Tanner didn’t wait for him to finish. He knew what was coming next—Ryan had just announced it. Instead, Tanner launched himself at Ryan as hard as he could.
He was coming in from too far, at the wrong angle, but at least that knife was nowhere close to Bree. Instead it sliced straight into Tanner’s shoulder as he crashed into Ryan, sending them both rolling to the ground.
Tanner grunted through the pain as Ryan pulled out the knife to try to stab him again with it.
He caught Ryan’s wrist on the downward swing, stopping the knife from where it would’ve landed in his jugular. He threw his weight to the side, trying to roll Ryan with him, farther from Bree. But they had sparred too many times and Ryan was too well aware of his tactics to be taken by surprise.
Instead, Ryan pushed in the opposite direction, bringing the blade down and catching Tanner on the biceps.
He ignored the burn of the new cut, clocking Ryan in the jaw with his elbow before spinning around and catching him in the face again with an uppercut.
Ryan was dazed but didn’t let go of the knife. Both men got to their feet, staring at each other, ready to do battle. Tanner knew it wasn’t just his life he was fighting for. If Ryan took him out, he would definitely kill Bree, too.
Tanner braced himself for another attack with the knife, his mind working out possible scenarios based on what he knew about Ryan’s fighting style. Ryan wasn’t as strong as Tanner, but he was deadly fast and eerily precise in his strikes. In a fistfight that made them just about even. But the knife in Ryan’s hand definitely gave him an advantage, not to mention the wounds that were already dripping blood everywhere and would soon be slowing Tanner down.
But the lightning blows he’d expected never came. Instead, Ryan pivoted and slid to the side of Tanner. Tanner quickly caught him, but not before the other man threw out his leg in a slide kick and knocked over the chair Bree was balancing on.
He could hear Bree’s strangled groans behind him as the rope once again cut off her source of oxygen. Tanner dived for the chair, but Ryan tackled him, knocking him out of the way.
He felt the sting of the knife again and again as he threw Ryan off him and crawled toward Bree. His side. His calf. Tanner kicked out blindly behind him as his fingers brushed the leg of the wooden chair. He just needed a few more inches and he’d be able to right it back under her.
Then he couldn’t stop his cry of pain when the knife stabbed him deep in his waist. Unlike the other blows that had been slices, this one had done definite damage.
The whole room was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges. Tanner was losing too much blood. He didn’t have much time.
He was working at a disadvantage because Ryan was using Bree against him as a weakness. As a chink in his armor. As long as Tanner kept trying to protect her, Ryan had Tanner exactly where he wanted him.
But if there was anything the last couple of weeks had taught him, it was that Bree was his partner. She was nobody’s liability.
They were a team. She’d said it herself.
His fingers wrapped around the edge of the chair again. He knew Ryan expected him to crawl toward her with it, to try to get it back under her.
But Bree was strong. She could make it. And that wasn’t something Ryan had taken into consideration.
Instead of moving toward her, Tanner spun with the chair in hand and slammed it against Ryan’s head. Caught completely off guard, the man fell to the ground, dazed.
Once Ryan was down, Tanner stumbled the couple of feet toward her, lifting Bree’s weight by her thighs, taking the pressure off her throat.
She sucked in a couple of gulps of air then croaked out, “Finish him.”
She had to know Tanner would need to let her go to do that. Even setting her back down as gently as he could, it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
This time she didn’t flail as her oxygen cut back off. She trusted him to do what he had to do.
He trusted her to survive as he did it.
A team.
Tanner turned back toward Ryan, reaching down and grabbing a leg of the chair that had broken. Ryan was starting to recover from the blow to the head, but it wasn’t enough.
Ryan spun the knife toward Tanner again, but with one blow of the chair leg, it went flying from his hand. Three blows with the chair leg later, and Ryan was unconscious on the ground. The sickening thud from the third blow probably meant Tanner had broken his jaw or cracked his skull.
Tanner didn’t care. Ryan was down and was going to stay down.
Tanner took a step toward the knife, his foot sliding in whatever liquid was covering the ground. He let out a low curse when he realized the liquid was blood, most of it his.
The room was spinning, his vision reduced to a pinprick now. He fought to hold on to consciousness and knew if he didn’t get that knife and get Bree cut down, she would strangle there.
