Page 18 of Discovered Magic
A second bullet struck her savior’s back. He grunted, staggered, and barely managed to keep his footing.
If they continued, she risked his life, and that, she wouldn’t do.
“Wait!” she shouted at Eustace, voice cracking. “Just wait. Please! I’m coming down!”
She looked up into the warrior’s sorrowful eyes. He’d view it as a failure, but she needed to assure him none of this was his fault.
“Thank you for trying, but you need to save yourself.”
“Don’t—”
The next shot caught her shoulder and threw her off balance. Her world tilted, and she lost her grip.
The raw scream pulled from her throat was chillingly familiar, an echo of her first tumble off the mountain. The Native man’s cry carried the same anguish Wilder’s had as she plummeted toward certain death.
“Wilder,” she gasped, for no other reason than she wanted her last thoughts to be of him.
The jarring impact onto a jutting boulder halted Abbie’s free fall. Her bones snapped on contact, the sound sickening and final. Agony stole her breath as she sprawled facedown on the boiling-hot rock, paralyzed. Her cheek burned like a motherfucker, as if someone flayed it open with a fillet knife. She didn’t possess the strength to move her arm, and she was too dazed to tally her numerous injuries.
A line of red caught her attention. Blood flowed from her head across the craggy, sun-washed surface and spilled over the edge in the faintest of waterfalls.
Cold. She was so unbearably cold. And wasn’t it odd on such a scorching day?
She shivered once, then again as she blinked to lessen the glare of the overbright sunlight.
As her life force grew weaker, she closed her eyes against the salty burn of tears. Never once could she have imagined dying this way. Alone in a brutal, untamed land, with no one to mourn her passing in whatever timeline she’d been transported to. Goddess, let her wake from this, and it have all been a nightmare!
A man’s fetid breath against her cheek made her want to recoil, but she couldn’t move. Her nose twitched, curling at the offensive stench.
“Breath mint,” she croaked.
“Ya brought this on yerself, woman. Me and?—”
The wind carried away the rest of his words. Or perhaps it was her soul drifting. Didn’t matter. He was of little concern anymore.
Jonas and Draven materialized at the exact moment the woman fell. That son of a bitch Eustace Larkham was already bending over her, intent on more harm.
“Can you freeze time?” Draven asked, not bothering to lower his voice. They were cloaked from sight and sound thanks to an age-old spell.
He could, but then, so could Draven if he weren’t a stubborn jackass who refused to use his upgraded powers if he didn’t have to. The thick-headed fool had a death wish, and one day soon, Jonas intended to discover why.
“Yes, but how the hell do we explain popping from here to there when time snaps back?” he asked.
Draven shrugged. “We kill them, non? Make it look like an accident.”
Jonas shot him an irritated glance. “I’m the blasted sheriff, Masters.”
“And still, you ride with the likes of me, cher,” Draven said with a sly grin. “You cannot tell me those renegades aren’t on the wanted posters papering your walls.”
They were. But Jonas despised using magic on mortals unless absolutely necessary. It always raised questions if anyone looked too closely. He’d prefer to use human methods to capture and punish the unsavory elements. But damned if he hadn’t run out of time. Eustace was gearing up to hurt the woman further.
Thoroughly frustrated by his friend and left with no choice, Jonas lifted his hands, curling them into fists.
“Praemorare!”
Though only he and Draven were able to hear, the word still cracked through the air, older than the canyon crags and heavier than gravity’s pull. The current stilled, and previously billowing dust hung in place like frozen motes of copper.
Eustace was caught mid-kick, his face twisted into a hateful mask, arms suspended beside his head like a puppet on strings suddenly stilled. The rifle in his grip added depth to the scene, making the threat of death very real.
