Marked by Dean Murray Page A

providers like we've been doing up until
now."
    The
car and the minivan both screeched to a stop less than a dozen feet
away from the RV's, but rather than following them, the two SUVs
stopped back by the entrance to the amphitheater. I realized what was
going on at the same time that Alec did.
    "They're
trying to trap the rest of our people and kill them before we can get
there!"
    The
words came from a throat that was no longer human. Alec had thrown
himself forward, shifting to hybrid form mid leap. The rest of our
people—everyone but Donovan—followed less than a second
behind, charging the two SUVs and the six heavily-tattooed men who
were already exiting the vehicles.
    Donovan
was the last person I would have expected to lose his nerve, but then
again maybe I wasn't being fair to him. It had been decades since
he'd last fought in anything other than the financial arena, and
there was something to be said for the idea that he was too valuable
to be risked in a grand melee where luck would play just as much a
part in his fate as his rusty combat skills.
    I
opened my mouth to call Donovan back, to order him into the other RV
as a way of saving face, when it happened. The sound was a kind of
crack, with an odd kind of vibrating echo that seemed to hang in the
air afterwards. At first I didn't understand what had happened. Even
after I finally registered that what I was hearing was gunfire, I
initially thought the shot had come from Mallory who was limping
along behind everyone else. Only her gun was still pointed down
toward the ground.
    By
the time the second shot rang out, Alec was less than a dozen feet
from the Coun'hij enforcers and based on the way that they'd crumpled
to the ground, his power was active. The first shot had taken him in
the left shoulder, but he didn't even slow down.
    Afterwards
I would ask myself again and again whether he initially just didn't
realize that he'd been shot or if he knew but threw himself forward
regardless, desperate to neutralize the enforcers who were guarding
the only usable cover in the kill zone that the parking lot had just
become.
    Ash
would have told me that the first shot out of a cold barrel is always
the least accurate one. The sniper had missed Alec's heart by inches
with his first shot. The second shot should have taken Alec's head
off, but somehow he managed to twist aside at precisely the right
instant to make the second shot miss him and tear through one of the
SUV's instead.
    I
didn't remember starting up the RV, but I started it forward with a
vague idea that I needed to be there with Alec rather than sitting
here uselessly dozens of yards away. I started to veer to the left to
avoid running Donovan over, but the only sign of his presence was
fragments of black and white cloth that hadn't even had a chance to
finish fluttering toward the ground yet.
    Some
of our people had figured out what was going on, but they still
weren't fast enough. The third shot took Alec through the chest and
he went down in a spray of blood that I knew was much worse than any
other injury he'd ever sustained.
    The
two wolves and the hybrid who had arrived in the white car and the
minivan scattered in an effort to avoid the incoming gunfire. Even
Vik started towards the SUV's as though intent on saving his own
neck. Only Paul acted the way that a bodyguard was supposed to.
    Alec
had started falling as a hybrid, but by the time he slammed into the
ground he'd shifted back to his human form. It was a bad sign, he
wouldn't have abandoned the safety of his hybrid body unless he was
forced to. That meant severely injured…or dead.
    Paul
scooped Alec up with one hand, barely breaking stride as he charged
towards the SUV's. His massive hybrid claws tore into Alec's flesh,
but there wasn't anything to be done about it. Paul was right—the
first priority had to be getting Alec out of the line of fire.
    The
Coun'hij enforcers that Alec had laid out so casually with his power
were starting to stir