SEALs of Honor: Shadow by Dale Mayer Read Free Book Online Page B

told me to stay here and she took off.”
    Damn, that means Cooper had helped her return to her brother then had gone to check out the truck. But if she’d stayed down below then chances were good that Kevin would have been spirited away without anyone the wiser. Holding Kevin tight to his chest, he searched through the branches.
    And saw her crouching on a branch, the back of her clothing blending in with the greenery around her.
    On a branch above her stood a soldier.
    His heart pounded as he realized the soldier hadn’t seen her. He turned and looked down at something. Shadow followed his gaze and caught sight of Swede moving through the trees. Shadow pulled out his gun and lined it up, but it was hard to get a good shot. As he waited for the right moment, Arianna rose up from her crouched position and with a large branch hit the soldier at the back of the knees. He cried out, toppled over, tried to save himself but she whacked him a second time and he fell.
    Nice.
    Arianna stared over the edge at her handiwork and then as if realizing she’d taken out one but there could be scores more she needed to watch out for, she spun around, ducking deeper out of sight. As that gaze of hers swung back toward Kevin, it landed on Shadow.
    Shadow grinned.
    She gave him a slow smile that seemed to light up the darkness around them. Then she glanced past to check for more soldiers before zinging back in his direction. She shifted her attention, finding a path back toward them. Shadow kept an eye on her progress while trying to keep her safe from other shooters. But silence had fallen. Everywhere.
    They were all in a state of waiting. For someone to make a mistake.
    Arianna managed to make it to the tree next to him. She reached out to step over to another branch.
    A single shot fired.
    Arianna cried out and stumbled. She grabbed a branch and hung on.
    Several more shots were fired and a lone gunmen fell from the tree.
    Kevin called, “Arianna?”
    Shadow pulled him back out of the way in case anyone else heard him. But there was no corresponding gunfire. His gaze tracked Arianna who was still standing but trembling. “You need to stay here and don’t make a sound,” he said to Kevin and left the boy hugging the tree.
    Shadow quickly slipped through the boughs and made it to Arianna’s side. He ran his hands over her body until he came to stickiness on her thigh. Crouching low he bent and checked out the wound. The bullet had gone in and through the top of her thigh. Painful as all hell but could be so much worse. He had to go by touch alone given the endless blackness around them.
    Tiny whimpers sounded through her mouth as she tried to hold them back. Shock was the issue now. He pulled out his knife and cut the bottom of her t–shirt from under her sweater and quickly bound up the wound. Then wrapping an arm around her, he half carried her half supported her as they slowly made their way back to her brother.
    “I’d really like to go home now,” she whispered against his neck. “I’ll never look at tree climbing the same way again.”
    “Too bad as you do it so well.”
    She gave a broken gurgle of a laugh. “No, I don’t. Or I wouldn’t have gotten shot.”
    “Ah, you see that’s because you weren’t supposed to play cops and robbers at the same time.”
    She gave a half snort that for some stupid reason he found wonderful. Back at her brother, he slowly lowered her until she was sitting on the thick branch. It was pitch black outside but the rain had slowed. “Any chance we can move back into the house,” she said, her teeth chattering. “I’m starting to wish I’d never left.”
    Kevin wrapped his arms around her as if to keep her warm. “Don’t say that, Ari, you know what they were going to do to you.”
    At the boy’s words, Shadow swiveled to look at Arianna’s face. She looked miserable, wet now, but she held Kevin close. Not wanting to ask for an explanation for Kevin’s statement, he looked at