Death is Forever
dissolving ripple of moonlight on the water. Where trees overhung the sand, intense shadow flowed out. The densities of light and shadow fascinated Erin. They weren’t like any combination of dark and bright that she’d ever seen.
“Wait here,” Cole said softly. “If you see anyone or anything move ahead of you, yell my name and come running back to me.”
“Where are you going?”
The only answer was the whisper of steel being drawn from the leather sheath he wore at his wrist. Like another shade of darkness he glided back the way they had come. She stared into the night intently, trying to see where Cole had gone.
Hands shot out of the darkness, grabbing her.
Before she had a chance to panic, she was following the self-defense routines that had been drilled into her until they were as much a part of her as her memories of Hans.
The man holding Erin made a triumphant sound that ended in a grunt of pain as her heel connected with his kneecap. He spun aside, hanging on to her with only one hand, grabbing his knee with the other.
She screamed a warning to Cole as she tried to break her attacker’s wrist with the edge of her palm, but he yanked her off balance as he fell. She went down as she’d been trained to do, loosely, rolling instantly to her feet, poised to run, for escape was always the best defense.
The man’s hand shot out and wrapped around her ankle. She kicked him in the face. He bellowed in pain.
Suddenly men were swarming all over her, grabbing at her hands and feet. She used everything she’d ever learned, knowing even as she fought that there were too many men for her to win, that they were too strong, and, worse, some of them were trained in unarmed combat. She’d taken her captor by surprise when she’d defended herself effectively.
The other men had seen what had happened to their friend. They were overwhelming her by sheer weight. Silently, savagely, she fought back. She’d promised herself seven years ago that she would kill or die before any man raped her again.
Suddenly she took a blow to the diaphragm that literally paralyzed her, driving the breath from her body. She barely heard one of her assailants give a high scream of pain in the instant before he reeled away from her and slumped unconscious into the sand. There was another flurry of motion as a man was lifted up and flung away. He landed hard and lay gasping for air.
The three remaining men abandoned Erin and looked around frantically, trying to find the invisible attacker.
“Run!” Cole ordered.
For an instant she didn’t recognize his voice. There was a flatness in it that she had never heard before. She sensed motion to her left and turned her head.
“Damn it, run!”
Cole looked huge in the nebulous light. His hands and his body made sinuous, almost hypnotic motions as he waited for the men to attack him. With each continuous motion he shifted balance smoothly, always poised to attack or defend in any direction, never giving away his intentions. The knife he held had the dull shine of mercury. Slowly he backed away, trying to draw the men from Erin, who hadn’t gotten up.
The men rushed Cole in a ragged line.
Erin saw the sudden gleam of steel blades as two of the men drew knives. She tried to call out, to warn Cole, but there wasn’t any air left in her body. She fought against herself as she’d fought against the men, trying to drag air back into her lungs so that she could do more than lie helpless on the cold sand.
Cole watched the oncoming men, picking the order of his targets with the cool precision of a man who was used to being on the wrong end of the fighting odds. He had two advantages. The first was that he didn’t have to worry about injuring a friend by mistake. The second was that the men would expect him to defend himself rather than attack them.
The two men holding knives came eagerly forward, keeping just enough distance between them so that Cole could fight only one at a time. He’d already chosen his target—the bigger of the two, the man who moved and held himself like a fighter.
Cole feinted toward the smaller man, then pivoted and leaped toward the bigger one. Cole’s left hand slapped aside the knife. Simultaneously the edge of his right hand delivered a chopping blow to the man’s throat. The attacker went down, choking, a threat no more.
Using the momentum of his turn, Cole lashed out with a high, powerful kick to the smaller man’s head. There was a thick sound
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