Page 81 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

Hidey-hole … Seth thought. Which was in a direct line to his deadfall trap.

Forcing himself to focus through the weakness and pain, he scanned the ground at his feet.

Where the hell was it?

Where the hell was the rope?

He flinched when a snake slithered across the sand.

No. Not a snake.

He squinted. Fought to focus. Dropped to all fours. Then fell flat on his face. Brain fuzzy. Pain clawing at him with eagle talons.

Sand in his mouth. In his eyes. Rope. Not a snake. A rope beneath his hands.

Rope.

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He clutched it as Devine kicked him in the side.

Fire screamed through his ribs. He doubled over in agony. Heard himself groan.

“Get up! Get your sorry ass up or I’ll take the first slice out of her right now.”

“Wait … wait,” Seth slurred through ungodly pain, struggling to make the words come out. Digging with everything in him, he pushed himself to all fours … fought for a sustaining breath … then reared back, rope in hand, jerking with all his might.

He felt the rumble, heard the crunch and grind and bass vibrations as the boulder dislodged and roared down the cliff at warp speed times two.

A man screamed. Elena cried out. Devine cursed and kicked him again.

When Seth opened his eyes, the barrel of the M-16 was bearing down, aiming for the spot between his brows.

“You sonofabitch!” Devine roared.

Adrenaline shot through Seth’s blood like a fuel injection system pumped gas through a Formula 1 racer.

He grabbed the barrel, twisted and jerked. Heard the burst of fire as Devine pulled the trigger. Felt the burn on his fingers, wrapped in a death grip around the barrel. Jerked when the sharp, cutting sting of the bullet ripped into his body followed by Devine crashing down on him.

It was all muscle memory and blind, raging instinct from that instant on. He fought—not for his life but for Elena’s, aware of her screams on a peripheral level. Aware of the pain on an entirely different plane that he blocked as he wrestled Devine to his back, crashed his fist into the drug lord’s face with a crunch of bone and spurt of blood.

He hit him again. Straddling his supine body, he kept on hitting him as blood sprayed and Devine’s lifeless form lagged like a broken doll with every punch.

He heard his name from a distance. Heard the horror, the pleading to stop, the assurance that Devine was dead.

Still he kept swinging. Wildly now. With no control. No target, no focus … no strength.

No … light.

No … bearings.

Not even a vague idea of where he was, what he was doing, why each breath he took told him to deliver death.

Then he couldn’t swing any more. Winded, weak, sluggish with pain and fatigue, he stopped.

Stopped pummeling. Stopped thinking. Stopped seeing. Stopped feeling.

The last thing he remembered was the hesitant touch of a soft hand on his brow. The soothing sounds of a trembling, terrified voice telling him it was over. It was over.

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