Page 74 of Fighting for Lucy

It would kill him to do it and go against his every instinct to fight for his woman, but he’d hurt her enough, he wasn’t going to make it any worse.

Right now, it was hard to see how Lucy could possibly forgive him for all of this, but he had to put his faith in the promises she’d made him. Ignoring the little voice in the back of his mind that whispered she’d made those promises before she’d been strapped to a table and had her skin peeled off.

Maybe it was ludicrous to believe he still had a chance with her, but right now, it was the only thing he had to cling to.

Protect his girl.

Keep her alive.

That was what he had to focus on, everything else could be sorted out later.

A cry of pain drew his attention.

That was Lucy’s voice.

Lucy’s pain.

Someone was hurting her.

Unacceptable.

Rage clouded his vision. Somehow, the saying about anger turning your vision red seemed to be true because it was like a haze of red suddenly filled the courtyard.

The beast inside him howled to be let out, confident it could do what it took to protect what was theirs.

For once he was grateful for that darkness because he needed it to survive. Lucy did, too.

She was counting on him, and he wasn’t going to let her down.

He’d already failed her, failed his team, failed his sister, there couldn’t be any more failure. Not when the stakes were this high.

So, he let out a growl of anger and kicked out at the nearest body.

Caught off-guard, the man stumbled and fell to his knees close enough for Zander to reach. Planting both hands on either side of the man’s head, he jerked them sideways and heard the satisfying sound of the man’s neck breaking.

Dropping the now dead body at his side, Zander snatched up the man’s weapon and began to fire it.

Not expecting gunshots to be fired from inside the courtyard where they believed they were safe, men began to drop left, right, and center.

Screams of pain filled the air, along with the growing stench of blood.

But Zander didn't stop.

He didn't care that he had no cover, he fired at anything that moved, praying that somehow Lucy managed to avoid being hit. Vaguely, he was aware of some return fire, of bullets hitting the sandy dirt millimeters from his feet, and pinging off the stone wall behind him, but he was too focused to care.

Protect what was his.

Kill anything that got in the way.

That was all he cared about.

His own life was inconsequential. He would gladly give it up if it meant keeping his beautiful, brave woman alive.

By the time everything fell silent, Zander was breathing hard, and wavering on his feet. Too many hours out in the cold, with nothing to eat or drink, plus the head injury from being knocked out, and the likeliness that he’d been fed drugs to keep him out until he was brought to Syria was taking a toll on his body.

But his mind was still laser-focused.

There were dead bodies littering the ground of the courtyard, at least thirty of them, but there was only one person he cared about.

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