As his soldier nodded and took off, Xcor ducked and did the same, shifting his position by running, as he was too keyed up to dematerialize: If they tried to take Wrath out by vehicle because he was injured, Xcor had to be the one who got the satisfaction of preventing the king's escape. . . and finishing the job as necessary. The garage, therefore, was his best vantage point: The Brothers would have to commandeer one of Assail's vehicles as they appeared to have arrived without any - and Assail would offer the aid. He had no allegiance to any particular group - not the Band of Bastards, not the Council, probably not even the king. But he wouldn't want to bear the price of someone else's vendetta against Wrath.
Xcor set up behind a massive boulder that sat at the edge of the asphalt square behind the house. Taking out a small, convex strip of metal that was polished to a high shine, he positioned the mirror on the rock so he had a view of whatever was behind him. And then he waited.
Ah, yes. Right again. . .
As gunfire continued to ring out, the garage door farthest to the right opened, the protection it offered disappearing panel by panel.
The van that backed out had no windows in its rear portion, and he was willing to bet that, like the house, its flanks were impenetrable by anything less than an antiaircraft missile.
It was entirely possible, of course, that this was a ruse.
But he was not going to miss the opportunity in the event that it wasn't.
Flicking his eyes up, he checked behind him, then refocused on the van. If he jumped out into its path, he might get a shot into the engine block through the front grille -
The attack that came from behind was so swift, all he felt was an arm locking around his throat and his body getting hauled backward. Shifting instantly into hand-to-hand self-defense mode, he stopped the male from snapping his neck by elbowing the shit out of the fighter's gut, and then taking advantage of the momentary stun to spin around.
He had a brief impression of mismatched eyes. . . and then it was all about the fighting.
The male attacked with such ferocity, the punches were like getting rained upon by cars. Fortunately, he had outstanding balance and reflexes, and crouching low, he took the male by the thighs and tackled him hard. Riding that massive lower body down to the ground, he jumped upward and worked the fighter's face until there was blood not just on his knuckles, but flying in the air.
His superior position did not last. In spite of the fact that the soldier couldn't possibly see clearly, he somehow caught one of Xcor's wrists and held on to it. With brute strength, he yanked back, brought Xcor within range, and head-butted so hard, for a moment the world went incandescent sure as if the trees around them had fireworks for branches and leaves.
An abrupt shift in gravity told him that he was being rolled, but fuck that. He stopped the momentum by throwing out a leg and digging his boot into the ground. As he strained against a great weight on his chest, he saw the black van screeching off like a bat out of hell down the driveway.
Anger at a missed chance at the king gave him extra power, and he rose up onto his feet with the male draped across his shoulders, a shawl of soldier.
Unsheathing his hunting knife, he stabbed around the back of his own torso, and he knew he hit something, given the resistance and the cursing. But then that grip around his neck returned, challenging his airway, making him work even harder for oxygen.
The large rock he'd taken cover behind was about a meter away, and he headed for it, his boots clomping across the lawn. Spinning about, he slammed the male once. . . twice. . . .
On the third time, just before he was about to black out, the grip loosened. With sloppy disorientation, he freed himself just as a bullet whistled by his head, so close he felt a stripe of heat on his scalp.
Behind him, the soldier fell down upon the grass, but that wasn't going to last - and a quick glance around at the gunfight being waged told him that if he and his bastards stayed much longer, there would be catastrophic casualties - yes, they would take out some of the Brotherhood with them, but only at a tremendous cost to their own numbers.
His gut instinct told him Wrath had already left. And damn it, even if half the Brotherhood was in or around that van - and if the king was being transported away, some of them were undoubtedly shadowing the vehicle - there were still plenty of Brothers left here at the river's edge to do vital damage to him and his males.
The Bloodletter would have stayed and fought.
He, however, was smarter than that: If Wrath was mortally injured, or if that was his body, Xcor was going to need his band of bastards for the second phase of his takeover.
"Retreat," he barked into his shoulder piece.
He hauled back his combat boot and kicked that downed, mismatched-eyed motherfu
cker on the ground - to make sure the male stayed where he was.
Then he closed his eyes and forced himself to calm. . . calm. . . calm. . . .
Life and death turned on whether he could get himself into the right frame of mind -
Just as another bullet whizzed by his skull, he felt himself take wings. . . and fly.
"How we doing back there?"
Tohr yelled out the question as he forced the van into yet another curve in the road. The POS cornered like it was on a coffee table with bad legs, rocking to and fro until even he felt a little nauseous.
Wrath, meanwhile, was playing marble-in-a-jar in the back, the king rolling around and flailing his arms to catch himself.