Chapter 314
Chapter 314:
He unbuckled himself with a fluid motion, dropping to the ceiling that now served as our floor. With a grunt that sounded more like one of Ragnar’s growls, he kicked the passenger door. The reinforced metal groaned and flew off its hinges as if it were made of cardboard.
“Come. Now.” He reached in, his knife slicing through my seatbelt before I could fall. He caught me easily, pulling me from the wreckage into the cool, damp air of the forest floor.
My legs wobbled, refusing to hold my weight. Dallas didn’t let go. He scooped me up against his chest, his heart hammering a steady, powerful rhythm against my ear. But instead of running, he threw us behind a massive granite boulder jutting out from the embankment.
CRACK.
A gunshot echoed through the ravine.
𝖫𝘢𝗍𝖾𝘀𝘵 𝖼𝗁𝖺p𝘁еr𝘀 𝗈𝗻
Something struck the dirt inches from where my foot had been a second ago. It didn’t simply thud into the earth — it sizzled. A wisp of acrid white smoke curled up from the impact site, carrying a scent that made my stomach turn with primal terror. Every instinct I possessed screamed that this was death itself.
“Silver,” I gasped, clutching Dallas’s shirt. “He has silver bullets p>
Silver was the only thing that could truly kill a Lycan — burning through the healing factor, poisoning the blood, severing the connection to the wolf. If Dallas shifted now, he would become a massive target.
“Stay down,” Dallas murmured. His voice was stripped of the growling rage I expected. Ragnar was furious — I could feel the heat of the beast radiating off him — but Dallas was cold.
I looked up at him, expecting glowing eyes and extending claws.
Instead, I watched in stunned silence as he reached down to his ankle, pulled up his pant leg, and withdrew a matte black pistol from a concealed holster I hadn’t known was there.
“Dallas?” I whispered, the name feeling foreign on my tongue.
He didn’t look at me. His obsidian eyes were fixed on the ridge above, scanning the treeline with a predatory focus that felt entirely human — but not ordinary human. This was the focus of a machine built for war.
“Three shots,” he muttered to himself, his voice low. “He’s rushing the reload p>
Above us, the shooter fired blindly into the brush. Crack. Crack. The bullets hissed as they tore through the leaves, searching for flesh to burn.
Dallas didn’t flinch. He didn’t roar. He waited.
Then, in the split second of silence between shots, he moved.
He didn’t lunge like a wolf. He pivoted out from behind the rock with a fluid, practiced grace, arms locked, the gun an extension of his will. No hesitation. No wasted movement.
BANG.
A single shot rang out — sharper and cleaner than the rifle fire from above.
A scream of agony tore through the twilight air, followed by scrambling footsteps retreating up the slope, crashing through the undergrowth in a panic.
Dallas didn’t chase him. He stayed trained on the ridge for three more seconds, breathing controlled, finger resting along the trigger guard, before slowly lowering the weapon.
He turned back to me, checking me over for injuries with efficient, clinical hands. “Are you hit p>