Repairer of the Breach (Stones of Fire Book 4) by Sarah Ashwood (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .TXT) 📕

undeniable as he slid his leathery paws under the first stone pinning Charlie’s arm, picked it up, and tossed it aside like a pebble. I jumped in to carefully slide his arm out. Next, Javier, the Maricoxi, shifted his stance to where he was standing over Charles. He looked at me, his silvery-eyes gleaming out of his fur-lined face, and nodded towards his head. Guessing what he meant, I climbed over a hunk or two of stone until I was in a position to put my hands under the man’s armpits and drag him free once Javier had moved the debris. Working together, we freed him. Javier dropped the slab of marble with a grunt. Dust puffed up like a cloud, making me cough. Charles coughed too, weakly, trying to turn his head. Worried, I took off my jacket, flipped up the collar, and draped it over his chest, laying the collar lightly over his nose and mouth.

Off in the distance, I could hear the wails of sirens. Relief flooded me. Kneeling next to the wounded man’s head, I said, “Charles? I can hear the ambulance. They’ll be here in a minute. You hang on, okay? I’m going to see if anyone else needs help.”

His face was tight with fear, but he closed his eyes and nodded. I felt bad leaving him there, but he was as stable as I could get him under the circumstances. Someone else might need my help. Javier, still in his shifter form, trailed me as we clambered over the debris, hunting for more survivors. The entire time I was praying desperately that I wouldn’t find anyone. That nobody else had been in this part of the house, that no lives had been lost or bodies mangled. At the same time, my mind spun, trying to figure out what could have happened, what could have caused an explosion like this. And not merely an explosion. There had been fire. The mansion’s built-in sprinkler system had come on, helping extinguish the flames, but here and there tongues of flame still licked at the stones. Not finding much to consume, they were dying, but black scorch marks were everywhere.

Did a shifter do this? What kind?

There was no way for me to answer that question, and I hadn’t even begun trying to mentally list possible creatures when I heard an inarticulate cry. Pivoting, I spun to my left, seeing a glimpse of copper or bronze.

“Carter!” Relief, deep and desperate, flooded my soul. “Carter!” I shouted again. “I’m coming!” I tripped and scraped my knee, ripping my jeans a couple more times as I scrambled to make my way over. He was in a corner where a wall had caved in. I couldn’t distinguish much, except the gleam of bronze through the smoke, the murkiness. It took getting closer to see he was underneath some rubble.

My heart sank even as my limbs moved faster.

“Carter, Carter are you okay?”

He didn’t answer. Finally, I was there and could see what had happened. There was a body in the rubble, a body he was using his own body—the Talos’ body—to shield. Not merely shield: he was straining to hold up a slab of marble, a slab that was sustaining an entire portion of wall. My mouth dropped at the incredible strength required to hold that wall. Even as my mouth dropped, his knees buckled. The marble slid, the wall groaned. Dust poured to the floor, filling the air.

“Carter!” I screamed, choking on the dust. I dashed forward—tried to. Too many impediments in the way. I don’t know what help I would have been anyway. It wasn’t like, as a mere human, I had the strength to help lift a chunk of marble.

I heard a growl from behind: an honest-to-goodness animal growl, then I felt myself grabbed by a powerful hand, or paw…whatever it was called, and dragged backwards.

“Move,” a voice demanded, a voice half-human, half-animal.

It was Javier. His enormous, hairy shape barreled past. Everything had happened in a second or two, although it felt like a lifetime as I watched the Talos’ knees buckle. Groaning, the Talos pushed off his thighs to raise the marble, keep it off the prone person on the floor. The next thing I knew, Javier was there. He stooped, reaching in long, hairy arms to toss a couple of debris chunks aside and snatch the body, dragging it to safety.

As soon as the person was clear, the Talos twisted and retreated a couple of slow, painful steps. I watched with my heart in my throat, desperate to help, but knowing I could do nothing except add more danger to the situation. As soon as he was clear, the Talos dropped the marble. The slab fell with a thunderous crash, and when it did, so did that section of wall. I heard my involuntary cry of dismay. A fresh plume of dust rose, thickening the air, clogging my nostrils, throat, nose. I waved my arm in front of my face in a futile effort to see.

And I saw a gleam of bronze, moving. Coming toward me.

“Carter!”

Forgetting everything else, I ran to him, clambering over rubble, refusing to stop until I was able to throw myself against him with a cry of relief. It did register that throwing myself against a bronze automaton might hurt a little, and it did. But at that moment I was so overcome with sheer relief that I didn’t care. I felt the current pass over his bronze body, and then the Talos was gone, and it was Carter, flesh-and-blood Carter, my husband, holding me.

“Carter, you’re okay.” I could hardly speak for the dust and tears congesting my throat.

“Ellie.”

By the tone of his voice, I knew something was wrong. Seriously wrong. I pulled back to look up into his face.

“Carter, what is it? What happened here? You’re not hurt…”

“Not me.” He stopped me before I could pursue that train of thought. “I’m fine. It wasn’t me. It was James.”

“James?” I felt my eyes widen