The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12) - J.R. Ward Page 0,79

never forget what came out of there.

Marisol was naked from the waist down, a parka that he recognized flagging wildly behind her as she lurched into the night. Spotlit and blinded by the headlights, she glowed red, blood streaking down her legs and up her ghostly torso, her face grim as death as she pointed a gun straight in front of her.

“Marisol!” he screamed. “Don’t shoot! It is Assail!”

He put his hands up in the air, but it wasn’t as though she could see him. “It is Assail!”

She stumbled to a stop, but like a good girl she kept that gun up as she blinked myopically. “Assail …?”

Her voice cracked with a despair that changed him forever: As with the vision of her, he would hear that tone frame the two syllables of his name for years yet to come.

In his nightmares.

“Marisol, darling Marisol … I have come for you.”

He wanted to tell Ehric to kill those lights, but he didn’t know who else had been in there with her and whether anyone would be chasing after her.

“Marisol, come unto me.”

The way her hand shook as she brought it to her head made him want to go to her. But she seemed unsure of what was reality and what might have been a phantom of her imagination. And with that gun, she was as dangerous as she was vulnerable.

“Marisol, I promised your grandmother that I would save you. Come unto me, darling one. Come unto my voice.”

He held his arms out into the darkness.

“Assail…” As she took a step forward, he realized she was limping. Badly. But then, of course some of that blood had to be hers.

“She is going to need medical care,” he said aloud. Damn it, how could he get her treated?

If she died on the way back …

How much of that blood was hers?

As she took another step and one more, and still nobody emerged in her wake, he had some hope that not all of what covered her was her own.

“Come unto me.” As he heard his own voice break, he could feel Ehric shooting him a shocked look from the SUV. “My darling…”

Marisol moved that shaking hand over to shield her eyes, and for some reason, that brought the fact that she was naked into full focus.

His throat stung so badly he could not swallow.

Fuck this.

Assail shoved his gun into his belt and rushed forward to meet her more than halfway.

“Assail … is it really you?” she whispered as he came close.

“Yes. Please don’t shoot—come unto me, darling one.”

As she let out a sob, he grabbed her and hauled her up against his chest, the muzzle of that gun of hers going right into his sternum. If she pulled that trigger, she would kill him outright.

She did not.

With a sob, she gave herself over to his strength, and he held her up from the ground as she crumpled. She weighed nearly nothing against him, and for some reason, that terrified him even more.

Accordingly, he allowed only a moment of communion—and then he needed to get her safe.

Swinging her up into his arms, he turned and ran for the bulletproof Rover, ran into those headlights as if they were a heavenly safety zone.

Ehric and his brother anticipated what he wanted to perfection. They jumped out of the Rover and left open the backseat doors—whilst they removed Benloise from the rear and kept that man away from sight.

Marisol did not need to know of his presence.

Placing his female in the back, Assail broke out the sleeping bag he had packed, along with the water and PowerBars he had brought for her. Covering her nakedness, he held on to her as she fell into a fit of trembling.

“Marisol,” he said as he pulled back. “Eat. Drink. Ehric, my cousin, shall take you—”

Her nails bit into his forearm even through the heavy sweater he wore. “Don’t leave me!”

He touched her beautiful face. “I must needs work herein for a moment. Things must be attended to. I shall meet you on the road.” He wrenched around. “Ehric! Evale!”

The two males came over—and for a moment, he considered driving her away himself.

But no, vengeance needed to be served, and he was the one to balance the scales.

“My darling, look unto my relations.” As he eased back so they could lean in and show their faces, he was thankful they had his exact coloring, and that their features were so like his own. Indeed, the three of them had been mistaken