Horrified, she stumbled backward. Two men raced toward her from the other side of the fence, leaping over it, one breaking off to try to aid their leader while the other rushed her. He held a very large knife in his fist. She recognized both men. They had been training under Caine, doing enforcing and punishing members who committed any infraction against the cult when she’d been there.

Peter Rogers was the man desperately trying to dig Caine free, while Darrin Jorgenson came at her with a knife.

“Kill her. Kill the bitch,” Caine screamed over and over, tears running down his face. His upper torso flopped over the ground, his face suddenly buried in the dirt.

She tried to make her brain work, tried to remember what Levi had told her to do, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She stood waiting for the death blow, thankful that at least she’d managed to stop Caine from taking her away with him.

There was no sound. None. Later, when she thought about it, she felt as if the very earth had taken a breath. Time slowed down. She saw each step Darrin took as if he were in slow motion. She literally could see every breath he drew and the lines of fanatical hatred on his face.

She didn’t take her eyes from him, watching him come closer and closer, waiting for him, relieved now that it was over.

A hole blossomed in the middle of Darrin’s forehead, a bright red crater that knocked him backward, the blow hard enough to jerk his head back and send his body flying through the air to land in a heap on the ground.

Lexi stared at the body, uncomprehending. A hard arm circled her waist and dragged her backward, thrusting her behind a man she’d never seen before. He was tall, with axe-handle shoulders, a thick chest and shaggy hair. At first she thought it was Levi, Rikki’s husband, but he moved differently and he was . . . bigger. More muscular.

He strode toward Caine and Rogers, covering the ground as if he moved above it rather than on it. He was smooth and fluid and something out of a movie with his long coat swirling around him. He raised his hand as he approached the two men and squeezed the trigger of his pistol just once. Peter Rogers dropped to the ground like a stone. Lexi jammed her fist into her mouth to keep from making a sound.

•   •   •

GAVRIIL crouched down beside Caine, lifting his head by his hair, staring into his eyes. Evil stared back at him malevolently. Caine’s legs were crushed, but Lexi had managed to keep the crevice from killing him. Caine looked past Gavriil to Lexi and spat on the ground.