Page 55 of The Hero Within
A knee drove into the back of her thigh and Eden found her face smushed into the dirt, her right hand yanked up behind her back. The syringe fell from nerveless fingers.
"What did you do to Rath?" Bobbi demanded.
"What the hell is going on here?" snarled a woman's voice.
A trio of women melted out of the shadows, but it was the one standing on the rock, her fingers laxly gripping a spear who'd spoken. Her head was shaved, and her skin gleamed like polished ochre in the evening shadows. Gold handprints adorned her brown skin, glimmering in the faint dying light of the tangerine sun. Within moments, Eden suspected the light would fade and the gold handprints would vanish with it.
All the men stepped back, except for Rath, whose heels were still drumming on the ground as he twisted and screamed.
"Second." One of them bowed. "Strangers in our territory. Two of them are wargs—"
"I have a nose," said the woman, leaping off the rock and crossing to Colton. She wore a leather halter top that bared her midriff and a pair of cerulean blue trousers that vanished into her combat boots. "What did you do to Rath?"
Colton arched a brow. "Nothing."
Bobbi hauled Eden to her knees.
"That was all me," Eden said, suddenly the center of attention as Rath's mouth began foaming. "I just shot your friend up with a concoction of colloidal silver. If he doesn't get medical attention shortly, then he's going to have a hell of a night."
Wargs hated silver. It burned their skin, and her injection would be doing the same—on the inside.
"If he dies, then so do you," said the woman, striding toward her.
"He's not going to die." Eden held her hands up. "He just might feel like he is for an hour or two. There's not enough silver in the mix to kill him."
"Fix him," the woman snarled.
"I can't. His body will process it eventually. But in the meantime, maybe he'll learn some better manners."
The newcomer's dark eyes locked on her. A thin gold line curved under both her eyes. "Better manners? He didn't touch you, did he?"
"His hands got a little loose, Nnedi," Bobbi grumbled. "I warned him."
"Next time he does something like that, Bobbi, you have my permission to take him down." The newcomer—clearly a leader of some sort—lifted her boot and pressed her weight down on the middle of Rath's chest. He wheezed, froth foaming from his mouth. "I was going to help you get back to the caves, Rath, but now I think you're on your own. You know my rules."
She pushed away, and the man rolled onto his side, reaching helplessly for her. "Please...."
"I am Nnedi," the woman tilted her head. "Second of Shadow Rock pack. And the three of you are under my protection. Come. We will take you back to Shadow Rock until the alpha can decide what to do with you."
Eden only wished that didn't sound quite like Nnedi intended to lock them up and throw away the key.
Colton remained on his knees, his hands cupped behind his head and blood dripping from his nose. Around him sprawled the slumped bodies of three wargs.
"You look like trouble," Nnedi said, kneeling in font of him to assess him. "I hope you're not going to be trouble." She jerked her head to the men holding him down. "Let him stand. Take their weapons, but give them room to move. We will not harm you if you do not retaliate. Am I clear?"
Eden exchanged a look with Colton. What was going on?
But she trusted Nnedi. The woman's manner was brusque, and she clearly held a lot of respect here, for nobody would meet her eyes.
"Understood," Colton said, as he was helped to his feet.
A sudden crash made them all turn sharply.
CJ hit the ground, not bothering to put his hands out.
"CJ!" Nothing could stop her from running to his side. "What did you do to him?"
The man beside him looked shocked. "Nothing. I didn't touch him, I swear. He just collapsed."
