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Hammer listened to the footsteps.He was walking away but would return with reinforcements.They would count on the fact that Hammer was wounded.
He flexed his shoulder. The bullet had just clipped his wing. And when he shifted back to his human form, the wound remained.
He hadn’t healed properly either because of the damned implant in his neck. But right then, there was no choice. He had to leave, injured or not.
Hammer took several deep breaths before turning. The deep breaths were a trick Ajmal had taught him a long time ago. Ajmal always maintained that nothing could be achieved under stress.
His old friend had been right in the end.
Something twisted in Hammer’s chest as he thought of Ajmal.Was it regret? Or was it grief?
He shook the thoughts away and slipped over to the bed.
Stay tight. Stay fluid.More maxims from Ajmal, who had also trained him to fight. It seemed that he was being haunted.Would he be able to live with the ghosts?
Charlie was deeply asleep, and all thoughts of Ajmal disappeared from his mind. His mate was so beautiful that it hurt. But she was also a balm to Ajmal’s ghosts.
He carefully placed his hand over her mouth, inhaling her scent. Her fragrance melded perfectly with his own. Her eyes flickered open, alarm streaking through them. The room was in complete silence and also hot. Hammer had shut the windows as an extra measure of safety.
All that could be heard was his breathing and Charlie’s. He shook his head as she wriggled underneath him. Then, lifting a finger to his lips, he removed his hand from her face.
“Get up.” His voice was small, nearly inaudible.
Charlie exhaled, and her hot breath lingered in the air between them.
Hammer swallowed before he continued. “Get your stuff. We’re leaving now.”
Then he stood and grabbed his things. Charlie hopped off the bed, landing lightly.She moves as quickly as I do,Hammer thought, relieved.
Charlie pulled on her clothes quickly, stopping with the jacket Hammer had given her outside the camp.
It was later than Hammer had realized. When he pulled aside the curtains, the sunlight was slowly creeping over the horizon. He unlatched the windows and slid his arm around her waist before Charlie could say anything. His skin burned briefly as it came in contact with a bare stretch of her midsection.
Then he hoisted her into the air and out onto the window ledge.
Hammer was slipping out of the window when the discreet knock on the door sounded.They hadn’t waited very long,he thought wryly.
They also weren’t waiting to be polite. Because as Hammer shifted smoothly, the door was kicked in. Ajmal’s men were determined to get him and Charlie at all costs. And they clearly didn’t care about the lives of innocent bystanders.
Shifting into his dragon form was painful, but it didn’t matter. There was no time. He pulled Charlie into his claws and lifted into the air.
He flexed his wings, trying to work through the muscular pain. But it didn’t work, and he hovered with uncertainty. But the thought of Charlie, vulnerable against Ajmal, forced him forward.
There was no fucking way that Ajmal would get his hands on her.
And there was no fucking way that Ajmal would survive this. Hammer would kill him if it was the last thing he did.
They were several hundred feet from the hotel when a bright red-and-white light burst in the sky next to them. Flare guns. Fuckers.
The light sprayed across the sky, blinding him. His pupils dilated, trying to absorb all the light. But it didn’t work, and he almost dropped Charlie.
A hiss and whistle alerted him to another flare. He swooped lower in the air. He had just missed the flare crashing into them. But lightning bolts of pain spread through his body.
The flare had singed his wing.
No time to think about it. No time to be in pain. No time for anything but getting Charlie to safety.
Charlie. Charlie. Charlie.He wasn’t sure why the mantra chanted in his head, but it lessened the pain in his wing.
