Deep shadows swallowed the rocky outcrop where the flat transitioned into sloped hillside. Audrey couldn’t put her finger on it, but the boulders dotting the slope didn’t look right. It had been at least three months since she’d last stepped on this flat. A winter storm could have pushed more rocks down from above.

Still, the back of her neck prickled, and she paused as Xavier rounded the bend and started up the last switchback. “Xavi—”

She sucked in a sharp breath, swallowing his name as a shadow shifted. A specter rising from stone and earth. She’d never believed in ghosts or spirits but in that moment, belief had nothing to do with it.

Then the shadow charged forward, and she wasn’t seeing anything remotely supernatural. It was a man, rushing for her with a long knife that glinted in the waning light.

Chapter Four

Audrey screamed as she took a step back, then stopped short. She was only steps away from the edge of the cliff. Unable to retreat, she planted her boots and raised her arms to somehow fend off the coming knife attack.

Xavier was a blur as he launched himself at the man, catching the assailant around the waist and slamming him to the ground. The two men rolled, bumping into Audrey and knocking her down, close to the edge. She scrambled to the side to get out of the way, then gasped as Xavier rolled toward the brink, gripping the other man’s knife-wielding arm by the wrist to stop the blade from plunging downward into Xavier’s throat.

She’d seen the scars on his left shoulder. She knew the arm that held the knife at bay was the weaker one. He lacked full range of motion with his left arm.

She crawled to the side, looking for something, anything that would help, and spotted a jagged cobble the size of a grapefruit, a meter away at the base of one of the warning signs. She scrambled toward it as Xavier and the dark shadow of a man grappled at the edge of the cliff.

She hadn’t thrown a softball since middle school, but she chucked the rock with all her strength.

It hit the man in the neck and thumped down onto Xavier’s chest, but it was the distraction her SEAL needed. He shoved upward, pitching the specter back and reversing their positions. The knife disappeared into the void beyond the cliff edge, and Xavier straddled the assailant, landing blows with both fists on the man’s face.

“Who are you?” Xavier asked between blows. “Who do you work for?”

The man said nothing and managed to land a few punches of his own.

They grappled and rolled, and again, Xavier was at the edge, on his back.