of calls and would die for a leader who was willing to make them. Angelo would sacrifice himself before he let something happen to his best friend’s wife.
Kendra’s scent was getting stronger. She was scared. He could almost taste her fear in the air. Declan growled low in his throat as he ran down the path toward the buildings nestled in the valley below.
He’d been running at full speed for the past hour through the rugged, mist-covered terrain that made up this part of the Talamanca Mountains, and yet he wasn’t tired. He was too damn furious to be tired. And his temper had only gotten worse when he’d found her helmet and NVGs a while back. She would have only given them up if she was tied up, hurt, or unconscious. The thought that those assholes had done any of those things to her filled him with so much rage, he could barely see straight.
The path flattened out at the base of the slope, but he was still carrying all the momentum from running down the hill as he came through the partially closed gate at the entrance to the compound. Three hybrids came out from the nearest building, their heads cocked to the side as if they’d heard the sound of his boots thumping down the path. Their eyes went wide when they finally saw him.
Declan’s first instinct was to toss his M4 away and rip into the hybrids with his newfound claws. But he resisted the urge and instead fired into the trio while they were busy trying to get their own weapons pointed in his direction.
The two hybrids in the front staggered back as the high-speed ball rounds hit them in the chest. One slumped to the ground immediately, but the others came at him growling and snarling. Both had been hit and were bleeding, but not enough to go down.
He felt more than heard the hollow thump as the bolt of the M4 locked back on an empty magazine. He had a single full magazine remaining in his left cargo pants’ pocket, but he dismissed the idea of attempting a fast reload in this kind of situation. The hybrids would be on him before he could even get the magazine out. Also, he wasn’t sure his extra-long claws would allow him to handle the thirty-round magazine with much skill. Instead, he reversed his grip on the carbine and brought it down like a club on the head of the first hybrid he came to.
The military-grade weapon was never intended to handle that kind of abuse, and shattered in his hands. But then again, the human head was never intended to handle that kind of abuse either, and came apart pretty much the same way the weapon did.
The last hybrid only slowed down long enough to crawl over his buddy’s body, but that was all the opening Declan needed. He batted the business end of the hybrid’s weapon aside and shoved what was left of his own weapon—part of the upper receiver and the short assault barrel—through the thing’s chest. He must have hit the creature’s heart, because it stopped growling and fell backward to the ground with an extremely satisfying thud.
The entire fight had taken four or five seconds at the most, and yet he still fell like he was moving through molasses as he followed Kendra’s scent. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her screaming. Icy hands gripped his heart. They were hurting her.
He should have scooped up one of the hybrid’s weapons, but he didn’t want to waste the time. He had to get to Kendra before it was too late. He skirted the corner of the building the three hybrids had just come out of and found himself in an open space in the center of the encampment.
Relief surged though him so fast he almost stumbled.
Two big hybrids were hauling Kendra between them, each with a wrenching grip on one arm. Their vicious clawed hands lifted her up so high that her toes couldn’t even touch the ground. Not that she was trying to; she was too busy trying to kick them. But the look of terror on her face was clear. Wherever they were taking her, it scared the hell out of her.
The relief he’d felt earlier disappeared in a wave of fresh fury, and he charged.
The hybrids tossed Kendra aside with a snarl and reached for the rifles strapped across their backs. She bounced across the rocky ground