Free Hotter Than Wildfire by Lisa Marie Rice Page B

into a grate.
    Harry dropped to his knees, because his legs wouldn’t hold him up any more.
    No, no, no. The words were a heavy drumbeat in his heart.
    No.
    He refused even the thought of it. He hadn’t been able to save Crissy, but by God he was going to save Eve, whose voice had saved his own life.
    He was supposed to save her! That was the way it was supposed to be. Not once in the wild ride here, or while fighting Montez’s goons, had it occurred to him that he wouldn’t be able to save her.
    He had to save her. He had to save her to save his own soul, because it felt like his own life’s blood dripping down onto the street and draining into the gutter, instead of hers.
    He couldn’t let the monsters win all the time. His life had to have some meaning, some ability to stop the monsters, at least once.
    Kneeling, Harry bent over her, tears pricking his eyes. The last time he’d cried had been over Crissy’s lifeless body. The sweetest little girl in the world, destroyed by a monster. He’d cried until he’d blacked out.
    He hadn’t cried at the grinding, unbearable pain he’d suffered for all the long months of his recovery. All the pain in the world, concentrated in his body, but it hadn’t made him cry, not once.
    Now tears simply spurted out of his eyes as he gathered up Eve’s limp body, bowing over her bloodied torso.
    Oh God, why couldn’t he stop it, just once? What the fuck had he been born for, if not to save Eve? To save all the Eves?
    If only he’d been a couple of seconds faster in getting out of the building, if only there hadn’t been traffic on the road, if only he’d reacted instantly when she’d left the office instead of waiting like an asshole…the if only s piled up, as high as the sky.
    Eve felt nearly weightless as he held her in his arms, tears dripping down, watering the blood on her chest. He held her and felt like howling, railing against the sky, the world, fate.
    The dim sound of sirens penetrated his head. He’d been in some timeless zone of grief, but the world rolled on. Someone had called in the shootings and the police were on their way.
    Harry looked down at the woman in his arms. The police were coming. That meant they’d figure out who she was and her death would be all over the newspapers.
    Montez would read it and rejoice.
    No, no way would Harry let Montez know that he’d won. That once more, sheer evil had prevailed. Let Montez think she was alive and out there, an ongoing and never-ending threat to him. His men sure wouldn’t talk. Harry’d take her away and…
    He froze, frowning. Eve’s eyes had moved behind her lids.
    She was…she was alive !
    Oh God, she was alive!
    And she was fucking well going to stay that way, he promised himself and her as he rose easily with her in his arms.
    The sirens were coming closer. He placed her carefully in the lowered passenger seat of his SUV, rounded the vehicle and fired it up.
    He was two blocks away by the time the cop cars arrived. He watched through the rearview mirror as six cops emerged from three cars, guns drawn, checking the perimeter. One reached down and put two fingers against the neck of the fucker who’d held Eve.
    Harry rounded the corner and lost them, driving at exactly the speed limit so he wouldn’t be pulled over.
    He glanced over. Eve was still as death, skin pale as ice except where blood flecks marred the smooth skin, her shoulder and side a deep red. Even grievously wounded and unconscious, she was beautiful. With a voice that was magic.
    She wasn’t going to die. Harry wouldn’t let her.
    He’d die himself first.
     

 

     
     

Chapter 5
     

 

     
     

     
      Prineville, Georgia
      They weren’t checking in. Montez had sent three men—three men who’d been trained by the U.S. government at about a million apiece, then he’d taken that training and tweaked it for another million—and they weren’t answering. Nothing. It was as if they’d dropped off the face of the