Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

Chapter Seventeen

When Sophie sprinted toward Nikolas and the Hounds, he couldn’t believe it. It was every bit as insanely courageous as when she had run into the pub, and by gods, when he got his hands on her, he was going to fucking murder her for it.

“Go back!” he roared. “Go back, you crazy goddamn woman!”

But she didn’t stop. Behind her, the other men exploded out of the double doors with weapons, and they raced toward him too. They would overtake Sophie within seconds, but Nikolas didn’t know how close the Hounds were behind him, and in this instance, fractions of seconds mattered.

He spun to face the threat racing up to him. Just then, Sophie’s Glock fired, and the lead Hound, the one closest to Nikolas, dropped like a stone.

Chest heaving, he stared at it. She was as good as she had said she was. She hit what she aimed at. Even at night, in the middle of a pounding storm.

More Hounds poured out of the woods. It was too late to formulate any kind of sophisticated strategy. Gathering his Power, he flung a morningstar, straight and hard, at the second closest Hound.

Like a bolt of horizontal lightning, the morningstar split the darkness and exploded in the Hound’s broad, furry chest. The force of it lifted the Hound and spun its body in the air before it slammed into the ground. It didn’t rise again.

Not many warriors could cast a morningstar. Morningstars were one of the deadliest weapons he had at his disposal, but they were a hellish drain on his energy and they took seconds to amass. Whirling back around, he raced toward Sophie.

Now she strode forward. She didn’t run. Sighting down the length of her arm, she held the Glock in a two-handed grip and fired repeatedly at the approaching Hounds. Even as he came up to her, he was counting her bullets, and he knew the exact moment she went out.

“You’re out!” he shouted in her face. “Go back to the house!”

Unbelievably, she dug in her jeans pocket. She told him, “Just need to reload.”

He cast a quick look around. Thanks to his morningstar and her marksmanship, there were four bodies lying on the lawn, but there were at least twenty or twenty-five more Hounds racing across the lawn while his men sprinted to meet them.

Gods damn it, he needed his sword.

“Nik!” The shout came from behind him. As he looked over his shoulder, Braden tossed his sword harness at him.

Nikolas snatched it out of the air. “Get behind me,” he snapped at Sophie. “Get down, low to the ground, and stay there!”

Miraculously, this time she did as he ordered, jumping to crouch low behind him. He pulled hard on his Power to amass another morningstar and flung it at the next closest Hound. It sizzled through the air and hit the Hound broadside.

Behind him and low to the ground, the Glock spat multiple times. Sophie had finished reloading, and he remembered what she had said when she had shown how she could assemble and load a gun without looking. Because you should be able to do it in the dark, if need be.

He was so furious at her for risking her life, but at the memory of that cocky, sexy little lift of her mouth, he felt a fierce grin break over his face.

At his best, he could amass four morningstars, perhaps five, before he was tapped out. And morningstars were no good at fighting in close quarters. Around him, Braden, Gareth and Rowan were armed with guns too, and the flat, erratic percussion of their firing punctuated the ominous roll of thunder from the storm. The rest of his men slammed into combat with the Hounds, so he drew his sword and dropped the harness to the ground.

He said to Sophie, “For the love of all the gods, do as I said and get your ass back to the house. If you shut the doors, the Hounds can’t get inside. Nobody can get inside unless you let them.”

“You are such a sexist boor,” she snapped. “Look around—did any one of your men make that choice, and are you bitching at them for it?”

I’m not in love with my men. The thought sprang, sizzling and white-hot, like a morningstar in his head.

He shouted, “My men follow orders!”

“I’m a consultant!” she snapped. “Not your foot soldier. I don’t take orders from you.”

“You’re fired!” he growled.

He didn’t have time to say any more or hear if she argued. Not ten yards away, Cael was facing off against two Hounds. Moving forward rapidly, Nikolas engaged the closest Hound.

The battle turned into images he saw in microsecond snapshots. The Hound turned its slavering jaws toward him, and they feinted with each other, pacing in a circle as the driving rain made every step a hazard.

Naturally, Sophie hadn’t gone back to the house. Instead, she calmly walked up behind the Hound while its attention was fixed on him. As he watched in incredulity, she tapped it on the haunch.

He thought he was beside himself before. This time he nearly levitated out of his body.

“What the fuck are you doing now!” he roared.

The Hound spun to face her, then kept turning. It looked skyward, then down at the ground, and turned around the other way, head tilted.

“Confusion spell,” Sophie told Nikolas breathlessly. “He’ll do that for hours. I’ve got one left.”

Even as he lifted his sword to behead the creature, Nikolas filled his lungs to lambast her with everything he had. Then he paused. “It’ll be like this for hours?”

“Yep.” Lifting the Glock, she shot one-handed at the second Hound that Cael was fighting. It was a headshot, clean and true. The Hound was dead before it hit the ground.