by D. C. Stone
“You’re trespassing. Stop!”
Ignoring the high-pitched voice, he continued to walk forward, hearing the soft footfalls of his team following behind. Their boots crunched on the dry leaves, and twigs snapped, echoing in the forest surrounding them. Bari studied the man, watched as his face turned redder with each step they took closer.
Bari’s team was linked and with that link, they felt and saw everything he pulled from the man before them. Chad was his name, and fear trickled out of the male and created an ugly scent. It was different, being able to identify emotions based on scents, but it was another part of the change coming. He felt Tyler’s surge of confidence rise, Mike’s strength and anger, hot and deadly, pushed through Tony. Bari’s faltered at Tony’s reaction, and he glanced over at his teammate in a brief moment of confusion.
His attention diverted, Bari didn’t see the move until it was too late. Tony’s eyes widened and met Bari’s and as he turned around, he watched in slow motion as Chad raised a gun and aimed it right at him.
How good of an aim does he have?
Will speed fail me now?
A shot silenced his thoughts and just as it would have hit him, a blur crossed his vision before a grunt sounded. Bari’s gaze followed the shadow, and curses rang out. The look only took a beat of time, seemed as if everything slowed to a snail’s pace. Tony lay on the ground in front of Bari, blood starting to seep out from beneath the sleeve of his green shirt.
Bari’s gaze snapped back to Chad, anger filling his blood so hot and fast. He didn’t hold it back and let it rule him. No one moved; no one stepped forward. Tony rose to his feet, a grunt the only indicator he’d been shot. Chad trembled visibly, his eyes going wide. Bari saw the man’s pulse pound against his neck, and then his entire body tensed. Bari had seen it all too many times in the field and with a curse, he pushed Tony behind him as another shot rang out. The blow of the bullet hit Bari before he could even blink.
Breath exploded from his lungs as pain gripped his body. He fought the discomfort down, focused on Chad. Bari’s pulse beat loud in his head in time with where the bullet pierced him. He crossed the yard in two long strides. The fucker snarled, raised the gun, and took aim again. Bari lifted his arm as he came up on the man and knocked away the hand holding the gun. His forearm came up underneath the male’s chin and pushed back, drawing the neck at an odd angle. The male snarled and kicked at Bari’s legs.
Another bullet echoed through the air, the gun firing off into the forest as Chad tried to take aim. Bari pushed him backwards, his long strides forcing their direction. While Chad was a few inches shorter, hidden muscles, surrounded by the extra weight of his midsection, spoke of strength and the glint in his eyes screamed anything but human. No, it was darker, fouler, coating the very Earth’s air with an evil stench. That scent snapped Bari’s attention back to what he knew—killing.
Bari reached for his SIG Sauer at his back. He slammed Chad against the side of the cabin. The wall shook with the force of the blow. Bari’s neck prickled as if someone was watching him, and he recognized deep inside it wasn’t his team. Bari felt stalked, as if something more were out there. Still linked with his team, he felt the same confusion and alarm rise in their minds. He ignored the urge to swipe at the back of his neck as the hairs rose. Something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, a flash of light and he ducked, rolled, dropping his grip on the male before coming down on his own knees and turning toward where he recognized danger.
He lifted his weapon and fired. He barely registered long brown hair, a dark trench jacket on the figure. The bullet sped through the air, the sound loud, and caught the other male between the eyes. Bari startled for a moment as the other threat fell to the ground in a heap. The touch on this male’s mind had been brief but ugly; thoughts mirrored to the one mind that led them out here, yet holding a touch of something familiar. He couldn’t place what it was, but the feel of it screamed in alarm on the tip of his tongue.
He turned and focused on the first male. His mind radiated fury and evil. Everything slowed. Bari watched as the male reached behind his back and started to pull his hand forward. Bari pushed from his knees and caught a warning from Tyler. He fell to his back and raised his hand, putting four and a half pounds of pressure on the trigger before the SIG jerked. The shot sang through the air, and the male’s eyes widened in shock. He looked down as a red bloom began on his chest and glanced back at Bari; he fell forward, one last statement on his lips.
“She is ours. You’re too late.” A bloodied grin turned up at him and then the light left Chad’s eyes.
Bari frowned. Something was off, had his nerves on edge. None of this felt right. Someone wanted Mackenzie. He felt as much when he touched on the two minds before. He just didn’t know who. His head spun with information. He turned and glanced up, finding Tyler sitting on the porch.
“Tyler…” The word came out of his mouth like a question, confusion tumbling down to one moment when his entire world shifted. It cut off as he glanced across the yard to the tree line behind them. One lone man stood there, a man who looked so damn familiar that Bari’s breath caught in his chest. Red eyes stared back at him, a mocking smile lined his lips, and Bari took a step forward, then another. Soon he was running across the yard without a word, and just as he came up on the familiar face, his entire world exploded as bright light pierced his vision. Bari cried out as pain pounded through his skull like a thousand needles puncturing him at once. He felt a pull on his body, tried like hell to fight it, and only two sounds filled his ears as the world around him wavered: a dark, haunting laugh and the sounds of his teammates cursing.
Chapter Twenty-One
One moment he had been standing in the tree line outside the cabin, surrounded by two dead bodies and his team. The next, he was lying on grass, somewhere deeper inside a forest. He knew it was deeper as the trees here were thick with foliage and not a single house seemed to be around. He scanned the area and saw nothing but heavy branches filled with thick, green leaves. He stayed still on the ground, listening for anything out of the ordinary, and after several minutes, lifted his body from the ground. Standing to his full height, he stepped around a fallen log and out into the clearing of a small area surrounded by tall oak and pine trees. The sound of water drew his head around and before him stood the river just beyond a small patch of bushes. The river being here only told him he was close to the cliffs. Far from home.
Bari frowned and scanned the area. A shifting from bushes to his right had his head snapping in that direction and his hand tightening on the SIG he still held.
“Who’s there?”
The bushes shook some more, and Bari crouched, willing his mind to make sense as to what just happened. Somehow or another he had been moved. How in the hell it happened, he didn’t know, but he’d be damn if he had been brought out here to die.
He wasn’t ready for that shit yet.
“You have until the count of three to present yourself.” He racked a round in the chamber and leveled it at the bushes. “One…Two…”
A lone figure stepped out from the line, just over the other side of the river, and looked at him wide-eyed. He recognized her immediately. How could he not? He saw Mackenzie narrow her gaze as she revealed herself, stepping out from the shadows of the tree line at the riverbank’s edge. As if the world stopped spinning, everything crawled in slow motion. The sound of water babbled in the darkness, providing an eerie backdrop. He saw her step forward, her boot rising, just barely hovering about the icy cool water. Slow motion moved almost to a standstill as he saw it too late. The club came down so fast that he hadn’t been able to shout out in warning. It smacked her over the head and as if a heartbeat of time passed, the world froze before all hell broke loose.
His world narrowed and tunneled to just one person, the one who haunted his dreams, had been his sole comforter for so long, until nothing else existed. Shock hit his veins first, and then denial as it couldn't be. The tunnel
that he seemed to be trapped in pushed out the sounds of the water lapping over the dangerous, sharp rocks hidden below its murky waters, drowned out the high pitched sounds of growls, something inhuman, around them, made even the sound of his own heartbeat sound like thunder in his ears.
“Please, God, no.” The words were no faster out of his mouth before he saw what he could only describe as his worst fear, something that was supposed to be on his side creeping up behind Mackenzie. A demon, yet it wasn’t one that was on his side any longer. Its huge form stood at about seven and a half feet tall. Skin the color of burnt sausage pulsed with hieroglyphic purple designs, tattoos that might be considered beautiful to anyone looking at them, but to Bari they spoke volumes to the evil resonating inside the beast. Spittle dripped from the sides of the demon’s mouth, drawing down his chin and plopping to the ground with what seemed like heavy sounds to Bari’s ears, but yet it seemed that, to Mackenzie, all of this went unnoticed. A look of triumph marred the demon’s face as he realized he had gone undetected. A wooden shaft lifted high in the air, and Bari heard the growl rip through the air, coming out of his throat as panic seized him.
Mackenzie’s face went slack before her body fell forward and with a sudden burst of power, he took two running steps before the energy of his race embedded its way deep into his muscles. He launched himself over the small river to the bank on the opposite side. The spark of metal flashing under the moonlight caught his attention and with an overcoming sense of urgency, he pushed his speed and didn’t stop running until he tackled the demon to the ground.
He had to do something with Mackenzie in order to protect her from the ultimate fate that had been scheduled upon her. He read each little plan in the demon’s mind as his hands burned against the acid-covered skin. He gritted his teeth under the onslaught of the liquid tearing his skin from the muscle, working its way quickly down to the bone.
She had to risk her own life, in order to save his.
On his hands and knees, Bari drew his body up, straddling over the demon below, and brought the back of his semi-automatic to the temple of the beast. A loud roar rumbled up and out from the man’s chest, one sound Bari knew he’d never forget. Without pause, the man struggled beneath him, bucked Bari’s bulk like it was a feather. He countered each movement, tried to anticipate it, but as the demon tossed his hips into the air, Bari had enough. He fell forward and at the same time brought the pistol up to the beast’s temple. A pull on the trigger and a second later a blast filled the air as crimson fluid gushed out from the side of his head.
As Bari shuffled off of the demon, he crawled over to Mackenzie and heaved his large body over, immediately wiping away the mud and grime covering her face and pleading for anyone to listen. “Please be alive. Please don’t let me be too late.”
His body moved before he registered the movement. As if standing above the scene, he watched his hand lift to his mouth, distantly felt sharp teeth slice through thick skin. Shock invaded him as his body moved on its own accord and dropped a now dripping wrist to her mouth.
The sound of voices suddenly spread around him, grew closer, and his heart pounded out its fear against his chest. He had to move, needed to get Mackenzie out of here and disappear.
Removing his wrist, the steady line of crimson fluid escaping from the corner of her mouth, he wrapped his thick arms around Mackenzie’s form, pulled her against his body, and stood. With one pivot, he stepped in the opposite direction of the voices and used all of the strength he had, embraced in his beast, the power within, and ran.
****
Funny, she thought to herself … the voice she had been carrying with her for years, the one she hoped to find again, was the last one she would hear as death claimed her. Mackenzie’s head pounded, the sound vibrating around the swollen tissue of her brain. Her breathing came out in short pants. Her labored breathing was so loud to her ears she failed to pick up on the extra set of shallow breaths until cool fingers brushed over her temple. She winced, her entire body tensing as pain bloomed and then subsided into a dull throb. As she cracked open one eye, the dim light from the corner lit up what appeared to be a small cave. She tried to sit up, groaned loudly at the protest her head gave and felt large fingers tug her back down. Surely she had to be hallucinating; there couldn’t possibly be a way that the man squatting there beside her was Bari.
“Bari?” Even as she spoke, pitching her voice low, she winced as the sound made it to her ears.
“Yes, Mackenzie.” Her entire world shifted, rocked on its foundation at the response. In her pain-induced haze, she figured she would have been babbling to herself, that she wouldn’t get an actual answer back and not one that confirmed the question she asked. Question after question bombarded her, and she dragged herself to a sitting position. She pulled her knees up and rested her small arms over them and squinted at the man sitting across from her now.
“You never did answer me. How are you home? How did we go from spending every second together to distant strangers as we are now?” The question hung heavy, her voice echoing softly off the damp barren walls of the cave, her eyes locked on Bari’s.
He let out a heavy sigh and scrubbed at the top of his head furiously.
“Mackenzie,” he began, cutting off abruptly as his face crumpled in pain.
Her eyes shifted from Bari to the dark sky outside. It hurt, that much she’d admit. The pain was like a breathing animal inside of her. He didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to rekindle their friendship, nor was he answering any of her questions. Her vision sharpened as the ache grew, the feeling of an anvil sitting heavy on her chest. She heard animals rustling around, heard the wind changing directions and tried to listen for anything else. Her mind spun with information she wasn’t sure was real. Had she imagined the monster leering over her? Had she made up the dream of Bari fighting him off? Her ears practically rang with how hard they tried to pinpoint anything, alerting them that they were in danger.
She felt it deep in her bones, somehow knew the scene wasn’t right.
“What are we doing here?” She looked around. “Actually, where are we?”
As a whisper of a sound cut in through the nature of the forest, Bari shifted, drew his hand up and a flash of dark metal caught her eye. His palm wrapped around what looked to be a huge gun, the words Sig Sauer written along the black barrel. His eyes shifted to hers quickly before focusing outside the cave.
His large hand felt around in the darkness and covered Mackenzie’s mouth as she took a deep breath and groaned. Pain rocketed through her limbs.
The whisper of a touch brushed along her temple as Bari laid his mouth right on her ear and spoke in such a low tone she strained to listen.
“We need to move, Mac. There’s a tunnel that breaks off behind this cave and will take us deeper into the mountain. I need you to try to move quietly.”
Pain still coated the interior of her skull, but it wasn’t as bad as when she had woken. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she felt Bari’s hand grasp her wrist to slow her movements as she tried to hurriedly get up.
“Shhhh ... stay still.”
Her eyes cut over at him at the command. She still couldn’t shake the fact he was standing there next to her. As if a magnet, his body called to hers in a way she didn’t understand. She shifted closer to him as they peered at the tunnel entrance at the rear of the cave, his body moving to stand in front of hers.
“Bari, what’s going on?”
He shook his head and pulled her backward, away from the entrance of the cave. The blue of his eyes practically glowed in the darkness, and she stared unabashedly, trying to understand how he did that.
The tunnel was low, and he had to crouch to follow it as it twisted and turned down deeper into the mountain. The air thickened as the oxygen thinned. After some time, Bari reached an arm out to brace her from going farther. His head cocked on an angle as he listened. She focused on the silence, strained to hear what he did and then heard the flutt
er as well, a telltale wing flap of bats. An entrance came up in front of them, the edges of carved rock darker than the air between them.
What in the hell was going on?
****
He knew where he wanted to go, and years after years of exploring this area led him to know exactly where he was. The only problem was that there was an object, a big object in between where he was and where he wanted to be. He recognized the beast’s presence, hated that he couldn’t just disappear with her. Impatience clawed at him and combined with Mackenzie’s continual questions kicked up not only his temper, but also fear for her safety. He had just found her and damned if he could think of any other way other than fight or flight to keep her.
His eyes roamed over the cave walls, ran in detail through the area in his head. Stepping up close to Mackenzie, he palmed the back of her neck and dropped his head down to hers. He pressed his lips to the shell of her ear again and fought to ignore her sweet scent. It was like an aphrodisiac to his body.
“Stay close, Mackenzie. There are things in this cave that will eat you first before asking questions. Step where I step and please keep quiet. We’re being tracked.”
He heard her lips part and covered her mouth with his on instinct to catch the gasp. He’d done it to keep her quiet, but now with her warm lips pressed against his, circuits started firing off in his head, depriving him of all the ability to think straight. He shifted his mouth ever so slightly, and she stiffened next to him.