Caleb’s gaze never left hers. “You get the heat off us for a couple seconds, and we’ll be there when you need us.”
Brielle almost screamed in disappointment at not getting out the words she so desperately wanted to say, but then they heard shooting from the far end of the corridor. Caleb gave her a nod, then he was up and running, shouting at her to stay behind him.
She jumped to her feet and followed right on his heels, refusing to let him run into danger without her, even if this was the most insane thing she’d ever done in her life.
Chapter 20
“We need backup, and we need it now!” Jake shouted over the radio as a deep rumble shook the tunnel around Caleb, dropping dirt and chunks of rock all over him, Brielle, Hudson, and Genevieve. “We’ve gotten to three of the nukes and disarmed them, but Uriel and his people have started blowing the tunnels that lead to the others. If we don’t reach the rest of them in the next fifteen minutes, we aren’t getting there at all.”
Caleb growled and dropped the bad guy he’d just taken out. The distraction Hudson and Genevieve had created worked well, allowing him and Brielle to get close enough to finish the rest of the bad guys. But Caleb had still been hit with bullets three times during the fight, and Brielle now had a ragged crease across the left side of her tactical vest. He didn’t want to think about how bad it would have been if the bullet had hit her a few more inches to the right. Without her having any access to supernatural abilities at the moment, he knew it would have been bad.
“We need to move. Before it’s too late to matter,” Hudson said, looking down at the bodies on the floor, then at Caleb. “Are you okay to keep going? You’re bleeding a lot.”
Caleb looked down to see blood soaking through the dark material of his tactical uniform on the right side of his stomach as well as on his right hip and right above his knee. As scary as the wounds looked—and yeah, Brielle’s eyes were so wide he could make out the white all the way around her irises—it was actually the one in the leg that hurt the most. The other two rounds had punched right through him, and the wounds were already closing up. The bullet that hit his leg had bounced off the bone and was still in there. Saying it hurt like shit was an understatement. If he had time, he’d dig it out with a pocketknife and a pair of pliers.
But he didn’t have the time. None of them did.
“I’m fine,” he growled, at the same time giving Brielle a look he hoped was reassuring. Then he turned and started moving down the tunnel in the direction they’d been heading before this last ambush, his stride picking up until he was jogging at a pace that would cover a lot of ground quickly while still allowing everyone else to keep up.
As he ran, Caleb replayed the conversation he’d had with Brielle a few minutes earlier. There was a huge part of him freaking out that he had so openly confessed his love for her, dumping the whole soul-mate thing on her out of the blue like that. He never would have imagined putting himself out there. Then again, he never imagined feeling this way about a woman.
On the downside, she hadn’t said she loved him in return. But she had kissed him. A real kiss. That counted for something, right? He only hoped that once she had a second, she’d tell him she loved him back. Unless she didn’t feel the same. His stomach twisted at the realization. That was a possibility, too, he guessed.
Caleb heard shooting long before they reached the action. He had to run down a long stretch of tunnel and around two corners before sliding to a stop at what he found. Four of Harrington’s Vandal security guards blocked the far end of the passageway. A man and a woman Caleb recognized from the briefing at the warehouse were lying on the floor of the tunnel bleeding badly. Kiara and Julian probably would have been in the same condition, but they’d found some protection behind a stack of equipment crates left to one side of the tunnel. But those crates were quickly being shredded by the onslaught of bullets coming their way, and Julian was already bleeding from a hit he’d taken while trying to shield Kiara with his body.
Caleb didn’t have time to think. He simply charged, hoping Brielle and the others were smart enough to not do anything stupid. Well, at least not as stupid as him. No such luck. Brielle followed right behind him, Hudson and Genevieve on their heels.
When the Vandals caught sight of him, they didn’t step forward to meet him like he’d expected they would. Instead, they stayed where they were and poured all their fire in his direction, obviously recognizing him as the biggest threat.
Caleb closed on the first one, emptying an entire magazine into the man. Then he holstered his weapon, extended his claws, and started slashing. He grabbed one of the remaining three Vandals and punched him so hard in the face that he heard something break. Then he tossed him in Brielle’s general direction.
“This one’s alive this time,” he shouted without looking back.
A few seconds later, Brielle was at his side, smashing and shooting, ignoring the damage done to her own body by the last two Vandals. Caleb knew she could handle the injuries, but damn, it hurt to see anyway.
Under the cover he and Brielle provided, Craig and Genevieve peeled off, dragging the two injured federal agents from the warehouse back down the tunnel toward safety. With all the gunfire, it was impossible to make out individual heartbeats, and Caleb could only hope those two were still alive. He didn’t imagine Hudson would bother with them if they weren’t.
Two of the Vandals were down—maybe dead—while a third was bleeding badly. Julian and Kiara slipped out from behind the crates to help, and Caleb thought the fight was just about wrapped up. Then one of the Vandals pulled something from his belt—a black key fob thing with a couple buttons on it. He and his Vandal buddy backpedaled quickly, the one with the fob glancing up toward the roof of the tunnel.
Shit.
“They’re about to blow the tunnel!” Caleb shouted just as the man pushed the button and the whole world came apart.
He went down, barely getting his body over Brielle’s to shield her. He saw Julian do the same for Kiara, vaguely thinking that, even if he thought the guy was a complete jackass, at least he wasn’t a coward.
By the time the world—and the roof of the tunnel—stopped collapsing, the passage behind them was completely blocked. Caleb stared at the car-sized pieces of rock lying a few feet away. They would have all been crushed if they’d been only a little farther back that way.
Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, he looked around, seeing that Brielle was okay and quickly figuring out that the two Vandals who’d still been fighting were now long gone. Kiara and Julian seemed okay, but it looked like the other two Vandals who’d been lying on the floor behind them were buried under all the rubble.
Caleb started to panic when he didn’t see Hudson and Genevieve, only then remembering that they’d been much farther back along the tunnel, trying to save the two federal agents from McKay’s backup force.