exactly what Tasha was thinking as he glanced back into her eyes—that she thought it was time to give herself up. She still believed that she was the one the hostiles were searching for, and she was ready to launch her last-ditch, sacrificial Plan Z.
She was ready to trade her life for theirs.
Not only was she wrong, but Thomas could do this. She had to let him try. Four to one were not great odds, but when the one was a Navy SEAL, armed with a rifle and a shit-ton of luck and good karma...
He shook his head at Tash, just the slightest of movements, silently telling her “Trust me.”
He saw her hesitation and fear. If he was wrong, if he failed, she was going to watch him die, and she knew it—he could see that realization in her eyes.
“Stop or I’ll fucking shoot to kill!” The first of the patrol had crashed into view, his voice shrill with his own fear—not a good indicator that this was going to end peacefully.
But Ted didn’t stop, and time hung as Thomas looked into Tasha’s eyes for what he knew could be the very last time. “Love you,” he told her silently.
And she did it—she trusted him. She nodded.
Her lips moved. “I love you, too.”
And Thomas dove away from the hide, throwing himself toward the cover of that enormous tree, with his weapon already aimed at the man drawing a bead on the prince.
Thomas’s sudden movement made the hostile’s shot go wild, saving Ted’s life.
But it drew the man’s fire to Thomas, and Tasha flinched, desperate to know if the gunman’s second shot had also missed, praying that the tree had kept Thomas from being injured or killed. Please God, please, please God...
Thomas fired back—he wasn’t dead!—and the gunman fell, but now the rest of the patrol had crested the mountain top and they were shooting at him, too. There were three of them, and one of him, and Tasha had never felt so utterly useless and terrified in her entire life.
But she knew if she moved or announced her presence, they’d aim those guns at her. She wouldn’t get to speak—“Wait, don’t shoot! I’m the one you want!” They wouldn’t listen even if she shouted. And Thomas would lose what little chance he had of surviving this as he threw himself in front of her to shield her from their bullets.
Trust me. She did trust him. She forced herself to stay very still even when one of the hostiles moved close enough to the hide for her to hear his unsteady breathing.
He had some kind of radio—or maybe a walkie-talkie. He was using it to call for backup. “We need help,” she heard him say. “Tim, it’s Emmet, we’re under fire, can you hear me, over? I think it’s the SEAL—that motherfucker just will not die.”
That was bad. That was really bad. One against three was one thing. But one against twenty...?
“Goddamnit, Tim,” the man said. “Where the fuck are you? We need backup now, over!”
Tasha looked wildly around her, searching for a large enough branch among the brush that covered her. The biggest was maybe three inches thick.
That didn’t seem to be big enough, but it was going to have to do.
From the corner of his eye, as he kept the second and third hostile from killing the prince by shooting one—two down, two to go—and driving the other back, Thomas saw the fourth gunman duck directly behind the cluttered brush of Tasha’s hide.
Not good.
From his current position, he didn’t have a clear shot that wouldn’t endanger Tash, so he threw himself out from behind the tree, staying low, even as he shouted, “Get to cover!” at the stunned and clearly overwhelmed prince.
“I’ve been shot,” the prince shouted. “I can’t! My leg! I think it’s broken!”
Somehow Ted had been hit—his blood bright red against the brown leaves. Thomas grabbed him to pull him back toward the same tree he’d used for protection.
The prince said something that sounded like “Wait!” before it melted into a howl of pain.
Yeah sorry no, not waiting. Thomas dumped him there—“Stay down!”—and scrambled around toward the back of the hide when—Jesus!—Tasha erupted from the tangle of branches, screaming and swinging a branch like a baseball bat.
She hit the fourth gunman squarely in the head, knocking him down and back, giving Thomas a clear shot.
“Tasha, get down!” Thomas shouted as he fired—three down, one to go—but she was ahead of him, already diving toward the same tree