“I counted when they came up the stairs,” he explained. “Which means there could be more of them waiting below. How are you feeling? Can you run?”
The omega’s eyes flashed with indignation. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Fenrir had put on the pair of white sweatpants and plain t-shirt Oberon had left for him, but that was it. Hardly protective gear. But they didn’t have time to argue, so O didn’t bothercontinuing the conversation, slipping his hand into the omega’s and linking their fingers tightly together.
With the blaster raised, he burst into the hall, letting off another round of bullets. Returning fire greeted them, but he maneuvered Fenrir behind him and retreated quickly, backing the omega toward the large bathroom.
A bullet grazed his right thigh, the pain hardly noticeable, and he took down several of the men dressed from head to toe in black in retaliation. He could scent some of them on the air, poor attempts to use their weakened pheromones on him. If the circumstances had been different, he would have laughed in their faces, but all his focus was on getting Fenrir to safety.
As soon as he stepped over the threshold to the bathroom, he slammed a palm on the hidden panel beneath the light switch. A metal door instantly dropped to cover the opening, sealing them in. He keyed in a code on the screen.
“What’d you just do?” Fenrir asked.
“This room is soundproof, but everyone in the hallway should be dead now.” Blasters hidden in the walls would have fired all at once at the press of that button.
“Their weapons are impressive,” he said absently as he moved to the sink and pulled open the third drawer on the left. Beneath a bunch of folded towels was a magazine, and he switched out the empty one in his blaster. “Too bad they haven’t been properly trained on how to use them. What the hell is their mistress wasting her funding on?”
The White Frost’s combat training program was no joke, and while he hadn’t expected that caliber from the Wardrobe, he’d still expected more than this.
“Couldn’t even land a shot,” he muttered. “Pathetic.”
“You’re bleeding,” Fenrir noted, and there was an edge of concern in his tone that Oberon really wished he could study.
He’d sure as hell be bringing it up later.
“It’s nothing.” Moving to the window, he tossed it open and then motioned for Fenrir to climb onto the toilet seat and out. “See the roof? It slants. You can reach it and then head right.”
“Where are we going?” Fenrir did as he was told, pulling himself up onto the ledge gracefully, as though he hadn’t spent a full week in relative hysteria. Once he’d made it onto the roof, he swiveled on his heels and offered O his hand.
Oberon hesitated for a split second but then took the offering, allowing the omega to haul him up after him. He’d taken care of the ones who’d come upstairs, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more of them in other parts of the house. They had to keep moving before they were discovered.
“Follow me.” He took them across the main roof, all the way to the edge, where there was a drop to the porch roof, which was lower to the ground. “We’re going to make a dash for the forest. See those two trees?” Oberon pulled Fenrir in close and pointed. “The ones with the brown ribbons tied in the branches?”
“Yes.”
“No matter what, you run directly between those trees. If you can’t make it, drop to the ground, but under no circumstances are you to deviate from this path. Got it?” It was no doubt an odd command, but the omega nodded his head.
“Understood.”
“Omega.”
“Straight through those trees and nowhere else.”
Oberon clapped him on the back. “Go.”
Fenrir dropped from the porch with ease, landing in the snow. There was only a couple of inches at the moment, though the flurries from before had picked up again, the gray sky threatening a bigger storm to come.
O turned toward the house when he hit the ground, blaster raised. They were in the back, tucked behind a copse of thick pines, which helped block anyone who might be in the driveway or front of the house from seeing them. He didn’t rush, giving Fenrir time to make it to relative safety.
The Wardrobe had dressed their soldiers tackily, their black outfits a stark contrast to the white of winter, so the moment one of them exited the back door, Oberon was able to spot him before being seen himself.
He aimed for the guy’s head and fired, already moving the barrel to face the exit before the body hit the ground.
The next soldier barely had time to place his foot on the porch before he suffered the same fate as his comrade.
“King!” Fenrir called out to him, no doubt signaling that he’d made it.
“Head straight until you see the next marker, then stop!” Oberon ordered, yelling over his shoulder as he continued to pick off the Wardrobe assholes swarming out of his house like locusts. He’d been right to assume there were more of them waiting downstairs. Fortunately, none of them was any better equipped to deal with the likes of him.