Echoes at Dawn by Maya Banks Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t even slow her pace. He began to wonder just how much she’d endured. He knew it was bad, but he was beginning to think he had no grasp at all of the horrors she’d suffered.
    They didn’t slow, and in fact, once past the dead men, Rio put on more speed, pushing Grace relentlessly. She stumbled more frequently and he knew she was tiring, but he pressed on. He’d push her to her limits and then he’d carry her the rest of the way if he had to.
    He slowed to check his GPS when suddenly Grace shoved him hard. A shot sounded as they both went down, and the handheld unit went flying. Before he could react, another shot sounded in his ear and he realized Grace had yanked the pistol from his holster and had fired.
    Instantly, he rolled, taking her underneath him even as he positioned his rifle to pick off any threat. Only silence greeted him and then the soft groan in the distance.
    Holy fuck. She’d shot someone.
    He scrambled up, keeping his rifle trained as he crept forward. He barked a command for Grace to stay down as he headed away from her.
    Fifty yards away, a man lay sprawled on the ground, his rifle just inches from his fingers. Rio bent and did a quick assessment in the dark, but the man was no longer breathing. Grace had nailed him right in the neck.
    He glanced back in Grace’s direction, stunned that she’d just saved his life. He hadn’t heard the man, and with Grace holding on to him, his reflexes wouldn’t have been as quick. He would have likely gotten shot before he’d have had time to react.
    Instead, Grace had shoved him down and taken out the target with a single pistol shot.
    He hurried back to Grace, kneeling to help her up.
    “Are you all right?” he whispered.
    “Fine. You?” Her voice sounded strained and he knew it had to have hurt her when he shoved her to the ground.
    “I’m great, thanks to you. How the hell did you do that?”
    “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just reacted.”
    “Well, you saved both our asses,” Rio said grimly. “Let’s get moving. They’ll have our location pegged now.”
    He very nearly grasped her splinted arm. It was easy to forget just how injured she was when she was keeping up his grueling pace and saving his ass in the process.
    “How much farther?” she asked.
    Her tone suggested just how much she hated asking, and he also sensed just how close she was to her limit.
    He retrieved the GPS that he’d been consulting and studied the path they were taking. His lips pressed into a thin line and he stared into the night.
    “We have to keep moving. We’re making better time than I counted on, which is good. If we can keep this pace, we should meet up with my team at dawn. If we slow or you can’t make it, we’ll have to bed down, wait for daylight and hope to hell we don’t have to engage.”
    He could feel the quiet despair emanating from her. It was like watching a balloon deflate. But then she squared her shoulders, her chin came up and she chambered another bullet before setting the safety on the pistol once more.
    “Let’s go,” she said in a quiet, firm voice.

CHAPTER 6
     
    ONE foot in front of the other. Block the pain. Focus.
    Over and over, Grace repeated the same instructions to herself. She’d long since lost count of the many times she’d stumbled and righted herself, determined not to slow Rio. By now she was performing by rote, and only sheer grit was keeping her upright and moving forward.
    She played this ridiculous game with herself. Each time they topped a rise, she told herself she only had to get over the next one. Finally she stopped pretending at all and she clenched her jaw and blanked her mind to everything but taking that next step.
    She retreated deep inside herself, where there was no pain, no exhaustion and no fear. Only the knowledge that if she stopped, she died. They died. And this man was risking everything because of a promise he’d made to her sister. She wouldn’t let him die because she was