Ronan swung out at him, catching him squarely beneath the jaw and flinging him into one of the dumpsters. Metal dented with a loud bang. Garbage spewed onto the ground and rats screeched as they scattered into the gloomy recesses of the alley. Joseph came up spitting blood as he launched off the dumpster.
“So you’re going to kill me now? You’re going to kill one of your own?” Joseph inquired. “So much for loyalty, hey, Ronan?”
Ronan circled him as Joseph moved toward the wall and Declan and Killean closed in on him. “You’re not one of us anymore, Joseph,” Ronan replied.
“You have no right to judge me. You’re closer to the edge than I ever was.”
Ronan didn’t flinch at the assessment; it was true after all.
“Obviously not,” Declan replied, “considering you’re the one we’re hunting.”
Hatred twisted Joseph’s features; Declan grinned at him in return. Joseph snarled, but this time instead of coming for Ronan, he charged straight at Declan whose smile only widened as he braced himself for Joseph’s attack. Joseph lowered his shoulder and crashed into Declan, sending him reeling into the wall.
Declan didn’t go down beneath Joseph. Instead, he clasped his hands together and drove them into Joseph’s back. Joseph grunted as he wrapped his arms around Declan’s waist, lifted him up, and bashed him into the wall again. Declan swung an uppercut that broke Joseph’s hold on him and staggered Joseph back a few feet.
Before he could fully recover, Ronan grabbed Joseph by the collar of his shirt and yanked him back. His hand encircled his throat, crushing Joseph’s windpipe as he pinned him to the wall. Pulling his arm back, Ronan fisted his hand in preparation to drive it through Joseph’s chest and end this.
“Ronan!” Killean’s shout alerted him to the threat he’d missed while focused on the kill.
A whistling reached him in time for him to turn to the side, but not in time to avoid the bolt completely. A piercing pain shot through his shoulder as the weapon impaled him from behind. Stumbling slightly forward, he nearly lost his grip on Joseph as a burning sensation spread through the thick muscle of his shoulder. Turning his head, he spotted three of the hunters at the other end of the alley. The black-haired one had an empty crossbow aimed at him.
Joseph grabbed the end of the bolt and twisted it. Ronan involuntarily released his hold on him when numbness spread through his shoulder. Joseph’s hands flew to his brutalized throat. Broken sounds issued from him as he clawed at his flesh and his eyes rolled in his head. Ronan had no idea what he was trying to say, and he didn’t care.
“Ronan!”
Declan’s shout enabled him to dodge the next arrow one of the other hunters fired at him, an arrow aimed straight at his heart. He plucked the arrow from the air and shattered it in his fingers before leveling the hunters with a murderous stare. Two of them took a step away from him, but the black-haired one held his ground as he focused on Joseph.
Without warning, the black-haired hunter barreled down the alley with his shoulder lowered. He plowed into Joseph, running him backward as he kept his shoulder buried in Joseph’s sternum. Joseph and the hunter tumbled into the dumpsters. Garbage spilled over them, momentarily burying them both beneath a wave of trash.
Ronan didn’t move as Joseph and the hunter thrashed on the ground. He wasn’t the only one startled by the uncharacteristically reckless display from a hunter. Declan and Killean remained unmoving as the hunter punched Joseph with enough force to crack a cheekbone. The next blow he delivered shattered Joseph’s nose. Blood splattered Joseph’s shirt and sprayed onto the concrete within inches of Ronan’s boots.
He’d never seen a hunter behave like this. Whenever he’d encountered them, they’d always been methodical and careful as they worked together. They never let their emotions rule them or broke ranks. Even the hunter’s partners were thrown off as they had yet to attempt moving in for their own kills.
The hunters didn’t remain stunned into immobility for long. While what Ronan assumed was their leader continued to pummel Joseph, the other two inched forward. One held a crossbow at the ready, its arrow aimed straight at Declan’s heart. The other trained a 9mm on Killean. Unless the gun was loaded with wooden bullets, it wouldn’t kill them. However, it would still hurt them enough to slow them down and make it easier for them to be killed.
The one holding the crossbow kept glancing between Ronan and Declan, but the hunter didn’t aim the crossbow at him again. The two remaining hunters must have decided Ronan’s injury didn’t make him much of a threat. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Ronan scanned the alley behind them, but the woman and the other hunter they’d been with were nowhere to be seen.
He turned his attention back to the ugly situation they now faced. The black-haired hunter was dragging Joseph’s beaten form up behind him as he climbed to his feet.
At one time, seeing a fellow Defender so broken and bruised would have enraged him, but Joseph wasn’t one of them anymore. Ronan couldn’t help feeling a grudging admiration for the damage the hunter had inflicted on the Savage. If it had been any other Savage, Ronan would have walked away and allowed the hunters to have them, but he had to make sure Joseph died this night. The fallen Defender knew far too many of their secrets to risk him continuing to live.
Ronan’s lips skimmed back when the black-haired hunter’s azure eyes fell on him. At about six four, the hunter was a good four inches taller than him, and lean in build.
“This doesn’t have to happen,” Ronan said. “We don’t have to fight each other. Give us Joseph and walk away.”
The hunter bared his teeth and his hand clamped down on Joseph’s already crushed throat. Joseph’s head lulled forward on his shoulders before it snapped up. The black-haired hunter’s eyes were full of antipathy as they held Ronan’s. He didn’t have to say a word; Ronan knew the real fight was about to begin.
Signaling Declan and Killean, he moved to the side, putting himself in a better position to go after the hunter with the crossbow. Ronan charged at him just as the black-haired hunter’s command to kill them rang through the air.
The hunter holding the crossbow caught his charge out of the corner of his eye. Startled, he spun toward Ronan, but he was too late. Grabbing the end of the bow, Ronan ripped it from the hunter’s hands. He drove a fist into the man’s nose, shattering it before he shoved the hunter into a dumpster.
A gunshot rang out. Killean’s grunt could be heard over the ensuing echo of the shot as it reverberated off the brick walls surrounding them. Another shot fired, but this time it cracked off brick. Either Killean or Declan had managed to subdue the hunter with the gun.
CHAPTER 5
“What were you thinking coming here?” Logan demanded when she crept forward to stand at his side within the club.
Kadence barely glanced at him before focusing on the doorway Nathan and the others had exited through. Her hand slid to the stake in the inner pocket of her coat. “I should be out there,” she whispered.
Logan grasped her shoulders, spinning her to face him. Kadence blinked at him, startled by the harshness of his handsome face as he glared at her. “You have no business being here at all!” he barked at her.