Read Online Winter's Warrior: Mark of the Monarch (Winter's Saga 4) by Karen Luellen - Free Book Online Page A
Book: Winter's Warrior: Mark of the Monarch (Winter's Saga 4) by Karen Luellen
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Karen Luellen
Ads: Link
hurried to the waiting van.
“Gone. And this one looks as if he might not last the night. That’s why he was left,” Alik tossed the van keys to Creed even as they exchanged a pained look. They knew Meg would never get over losing the one child they could save.
“Let’s go before the rest of the compound shows up,” Evan said, helping Meg, Farrow then Sloan into the van before he clamored in himself. Maze leaped inside last. Just as Evan slammed the back doors shut, his sister let out a painful gasp.
Everyone stopped to look at her upturned face contort in obvious anguish, her back arched and a silent scream pulsed in her throat. She started panting, gasping for air and clinging to the baby in her arms even more tightly.
“What is it, Meg?”
Through gasps, she locked eyes with Alik and said the one word they were all hoping she wouldn’t say: “Mom.”
Chapter 10 How Mortal Are You?
Margo knew she wouldn’t be able to keep pace with the enraged coyote running at full-speed through the dark, though she tried. The Facility was eerily quiet. She kept to the shadows and slinked past the administration building, desperate to find her children.
She had studied the maps of the compound Creed made for them and had a general idea of where the Research Hospital was located. As she rounded the administration building and saw the tastefully lit courtyard, she got her bearings and located the hospital easily. Its rectangular shape stood lit against the velvet, European sky.
The sound of many voices cheering a sport somewhere northeast of where she stood brushed passed her ears.
White lilies were planted in such abundance around the courtyard; their scent in the cool night air came across as cloying. Margo wrinkled her nose at it and chose to breathe through her mouth instead. Still calculating her next move, she ignored the small white puffs of warm breath as they escaped her o-shaped mouth.
Her initial reaction to seeing the building in which her sweet children were trapped was to attack with the rage of a lioness, but she forced herself to hold back and work through that emotional response. The soldier in her knew better than to run off half-cocked. She rolled her shoulders and her head trying to force herself to relax through the body shakes compliments of the fight-or-flight adrenaline coursing through her.
Calm down, soldier, she scolded. Focus.
Just as she had chosen her next patch of shadows to slip toward, every light in the entire Research Hospital went out. The rectangular building that had been lit like an amusement park at Christmas went dark, as though God himself doused the lights with a massive cloak. The space where the hospital now stood was only obvious by the lack of stars as though a black hole swallowed them.
Her racing heart skipped a beat.
Oh dear God!
NO!
All logic and training flew from her mind.
Forgetting her own safety, she bolted across the courtyard directly for the building that held her breath captive. So determined to get to her children, she didn’t even stop at the push of the first bullet as it hit her right shoulder. Her momentum and determination carried her on. But by the time the second shot ground into her lower back, she found her legs wouldn’t move the way she commanded. By the third shot, she felt an intense shard of stabbing pain in her tailbone. A moment of surrealism enveloped her as the world teetered and spun.
Margo’s soft brown eyes were still locked on the blackened building even as she lay bleeding on the ornate flagstone path. Her arms were reaching, uselessly, and her breath coming through jagged gasps. From behind her she vaguely distinguished a raspy laugh.
“Well done, Slider,” it chuckled.
“Oh , my dear Margo. If this isn’t justice, I don’t know what is!”
Margo would know that voice anywhere, how ever distorted. It belonged to Dr. Kenneth Williams.
Her
“Gone. And this one looks as if he might not last the night. That’s why he was left,” Alik tossed the van keys to Creed even as they exchanged a pained look. They knew Meg would never get over losing the one child they could save.
“Let’s go before the rest of the compound shows up,” Evan said, helping Meg, Farrow then Sloan into the van before he clamored in himself. Maze leaped inside last. Just as Evan slammed the back doors shut, his sister let out a painful gasp.
Everyone stopped to look at her upturned face contort in obvious anguish, her back arched and a silent scream pulsed in her throat. She started panting, gasping for air and clinging to the baby in her arms even more tightly.
“What is it, Meg?”
Through gasps, she locked eyes with Alik and said the one word they were all hoping she wouldn’t say: “Mom.”
Chapter 10 How Mortal Are You?
Margo knew she wouldn’t be able to keep pace with the enraged coyote running at full-speed through the dark, though she tried. The Facility was eerily quiet. She kept to the shadows and slinked past the administration building, desperate to find her children.
She had studied the maps of the compound Creed made for them and had a general idea of where the Research Hospital was located. As she rounded the administration building and saw the tastefully lit courtyard, she got her bearings and located the hospital easily. Its rectangular shape stood lit against the velvet, European sky.
The sound of many voices cheering a sport somewhere northeast of where she stood brushed passed her ears.
White lilies were planted in such abundance around the courtyard; their scent in the cool night air came across as cloying. Margo wrinkled her nose at it and chose to breathe through her mouth instead. Still calculating her next move, she ignored the small white puffs of warm breath as they escaped her o-shaped mouth.
Her initial reaction to seeing the building in which her sweet children were trapped was to attack with the rage of a lioness, but she forced herself to hold back and work through that emotional response. The soldier in her knew better than to run off half-cocked. She rolled her shoulders and her head trying to force herself to relax through the body shakes compliments of the fight-or-flight adrenaline coursing through her.
Calm down, soldier, she scolded. Focus.
Just as she had chosen her next patch of shadows to slip toward, every light in the entire Research Hospital went out. The rectangular building that had been lit like an amusement park at Christmas went dark, as though God himself doused the lights with a massive cloak. The space where the hospital now stood was only obvious by the lack of stars as though a black hole swallowed them.
Her racing heart skipped a beat.
Oh dear God!
NO!
All logic and training flew from her mind.
Forgetting her own safety, she bolted across the courtyard directly for the building that held her breath captive. So determined to get to her children, she didn’t even stop at the push of the first bullet as it hit her right shoulder. Her momentum and determination carried her on. But by the time the second shot ground into her lower back, she found her legs wouldn’t move the way she commanded. By the third shot, she felt an intense shard of stabbing pain in her tailbone. A moment of surrealism enveloped her as the world teetered and spun.
Margo’s soft brown eyes were still locked on the blackened building even as she lay bleeding on the ornate flagstone path. Her arms were reaching, uselessly, and her breath coming through jagged gasps. From behind her she vaguely distinguished a raspy laugh.
“Well done, Slider,” it chuckled.
“Oh , my dear Margo. If this isn’t justice, I don’t know what is!”
Margo would know that voice anywhere, how ever distorted. It belonged to Dr. Kenneth Williams.
Her
Similar Books
