Luna of Rogues

Part 60 - A Spectacular Rescue

Of fudging course.

He said it so casually, but I knew my brother well enough to know that was a front. There was fear in his voice. Fear and pain. In the seconds that followed, I recalculated a plan that would save the girl at pretty much any cost. If only because Rhys would die before any harm came to her, she was now one of my top priorities for protection.

"Can you get a shot?" I asked one of the girls, also through the mind-link. I knew she had amazing aim because when she went hunting, she usually had to ask for help carrying all her quarry home again.

"Nope," she replied. "I might get an angle a little further to the left."

For a moment, I wondered if we could slip someone in behind the shifter, but he was pressed up against the bars of yet another cage.

"I'll distract him, you move."

The disadvantage of holding twenty people hostage at once was that you couldn't watch them all. With the right bait, I could keep his attention on me long enough for someone to take him out. Hopefully.

"Hey, we met a friend of yours earlier today," I said, and my grin at that moment couldn't have been more provocative.

"Oh yeah?" the man asked.

"Said you were all working for someone named Malcolm. After I ripped his fingernails off one by one, of course." The lies were coming thick and fast today. There was a flash of fear in the human girl's eyes. She was probably wondering if we were saving her for some even worse fate.

The slaver cussed me out harshly. "Are you having a laugh? Us? Work for Malcolm? Quite the opposite, actually."

"I'll take that as a no," I decided. The archer was shuffling slowly over, lifting her bow fractionally as she went.

The slaver's eyes caught the movement, and he snarled, pressing his blade even further into the human's hands. The fighter stopped dead in her tracks, throwing me a look that said well, I tried.

"Drop your weapons," he repeated, although this time his voice shook.

But behind him, a figure rose slowly from inside the cage, brandishing a full water jug. In a sharp moment, he brought it down through the bars onto the slaver's head, knocking him clean unconscious. The unshaven and filthy man cackled.

"I've wanted to do that for a month.
Bloody mutt," he grunted with no small amount of satisfaction.

Rhys ran forwards without hesitation. He dragged the slaver's body off his mate and helped her to sit up. "Skye," he said anxiously, "she's bleeding."

"I can see that, jackass," I sighed and knelt down beside the pair of them. Anything to take his mind off what could have just happened to his soulmate.

I took the opportunity to study my future sister-in-law. She was remarkably beautiful, in a soft sort of way. In fact, everything about her seemed soft, with the singular exception of her eyes, which bore a steel will and an unflinching calmness. Interesting. She was the polar opposite of Rhys, who looked like he could rip your throat. Only his hazel eyes marked him out for what he really was- a cinnamon roll.

Ripping a strip of fabric from Rhys's shirt for a bandage (it was his damn mate, I wasn't going to ruin my own clothes), I wrapped it around her bleeding hands. "I'm Skye, and this is my little brother Rhys. We're not serial killers, I promise. You're safe now."

And yet another dammed lie. Of course she wasn't safe. None of us were ever safe.

"Thank you. I'm Cassidy." She spoke softly and with an unusual amount of shyness.