by Tessa Dawn
David stared right through her. “If you wanna ask one of those things to identify itself before you strike, that’s your business; but I prefer to live to see tomorrow.” He held his arm out across her body and pushed her further back in the doorway. “Now, shut the hell up, or we’re both going to die.”
Tiffany frowned. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
The voices grew louder as the women exited the stairwell and began to walk down the corridor. Shit, they seemed to be walking this way—coming all the way to the end.
David shifted the tranquilizer gun to his left hand and slowly withdrew a long, sharpened wooden stake. He nodded at one of the soldiers across the way, and some kind of unspoken communication passed between them: a plan of action.
Good God, was he going to try and stake one of the women?
This was insane!
These were normal people—not vampires—and in her desperation to find Brooke, she had all but joined a fanatical cult.
Tiffany was just about to turn and run—get the hell out of there and away from these overzealous nut-jobs—when the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She stopped and held her breath, listening to her intuition. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but something was off—and it felt very much like the night Brooke had been taken.
There was something different about these women.
She backed up as far as she could, trying to mold herself to the door—make herself invisible—as she continued to hold her breath. The women drew closer, caught up in the rhythm of their conversation…completely unaware of what was waiting for them.
As the first of the two passed in front of the doorway, Tiffany’s eyes met hers in a frozen moment—it was as if everything ground to a sudden halt and then began again in slow motion: The woman was positively stunning, and her eyes were almost unnatural. She had golden pupils with amber-hued lights dancing in the centers, appearing very much like sunlight reflecting through diamonds. Her long, raven hair swayed as she walked, and her face was almost…antique…in its beauty, as if not of this time.
The woman’s eyes grew wide, and she started to turn and run, but not before David bounded out of the doorway. He raised his arm high above his head, grasped the wooden stake solidly in his hand, and threw his entire weight into the thrust, impaling the beautiful woman right over her left breast. And then he gripped the end of the wood with one palm and used the other to drive it home.
The woman gasped and stumbled backward. Stunned, she slowly looked down at her chest and stared in disbelief at the protruding wooden object. When she staggered back a few more steps, the second woman rushed forward and caught her.
Shocked and incredulous, the second woman slowly lowered her friend to the ground. “Ciopori…Ciopori…” The second woman kept repeating her name…and then it was like someone flipped a switch in the second woman’s head, and full recognition of the situation suddenly kicked in. The woman went into some deep, instinctual mode—like auto-pilot on an airplane—and the calm, focused look on her face said it all: This woman was no stranger to combat, and their small group was in trouble.
Evan Turner, one of the three soldiers hiding on the left—and the closest man to the second woman—shot out of the opposite doorway with a similar stake in hand, but before he could connect with the pretty, brown-haired female—drive the stake in from behind—she spun around and delivered a lightning-fast roundhouse kick to his head.
Tiffany screamed as Evan’s feet left the ground, his body slammed into the wall, and his skull imploded upon impact. The woman looked straight at her, and she took two steps back. Dear God, what had just been beautiful hazel eyes had turned a deep, coral red, and there was a low, unnatural rumble in the woman’s throat. The two remaining soldiers shot out of the doorway in an effort to pin the woman where she stood, but she quickly bent down, swept Evan’s gun out of its holster, and turned, while spraying the room with bullets at the same time. And then she did some sort of back flip—walking it off the freaking ceiling—as she landed further down the hall in the midst of the men and snapped one of their necks before he even saw her coming.
David released a tranquilizer then, scoring the woman directly in the shoulder. She pushed the remaining soldier off her and turned to face David, bringing the gun up in an expert, two-handed grip. She knew exactly what she was doing, but before she could squeeze the trigger, the two soldiers who had been hiding in the doorway to the right opened fire, unloading their magazines into her jerking body.
The remaining soldier from Evan’s group hit the deck even as David snatched Tiffany by the waist, threw her to the ground, and covered her body in an effort to protect her from ricocheting bullets. And then, after what seemed like thirty seconds or so, the room was quiet.
“Is she dead?” the disheveled soldier from Evan’s group asked. He sat up on his knees and eyed the second woman’s body warily.
David scurried to his feet. “Hell no,” he barked. “Neither one of them is dead.” He dropped his tranquilizer gun and motioned toward the soldier’s hip, where he kept a sheathed machete. “Take her head—and then her heart—before she regenerates!” He drew his own machete from its scabbard and motioned one of the soldiers to his right, forward. “Get over here, Roger.” He held out the machete.
The short, stocky man walked quickly to his side. “Yes, sir?” He took the weapon from David.
“We don’t have much time to case the place now; you finish this one, while Miss Matthews and I try to retrieve what we came for.” He turned toward the only other remaining militia member. “Don, you stay here in the hall and keep a lookout.”
Don reloaded his gun and nodded.
Roger looked down at the raven-haired beauty—the one the second woman had called Ciopori—and a slow, vindictive smile curved the corner of his mouth. “No worries, sir. This one is as good as dead.”
Nathaniel Silivasi heard a woman scream in the basement of the clinic, but it wasn’t Jocelyn or Ciopori. “What the hell—”
Before he could finish his sentence, there was a loud explosion. The sound of bone splintered off a wall, footsteps reverberated on the basement ceiling, and an utter explosion of gunfire erupted down below. His heart skipped a beat. “Marquis!”
The Ancient Master Warrior was already gone, dematerializing out of the room.
Nathaniel, Kagen, and Marquis materialized at the same time, each appearing at the bottom of the basement staircase. Although it felt like an eternity, in truth, it only took the males a fraction of a second to analyze the situation with all five of their senses—and take in all the details…
And what they saw stole the air from their lungs.
Ciopori was slumped over at the far end of the hall. She was lying on her side like a broken rag doll in a shallow pool of blood, and there was a thick wooden stake protruding out of her chest. The stake had penetrated all the way through the cavity to her back, and it stuck out from the rear like a macabre pole on a carousel. She appeared dead, yet less than six inches away, a human male stood over her with a garish, curved machete held tightly in his hand, preparing to do her further damage.
A second gunman stood in the middle of the corridor—his feet spaced evenly apart, a nine-millimeter semiautomatic in his right hand—like some sort of Johnny-come-lately prison guard patrolling the hall. He had a tight black skull-trim, and his weapon had been recently fired. With sweat trickling down his anxious brow, he stood at an even distance between Ciopori and—
Jocelyn.
Oh dear, goddess, no!
Nathaniel felt a cold surge of rage sweep over his body, and he had to force his mind to focus: Jocelyn was also lying in an unnatural heap in the middle of the hall. Her body was riddled with bullets, there was a red tranquilizer dart sticking out of her left shoulder, and a tall human male with a Mohawk was looming over her, his face distorted with hatred. The machete in the man’s hand was raised high, held taut, and ready to swing. He also possessed a nine-millimeter that was
tucked into the back of his waistband, and Nathaniel could still smell the gunpowder from its recent use. Nathaniel’s body practically hummed with the need to spill the human’s blood.
Both women were about to be beheaded.
Unwilling to risk the heartbeat it might take to get to his mate’s side, Nathaniel waved his hand through the air and froze Jocelyn’s assailant in place. Glaring at the flesh-and-bone statue, he threw back his head and roared his rage. His fangs punched out of his mouth with such force that his gums began to bleed as he stalked down the hall toward the breathing corpse about to behead his destiny in front of him.
Marquis moved just as swiftly.
In a series of movements so sudden they could hardly be seen, he materialized beside Ciopori, plunged an iron fist straight through her attacker’s solar plexus, clutched his spine with his fist, and pulled. In one harsh, angry tug, he tore the man’s spinal column free from his body and tossed it aside, away from Ciopori. In a final moment of irony, the body remained upright—still standing, machete in hand—as if it had not yet recognized it was no longer living, and then it slumped to the ground in a lifeless pile. And Marquis kicked it aside.
Kagen approached the guard in the middle of the hall calmly.
Too calmly.
His fangs remained retracted, his eyes a solid, deep brown. He didn’t growl or snarl or make any threats; he simply strolled down the hall in a leisurely manner, smiling and licking his lips, until he stood like a lifelong friend in front of the alarmed human. “Good afternoon,” he drawled pleasantly, as if welcoming the intruder into his home.
The human freaked out.
He shoved his gun into Kagen’s ribs and began to unload a fresh magazine.
Kagen jerked in surprise…and then he laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned; you’ve got diamond dust in those bullets.” He waited until the magazine was empty, and then he reached down, palmed the hot piece of iron in his fist, and crumpled it like a piece of paper, tossing it to the side. He ran his fingers along the fresh wounds in his side. “How rude,” he growled, leaning forward to speak directly in the man’s ear. And then he held out his hand as if to make a formal introduction. “And you are?”
Petrified—and completely off balance—the human took his hand. “Uh…Donald.”
Kagen gripped Donald’s hand, smiling as he crushed the bones into dust.
The man’s face grew pale, and he cried out in agony.
Kagen clucked his tongue three times and shook his head. “Shh, Donald—no need for all that drama.” He lifted him by the neck, crushed his vocal cords, and then held him high in the air in front of him, dangling by the strength of one hand. “You see, this is my clinic—my home.” He glanced at Ciopori and Jocelyn. “And these are my sisters.” His fangs elongated, dripping with lethal venom. “And you, sir, are not welcome.” He drew back his arm and slammed the man’s face into the side of the wall, flattening his head like a pancake. As he dropped the twitching body, he booted it to the ceiling, where it actually stuck for a couple of seconds before falling down.
Nathaniel thought very little about what he had just seen: His mind was too consumed in its own red haze of rage. He had reached the man with the Mohawk, unconsciously releasing him from his paralysis, and the human had dropped his machete, screamed like a girl, and started to run. Nathaniel had side-stepped in front of him to block his path.
Now, as they continued to do a back-and-forth dance, Nathaniel remained acutely—and only—aware that the fool was blocking his path to Jocelyn. As he stared absently at the destiny he loved more than his own life, lying injured and still on the floor just beyond the ridiculous human, his vision went blurry—a deep, hazy black—and then it slowly dialed back into focus.
He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “I have neither the time nor the inclination to play with you, human.” His voice sounded distant, even to his own ears. “I have never met anyone so eager to be killed, to suffer a slow, endless torment, yet I haven’t the time to accommodate you.” He smiled a hate-filled grin. “I tell you what; ask me for your death, and I will give it to you swiftly.” Each word was punctuated on a feral hiss.
The human trembled in his boots, unable to reply. A quick glance into his mind told Nathaniel that the man was beyond coherent thought. He was in shock. And utterly desperate to live.
As if…
Shoving his way so hard into the human’s brain that it instantly caused a migraine, Nathaniel implanted a powerful compulsion: “Beg me for your death now, and let us get on with it.”
Clasping his ears with both hands, the man fell to his knees. “P…p…please…kill me, sir. I beg you.”
Nathaniel bent over, picked up the man’s dropped machete, placed it in his right hand, and shoved him face-down on the floor. Pitching his voice in a deep lilt of persuasion, he whispered: “Do it yourself.” When the human looked confused, he gestured at the machete. “Remove one body part at a time. Start with your feet and work your way up…but save the vital organs for last, lest you die too soon.” He spat on the back of his neck. “Oh, and stack the pieces neatly in a pile…since you won’t be around to clean up the mess.” He shrugged. “I guess I changed my mind about killing you…swiftly.”
As he stepped over the horrified human on his way to Jocelyn, he caught a glimpse of Marquis and Ciopori: His brother had just lifted his destiny into his arms and was about to examine her piercing, when they all heard the soft scrape of a chair coming from the supply room at the end of the hall.
“There are more of them?” Kagen asked, incredulous.
Nathaniel turned and snarled. “By the gods, we don’t have time for these fools.”
Marquis was shaking with the need to kill, but he stayed exactly where he was: Clearly, he wasn’t about to leave Ciopori’s side. “Kagen, find them—and bring them out alive.” The tone of Marquis’s voice brooked no argument as he glanced down at his mate and swiftly pulled the stake free from her chest. “The man I killed was not the one who did this.” He placed his hand firmly over the wound and applied pressure to staunch the bleeding. “Whoever did this is mine.”
Kagen nodded, turned on his heel, and started down the hall toward the supply room.
“Wait,” Nathaniel called, his voice thick with anguish. “Let me go after them.” He removed the tranquilizer from Jocelyn’s shoulder and gathered her tight against his body, wrapping his warmth around her in a gentle embrace. “I don’t trust myself to heal her right now.” He realized how absurd that sounded. After all, how many battles had they been through? How many life-threatening wounds had they healed? But he just didn’t care. This was not a hardened warrior from the house of Jadon. This was not even one of his beloved siblings.
This was his destiny.
“Jocelyn needs you now, healer…right now,” Nathaniel implored.
Kagen stopped abruptly and rushed to Jocelyn’s side.
“Gods…there are so many bullet wounds,” Nathaniel murmured, slowly lowering her back to the floor so Kagen could take over. He looked up at his twin and frowned. “She’s losing so much blood. Too much blood. You have to stop the bleeding, Kagen—I want you to remove the bullets—now.”
Kagen placed a firm, reassuring hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder and nodded. “Then let me take her to surgery, Nathaniel. I can work far more efficiently upstairs.” He inclined his head toward the supply room. “Tie up the captives; secure the clinic; and meet us up there.”
For the first time, Nathaniel noticed Kagen’s injuries as well. His twin’s torso was littered with bullet wounds, diamond-encrusted bullet wounds, which had to burn like hell, not to mention sap his strength. Kagen had also lost a great deal of blood—and was still losing it—yet he acted as if nothing had happened. How was he still standing? “Can you work like this?” Nathaniel asked, ashamed that he hadn’t considered his twin’s health sooner.
Kagen nodded. “I am in no danger of passing out…at least not for a while. And the pain is tolerable.”
/> Nathaniel knew that his twin was lying. He knew that it was only a deep, abiding love for his family that kept Kagen upright, and he also knew that Kagen would never accept assistance until the women were out of danger…and any further threat was eliminated: Kagen may have been a healer, but like all the Vampyr, the warrior’s code was bred into their DNA.
Nathaniel met Kagen’s eyes and held his gaze. And then he bowed his head, however indistinctly, and averted his eyes in a show of profound respect. “You honor me, brother.” He reached down and took Jocelyn’s hand in his own, gripping it with a fierce protectiveness. “Do not let her—”
“Don’t even speak it,” Kagen cut him off, his voice clear and insistent. “Nathaniel Jozef Silivasi, her head is intact. Her heart is intact. You are in my clinic, and I have plenty of stored blood and venom—Marquis’s venom, Napolean’s venom. She will live.”
Nathaniel nodded, but he didn’t let go. “I know. It’s just…”
Kagen’s voice brushed gently against the warrior’s mind in a private, intimate communication: Nathaniel, there is no contingency in which your destiny leaves us this day. On the honor of the house of Jadon, I pledge this to you: She will live. I will heal her.
Nathaniel swallowed hard and rocked back on his heels, releasing Jocelyn into Kagen’s care. “Okay,” he mumbled, “do not let her suffer, Kagen…block her pain.”
Kagen smiled faintly. “I will care for her as you would.”
Nathaniel nodded and looked down the hall toward Marquis and Ciopori. Marquis was bent low over Ciopori’s chest, holding her in his massive arms like a boneless doll—her back sharply arched, his fangs full extended—as he furiously injected venom directly into her heart.
“Marquis?” Nathaniel called quietly.
She hasn’t lost as much blood as Jocelyn, Marquis answered telepathically so that both brothers could hear. The stake acted as a cork, blocking the flow. But the injury was to her heart, and that is very serious.
