Page 4 of Her Faithful Protector

“Leave me alone,” she spat in a short burst of defiance.

He laughed.

“You’re stupid, you know that, right? Do you like being hit? Maybe you want to leave the bus now and be hit a few more times? Eh?”

“Please, she’s young. She’ll be quiet, I promise,” Camilla pleaded.

“Ah, her protector. How interesting.”

2

“Yo, you’re not keeping up. You’re young; what’s your problem, another late night?”

Nic flipped Cullen Lyons, his Navy SEAL teammate, the finger and put on some serious speed as he clambered up the rope netting and swung over to the other side. At least now he had a fighting chance of coming in third on the obstacle course today.

Cullen was right, normally he would have come in second behind Ezio because there was just no stopping that guy these days. But no, Raiden was beating him, and Cullen was giving him a run for his money. Then there was Zed Zaragoza, who was catching up to him, and that guy was just coming off of disability leave!

Yeah, I seriously suck.

Nic pushed on, determined to come in second as he picked up speed. Two obstacles later when they were doing a low crawl through mud, Nic laughed at Cullen.

“Tough keeping up, isn’t it old man? Have you gained some weight since Carys started cooking for you?”

Cullen snorted. “You think she cooks for me? You must be delusional, Son.”

“Sorry, can’t hear you, you’re too far behind me,” Nic shouted. He got up as soon as he was free of the short wire that they had to crawl under. He took a moment to look back. Cullen was almost done, but Zed was just halfway through.

Good!

Six more obstacles to go.

He ran up the hill at top speed then grabbed the weighted pack and shoved it up on his shoulder. He heard Cullen’s ‘oomph’ behind him.

“You’re making old-man noises, Lyons.”

“Fuck you, Hale.”

Nic laughed and ran faster up the hill, but he could still see Cullen in his peripheral vision. The man was like a tick, he couldn’t shake him off. The good news was that he was gaining on Raiden Sato.

He could see the high step coming up. Nothing more fun than running through tires without tripping. Hell, did the Navy get a kickback from Goodyear? Sure seemed to be more tires than the last time he’d run this course.

Nic chuckled when he saw Cullen trip.

“You’re showing your age. What, are your knees giving out?” Nic taunted.

Once again Cullen gave him the finger. “You keep doing that Cullen and I’m going to think you’re issuing an invitation.”

“There is something just plain wrong with you, Nicholas Hale. I’m going to tell your Mama.” Cullen was breathing hard.

Nic chuckled and left Cullen behind him. He saw the walls coming up, each one higher than the next. He made a jump, then hoisted himself over the first wall. Did the same for the second. The third wall was evil; he had to jump three times before his fingers were able to grab onto the top of the wall. That’s what happened when you were only six feet tall. He scrabbled up the wall and made it over.

Close to the end, he needed to haul ass to the next obstacle.

He took less than a second to look up at the spinning monkey bars that hung over a huge mud puddle. This was going to be simple. He’d been practicing that at the gym. This should be the point he really gained on Raiden. He saw him near the end of the obstacle course, still not done.

Nic climbed the netting up to the first hanging bars and jumped for it, he caught it with one hand and it twirled. He grabbed tight with his other hand and barely held on—but he did—then using his momentum he swung and caught the next damned spinning bar. On and on it continued. He never looked at Raiden or thought about Cullen; all he did was concentrate on the task at hand. He was in the zone. Before he knew it he was at the netting on the other side.

Raiden was just beginning to run from the base of that obstacle.