by Joey W. Hill
“A vampire who third marks you could strip your mind, your soul. Hollow you out if he or she wanted to do so.”
Gideon’s words echoed in her head. Hollow’s nickname had become prophetic.
Wolf passed Saturnia, shouted something. The female vampire gave him a bare nod. Unexpectedly, she put her hand on Ella, a gesture of reassurance, or even brief affection. Somehow, she had Ella’s purse, the little beaded one Ella liked so much. Saturnia pressed it into Ella’s hands, then stepped out of the way so Wolf could pass.
Wolf took them through several rooms, then doubled back with a curse when he encountered a wall of fire. Ella saw it, ducked her face back against his chest. Her head was mostly buried in the blanket, because he had his hand cupped over her skull to keep her that way, but she felt the heat. He forced the lock on one door and suddenly they were in a dark, quiet space, cooler. They were out of it for the moment. A maintenance closet, she realized.
He set her down on a worktable, and cupped her chin. His fingers gently caressed the bruises and cuts where she’d been struck. His eyes blazed like an angel of death’s, but his voice was her Master’s, at his most tender. “Ella,” he murmured.
It almost broke her, to hear him say her name. She was crying again, her hands over his, as she pressed her mouth to his knuckles, his wrists and then his face. He found her lips with his own and kissed her, deep, strong, like a current moving through her, carrying her away from this, even though they were still in it. He pulled back too soon.
When he looked up, she followed his gaze. There was an air conditioning panel above them.
“This building is an old community college,” he spoke brusquely. "Abandoned when a newer structure was built. We were in the basement interior rooms, outfitted as a temporary laboratory. We’re on the third floor now, top level. I’ll get you to a room with an outer wall and windows. You’ll be able to get out. We’ve got reinforcements outside.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she said, her fingers curling over his. “Not ever again, not for any reason. But particularly not now.”
The cold death in his eyes warmed slightly, and his thumb caressed her lips. “My brave girl. Ella, I can get through the fire on my own. I promise. Especially if I know there’s someone out there who can give me blood to heal my injuries. But I move faster if I get you out first.”
She stared up at him. “Are you lying to me, to protect me?”
“No.” I intend to be holding you again as soon as possible, demanding everything from my servant.
He opened his mind to her so she could see, understanding she needed to be sure. A whole lot swirled around in there, but she saw his intent was true.
Which just left her childish fear of being away from him again, so soon after having the security of his arms.
That infused even more warmth into his eyes, into the firm touch on her chin. She could do this. It would help both of them. Her Master was telling her what she needed to do.
She blinked, looking down at her beaded purse. A thought hit her, and she dug into it, found what she was seeking. She quelled a hysterical laugh. Wolf looked down as she withdrew the piece of dark chocolate she usually kept in there for when she needed an emotional pick-me-up. Carefully she opened the silver wrapper, spreading it out in the center of her palm, since the contents were a little melted, no surprise. She lifted it toward him.
“Would you like half? If we die, it might be our last chance to have chocolate.”
He gazed at her, his expression unfathomable, yet just as mesmerizing to her as it always was. She expected if he kept looking at her like that, she wouldn’t mind sitting here until the flames arrived. Theoretically.
He gripped the wrist of the hand that had opened the candy. She’d gotten chocolate on her fingertips, and that was how he chose to sample it, licking the melted part off her flesh. She curled her fingers over his face, caressing any part she could reach as he did it. Then he lifted her palm, cupping his hand under it, encouraging her to take the rest.
“Right then.” She let the sweetness melt on her tongue, and put the now empty wrapper back in her purse. When she slid off the table, she was much weaker than she’d realized, but she managed, with his help. He gripped her shoulders.
“The fire is moving quickly. You’re going to have to pass over some rooms already on fire, so things might get hot in places, smoky. Don’t stop, don’t overthink it. Keep moving.”
He lifted her onto his shoulders, and she reached up without prompting, removing the vented ceiling panel and tossing it to the table she’d just vacated.
“Here you go.” He hoisted her up so she could scramble into the ducts. Crap, it was close quarters. She was on her stomach, the space just wide and tall enough for her to wriggle through, but not turn around. Which meant she had no excuse not to get a move on, particularly with Wolf encouraging her in her head. No time for good-byes.
No good-byes necessary, little girl. Move your ass.
If you were lying to me about you being able to get out of here, I will be so mad at you.
She was okay at first, moving forward, taking a dog leg when he told her to turn, keeping going, trying not to look at the array of dead bugs, the occasional mouse carcass. Then the metal started to heat, and she realized the darkness had a smokiness to it. Dim, flickering light came through the vent opening just ahead, telling her the room below was on fire. She recoiled as sparks abruptly speared up through the grate.
Go. The barked order in her head was fierce enough to launch her past her fear. She scuttled forward, trying not to feel the heat burning her knees. Sparks swirled over her hands. Everything in her wanted to freeze, balk.
Keep moving, or I swear to God, you won’t sit for a month.
She knew what he was doing, but it didn’t matter. He meant it, even if he had to follow her to the afterlife to deliver the punishment. She’d never felt so reassured and terrified at the same time. She kept moving. It seemed to take forever, though she was sure it hadn’t been more than a few minutes before she reached a slatted vent that looked down into an empty room with no fire. The smoke here was like a white, acrid mist.
You’re at the outer wall. That room should have a window. Kick the vent loose, drop down and get out of the building.
Though Wolf said the building was abandoned, Hollow and the others must have used the below as a makeshift office. There was a desk within her view with some printouts on it, a scattering of office supplies. It made sense, if Hollow had set this up weeks ago.
The desk wasn’t close enough to help her get to the floor, so she just lowered herself out of the vent and let go, awkwardly. She landed on her feet, but one knee buckled and she went down, rolling across the floor.
Her grunt of pain choked in her throat as she came to a stop in front of a pair of feet.
Her gaze flew upward and met a pair of eyes she wasn’t likely ever to forget, even if they had a look of startled surprise in them.
Gor-guy, or Robert, wasn’t wearing the rat mask anymore. He had an attractive face, but it was one that would never be appealing to her, because she saw the monster moving under the flesh. The last time he’d violated her, he’d put his other hand down, driven his fingers into her with his cock, wanting to hurt her, wanting to see pain on her face.
He bent down, grabbing for her.
She rolled away and kicked out, striking his knee. She was barefoot and no martial artist, so she couldn’t break it, but she did have enough strength to set him off balance and let her scramble away, turning the mist of smoke into chaotic whorls around her.
She could feel the heat increasing, knew the floor beneath them had to be engulfed. This one would go soon. She could hear something in her head, a distant voice. Wolf, ordering her to get away, break the window, jump. She would.
I will, I promise. In a minute.
Robert had been like all the rest. Willing to leave her and Wolf to die.
Her mind was going a hundred miles a minute and sl
ow like a turtle at the same time. She was terrified, and yet there was an adrenaline surging through her veins, hot and fast, that she recognized.
Fury. She let it loose, because it vanquished the terror and told her she had something to fight.
She made it to her feet, looked around wildly. As Gor-guy rushed her, she’d found what she wanted. He seized her arm and she whipped around in his grasp, using his brutal hold to add to her momentum. She screamed something, she didn’t know what. It didn’t matter. It was just a focus for the rage. She jammed the sharp end of the letter opener she’d clutched from the desk into his abdomen, up under his rib cage, and twisted.
He howled, trying to push away from her. She followed him down as he fell back against the desk. He shoved at her, trying to get away. He was afraid, and the fear in his eyes delighted the darkest part of her soul. She was still screaming her rage. Wolf’s voice had gone silent, or maybe it was just lost in all the rest. She wanted Hollow to have this scream on his fucking tape. Her scream of defiance, a primal sound that translated into one message.
You will not fuck with me and the people I love.
She had him down, his blood on her hands, and suddenly the wall crumbled. A roar, and a wall of fire replaced it, an avalanche of flame.
The heat rolled toward her, sure death. In that half blink of time while the scientist died beneath her, and she clutched the letter opener in her hand, rage was swallowed whole by terror. She was being consigned to the flames with her family. It had just taken Fate a while to catch back up to her. She even saw a dark angel in the fire, black wings spread, fathomless eyes focused on her, hand outstretched. Ready to take her.
She was jerked off Robert’s body, tucked against a strong torso she knew. A dark angel in truth. Her Master. As the flames enveloped her and Wolf, she closed her eyes and pressed her face to his chest. At least she wouldn’t die alone.
We’re not dying at all. Hold on.
He had his large hand covering her skull, pressing her face to his chest, as he leaped through the window.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Glass shattered, spinning Gideon around. The fire had already broken through the first and second level windows, but it wasn’t only the bursts of heat and flame shattering the glass this time. A large form hurtled out into space.
Gideon broke into a run, Fort and Allan close on his heels.
Wolf landed heavily. He did nothing to cushion his fall, and the reason was evident as soon as they were close enough to see who he was curved around so protectively. Gideon saw blood and burns. The vampire’s skin was a torn, bloody mess, but not as bad as the day he’d been blown up. Didn’t mean Gideon’s heart wasn’t in his throat, because he didn’t yet know Ella’s condition.
He and Fort coaxed the disoriented male to loosen his hold. Allan jerked Gideon back as a sharp blade whipped through the air a hair away from his nose. Ella stumbled to her feet, gripping a letter opener that appeared to be covered with blood. Her eyes were wild, and she was screaming something at him he couldn’t understand, though her voice was so hoarse and broken that it was barely more than a whisper over the roar of the burning building.
Before any of them could decide how to disarm her the gentlest way possible, Wolf pushed his upper body from the ground, a large hand closing over her wrist. As she collapsed to her knees, he spoke to her, head bent over hers when he gathered her into the shelter of his body. She trembled, and then the letter opener dropped. Allan smoothly moved it out of reach, but all was good. Ella had started to cry, and Wolf was holding her close. Neither one of them was wearing a stitch of clothing. Gideon suspected most the damage he saw on both of them hadn’t had a thing to do with the fire. Which made him hope fervently those responsible were burning alive in there, in agony.
But the important thing was they were both alive.
They’re all right, Anwyn. We have them.
She hadn’t been pleased—a major understatement—when Daegan had said she needed to stay behind. She was so worried about Ella and Wolf, she hadn’t been diplomatic in the least about her going, so in the end Daegan had to be brutally blunt.
“We are going into a combat situation, cher. What happens if you have a seizure that makes you vulnerable at the wrong time—which, since they are triggered by excess stress, is possible—and endangers the very ones we’re trying to help, because we must focus on you?”
Gideon was her servant. He could get bullish and protective with her, too, but with her being a vampire, sometimes Daegan had to be the one to step in and put his foot down. Though Gideon knew he didn’t like doing it, Daegan never turned away from moments when he had to be the bad guy and lay down the law as head of their unorthodox household. Particularly when Anwyn’s wellbeing was on the line.
As a vampire and a Mistress, Anwyn didn’t always capitulate gracefully. Fortunately, two things had helped it not evolve into an even uglier fight. First was the pressing need to go save Wolf and Ella, every minute vital. The second was the arrival of someone who agreed to stay with Anwyn, thereby reinforcing the confidence that Daegan, Fort, Allan, Saturnia and Gideon would get the job done.
Good. Anwyn replied at last. Gideon expected she’d taken a moment to draw a relieved breath, same as he had when he’d seen Ella alive. Is Daegan with you?
No. He’s taking care of Holliman’s team. And making sure Saturnia gets Holliman out.
Which had been done, because as he and Fort helped Wolf and Ella to the front of the building, Allan following behind, Gideon saw Holliman lying on the broken asphalt of the parking lot. Saturnia was standing over him. She appeared to be watching the building burn, but the unnatural stillness of her body told Gideon she was actually deep in her servant’s head, mining every bit of data she would need to determine just how much he’d compromised the vampire world. Holliman was in a fetal ball, rocking, while the female vampire stood a couple feet away, seemingly indifferent to his distress. Gideon found himself glad he couldn’t see the guy’s face as his Mistress stripped what she needed out of every corner of his being.
They’d reached one of the vehicles. As Gideon opened the second seat doors of the SUV, a terrified cry brought all four males around as one, a quartet of hypervigilance.
A woman stumbled out from the hedges on the other side of the building. She must have gotten out through the back and just now worked her way to the parking lot, where all the vehicles were parked, including those that had belonged to Holliman and his minions.
Her black slacks and pink blouse were torn and burned, her hair mostly gone. As she fell to her hands and knees, coughing, Allan started forward. Gideon put out a hand, stopping him.
Out of the smoke billowing behind the woman came a tall, dark figure. He had his katana held out to his side in the ready position, which told Gideon he’d been using it. However, as Gideon watched, Daegan sheathed the now clean blade.
Allan shot Gideon a sidelong glance. “What—”
“He won’t soil the blade with the blood of someone who isn’t a warrior,” Gideon said quietly. “Not if he can help it. That’s what he carries other weapons for.”
One part of Gideon’s mind had things to say about what was about to happen. This was a human woman, not a vampire. But then Gideon thought again of Ella. Naked, wounded, that crazy light in her eyes. He pressed his lips together and didn’t look away. Daegan would know if he did. He knew Anwyn watched through his eyes for the very same reason. Daegan would never ask them to look, never say a word if they didn’t. They looked so he knew they accepted everything he was.
Daegan bent, put a hand on the woman’s back. He lifted her up onto her knees, firm, not unkind. Gideon felt the tightness in his chest, a quick hitch in his breath. In that space of time, it was done. Daegan broke her neck.
The movies made it look so easy, a run-of-the-mill action hero move, but in the real world it was very difficult to break the cerebral vertebrae. But the strength in Daegan’s hands made snapping that column of bones away fr
om the skull, severing the spine’s connection to the brain stem, as simple as a hawk doing it to a pigeon.
The woman slumped. He’d done it so smoothly, Gideon didn’t see a flash of fear in her eyes. She likely deserved to feel a whole lot of fear, but Daegan didn’t let his emotions factor into his kills. Not usually. His job was execution, not punishment.
He picked her up, carried her to one of the broken windows, and tossed the corpse back into the flames. Then he was striding in their direction, his expression hard to read. But not his mind.
“We’ve got to get them out of here,” Fort said, drawing Gideon’s attention. “This place is surrounded by forest and farmland, but even in the dead of night, it won’t be long before someone nearby smells the smoke and calls the fire department to get it checked out.”
Wolf had already tucked Ella into the vehicle, and now Fort gave him a helping hand to duck in after her. He’d pulled a couple blankets from the back, part of the first aid supplies they’d assembled, and Wolf wrapped them around him and Ella.
Fort went to the driver’s seat and Gideon took shotgun, watching as Daegan stopped beside Saturnia. He would stand guard over her, take her and Holliman wherever was necessary in his vehicle.
As Fort backed the SUV, Gideon heard Daegan’s message to Anwyn, since the vampire assassin shared it with them both.
It’s done. Everyone involved in Wolf and Ella’s capture at this facility has been dispatched. With the exception of Holliman, who Saturnia has effectively neutralized. She will terminate him once she determines how much further this goes outside these walls.
Gideon focused on Daegan, silhouetted by the flames, as long as he could, before Fort turned the vehicle onto the main road. Then he brought his attention back to Wolf and Ella. Ella was slumped and curved into her Master’s body, his arms wrapped around her as if they were one melded creature. Allan was in the third row seat, watching their backs.
