean?” Rook squirmed in her bodyguard’s embrace. “They’re dead?”
“All I know is, we have to leave. Right now.”
Her face flashed white. “Put me down.”
“I can’t. I need to get you out of here. Before it’s too late.”
“Dil, please—”
“Put. Her. Down.” My entire body throbbed with revulsion at him touching her. It wasn’t a matter of being a possessive asshole, but a fundamental requirement to my already frayed and broken psyche.
“For fuck’s sake,” he said. “Now’s not the time to get territorial.”
