into the head and feeling him fall, he turned and prayed the first was disabled long enough for him to deal with the second.
The pop-pop of bullets discharging from a silencer again echoed through the room again as Jordan rolled. They slammed into his pillow, where his head had been.
“Keep the lights out,” he snarled, just in case Tehya was going for the lamp. “Get behind something.”
Protection. Tehya had to be protected. That one instinct, that one imperative thought drove his every movement.
He needed the darkness now. The flare of light would blind his senses, leaving him defenseless for precious seconds. It would give the assailants an advantage, perhaps the chance to do as they intended. To kill him.
Eyes narrowed, his gaze pierced the darkness as he threw himself to the side again, drawing the gunfire his way, rather than Tehya’s.
He was trusting her to take care of the assailant on the floor while he disabled the other. Discarding his weapon, Jordan threw himself at the second assailant. Rage was a fever rushing through his system, burning into mind and lighting a fuse to danger-induced adrenaline.
Stupid bastards, he thought. If he knew he were going into a darkened bedroom he would have worn night vision hardware. He would have never gone in as blind as his prey.
A shift in the shadows alerted him.
Jumping to the side, Jordan rolled as the blood-red streaks of light flared in the darkness. Catching the assailant as he jerked to the side to change direction, his fist slammed into the kidneys, drawing a hard cry from his throat as Jordan took him to the floor his hand going for the weapon coming around on him.
Gripping the hand holding the weapon, Jordan struggled to wrestle it from his assailant before he could fire again.
“Bastard!” A harsh cry from the knee Jordan drove into his attacker’s crotch as the gun went off, ripping along his side as Jordan snarled at the pain.
His fist slammed into a jaw as he jerked the weapon from the other man’s hand and tossed it across the floor. He was going in for another shot when the bedroom door slammed open, flooding the room with just enough light to momentarily blind him.
He jumped in the direction of the weapon he had just tossed to the side.
“Clear.” It was Micah’s voice, icy cold and dangerous, that assured him the intruders were friendly rather than enemy.
Without hesitation, Jordan jumped to his feet and went across the bed in a hard roll to come to a crouch where Tehya was supposed to be.
Instead of moving to a point of protection, she was finishing a quick knot to the belt from her robe around the hands of the first assailant.
She had jerked his shirt back on, two buttons secured just beneath her breasts. Red-gold curls flowed wildly around her shoulders, her cat’s eyes glittered with rage and fear.
“Where are the others?” Jordan snapped as he jerked his pants from the bottom of the bed and quickly pulled them on, his gaze going between the two disabled men as Micah secured the second.
“Front room,” Micah answered, his dark gaze piercing between the edges of the black mask he wore over his face. “We cleared the hall and the rest of the suite.”
“Get these fuckers to the reserve suite.” Rage was pulsing through him, eating at him as he turned, his gaze going over Tehya once again as she stared at the unconscious attacker at her feet.
Jordan had only disabled him, Tehya must have moved behind him and knocked the man out.
What the hell had made him think that she would actually move for safety? He wanted her safe. Wrapped in protective cotton, as she had said earlier. And God help him, he knew as long as this danger existed, there would be no chance of her ever knowing peace, or security.
Black-masked, moving with dangerous precision, Jordan’s team moved in, gathered up the unconscious assailants and rushed them from the suite to the room next door.
Micah, Noah, and Nik had been staying there while John, Bailey, Travis, and Lilly had taken rooms across the hall.
The two couples were in the front room, faces unmasked, weapons held ready as they covered the opened, connecting door.
Watching from the bedroom door as the two men were dragged into the secured suite, Jordan could feel his teeth clenching in nearly uncontrolled fury.
The need to kill beat in his veins, threatening to override his control. He could tear their heads from their bodies.