“Apologize?” The gun shook in Juan’s hand. “You fucking hypocrite. You’ll apologize to her first after admitting your lies. I want to see the look on her face when she finds out how you deceived her. Then I’ll kill you.”
Her chest tightened. What was Juan talking about? He was bluffing, making up stories.
Sean was wound as tightly as a coil. She could feel it. The tension in the air was palpable, and it wasn’t only because Juan walked around them and pointed the gun at her stomach. There was more.
“I’ll pull the trigger before you can say bitch. It’ll hit her right in her cheating cunt. So, tell her the truth, geomancist.”
It sounded too much like the word she’d first heard in the plane—aeromancist.
“Yes,” Juan said with a sadistic grin. “Godfrey’s guards told my soldiers how you took out his geomancist—Armelle, was it?—right before you flattened the island.”
“Sean?” Asia said in a shaky voice. “What’s going on?”
“I’m a forbidden arts practitioner,” he said without taking his eyes off Juan.
Her mind refused to digest the meaning. “What?”
“There’s nothing left of the island,” Juan said. “Everybody and everything are gone.”
“The island is gone?” she exclaimed. “What is he talking about?” Matt! Matt was still on the island. It couldn’t be.
Juan turned the gun on Sean. “I should shackle you and sell you to a gift hunter, but my revenge is worth more. No money will buy the satisfaction I’ll get from shooting you and bedding the woman you love. You love her, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Sean bit out, anger dripping from the admission.
Her knees nearly gave out as the truth hit her.
Juan shook the gun in Sean’s face. “Say it.”
“I love her.”
Juan spat at Sean’s feet. “I’ll take her. I’ll marry her. I’ll make her pregnant, do you hear me? She’ll have my children, and I’ll fuck her on your grave.”
A raw, animalistic sound tore from Sean’s chest. The earth trembled under their feet. Juan looked down. In the split-second that his attention was diverted, Sean pushed her to the side. She stumbled but managed to righten herself. The ground cracked open underneath Juan at the same time as a shot went off. Juan fell, dropping the gun, but managed to grip the edge of the crevice with one hand. His other arm hung limply at his side.
Asia blinked, her senses numb with shock. This couldn’t be real. It had to be a nightmare.
Sean walked to the crack in the earth and looked down at Juan with loathing.
“Help me,” Juan croaked. “Broke … my fingers.”
“That was intentional, asshole. For every dirty finger you ever laid on her. Apologize to Asia.”
Her vision blurred. Their words registered in her mind, but she battled to make sense of them.
Juan sneered. “Not sorry … for one fucking thing.” Dust sifted down as his hold slipped.
“It’s your choice,” Sean said, “but then you die.”
“Fuck you,” Juan hollered, his face turning red.
He tried to swing himself up but lost his grip. His eyes flared as his fingers lost purchase. With a chilling scream, his body disappeared down the narrow gorge.
Unable to carry her weight on her legs any longer, Asia sat down in the grass. Her shoulder hurt. Did she hit it against something? She felt detached from the pain, as if she weren’t part of her own body any longer. Fighting the mounting fog in her brain, she tried to process what she felt.
Shock? Relief?
Confusion.
The numbness of her senses spread to her limbs. She tried to get up but couldn’t. She was vaguely aware of Sean rushing to her side, his face panicked. His lips moved, forming words, but she heard nothing. He pushed her down and applied pressure to her shoulder with one palm on top of the other. She lifted her head to look at his hands. Blood seeped through his fingers. He said something, yelling it, but her vision faded with her hearing.
Sean fell to his knees next to an unconscious Asia. Blood pumped from the small hole in her shoulder.
“Fuck. No!”
Ripping off his shirt, he pressed it against the wound.
Maya’s voice came through the comm link. “We’re under attack. I need you, Sean.”
“Asia was hit!”
Another voice came onto the line. “Air support, stand by.” The French accent could only belong to Joss. “Coordinates, Sean?”
He checked the compass on his smart watch and rumbled off the details. Asia’s limp, small body weighed nothing as he lifted her into his arms.
“Sean? This is Bono,” the pilot said. “There’s a clearing half a mile to the west.”
“Can you make it, Sean?” Joss piped in.
“Yeah.” Fear gripped him and sweat beaded on his forehead as he headed west.
“I’ll handle the soldiers,” someone with a Russian accent said. “Maya, you cover him.”
The red stain on Asia’s dress grew with every step he took. The sight shredded his control. “You’re going to make it, kitten. Hang in there.”