Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11) - J.R. Ward Page 0,53

hour already. So be it. Provided his males complied with his two basic rules, he was content to let this continue: They had to remain substantially clothed, and their weapons had to be holstered with the safeties off.

That way, if the tenor changed, they could defend themselves quickly.

He was more than willing to give them the time.

After this interlude? The lot of them were going to be at their full strength—and with the way things were going with the Brotherhood…they were going to need to be.

EIGHTEEN

“No. Fucking no way.”

Qhuinn had to agree with Z’s read on Rhage’s bright idea.

The bunch of them had struggled through the woods, with Rhage bearing most of Z’s weight while everyone else circled the pair, ready to pick off anything or anyone who threatened from the fringes. They were now back at the airplane hangar, and Hollywood’s solution to their mobility problem seemed like a complication with mortal implications, not anything that was actually going to help.

“How hard can it be to fly a plane?” As everyone, including Z, just looked at him, Rhage shrugged. “What. Humans do it all the time.”

Z rubbed his chest and slowly sank to the ground. After gathering his short breath, he shook his head. “First of all, you don’t know if…the damn thing…can even get airborne. It probably has no gas…and you’ve never flown before.”

“You wanna tell me what our other option is? We’re still miles from any plausible pickup location, you’re not improving, and we could get ambushed. Let me at least get in there and see if I can get the engine to turn over.”

“This is a bad call.”

In the quiet that followed, Qhuinn did the math himself, and glanced over at the hangar. After a moment, he said, “I’ll cover you. Let’s do this.”

Bottom line, Rhage was right. This foot-race of an evac was taking too long, and that lesser had disappeared before they’d stabbed him, not the other way around.

Had the Omega given his boys some special powers?

Whatever—a smart fighter never underestimated the enemy—especially when one of his own was down. They needed to get Z to safety, and if that meant an airlift, so the fuck be it.

He and Rhage filed into the hangar and flicked on their flashlights. The airplane was right where they’d left it in the back corner, looking like it was the ugly stepchild of some much prettier mode of transportation that had long since fled the scene. Closing in, Qhuinn saw that the propeller appeared to be sound, and, although the wings were dusty, he could hang his weight off of them.

The fact that the door hatch squeaked like a bitch when Rhage opened the way in was less than good news.

“Whew,” Rhage muttered as he recoiled. “Smells like something died in there.”

Man, must have been one hell of a stinky if the Brother could differentiate it from the rest of the smell inside the hangar.

Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea.

Before Qhuinn could offer a second read on the stench, Rhage turned himself into a pretzel and squeezed through the oval hole. “Holy shit—keys. There are keys—can you believe it?”

“How about gas?” Qhuinn muttered, as he swept his flashlight beam around in a wide circle. Nothing but that dirty-ass floor.

“You might want to step back there, son,” Rhage hollered out of the cockpit. “I’ma try and fire this old lady up.”

Qhuinn eased away, but come on. If the thing was going to go up in flames, like fifteen feet was going to make much of a difference—

The explosion was loud, the smoke was thick, and the engine sounded like it was suffering from a mechanical strain of whooping cough. But shit evened out. The longer they let it run, the more even the rhythm became.

“We gotta get out of here before we asphyxiate,” Qhuinn yelled into the plane.

Right on cue, Rhage must have put the thing in drive or something, because the airplane eased forward with a groan like every nut and bolt in its body hurt.

And this thing was going to get airborne?

Qhuinn jogged in front and hit the double bay’s seam. Gripping one side, he threw all the power in his body into the pull and ripped the thing apart, various latches and locks popping free and going flying.

He hoped the airplane didn’t take inspiration from those fragments.

In the moonlight, the expressions on John’s and Blay’s faces were pretty fucking priceless as they got a good look at the escape plan—and he knew where they were