AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I got both hands free and pressed my fingers against the man’s throat; he began to flail wildly beneath me, his fingers scrabbling at my face and throat as I slowly choked the life out of him. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to take his life — but if I let him up, he would shoot me, and then he would shoot Iris, and there wasno way in hellI was letting it end like that.
A few moments later, the man went still, but I didn’t let go until I waspositivehe wasn’t going to get back up. I paused, pressing my bloodied fingers against the man’s neck. Once I was sure there was no pulse, I staggered to my feet. I was panting heavily, but it barely registered. Iris hadn’t even moved from where I left her; she wasn’t staring at Ryan anymore, but she was looking at the dead gunman with a slight tremble in her hands.
“Iris,” I croaked, reaching up to wipe some blood off my face. I wasn’t sure if it was mine or his. “Iris, are you okay? Did he get you?”
She didn’t answer and I stepped over, doing a quick once-over without touching her. It didn’t look like she’d been harmed, and I was able to breathe a small sigh of relief. That was one small mercy. “Iris,” I said again, trying to get her attention. She’d already had one anxiety attack earlier in the day; the last thing I wanted was to trigger a second one. “Iris.”
She turned to look at me slowly, her eyes wide and glassy. “Eli,” she whispered, her voice trembling. I’d never heard her like that before, and it sent chills down my spine. “Eli, he has the tattoo.”
I blinked, taken aback by the randomness of her statement. “What? Who?”
Iris swallowed hard, giving herself a little shake. She pointed at the gunman’s arm. “Go look.”
I paused for a moment, watching her intently — but Iris seemed a little more with it than she had a moment ago, so I did as I was told. Crouching down next to the fallen man, I rolled up his left sleeve. There was nothing there. I turned and rolled up his right sleeve, revealing something. I couldn’t make it out in the dark, so I pulled out my phone and switched on the flashlight, shining it over the skin. Sure enough, there was a tattoo. It was solid black and looked like a bird… honestly, it seemed pretty plain to me. Frowning, I turned back to Iris, but before I could ask, she turned suddenly, staggering towards the woods.
A moment later, she retched into the underbrush, whimpering softly as she trembled. I got back to my feet and stumbled over, placing my hand on the small of her back as she retched again.
“Sorry,” she murmured a moment later, sounding miserable.
“Don’t apologize,” I replied, running my hand up and down her spine. I could only hope it was soothing. “A dead body —”
“It’s not that,” Iris said, straightening up. She wiped her chin and looked at me, her eyes dark. “I’ve seen that tattoo before. I saw it…” She took a deep breath. “I saw it the night my parents were killed, Eli. I saw it on one of the gunmen.”
“I—” I didn’t even know how to process that information, glancing over my shoulder at the gunman’s body. “How?I thought you grew up in Alaska.”
“Idid,” she hissed, following my gaze to the fallen man. She blinked, taking a step back. “Shit, Eli — you’re bleeding.”
“It’s fine,” I grunted, rolling my shoulder. “It went straight through.”
Iris fixed me with a look like I was an absolute fool and reached forward, trying to push my collar aside to investigate my injury. “It doesn’t change the fact that you’re bleeding,” she replied, scowling. “I don’t have any supplies.”
“It’sfine,” I tried to insist, though the hiss she elicited as she touched the skin near the wound probably said otherwise.
Before she could argue, a howl rippled through the woods. Iris froze, but I stepped back, tipping my head towards the sky to answer the call. Moments later, two more men came thundering through the woods, their guns pulled. Iris bristled and tensed; I put a hand on her elbow. “It’s fine. I know them. They’re my guards.”
“How many guardsdo you have?” she demanded, and honestly, it was a fair question. I knew Clay and Jaxon had been tailing us after the party, but I had specifically instructed them to stay back in the parking lot. Unlike Damon, they hadn’t been with me since I was a child; they were closer in age to me than my father, and I trusted them more not to sell me out to the man. Once off the trail, Clay and Jaxon approached quickly.
“We heard a gunshot,” the smaller man, Clay, said. He gave us both a once-over. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine,” I said.
“He’s not fine,” Iris said immediately, frowning at me. “Eli got shot.”
“Shit,” Jaxon muttered, hurrying over to investigate. “I knew I shouldn’t have left the first aid kit in the truck.”
“Not like we had time to think,” Clay grumbled, leaving Jaxon to check me while he moved to investigate the gunman. Once he was satisfied with that, he moved to the second body, frowning down. “He’s shot, too.”
I scowled. “We were coming to meet him,” I admitted. “He was like that when we got here.”
“Well, damn,” Clay muttered. “You want me to stay here and make sure he hasn’t got any other friends lurking around in the shadows?”
“No.” I shook my head. “We’re all going back. Now.” Splitting up was one of the worst ideas I could think of. Clay was an excellent tracker, but he was still one person. If the gunman had several friends, he could be jumped — or worse. One casualty was plenty for the night.
The tripback down to the parking lot was much less enjoyable. My shoulder throbbed, my shirt sticking to my chest. As the adrenaline wore off, the pain worsened, and by the time we made it back to my guards’ truck, I wanted little more than to shift and sleep the entire thing off. At the moment, I wasn’t even sure if I had the energy to shift.
“Sit,” Jaxon commanded, pulling the tailgate down for me.
I did as I was told, allowing Jaxon to peel off what was left of my shirt before he began to clean me up. Iris sidled up as he worked, watching him for a moment before looking back at me. “You okay?” she asked, pressing her lips together.
