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Ansara! He snarled his rage. It had to be them. Several of them must have gotten together and decided to try burning him out. They’d known he would engage the fire, that he wouldn’t give up until it overwhelmed him. If Lorna hadn’t been there, the plan would have worked, too, but they hadn’t counted on her.
The cold, sick feeling she kept getting—that was when any Ansara were nearby.
“There was a red dot on your forehead,” she said, though her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak, or maybe that was because he was practically kneeling on her back to keep her down.
A laser targeting system, then. T
his wasn’t simply seizing an opportunity, but actively planning and pursuing.
The sniper had failed. What would they try next? He had to assume there was more than one Ansara out there, had to assume there was a back-up plan. They wouldn’t try to burn him out again, since the first effort had failed; they would think he had sufficient power to handle any flame they could muster. But what would they do?
Whatever it was, he couldn’t let them succeed, not with Lorna here.
“Stay here,” he commanded, getting to his feet.
She scrambled after him. The woman didn’t obey worth a damn. “I said stay here!” he roared, whirling back and catching her arm, pushing her down once more. He started to stick her ass to the floor with a mental command, but he’d promised her—damn it, he’d promised her—and he couldn’t do it.
“I was going to call the cops!” she shouted at him, so furious at his rough handling that she was practically levitating.
“Don’t bother. This isn’t something the cops can handle. Stay here, Lorna. I don’t want you caught between us.”
“Who is us?” she yelled at his back as he charged down the stairs. “What are you going to do?”
“Fight fire with fire,” he said grimly.
Dante had a tremendous advantage. This was his home, his property, and he knew every inch of it. Because he was Raintree, because he was the Dranir and took precautions, he went out through the tunnel he’d built under his house. He knew where he’d been standing when the laser scope had settled the telltale dot on his forehead, so he had a good idea where the shooter had been standing, too.
There was only one. He hadn’t found signs of any others.
He had no intention of trying to capture the bastard or engaging him in any sort of face-to-face battle. He prowled up the ravine like a big cat, death in his eyes. The shooter’s position must have been just around this cut, maybe in that big cluster of rocks. A sniper needed a stable shooting platform, and those rocks would be convenient. This ravine provided good cover, too, for approaching.
And for leaving.
Dante slid around the cut and came face-to-face with a man wearing desert camo and toting a rifle. He didn’t hesitate at all. The man had barely moved, bringing the rifle up to fire, when Dante set him aflame.
The screams were raw and terrified. The man dropped the rifle and threw himself to the ground, frantically rolling, but Dante ruthlessly kept the fire going. This bastard had come close to killing Lorna, and there was no mercy in his heart for anyone who harmed her. In seconds the screams became howls, taking on an inhuman quality—and then silence.
Dante extinguished the flame.
The man lay smoldering, barely recognizable as human.
Dante used his foot to roll the man onto his back. Incredibly, hate-filled eyes glared up at him from the charred face. The hole that had been the man’s mouth worked, and a ghostly sound tore from a throat that shouldn’t have worked.
“Toooo late. Toooo late.”
Then he died, massive shock stopping his heart. Dante stood frozen, his thoughts working furiously.
Too late? Too late for what?
He’d touched the Ansara. The man had been in agony, his hate projected like a force field, and Dante had read him.
Too late.
He could warn Mercy, but it would be too late.
“Oh, shit,” he said softly, and ran.
Lorna had obeyed him, and stayed put. She was in the kitchen, crouched by the refrigerator, when he charged in and grabbed the nearest phone. His first phone call was to Mercy. His second was to Gideon, who could get to Mercy much faster than he could.
