Marked (Eternal Guardians #1), Page 23

  ***

  They’d set her store on fire.

  Casey found herself being pushed into the back of an enormous SUV while she struggled to look back at the destruction that had once been her grandmother’s pride and joy. Her chest tightened until it was hard to get air, and she knew it wasn’t just from adrenaline or smoke.

  The one place she thought she had fit in was gone. Now engulfed in flames.

  Nick slid into the driver’s seat, while Theron wedged himself in the back with her. Both men were so big they seemed to suck up all the air in the vehicle, and had she not already been on the edge of freaking out, just that alone would have been enough to send her into a tailspin.

  All four door locks clicked at the same time as Casey turned to watch the building burn.

  Oh my God. They set my building on fire.

  “Hurry,” Theron exclaimed, grasping the front passenger seat and turning around to look behind them. “They’re coming.”

  Fury erupted in Casey’s chest as the SUV’s engine roared. She slammed her fist into Theron’s shoulder. “You son of a bitch! You burned down my store!”

  The SUV jerked away from the curb with a force that sent Casey sprawling against Theron’s massive chest. He grabbed her by the wrists and easily subdued her with one hand, holding her with the other to make sure she didn’t fall to the floorboards. “Assuming we get out of here, you’ll thank us later. Only a fire can destroy a daemon’s body.”

  Like she cared about that now? Everything she’d worked so hard for the last few months was gone.

  The sky chose that moment to unleash its misery on the small town of Silver Hills, and a torrent of rain pummeled the vehicle, slashing against the SUV as if Mother Nature were good and pissed as they rocketed down the empty street. Casey clawed at Theron to let her go, but he just held on tighter.

  Nick drove like a bat out of hell. He shouted something at Theron Casey didn’t catch. Then Theron shifted her to his side and reached into his pocket. Before she saw what was in his hand, he rolled down the window and tossed the object behind them. A fireball erupted on the road at their backs, followed by howls and shouts, the kind Casey only imagined could come from hell. And that’s when she realized those things back at her store were still following them. Or rather, that new ones had joined the fight. They weren’t out of trouble yet. Not by a long shot.

  She gave up struggling, and instead clamped on to Theron’s shirt, drawing the cotton between her fists as Nick drove at breakneck speed out of town and into the forest beyond. Her adrenaline spiked as the reality of the situation sank in. Then she closed her eyes and said every prayer she knew that they’d get out of this alive.

  She didn’t let go of Theron’s shirt even when he shifted back to lean against the seat again. And she didn’t fight his hand on her spine or his arms gathering her close, when any sane person would have.

  Okay, it made her out to be a weakling, but she didn’t care. Her store was gone and some freaky monsters were following them. Considering everything she’d been through with Jill that morning, her nerves were at the end of the line. All things considered, she’d take a moment of comfort wherever she could get it, even from him.

  “I think we lost them,” Theron said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Nick harrumphed from the front seat.

  “Where are you taking us?” Theron asked into the silence, after they’d been driving for a while.

  “To her home,” Nick said.

  “They’ll find her there.”

  “How?”

  “Because they’re here for her.”

  Casey didn’t imagine the silence that followed, or the tension between the two men in the car with her. And though she didn’t know how, she understood these two knew each other from somewhere. Or knew of each other. And neither was happy with that knowledge. Nick jerked the car to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes.

  She was thrown forward and back, but Theron held on to her tight. “She goes nowhere without me,” Theron reiterated as the car idled. “I was sent here to protect her. I want nothing to do with you or the others.”

  Others?

  “So help me gods,” Nick bit out, “if you’re lying—”

  “I’m not.”

  Silence hung like a dark, thick cloud in the car. Casey didn’t dare move. She sensed these two were at a virtual standoff, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d get caught in the middle. What could go down between them would put that battle back at her store to shame.

  Finally Nick swore in a language Casey didn’t recognize, and then the car whipped a U-ie in the middle of the road. Theron braced a hand on the seat in front of him to steady them both as they rocketed back down the road and made a sharp ninety-degree turn onto a dirt road leading off into the trees. A road Casey’d never noticed before.

  “This doesn’t change anything, Argonaut,” Nick ground out.

  “I wouldn’t want it to.”

  Nick huffed and accelerated. Dust kicked up behind them. “In a few minutes you may be wishing you’d never set eyes on her.”