Nobody's Hero (16 page)

They fell apart, breathing hard. McClain had always been good at what he did. Quick, efficient and brutal. He’d approached each hunt with the focus of a man determined to finish his duty. Not once had Luc seen hesitation in his eyes, the way it was now.

And the grim truth.
He could have had me then
.

McClain stalked forward, the knife held low against his thigh, as if to disguise the movement. They danced around each other, ignoring the scream of the crowd. Then McClain came after him with a brutal swing of the knife.

Wade grabbed his wrist as he melted out of the way, using McClain’s momentum against him. He smashed the other man against the silver-coated fence, face first. McClain flinched, jerking away with the wire-burn imprinted on his face.

The knife was gone. Luc’s claws had somehow retracted. He shoved McClain’s back against the fence and planted a fist in his gut. McClain wilted over the blow, his hands clinging to Luc’s hips.

“You son of a bitch,” Luc snarled. He smashed his knee into McClain’s face, rewarded with a roar of pain and a gush of blood from the man’s nose.

A foot hooked behind his own. McClain’s eyes were hot with fury now, and he jammed an elbow into Luc’s face. The world turned white for a moment, and then he hit the ground hard, McClain on top of him. They rolled, dust stirring up around them as each tried to gain the upper hand.

Light reflected off something at the corner of his vision. The knife. Luc looked down, his hands curled around McClain’s throat as they came to a halt. McClain’s hand shot out, reaching for it... and falling short.

This was it. His chance. Luc’s claws slashed out and he lifted his hand high, gaze locked on McClain’s.

“
No!”
a little girl screamed.

The word went through him like a spear of ice, freezing time and sound, taking him back years into the past. Luc’s head lifted, as if in a dream, and he looked up through the wire mesh that surrounded the makeshift arena.

A little girl stood in the aisle, her blue eyes shining with tears, her fists clenched in the fabric of her skirts. The light gleamed off her blonde hair, tumbled carelessly over her shoulders. Perhaps nine or ten. Far too young to be there.

God, she looks like her mother
.

His heart seized at the thought. He hadn’t seen her since she was two, and yet he knew, with a father’s knowing, that she was his. He’d rocked her to sleep as a baby, picked her up each time she fell, and kissed her bloodied knees.

“Lily,” he whispered.

Her gaze wasn’t on him at all. “Adam,” she mouthed silently, her face twisting with grief.

The word struck him like a punch. What was he doing? He felt his claws retract again, his hand hovering in the air. In that split second, he realized something – Lily had lost her mother, and McClain was the only father she knew. Kill McClain, and she would hate him forever.

Her father died long ago. Let her believe that. Let me give her this, for all the times I’ve never been there.

Movement shifted. Luc looked down as McClain finally grabbed the knife and swung it up toward him. He could have stopped it. There was a moment there where he could have blocked the blow.

And didn’t.

The knife slid into his side with a whisper. The shock of it clenched every muscle in his body as he slumped. He swore, hot blood splashing onto the sand. The world spun as McClain rolled them, grabbing Luc by the throat and lifting the knife again. The crowd roared. Someone screamed. Riley? Maybe... He couldn’t tell. The world was growing hazy, his side a mess of heat and pain.

Then the knife froze. Luc’s gaze jerked to McClain’s, and his gut clenched as he saw the hesitation, the conflict.

“Do it,” he whispered.

The hand at his throat was shaking. “You fucking bastard,” McClain snapped. “You had me. You fucking had me.”

Luc fumbled for McClain’s hand. “Do it,” he snapped. “Then you look after her. You look after them both.”

The crowd was on its feet, chanting for McClain, who looked up, the knife lowering an inch. Luc saw the chance slipping through his fingers. “Don’t,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll come again, you know I will. I’ll make you regret this,” he hissed desperately, mind racing for a reason to force McClain’s hand. “I’ll take Eden.”

The knife lowered. McClain suddenly stabbed it viciously into the sand beside Luc’s head. “No, you won’t,” he said hoarsely, and then staggered to his feet.

The weight of his body was suddenly gone. Luc sucked in a hiss as pain flooded through him. He curled up onto his side, holding the gash between his ribs. Blood wet his fingers, but he could see where it was clotting. Already healing.

“Come back,” he called.
Damn you
.

“What’s going on?” someone in the crowd yelled. “Kill it, Adam!”

McClain walked away from him.

No!
“You fucking coward!” Luc shoved to his knees, watching McClain’s wide back stiffen. In a sudden surge of thwarted rage, he grabbed the knife and wrenched it from the sand.

McClain turned as Luc staggered to his feet. Their eyes met. And McClain opened his arms in a gesture of surrender.

Calling his bluff.

“Here’s your chance,” McClain said quietly. “You either take it now, or you leave, and you don’t come back.”

The crowd fell silent. Luc looked around, his vision a blur. His gaze locked on Riley, who was clinging to Eden’s hand. Those brown eyes met his, silently pleading with him.

“Please don’t,” she whispered, though the sound of it was lost in the growing murmur of the crowd.

He could barely feel the knife in his hand. His fingers were numb. Then they opened, and the dagger hit the sand beside his feet. He looked down, unable to comprehend what was happening. This was everything he’d wanted. Wasn’t it? Panic suddenly choked him. If he couldn’t have this, then what the hell did he have to live for?

A shitty way to live
....

He couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. The crowd blurred as he looked up, and he sought instinctively for Lily. She was crying as a man tried to lead her away, struggling to see over her shoulder if McClain was okay. Luc scraped a hand over his face. “Agreed,” he choked out. For Lily’s sake... and for Riley.

He took one last look at them. Riley shut her eyes and sagged back onto her seat in relief, and Lily was almost at the top of the stairs, her panicked gaze on McClain, her fingers clasped around the stranger’s.

Luc didn’t know what it was that set him off, but his gaze locked on the tanned hand gripping his daughter’s, and then jerked toward the stranger’s face. A dark hat shielded his face, like most of the crowd there, and his broad shoulders filled out his black shirt. A machete hung over his shoulder, and as the stranger paused at the top to glance behind him, Luc’s gut fell.

“No!” he screamed, launching himself at the silver mesh fence.

Johnny Colton tipped his hat to him with a slight smile, then disappeared with his daughter.

“
D
ON'T SHOOT
!” McClain roared.

Riley looked up in shock as Wade launched himself at the wire fence and scaled it as if the mesh barely touched him.

“What the hell?” Eden murmured.

He wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at any of them. Instead, he glared with deadly intensity toward the top of the arena behind her.

Riley spun, but there was nothing there. Only hot sunlight, and the last vestiges of the crowd. Her brows lowered as she turned to face him. He was almost to the top. One of McClain’s men stepped forward with his shotgun and smashed the butt into Wade's left hand, then the right. With a snarl, Wade tumbled flat on his back into the arena, dust rising. He rolled to his feet, lip curled in a snarl and his eyes wild, but more of McClain’s men had stepped closer to this side of the fence, ready for him.

In desperation, Wade looked to her. “Colton’s here,” he said. “He’s got Lily.”

Riley sucked in a sharp breath, her fists clenching. “I’ll get her back.” Then she turned and bolted up the stairs, shoving her way through the hysterical crowd.

“
N
o
!”

Luc made a snatch for the fence, but one of McClain’s men warned him back. In frustration, he watched Riley disappear at the top of the steps, his heart sinking into his gut.
What the fuck had he done?
She was no match for Colton, and if Colton realized that she held some meaning to him....

The heat washed out of his face. Deep inside, something quivered – the beast, threatening to rise up and consume him. He curled over, fingernails digging into his palms as the fury roared through him.
Take my woman.... Take my daughter
...
Kill him
... The thoughts were primal and dangerously close to the surface. Heat filled his mouth, his gums, his spine bowing as the monster sought to fight its way free. He pushed back, trying to force it down.

Luc came to on his knees, screaming.

The crowd was silent, even McClain’s men backing away from the fence with paling faces. Luc forced himself to push the beast deep. He couldn’t lose control. The charm helped contain it but sometimes, in emotional moments, he came close to losing himself. Do that, and both Lily and Riley were as good as dead.

“Wade.” McClain’s scuffed boots stepped into his vision, moving slowly. McClain would recognize what was happening to him, knowing enough to be wary.

An enemy. He breathed deep through his nose, feeling the heat slowly dissipate from his gums. Or an ally?

Looking up, he met McClain’s gaze, fingers clenching in the dirt. “He’s got her.” The words came from a hoarse throat. “Colton was here. He took... took Lily. Riley went after them.”

The expression on McClain’s face tightened, and he swore under his breath. “I thought he was dead.”

Luc couldn’t speak. He shook his head wordlessly.

“Close the gates!” McClain bellowed. “Sound the siren. I want the walls manned. We’ve got a warg loose in the city. He’s taken Lily, and I want her back unharmed. Don’t confront him. Just find him and sound the alert!”

A hand came out of nowhere, tanned and marked with calluses. Luc looked up, into hard grey-green eyes.

“Take it,” McClain snapped. “I’m not your fucking enemy. He is. If we don’t work together, then we don’t get Lily back.”

The last of the fury roared through him at the thought. Luc clenched his teeth together, then reached out and gripped McClain’s hand. McClain hauled him to his feet, pressing the knife hilt into his hand. “This time, don’t hesitate.”

T
here was
a guard outside the arena. Riley snatched his handgun from its carelessly unsnapped holster and darted past, ignoring his cry of “Hey!”

Ahead of her, a tall man in dark clothes and a black hat led Lily down the street calmly. He glanced over his shoulder at the cry, coal-black eyes meeting hers before they narrowed. As she blinked, he swept Lily up over his shoulder and bolted between houses.

“Stop!” Riley yelled, leaping after him.

She raced around the corner, directly into his outstretched arm. It hit her high in the chest and she went down hard, struggling to breathe.

“No!” Lily cried out, sinking her small white teeth into his neck.

Riley realized his attention was gone and swung out with her feet, hooking her ankle behind his. His eyes widened on her for a moment before he fell, landing with Lily half on top of him. Thrusting the girl aside, he lashed out with his foot, and Riley barely avoided the blow. She scrambled backward, her back hitting the wall. Then she shoved to her feet and aimed the pistol at him. “Don’t move.”

Grabbing Lily’s hair, Colton yanked her against him, pressing gleaming sharp claws against the little girl’s throat. “I’ll do it,” he said, in a cool, dark voice that sounded almost weary.

Riley froze. “Let her go.”

“Put the gun down.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll tear her throat out.”

Bleak, uncompromising words. Who the hell was this man? Riley swallowed hard, trying to listen for any sign of pursuit. It divided her attention for a split second, and he used it to throw Lily toward her. Riley snatched her finger off the trigger, staggering back under the girl’s weight. Her back hit the wall, and Lily cried out as she fell to the ground.

An arm came out of nowhere, smashing down across Riley’s wrist. The blow numbed her arm, and the pistol flew to the cobbles. Riley didn’t have time to look for it. She ducked as Colton’s fist smashed toward her face, taking a glancing blow across the cheekbone that stunned her. Hell, he moved like lightning. Not even Wade had moved like that. Maybe he could, but it made her realize that he’d never truly tried to hurt her.

The pain shot straight up her jaw, toward her ear. Another blow – a chop of his hand – cut toward her throat, and she caught it somehow, deflecting the main thrust of it. The blow still slammed her head back. All she could see was sky, and then she was on the ground on her back.

“Colton!”

She blinked as the howl of utter rage swept through the alley. Then there was a blur of movement and Wade was there, shoving Colton against the wall, his expression a mask of fury and long, sharp teeth bared in his opponent’s face.

Not fully human.

Lily screamed as the men grappled. Riley tried to sit up, her face aching. Colton threw Wade across the alley with remarkable ease, then swooped to pick up the pistol she’d dropped. He pointed it coolly at Wade just as McClain shoved around the corner.

The gun didn’t waver. Colton turned it on McClain and pulled the trigger.

“Shit!” Riley scrambled across the ground as McClain went down.

McClain coughed, blood spattering across his face, his eyes wide and panicked. Blood soaked his black shirt and Riley tore at it, trying to see the damage. “Eden!” she screamed as bare flesh met her gaze. And blood. Lots of it. Shoving her hand over the hole in his chest, she looked around desperately. “Somebody help me!”

Behind her, Wade rolled to his feet. Riley watched helplessly as Colton grabbed Lily and yanked her back against him. This time, he put the muzzle to her forehead. Wade froze and Riley stilled. Beneath her hand, she could feel McClain’s heart thumping in his chest, wetness leeching out over her hands, but the world seemed suddenly silent.

“Back away,” Colton said coolly. “I don’t wish to hurt her, but I will.”

“Let her go.” Wade held his hands up, still in a half-crouch.

“Cane wants her.”

“Don’t,” Wade said shortly. “Don’t do this. You know what he’ll do to her.”

Colton’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. “He wants you. You have three days to come for her. I’ll keep her safe until then, you have my word.”

“Fuck your word,” Wade snarled, taking a step forward.

The gun shifted to him. “My advice is to heal. And quickly.” Then Colton lowered the gun and shot Wade in the knee.

Riley flinched as Wade went down. He arched on the dirt, teeth ground together in pain as he curled over his knee. She looked down, but blood was pumping through her fingers, and McClain’s pupils were starting to dilate. She couldn’t leave him. Wade would live.

Colton nodded shortly at her, “Don’t do anything foolish.” Then he swung the frightened girl gently over his shoulder and disappeared.

“Oh, shit.” Eden staggered around the corner, falling to her knees beside Riley. “What happened?” She tugged Riley’s hands aside, then shoved her own over the wound. “Damn it.
Damn it
. Adam,” she called. “Don’t you dare!” Her eyes were wild as she turned on Riley. “I need my medical bag!” she screamed.

The world was chaos. McClain’s men pushed past, rifles raised. Riley pointed them after Colton, then met Wade’s gaze. Pain twisted his features as he dragged himself into a sitting position against the wall, panting hard.

“Get her bag,” Wade gasped.