Riley smiled at her, and shook his head. Then he brought his claws up to his throat and mimicked slicing across his neck.
Bastard.
Az was not going to die while she watched.
CHAPTER FOUR
The crowd’s roar drowned out her screams. Az began walking toward her. The shifters kept stalking behind him.
No, no, no.
“Behind you!” Jade yelled as loudly as she could. “They are right behind you!”
Az didn’t glance back. This was not working. Her gaze darted below her. Okay, that was just a one story drop. She’d survive that fall, right? Maybe with a few broken bones, maybe just with some bruises. She could do this.
She had to do this.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Jade climbed over the railing. The crowd cheered louder. Louder.
She jumped.
And was caught by three guys. What the hell? They swung her around, cheering.
Crazy ass**les. But they had just saved her some hurt. So she placed a fast kiss on the nearest cheek and leapt out of those cradling arms. Then Jade started running for Az. “They’re after you, they’re—”
A gunshot ripped through the crowd. The blast of the gunshot finally—finally—brought silence.
Silence that lasted for only a moment’s time because then another shot thundered in the air.
Jade’s eyes were on Az so she saw the jerk of his body as the bullet tore into him.
Then the screaming started, as the shock melted away from the revelers. The humans scrambled, running, shrieking, dropping their drinks and their beads as they rushed away from the gunfire.
Desperate to get to Az’s side, Jade shoved her way through them. My fault. This was what happened to men who tried to play her white knight.
They wound up stained with blood.
Her side ached as she rushed toward him. He was slowly turning around now, finally facing the bastards who were after him. Too late.
Another crack of gunfire. She was close enough to hear the thud as the second bullet sank into Az’s flesh.
His body trembled.
“Stop!” Jade screamed at Riley because he was the jerkoff with the gun. “Leave him alone!”
She grabbed Az’s arm and pulled him close. Blood poured from a wound near his shoulder, and she knew he had at one bullet in his back. “We have to get you out of here!”
She could already hear sirens. The cops were responding fast this time. No big surprise. No one wanted a slaughter during Mardi Gras. That was bad for business.
Her gaze flew to the left, the right. There wasn’t any nearby cover for them, and Riley still had his gun up. Only it wasn’t aimed at Az any longer. It was aimed right at her.
Riley smiled.
But she knew bullshit when she saw it. “You can’t kill me,” she snarled at him, not even a little bit afraid of what he might do. “Because the minute you do, you’re dead.”
She understood how this game worked. Riley wasn’t an alpha. He was a good little soldier shifter who did exactly as he was told.
A muscle jerked in Riley’s jaw as he stalked closer. “Maybe I can’t kill you . . .” Rage beat beneath the rumbling words. She knew that, oh, yeah, he wanted to murder her, but if he did, then Brandt would rip the skin from his body. “But I can still make you bleed.”
The gun wasn’t pointed at her head anymore. He’d dropped it, and taken aim at her leg.
She saw his sharpening canines when he smiled. “Let’s see how fast you can run with a bullet in—”
He didn’t get to finish his threat. A ball of freaking fire rolled toward him.
Riley and Anton leapt back.
The crowd shrieked even louder because, sure, bullets and fire would flip most people the hell out.
She pulled Az’s arm around her shoulder. Then she tucked her body close to his. Before the shifters regrouped, she had to get him away from there.
And she had to dodge the cops. There was a little matter of a few dead bodies from her past that she didn’t exactly have time to deal with right then.
Those explanations could wait for another day.
“Come on,” she whispered. Wow. The guy was heavy.
He didn’t speak, but his hand tightened around her shoulder, and Az let her lead him through the crowd. Luckily, after a few stumbling steps, she and Az soon blended with the fleeing throng.
Two streets over, she found a car. An older, black BMW that sat alone beneath a broken street lamp. Leaving that ride alone in that spot was a bad mistake.
The driver’s loss.
She lifted up with her right foot and smashed in the back window. An alarm immediately blasted. Easing away from Az, she unlocked the door, hopped around inside the vehicle, and two seconds later, she was under the dash. It barely took a breath for her to stop the alarm and get the engine flaring to life.
She might just be human, but she had some serious skills.
Thanks to Brandt.
Damn him.
Jade helped Az into the BMW. Well, helped, shoved, same thing. The guy still wasn’t talking. With the bullets in him, maybe he was just in too much pain to talk right then.
The shifters had been playing with him.
Those sadistic jerks had just wanted to hurt Az. No doubt on Brandt’s order. Because if they’d wanted him dead . . .
Riley was a good shot. If he’d wanted Az on a morgue slab someplace, he would have simply blasted a bullet in his brain.
While I watched.
Those sick shifters had to be stopped.
“Just hold on,” she told Az as she yanked the gearshift back and spared a fast glance in the rearview mirror. “I’ll get you someplace safe and dig those bullets out.” Worried, Jade glanced at him.
He wasn’t slumping in the seat. He was looking right at her, with a faint frown pulling his brows low.
Crap. “Are you in shock?” Great, the last thing that—
He reached into the gaping hole on his shoulder and yanked out the bullet. When his fingers dug into the torn flesh, the contact made a sucking sound that raised goose bumps all along her body. After just a moment of searching, he had the bloody bullet gripped in his fingers.
Jade swallowed. “I’m guessing that means you aren’t in shock.”
He rolled down his window and tossed out the bullet.
“Okay then . . .” Now wasn’t the moment to gripe at the guy for littering. Blood prioritized right then. She turned her attention to the road. Sirens were screeching on the next block, and there had to be some folks from that crowd who would be sober enough to provide descriptions of the shooters—and of Az. Her foot pressed down on the accelerator. Nice and slow. All of the glass had busted out of the back side window, so if anyone looked at it, they’d just think the window was rolled down. They wouldn’t realize she’d done a smash-and-grab.