Page 214 of My Unhinged Alphas
The knife flashes once near my ribs.
I catch his wrist with both hands and slam it into the floor. He’s stronger than he looks. Older too, but not slow. He twists under me, gets a knee between us, and drives it up hard enough to shove me off-balance. The blade scrapes close across my side as I roll away, close enough to sting, not deep enough to matter.
He comes after me immediately.
Good.
That means his attention is where I want it.
I get one hand around his forearm before he can swing again and punch him in the mouth with the other. He answers by driving his elbow into my jaw, and for one bright second the room tilts sideways.
Then Knox is there. He comes in from the back of the house exactly as planned, catching the kidnapper from behind before he can press the advantage. Knox hooks an arm around his throat and yanks him back while I kick the knife hand hard enough that the blade skitters across the floor.
The man fights like he knows what he’s doing. He uses his weight well, drops low, tears free of Knox’s hold with a move that looks trained, and swings for me again with his bare fist before I can close the distance. I block most of it. Enough lands to split my lip.
I catch his wrist with both hands and force it away from my ribs, but he’s stronger than he first looked and better trained than some amateur with a grudge should be. He twists under me, drives a knee up, and gets just enough space to rake the blade along my side before I slam his hand against the floor.
He looks up at me with real hatred in his face and says, “You don’t even remember what you did.”
I punch him in the mouth. “What I did?” I say. “You’ll have to be more specific. I’ve had a busy life.”
That seems to enrage him more than the hit. He bucks hard, throws me off-balance, and gets an elbow into my jaw as hescrambles up. I roll with it, come back to my feet, and meet him before he can get near Lena again.
“You ruined everything,” he spits.
I block the next swing, catch him across the ribs with my forearm, and blink at him. “Do I know you, dude?”
For half a second, he simply stares at me.
Then something in him snaps.
The next attack is less controlled, all the fury he had been keeping leashed finally breaking through. He comes at me like he wants to tear my throat out with his hands, and that tells me I landed closer to the truth than I meant to.
I grin despite the blood in my mouth. “Apparently not well enough.”
He swings again. I duck, drive a fist into his stomach, and Knox catches the man from behind, locking an arm around his throat and dragging him back before he can recover.
The bastard doesn’t go down easily. He drops his weight, wrenches free with a move too practiced to be luck, and turns on Knox with a strike that would have broken a less prepared man’s nose. Knox deflects it, answers with one of his own, and I come in from the side before the man can reset.
Across the room, Vale doesn’t join us.
He goes straight to Lena.
He’s at her chair before the second blow lands, one hand at the restraints, the other steadying her when she jerks at the sudden movement.
“Vale,” she says, breathless, and there’s too much in that one word for me to examine right now.
“I’ve got you,” he tells her.
He starts on her wrists first, working quickly despite the bruises still dark across his face. Lena is trying not to look at us and failing. Her eyes keep cutting toward the fight, wide andfurious, like she wants to help and knows better than to make herself another problem.
The kidnapper sees Vale reach the knot.
That’s when he changes.
Until then, he’s been trying to beat us. Now he tries to get back to her.
He feints toward Knox, pivots out of my reach, and goes for the chair with a burst of speed that tells me taking Lena mattered more than escaping ever did.
