Page 15 of Bodyguard Wolf's Fated Mate
JASMINE
I barely made it out of the room still seething with furious indignation when I sensed a foreboding presence. Something hit me from behind. Glass tingled above me with the speed of sound being penetrated by a lead projectile.
"Stay down close to the floor and don't move a single muscle," Luke warned me with a heated whisper into my ear.
Having his body over me in a protective gesture should have terrified me. The only thing I could think about was how fast I could get him out of the suit. The wolf was anxious and its presence was growling for some action.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked when there was another echo of gunfire from the other side of the house.
Luke had me by the neck and I couldn't move. "I have to get to your father. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with him. Somebody hired an assassin to take him out, and I'm the only one standing in his way."
He ran from me in a zigzag formation with the bullets flying around him. He was mistaken. It wasn't just one assailant. Two others had taken up positions to keep me pinned down. They didn't care that I was innocent.
I was still his daughter. It was about time to act like it.
I crawled backward into the kitchen on all fours while staying close to the floor. The cook was huddled in between the stove and the fridge. His face was white, and he was muttering something in his native Russian tongue.
Jansen Romanoff was an exceptional culinary master.
His bald head shone in the overhead pot lights. He gripped a string of rosary beads. My Russian was a little weak, but I had learned a lot while listening to him scream obscenities at the staff. He prayed for some sort of divine intervention.
"Stay where you're at. Moving is the worst thing you can do in this situation." It was hypocritical for me to suggest anything when I was dead set on being part of the action.
Normally, I would shy away from life and death decisions, but these were extraordinary circumstances. It was also a good way to stretch the enhanced senses of the wolf.
The door at the bottom of the stairs would take me out of the side of the house. A maze of stonework on the pathway would give me a modicum of cover as long as I stayed out of the line of fire.
It was highly arousing to face the specter of death.
Opening the door was a bit of an ordeal. It weighed three times a normal door. It didn't look like anything special, but it was fortified with metal to keep unwanted visitors from getting in.
I almost expected somebody to be there to greet me with a gun in my face. It was a relief when the only thing to assault me was a cool wind blowing through the trees.
I mapped out a path of least resistance in my mind. The circular stone pathway got me closer to my objective. It was just a matter of waiting but that wasn't my strong suit. Being in a robe was a little conspicuous. Taking it off was a bold move but allowed me to move freely through the foliage completely naked surrounded by nature.
Three more cracks of thunder were followed by the clicking mechanism of somebody reloading. It was slow going until I relaxed enough to let the wolf play a part.
Scaling the tree to get a better view was easier than expected. My fingers pierced the bark with the sticky sap sliding over my nails.
I felt more alive than ever when I got higher and higher in elevation. Being perched on the highest branch let me see where the gunfire originated.
A flash of light revealed the location of one of the gunmen.
Tiptoeing across the branch should have broken it underneath my weight. It didn't even tremble under my feet. It was as if I was feather-light and moved with the grace of an alley cat.
They were expecting guards to converge on their location. They were not disappointed. The guards were ill-equipped when they were out in the open in plain sight. Those guns in the woods could easily decimate their ranks by picking them off one at a time.
I moved from tree to tree without anybody the wiser. I had this contagion for adventure. It was enlightening to be that close to nature and to feel connected to everything, including the trees standing tall and majestic.
It was a simpatico relationship.
"I have the guards. Herd the target toward the front exit. Number 3 will be waiting for him. It's a shooting gallery and not even he can miss from that point-blank range. We just have to keep this up for a little while longer. We have five minutes before the police arrive. Plenty of time to finish this and get out of here unseen." The radio squawked underneath me.
"I've got the living room but there's no sign of the daughter. She must've crawled into a hole waiting for it to be over. They are so predictable. God forbid they would actually put up a fight. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. We have our orders. We get a shot and we take it. It looks like they're going to be in need of a new maid," he responded with an indication he was about to kill somebody that had been there since I was adopted and brought into the family.
There was no decision when I dropped instinctively from the sky onto his back to set off a chain of events.
The gun went off, but his aim was thrown way off. It hit one of the upstairs windows in the master bedroom. The bullet created a pockmark but didn't penetrate the double-reinforced bulletproof glass.
