Donnchadh - Lynn Hagen Page 0,27

took Cadeym just ensnared us, too.”

The stairwell door burst open. Panahasi jerked around, ready to fight, when he saw it was Hondo and Donnchadh. They were out of breath and throwing their bodies against the door they’d just run through.

“Hellhounds,” Hondo snarled. “About a dozen of them, and they got a hard-on for warriors. We barely escaped the boiler room. They’re fast, but these ones are pretty dumb. Throwing a piece of metal across the room to redirect them actually worked.”

Panahasi saw the stark terror in Donnchadh’s brown eyes. The warrior had nearly lost his life a month ago to one of them. Now there were a dozen of those hellish beasts after him.

His warriors had come from brutal pasts, had undergone intense training, and yet, against all odds, they still had compassion, vulnerabilities, and the capacity to love. In truth, Panahasi was in awe of them. Even so, this had to be Donnchadh’s worst nightmare, and it pissed Panahasi off that the warrior had to suffer through this. Panahasi would do anything to get Donnchadh out of there.

Panahasi moved swiftly to the door and pressed his hands against the cold steel, using the power inside him to solder the door to the frame. “That won’t hold for long but long enough to help us find the others,” he said.

They moved down the long corridor and used the east stairwell to get to the other floors. They made it to the last and found Kane and Takeo in one of the far end rooms.

They were struggling to get Cadeym down from the chains he had been hung by.

“Move aside.” Panahasi lifted Cadeym, but the chains were bound too tight, as if that dark, unseen force was keeping him prisoner, refusing to free the chains.

“We’ve been trying,” Kane said. “We can’t loosen or break the chains.”

Cadeym was unconscious, barely breathing, and bloodied. It looked as if the hellhounds had used their claws to rip at his skin.

“I’ll get you out of here,” Panahasi vowed to him.

He would get all his warriors home and then hunt down the one responsible for this.

* * * *

Getty shuffled backward until he hit the wall and then curled his arms around his bent knees. The room smelled like stale cigarettes, beer, and sweat. “Where the hell am I?”

What had he done wrong? He’d thought of his destination, of seeing his dad, so why wasn’t he at the clinic? He had to have screwed up somehow. How far off the mark was he? The next town, the next state, or the next freaking planet? God, he should’ve never left the apartment building. He should’ve called one of those phone numbers for help. Doing this on his own, without Donnchadh, made Getty’s chest hurt.

And fuck, he missed Donnchadh so badly that his gut twisted into knots and he wanted to cry. He missed his warrior, wanted to feel Donnchadh’s arms curled around him and bury his nose into the man’s neck, inhaling his deep, masculine scent.

The snarling men parted for a newcomer. This guy looked twice their size, meaner, and the gruffest of them all. He had a head full of shiny black hair that was gently peppered with gray, blue eyes, and a long beard. If Getty was guessing correctly, he was in some hole-in-the-wall bar surrounded by a motorcycle gang. Most had bandannas on their heads, were tatted up, and wore jeans, chains hanging from their belt loops, and boots on their feet.

They were also wearing leather vests, though Getty hadn’t seen the back of them to tell if they had some sort of gang insignias on them.

But what the hell did he know about bikers? Diddly squat. Except for what he’d seen on television, and all those bikers had been brutal and cutthroat. These guys looked as if they fit that bill in spades.

The bearded man staring curiously at him had a patch on his vest that read President.

Getty was in real freaking trouble.

The guy hunkered down, resting his arms on his thighs. “Who’re you?”

His voice was gravelly but held no animosity. And now that the guy was closer, Getty saw kindness in his blue eyes. He still didn’t trust any of them.

“I’m G-Getty. I think I’m lost.” He swallowed heavily and looked around. “If you and your men don’t mind, I’d like to leave now. I’m sorry for the intrusion.”

Getty was still on his ass, huddled against the wall, and ready to piss himself. Even the women in the room looked deadly. Slutty,