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The only thing I cared about now was getting ahold of the thingamajig sending supernatural shockwaves up my body before Kye did.
He tossed and turned before the barrel I needed, gripping his man parts protectively. I would have reveled in his long overdue suffering, but I had zero time to fuck around. His injury was healing as we spoke.
I jumped over him to reach the barrel but Kye rose with preternatural strength, his pain disregarded at the threat of me getting what was in that wooden cylinder.
My shoulder connected with his abdomen just inside his hipbone, and we flew back toward the wall.
Instead of trying to break his fall, Kye slammed his hands on either side of my head as we fell and crushed an ancient crate. I rolled over him in a crazy somersault and jumped to my feet, my ears ringing and my eyes still spotty from his first hit.
I’m not winning the fight at this rate, no way, and I’m smart enough to admit it.
See, what I hate about the movies is how often they make it seem easy to get right back into the action after getting injured or punched to shit. Maybe if he were human, I could’ve shaken it off. But getting punched in the face by a shifter who outweighs you by a hundred plus pounds knocks you on your ass and puts a damper on your recovery time.
But I’m screwed because Kye is on his feet, and I see a knife glinting in his hand.
“Just walk away, Pinky, and I won’t have to hurt you. Again.”
“Bring it,” I challenged with false bravado, patting my waistband, looking for my knife, only to find my sheath empty.
Fuck.
Then I glanced at his hand again. It’s my knife he holds.
Double fuck.
“Unlike you,” he laughed, waving my knife in my face, “I don’t need this. I could rip your heart out and eat it while the light fades from your eyes—if I wanted…”
I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, give me the knife back and try it then.”
He laughed and jerked his other fist at me. But instead of throwing a punch, he flung floor dirt and rat shit at me. The filth formed a cloud in the shack’s moonlit interior, obscuring everything. I instinctively ducked back and covered my face, only to take a real punch to my gut and another blow to my cheek before I could block it.
I dropped like a goddamned sack and blinked fast, trying to find him in the cloud of filth sparkling in the moonlight as it fell.
Stop looking and listen.
I focused my gaze to the floor and held my breath instead, careful to keep from inhaling the dirt while listening for his movements. At my left, a creak shattered the air, and I threw a kick out, knee-height. I was immediately rewarded with a satisfying crack as I connected with his leg, and he showered me with curses as he jumped back again.
“Leave it, Elena. It’s not for you.”
“Like I care,” I muttered as the dust finally cleared.
“Elena.”
But I was on my feet and closer to the barrel now. Kye finally figured out he had to either kill or incapacitate me to stop me. The only problem was Kye still held my knife, and judging from the look on his face, he was perfectly willing to kill me.
I walked backward until my heel hit the barrel, then accidentally slammed my elbow into the lid. However, the stupid thing flipped up on its end and toppled onto the floor instead of breaking.
“Elena,” my opponent growled in warning.
“Sorry, Kye, but an exiled girl has got to eat, you know?” I glanced down, careful to keep him in my peripheral vision as I reached into the sand and, as I hoped, my fingers found the cool, pitted old glass jar. It shot into my palm as if under its own volition.
Then the air in the room shifted, and I swore the atmosphere became so thin I could barely breathe. I hadn't seen what was in the jar yet, and now I didn't want to. My throat dried, and I swallowed as I began to understand.
It wanted out.
I definitely shouldnotlet it out.
And then, as I stared at Kye, watching him pace mere yards from me, he was clearly debating whether charging for the jar would end the fight or make it worse, when suddenly an unfamiliar smell drifted into the room.
