They were still about half a mile from the landing zone when the ambushers suddenly broke off the attack.
“What the hell are they doing?” one of the marines gasped out. He was half carrying, half dragging a lance corporal who was already bleeding through the pressure dressings wrapped around the wound in his right thigh. “They had us on the ropes. Why the hell would they stop now?”
“I don’t know, but we’re almost there,” Tate called. “Just hold this pace for ten more minutes and we’ll make it.”
“Tate, someone’s coming,” Declan said urgently from beside Kendra. He hadn’t moved from that position the entire time. And while she’d taken down a few of their attackers, he’d taken down a whole lot more.
“Are they coming back?” Tate asked. “Which direction?”
“Not them. Someone else, moving fast—too fast.”
Declan turned in a circle, while the marines and cops eyed him in confusion. Kendra was already getting a queasy sensation in her stomach when the bear shifter’s attention locked in one direction.
“There,” he said. “They’re coming at us like a shot.”
Tate and the others aimed their weapons in that direction. Seconds later, the underbrush exploded in movement. Three men came through, moving so fast they were almost a blur. Gunfire erupted, but even with all the shooting, they didn’t go down right away.
Crap.
“They’re hybrids!” Kendra shouted, aiming her M4 straight into a creature’s chest and emptying the entire magazine into it.
Declan and the other men took down another, but that still left one hybrid, and it was running straight at her. With her weapon empty and no time to reload, she knew she was done for. The thing’s glowing red eyes filled her vision.
Then a roar so loud that it literally shook the trees around her filled the air and Declan charged in front of her, wrapping the hybrid in a crushing bear hug. Declan had known bullets weren’t going to put this thing down in time to save her, she realized, so he’d shifted right there in front of everyone.
Kendra’s eyes widened as the normally gentle shifter squeezed the hybrid so hard she heard the creature’s ribs snap over its growls and snarls. Declan roared again and slammed the hybrid into the trunk of a tree so hard that everything else in the hybrid snapped.
Declan turned to face them, his elongated canine teeth visible to everyone. “More are coming.”
Tate, Brent, and Gavin took the scene in stride, but it proved too much for most of the others. They freaked out and lost it, babbling about not signing up for this crap. Kendra couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t every day that a person realized everything they thought they knew was a lie—that monsters really did exist.
Tate did his best to keep everyone moving again, but it was hard. The hybrids hit them three more times as they ran for the landing zone. And taking them out went through what little ammo they had left at an alarming rate. Kendra quickly reloaded her last magazine in her carbine. They were all short on ammo.
Worse, there were more injured men than healthy ones to carry them, and Gavin and Brent were forced to help keep everyone moving at the cost of defending the group. If it wasn’t for Declan and his shifter strength, they would have all been wiped out. Of course, now many of the men, especially the locals, were just as frightened of Declan as they were of the hybrids.
She wasn’t sure how, but they made it to the landing zone to find the two navy helicopters waiting, their rotors thumping at half speed, ready to take off. Kendra and Declan ended up on one of the Seahawks with a wounded DEA agent, two local cops, and two wounded marines. The marines were in bad shape—the hybrids had torn into them with claws and fangs, causing far more damage than any bullet would. Both were slipping in and out of unconsciousness. If they didn’t get them to a hospital soon, they weren’t going to make it.
“Get us the hell out here!” Declan shouted to the pilot. “They’re coming back!”
The crew chief of their evac bird didn’t have a clue who Declan was talking about, but he obviously recognized a serious situation when he saw it. He strapped the two local cops having trouble with their lap restraints into their seats, then ordered the pilot to lift off.
Bullets hit the helicopter the second it left the ground.