Free Brady's Hellion by Linda Wisdom Page A

take Raven as if she was nothing
more than chattel Were politics that important to him that he would
honestly want her to be with something this revolting?
    He jumped backwards when the sword came too close for
comfort. What he wouldn’t give for his Glock right now, but one of
his captors had crumpled it up like it was a toy made of tin. Maybe
it wouldn’t have killed the thing, but he figured he could do a lot
of damage to it. All he knew right now was that he had to do
whatever was necessary to keep it away from Raven.
    The creature laughed as it lunged at Brady again
forcing him to jump backwards. He windmilled his arms as he
narrowly missed falling into the pool. He jumped to one side and
moved until he didn’t risk a dunking he knew he wouldn’t
survive.
    Damn, he really hated being on the defensive! He was
good at hand-to-hand combat, but this kind of fighting was new to
him. Give him a crazed terrorist any day. Them he could handle. He
yelped when a line of blood appeared across his chest.
    “You son of a bitch, this is my favorite shirt!” he
shouted.
    Pahso smirked. “After I have cut you into tiny pieces
and feed you to my pet, your shirt will not matter.” A flick of the
blade caught Brady’s cheek leaving behind another stinging line of
blood.
    “Sword!” Raven shouted, throwing out both hands in
Brady’s direction.
    He almost fell over when a flash of fiery light
revealed a sword in his right hand. He shot her a quick mental
thank you before grinning at Pahso.
    “The female cannot do that!” the creature screamed,
stamping its foot in fury. “This is our battle.”
    “If he is to fight for me, he will fight by our
rules!” Raven argued. “I can provide him with comparable weapons.
This will be a fair fight, Pahso!”
    “I don’t think shit for brains knows what a fair
fight is.” Brady threw a smirk at the creature.
    Brady swung the heavy sword in a wide arc, hearing a
faint singing in the blade. There was no doubt there was a dark
magic embedded in the metal and the last time he hefted anything
close to a sword was when he was eight and pretended to be a Jedi
Knight with his light saber. But he’d been in trickier situations
and gotten out of them in one piece. Of course, then it didn’t have
to do with his soul or a demon lizard. He felt Raven’s eyes on him,
sensed her fear and something warmer that he was afraid to put a
name to. “Hey, shit for brains, you don’t look so brave now that
we’re on even footing,” he taunted.
    Big mistake. This time when the creature lunged, he
didn’t stop. It was pure reflex that had Brady lift his heavy sword
to use as a shield. The force of the blade striking his sent a
vibration through his body. It was sheer force of will that kept
his hands wrapped around the hilt and not dropping it. He pushed
back, wielding the sword, managing to slice the creature’s arm.
Black blood streamed downward in a thick mass.
    Rage shot through its gold eyes and it lunged again,
swinging wildly but with the purpose of hacking Brady to bits.
Brady ignored the aches and pains and fought to keep the deadly
blade away from any part of his body.
    Raven fought the circle holding her, but Pahso knew
what he was doing. As long as the circle was invoked, she couldn’t
move outside of it and was effectively in his power. She had hated
him Below and up here her feelings toward him tipped into
revulsion. All Pahso wanted was her family connections, so he could
move up the ladder and eventually destroy Shar. That was the piece
of knowledge she’d used to gain her vacation along with his promise
he’d hold off any betrothal announcement between her and Pahso.
Shar hadn’t wanted to believe her, but he agreed to investigate the
matter. She thought once she made it up here, she would have the
chance to fully escape. Instead, it appeared all she did was
endanger the lives of the people here. No matter that Pahso claimed
they weren’t harmed, but Brady was definitely in