Page 53 of All's Fair in Lion and War
Banging.
Wood splintering.
More glass breaking.
She blinked her eyes and put her hand to her belly where the pain throbbed.
Warm. Wet. Sticky. Something had pierced her skin.
A bullet.She knew what that was. She’d seen Rivian’s warriors learn to use them in this world.
She’d been shot.
But by who?
Her vision blurred. She could see Saul, the soul glow made him stand out among the group in the dimly lit bar.
Crunching bones. Growls and snarls of angry lions. There were too many. It should only be Tor and Liam and Saul.
Then the scent hit her—Rivian. She would nevernotrecognize the scent of her mate’s brother. The male who’d murdered him in front of her. Stolen her memory and dragged her into a new world so that he could torture her day after day.
“Saul.” She tried to shout, but nothing more than a croak came out. She couldn’t get a breath. She coughed and tasted blood in her mouth. The bullet was interfering with her body’s ability to heal.
She rolled to her back, but that made it even harder to breathe. An explosion of coughs wracked her lungs. With a determined groan, she rolled again and managed to get onto all fours.
With one hand she felt for the hole in her shirt and ripped it a little bigger. Then she felt for the wound. Small and round. She hissed through the pain and breathed in a hard ragged gurgling breath.
Just get it out.
Her healing would start if she could get the thing out of her body. She jammed her finger into the wound again and whimpered. Tears blurred her vision and dripped to the floor.
Energy surged through her body like fire racing along a line of oil. She grit her teeth and dug into the wound again. Her finger brushed something hard and metal. Twisting quickly, she worked to get hold of the bullet.
The floor under the hand and knees was slick and wet. She was losing a lot of blood.
A heavy male body bumped into her, sending her sprawling to the floor across the room and underneath another table.
“Get her.” Another male voice shouted.
“You fucking shot her!” That angry shout was from Liam.
Another shot boomed from the direction of his voice. A body collapsed to the floor next to her with a groan.
She wiped her eyes and tried to focus through the haze of tears and overwhelming pain attempting to swallow her consciousness.
Lorelei didn’t recognize the male. It wasn’t Saul or one of his friends. But it wasn’t Rivian either which meant he was still there.
Still fighting.
Still a threat.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered right this moment was getting the bullet out of her body so she could stop choking on her own blood.
Taking a deep breath, she bit down on the chair cushion in front of her face and stuck her fingers inside the wound again. She screamed around her teeth into the leather of the chair, but found the bullet and pulled. Itplunkedonto the wood floor and she collapsed to the floor. Her hands were shaking. She was so cold.
She closed her eyes and focused on breathing. She spit out the blood in her mouth. Tried to get back to all fours. Tried to make out what was happening around her.
More crashing and growling. A chair exploded into pieces next to her.
