Earth Bound Read Free Page B

desperately trying to dig Caine free while Darrin Jorgenson came at her with a knife.
    â€œKill her. Kill the bitch,” Caine screamed over and over, tears running down his face. His upper torso flopped over the ground, his face suddenly buried in the dirt.
    She tried to make her brain work, tried to remember what Levi had told her to do, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She stood waiting for the death blow, thankful that at least she’d managed to stop Caine from taking her away with him.
    There was no sound. None. Later, when she thought about it, she felt as if the very earth had taken a breath. Time slowed down. She saw each step Darrin took as if he was in slow motion. She literally could see every breath he drew and the lines of fanatical hatred on his face.
    She didn’t take her eyes from him, watching him come closer and closer, waiting for him, relieved now that it was over.
    A hole blossomed in the middle of Darrin’s forehead, a bright red crater that knocked him backward, the blow hard enough to jerk his head back and send his body flying through the air to land in a heap on the ground.
    Lexi stared at the body, uncomprehending. A hard arm circled her waist and dragged her backward, thrusting her behind a man she’d never seen before. He was tall, with axe handle shoulders, a thick chest and shaggy hair. At first she thought it was Levi, Rikki’s husband, but he moved differently and he was . . . bigger. More muscular.
    He strode toward Caine and Rogers, covering the ground as if he moved above it rather than on it. He was smooth and fluid and something out of a movie with his long coat swirling around him. He raised his hand as he approachedthe two men and squeezed the trigger of his pistol just once. Peter Rogers dropped to the ground like a stone. Lexi jammed her fist into her mouth to keep from making a sound.
    Gavriil crouched down beside Caine, lifting his head by his hair, staring into his eyes. Evil stared back at him malevolently. Caine’s legs were crushed, but Lexi had managed to keep the crevice from killing him. Caine looked past Gavriil to Lexi and spat on the ground.
    â€œYou whore. You’re dead. I’ll kill you slow. Your devil won’t save you. No one can save you. Your name is written in the book of the reaper in blood.”
    â€œSave it for your parishioners in hell.” Gavriil kept his voice soft, so there was no way Lexi could hear. Deliberately he dropped Caine’s head harder than necessary so that his face landed in the dirt. He leaned down, putting his mouth close to Caine’s ear. “I’ll be coming back without her, and I know more ways to make you welcome death than you can possibly imagine. Stay alive for me, will you?”
    Gavriil rose, turning back to Lexi. Her face was stark white, her eyes enormous. “Are you all right? Any broken bones?”
    She still couldn’t move, not even when he reached her, holstering his gun in the shoulder harness and reaching out to run both hands over her, searching for damage. Terrible tremors wracked her body and she couldn’t catch her breath. She didn’t dare look at him or she’d cry. If she looked at Caine or the two dead men, she’d throw up.
    â€œLexi, talk to me. Look at me. Look at my eyes.” His fingers smoothed over a bruise already marring her cheek. The pad of his thumb removed a small trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.
    There was something commanding, compelling in his voice—not at all like Caine, but more in a velvet soft, mesmerizing,
worried
tone. As if her health was the most important thing in this man’s world. Lexi forced her gaze upward, over his broad chest where the thin black shirt hewore beneath his open coat was stretched tight over well-defined muscles. Her gaze continued upward, past his strong, shadowed jaw and straight nose until she found herself staring into eyes as dark as midnight.