Shadow Thief - Eva Chase Page 0,95

major went down here tonight anyway.”

Thorn sneered at the detached heads and tossed them behind him. “You said I could ‘come after’ anyone who attacked you outside the building,” he reminded me.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Good thinking, me.” I rubbed my head. It was easier not to think about the wrecked bodies that were lying farther across the lot when I didn’t have to see them. Easier not to care about their deaths with my shoulder still gripped in the jaws of agony.

At this point, he’d needed to kill them. If we’d left them alive, they’d have immediately sounded the alarm so the rest of the people could start damage control. As it was… we had until shift change to make the most of the booty I’d fled with.

The computer booty. Get your mind out of the gutter.

The computer in question had landed on the ground next to me. I examined the metal shell and determined it was only mildly dinged. In my not-at-all expert opinion, it should still work just fine.

Thorn scooped the device up as if it weighed no more than a kitten, putting my arm strength to shame. When I reached for the box of discs, he grabbed that too.

“We should return to the others,” he said, holding out a hand to help me up. He’d reverted back to his usual cool demeanor, but I was too woozy to be offended this time.

He’d saved my life in the most literal sense. He’d slaughtered men on my behalf and offered me their heads as a gift of devotion. No matter how he liked to play it, he couldn’t really pretend he wasn’t a teeny bit fond of me.

“Ready when you are,” I said, managing not to sway. “Let’s bring these bastards down.”

31

Sorsha

Patching me up turned into a group effort. Ruse picked up the necessary supplies while I lay grumbling and cursing on the motel bed, the one hand towel Pickle hadn’t appropriated pressed to the entry wound and the dragon himself curled up against my head in an effort to offer comfort. When the incubus returned, Thorn and Snap sat next to me. After I’d swallowed a couple of painkillers and a swig of the vodka Ruse had also deemed necessary, the warrior slowly talked the other shadowkind through the process of removing the bullet and stitching my flesh back together.

Snap shuddered when he peered at the lump of metal that was apparently visible in the wound. “It’s silver.”

“Good thing I’m not a werewolf,” I muttered. The guards had been at least a little prepared for supernatural intruders.

Thorn ignored my dry remark. “We wouldn’t need it out otherwise. I don’t want to leave anything in her that could make it harder for us to take care of her. It shouldn’t cause any further trouble—no major blood vessels right there.”

Snap sucked in a breath and brandished his tweezers.

His slender fingers did perform the job more gracefully than Thorn’s heavy hands could have managed, although I contributed quite a bit more cursing regardless. In between the throbs of pain, I couldn’t help thinking about where the warrior must have picked up his knowledge in field wounds. A long time ago and probably in countries far, far away.

Thorn didn’t look particularly fazed by the wound or the bleeding that had already slowed to a trickle by the time we’d made it to the car thanks to the pressure he’d applied. Snap, for all he kept his hands steady, was much more perturbed. At my every hiss and grimace, he winced in sympathy.

“You destroyed the ones who did this?” he asked Thorn with his new possessive fierceness.

The warrior offered a rare, if grim, smile that would have been answer enough. “Oh, yes.”

The lump of metal Snap plucked out didn’t look large enough to have caused half of the agony I’d been experiencing. The pain started to dull now that it was gone, other than the tiny jabs of the stitching needle. In a few minutes, I was sitting up with an ice pack over a gauze bandage, the muscle there turning nicely numb.

Piece of cake. Ha ha ha.

Ruse had been examining my loot. “So, our answers are in here?” he asked, nudging the computer.

“I hope so,” I said. “They’d better fucking be after all this. The trick is going to be getting them out.” I motioned to Snap. “Any chance you can get a sense of a password from that thing?”

Snap considered the metal structure with obvious skepticism. He leaned in,