Page 94 of Won't Back Down

He lost the conversational tone. “Now, come out, or I’m shooting this foal here in the front.” Pivoting, he took aim at a baby that couldn’t be more than a few months old, who huddled around its mother’s legs.

Fuck.

I kept edging around the clearing, trying to get behind him and find an angle I could rush him. But there were so many downed trees, I didn’t think I could move fast enough to approach undetected.

O’Shea pulled back the hammer on the gun.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming out. Don’t shoot.” Willa eased out from the middle of the herd, putting herself firmly in front of the baby. “Leave them out of this.”

Of course she wouldn’t allow one of them to suffer to save herself. Brave, stubborn, infuriating woman. She didn’t balk at the gun trained directly on her. At this range, O’Shea couldn’t miss hitting something vital.

“Goodbye, Willa. I truly am sorry.”

“No!” I exploded out of the trees.

The gun swung in my direction, and I braced for the burn of a bullet.

Something screamed. An unholy shriek of fury that was anything but human. A blur of gray exploded into the clearing, moving almost faster than I could see. O’Shea screamed as the stallion barreled into him. Triton reared with another scream and brought his hooves down, down, down, trampling him until O’Shea had gone silent.

Jesus Christ. There was no question he was dead.

I wanted to run to Willa, but given the enraged animal between us, I stayed exactly where I was, not moving.

Triton tossed his head, pawing at the body, as if to make absolutely sure the threat was dealt with before he turned in the direction of the rest of his herd and Willa. He took a few dancing steps closer, finally settling under her touch.

“I wasn’t going to let anything happen to your baby.” She pressed her cheek to his. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for saving him.” Looking at me, she held out a hand, wiggling her fingers in a come here gesture.

Remembering how she’d approached him, eyes averted, I eased my way toward them until I was close enough to close my fingers around hers. She pulled me in.

“This is Sawyer. He’s mine the way they’re all yours.”

I held perfectly still as the stallion sniffed me, then finally bumped my shoulder.

“That means he wants a scratch,” she murmured.

The hand I lifted to Triton’s neck shook with adrenaline. “Thank you for protecting her. Again.”

The stallion bobbed his head as if to say, “Anytime.” Then he called to the rest of his herd and led them away through the trees.

As they disappeared from sight, I pulled Willa into my arms. “Fuck. Are you okay?”

I could feel her shaking against me as her own arms wrapped around me. “Yeah. God. What are you even doing here?”

“I came to find you. Jace finished looking into your doctor off-island. He was former military, with some kind of PsyOps specialty. O’Shea was the connection to the island.”

“PsyOps? So that’s what he meant about me being conditioned not to remember.”

“Did you remember? All that stuff you said about Gwen?”

“Some of it. I?—”

Gabi and Daniel emerged from the east side of the clearing. Gabi’s eyes were wide, trained on the bloody mess that was Roland O’Shea’s body. “Holy shit. What the hell just happened?”

“Karma,” Willa said flatly. “And we got another piece of the mystery. Rios wasn’t the last person to see Gwen alive. I think I was.”

CHAPTER 43

WILLA