Chapter Two
Ty
The apartment buildings rising to either side zipped by in a blur as my feet ate up the pavement, but it was not fast enough. He was pulling away. Eyes gleamed from the darkness as he chanced a look back at me. Damn, but the wiry little bastard was fast. A solid thud resounded as he leaped up onto and over the wooden fence at the end of the alley. To get more air, I bounced a foot off the concrete block wall of the closest apartment, then landed on top of the fence. I could have jumped straight up and cleared the six-foot height, but someone could have been watching. Better to make it look like I was just a fan of the move from old kung fu movies rather than have someone suspect the truth.
As I descended I scanned the area. An open green space stretched in all directions with a lawn that went for acres dotted with trees and bushes. My gaze cut through the dark easily enough, locating him already halfway across the lawn, the metallic green threads of those damn rockers of his gleaming in the moonlight. No one but him was in the immediate area.
“Raul, stop now and I’ll go easier on you!” I yelled. I didn’t need to see his face to know it was him. I’d know that detestable pine, Cordura, and exhaust stench anywhere.
He flipped me the bird. I jumped from the top of the fence with everything I had, launching myself close to thirty feet. Wood splintered and cracked but it didn’t sound like the fence came down, so I didn’t bother to look back. The moment my feet touched the grass I took off. The whites of Raul’s eyes reflected the moonlight as he stumbled backward, mouth agape. He only got a few paces before I caught him within the shadow of a huge fir tree. I grabbed the back of his Cordura jacket—and a bit of his hair—and tossed him to the ground. He landed on his back and froze halfway up on his elbows. His breath came in gasps that had more to do with the stench of fear wafting off him than with being out of air. Rank as it was, the fear smelled better than that nasty cologne he was wearing. No doubt that had been a ploy to throw me off his scent. And it had worked, for a while.
“You just bit a woman. The Council will have your hide for that,” I said.
Not just any woman, but one with eyes like tiger’s eye gems that felt like they had tried to pull my soul into them. Even now I could not get her out of my mind.
“Stay out of this. It doesn’t concern you,” he demanded as he started to rise to his feet.
Fists closing, my chest rumbled with a sound that made him freeze before he could even get both legs beneath him.
“You are in my territory, which means it concerns me. And you broke one of the oldest laws, which means it concerns the Council. I am taking you back to Hemlock Hollow,” I said.
Light footsteps approached from all sides, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off Raul. Lips quirking up into a smirk, he rose into a crouch.
“I don’t think so. Like I said, this doesn’t concern you,” he said, voice filled with that damn bravado of his again.
But it was a misplaced bravado, because the ones I smelled in the darkness were not all his people. His people were closer, but others were coming. I would just have to hold out. Raul stood and crossed his arms while others leaped at me from the shadows. Dodging, I avoided the man coming at me from my right. I planted my foot into his back, right on the middle patch of his jacket, and sent him sprawling. Another came at me from behind. Lunging back and crouching at the same time, I grabbed his leg, yanked, and sent him flying over my back. Grunts and curses told me he had collided with either Raul or the other one. A fist flew at me from the left, my instincts pulling my face out of its path a second before it could connect. I grabbed ahold of the wrist attached to it, yanked it forward and down, and flipped the man onto his back.
They came at me again, slower but no less determined. I took them down yet again, bloodying a few lips and blackening a few eyes in the process. If they kept it up they would soon force me to do much more than that. The way they panted and heaved meant they would get desperate during the next round, which meant things were about to get bloody.
From the shadows, Raul came at me, swinging what looked like a baseball bat. It connected hard with my left shoulder and knocked me off balance.
“Go the hell down, Viðarrson,” he said, voice little more than a growl.
He swung again, but this time I grabbed it in mid-swing and tore it from him. His eyes shot wide open, but to his credit, he didn’t cower. That was, I was certain, mostly because of his buddy trying to sneak up behind me. Without looking, I sidestepped and ducked, then whipped the bat around behind me to connect with the bastard’s midsection with a swing that would have earned me a home run. The others hesitated like they did not want to go another round. One of them suddenly slumped to the ground as if the very thought made him faint dead away.
The stories about me weren’t that scary.
Raul suddenly slumped as well, falling to the ground with the gracelessness of one who was completely out of it. Shit. A sharp sting in the side of my neck took my voice and my consciousness a moment before I could tell the others that I was one of the good guys.