Arion's scream tore through the garden like something living.
It didn't sound like a child throwing a tantrum. It sounded like skin pulled off a knee, like air ripped out of lungs, like the brain finally catching up to what the eyes had just seen and rejecting it with violence.
Killian remained upright.
The woman's arm was still inside him, buried past the wrist, her forearm disappearing into the gap she'd created through armor seams and flesh. Killian's abdomen had gone slick and dark. Blood ran down the front of his uniform in hot, fast sheets, soaking into fabric until it clung to him like wet cloth. His breath came in short, broken pulls, each inhale turning into a tremor, each exhale tasting metallic and wrong.
He tried to move his hands to her wrist.
His fingers slid.
There was too much blood. Too much heat. Too much shock.
But his body still did what it had been trained to do: become a barrier. Become a wall. 'Keep the child behind him alive.'
