Dangerous Games (Riley Jenson Guardian 4)

I didn't say anything. Didn't have time. Because at that moment, a sound rang out.

Not just a sound, but a gunshot.

The bullet shot Kingsley's fucking brains through the side of his head and splattered them across the wall.

I didn't even have the energy to cheer.

As Kingsley's body slumped to the ground, Rhoan stepped fully into the room.

"Why will you bad guys never listen?" he said, talking to Kingsley as if he were still capable of hearing and thought. And I guess if the silver-threaded knife had done its job and trapped his spirit inside his lifeless body, then he was still capable of understanding. He just couldn't reply. "I keep warning and warning, and nobody seems willing to listen. One of these days someone is going to wake up to the fact that I'm serious when I say never to attack my sister without looking over your shoulder for me."

I dragged myself into a sitting position and leaned wearily against the wall. "Maybe you should send out a pamphlet to bad guys' headquarters. It could be the only way to make sure they know."

"Now that sounds like a plan." He hefted the weapon onto his shoulder, and gave me a grin. "And thanks for saving the good bit for me."

I laughed. At the irony in his words. In sheer, bloody relief at still being alive.

Laughed until the tears started flowing and the pain hit full force.

Laughed until I knew no more. Rhoan plopped down on the roadside curb beside me and offered me one of the two coffee cups he held. "It's only regular."

"I couldn't give a damn." I wrapped my hands around the cup, letting the hot liquid chase the chill from them. "How's the cleanup going?"

He shrugged. "Same as usual. How's your hand?" I glanced down. My little finger stuck out at an angle, all swollen and angry looking. Shifting shape had stemmed the bleeding, but it would never, ever replace what was taken. I'd have a permanent, stumpy reminder of my time with a dark god. "It's sore."

"Jack wants you to be checked out in a hospital."

"Jack's already been told what he can do with that suggestion." I glanced at him. "So he's sent you to try and con me?"

Rhoan sipped at his coffee, then nodded. "He thought it worth the try."

"Hospitals suck."

"That they do."

"And they stink."

"Yes, they do."

"And I will heal without going there."

"Eventually."

I grinned. "Not pressuring me won't work either, you know."

"I can but try." His gaze met mine, gray depths filled with so much concern my determination wavered. "You lost a lot of blood, sis."

I grimaced. "Nothing a good steak won't fix."

"Not according to Quinn, and he is the expert in all matters blood related."

I took a sip of coffee as my gaze found its way to the house across the road. According to Rhoan, Quinn had arrived in the downstairs chamber about five seconds after I'd fainted. He'd ordered my brother to carry me out and had slammed the metal door shut behind him.

Finally finishing what his family had failed to finish so long ago.

I understood his actions, understood his need to complete what had been left undone for so long, and yet, at the same time, part of me was angered by it.

If he'd cared for me as much as he said, shouldn't his first instincts have been to take care of me himself? Take me upstairs, look after me? To hold me, kiss me, reassure me that the dark one was trapped, that he could never escape, that nothing of him lingered within me? The chamber and the dark god weren't going anywhere, after all. The silver knives had done their job, and his spirit was trapped, as Quinn's sister had been trapped.