by J. R. Ward
And then someone touched him.
The Jackal snapped at the hand. Then returned to his prey—
All at once, the guard was taken from him, dragged off by some unknown, unseen force.
No, that was wrong. He was the one removed, his vision swinging up and around as he was lifted bodily from the guard. The next thing he knew, he was thrown face-first into the tunnel wall and pinned in place.
He fought against the hold, snapping with his teeth, thrashing his legs and arms, bucking his hips.
He only stilled when he heard a low, threatening voice in his ear.
“He’s dead. There is no more for you to do to him.”
The Jackal stopped fighting against his captor. “Apex?”
It was bizarre how, in times of acute crisis, your brain could kick something random over your transom of awareness.
As Jack had viscerally destroyed the front of a guard’s throat and most of the male’s face, Nyx’s brain decided to take her back to one year before Janelle was taken away to prison. There had been a horrible, howling ruckus in the woods outside the farmhouse. She and her grandfather had gone to see what it was, while Posie had put herself in the basement with a blanket over her head. Janelle had been out of the house. She’d always been out of the house.
Both Nyx and her grandfather had been armed, a pair of shotguns up on their shoulders. The concern had been something attacking one of the goats in the pen.
But it hadn’t been coyotes.
Two massive timber wolves had been going at it, the animals up on their hind legs, teeth gnashing, claws slashing. Their powerful bodies had seemed so large, too large, but then savagery had a way of increasing mass. Both had been bleeding from various wounds, though the black and brown and gray fur had masked the specifics of the injuries.
The pair had been so locked into their aggression that the presence of a pair of vampires hadn’t registered. Not until her grandfather discharged his shotgun into the moonlight did the four-legged combatants separate and scatter.
Jack had had the same degree of savagery just now. And if that killer, Apex, hadn’t come and pried him off the guard? He’d be at it still.
And now, they had a new problem, didn’t they. With shaking hands, she kicked the empty clip out of her gun, and brought her backpack around under the loose tunic, grabbing a fully loaded replacement and slamming it into place with the heel of her palm.
Her eyes went back to the guard.
His boots were twitching, but not because the male was going to stand up anytime soon. Apex, that killer, was right—and hey, he would know about death, right?
Oh . . . dear God . . . that face. Not that there was much of it left. Blood glistened and dripped free of the anatomy, flashes of white bone showing through the meat. The tongue was clicking—or maybe it was the teeth—and that jaw was working up and down, as if some part of the guard’s consciousness was still sending signals to call for help.
Snapping out of it, Nyx pointed her gun at Apex’s shaved head. “Let him go.”
That head—or that skull, was more like it—slowly moved in her direction. The eyes that stared back at her were dead, no animation or character behind the black pits as the male focused on her.
“Shoot if you’re going to,” he said with boredom. As he did not release Jack.
“Let him go.”
“Where are my hands, female.”
It was then that she realized he had already dropped his hold. “Step back then. If you’re not going to hurt him, step the fuck back.”
“If I wanted to kill him,” Apex drawled, “I’d have done so a decade ago. You’re late to this party, female.”
“Step back.”
Apex’s upper lip twitched, and she had a thought that she was going to need to watch her back after this. But instead of snapping his fangs at her, he smiled in an evil way, revealing two solid gold canines.
Jack solved the issue by sliding out from between the wall and the other male. Wiping his bloody mouth on his sleeve, he did not meet her stare. His loose, dark clothes were stained and out of joint, the tunic twisted around, not that he appeared to notice. Not that it mattered.
“We need to get rid of these bodies, but there’s no time,” he said hoarsely.
“I’ll take care of them. Go. Now.”
Jack glanced at the other prisoner. “Are we even, then.”
“Yes.” Apex nodded toward the tunnel. “Go. There will be more coming.”
The killer didn’t have to ask twice. Nyx was so ready to leave all of this behind. Intent on getting to Jack, she went to step over the bloody, dead guard—
As she transferred her weight, the dead body came to life. With a rasp and a gasp, wild, white-rimmed eyes flared, and the male reached for her ankle. The grab was strong enough to throw her off balance, and as she went into a free fall, the guard brought up a gun from out of nowhere.
Pointing the muzzle directly at her, he pulled the trigger—
Jack lunged across the distance as the gun went off, except he was too late—and so were Nyx’s reflexes. Before she could shift in midair, the bullet ripped into her with a blaze of pain, but she didn’t have time to track where the entrance was or if there was an exit. She landed hard, half on the guard, half on the floor, the side of her face taking some of the impact.
She was stunned as she lay where she landed, and when there was a clunk! sound by her head, she realized that her grandfather’s gun had slipped out of her hand.
Shit, she thought as she grabbed the weapon again.
“Nyx!”
Jack’s eyes entered her vision as he knelt down. His bloodstained face was pale as snow, his pupils dilated, his expression of horror the kind of thing that made her think about old-school Friday the 13th movies. Which made no damned sense. Then again, hello, shock.
“I’m shoot.” She closed her eyes in frustration. “Shot. I’m shot.”
“Your shoulder. I know.”
“Not my chest then?”
Had there been one bullet? Or two? Why wasn’t she in pain?
Beneath her, the guard started moving again, and a sudden jolt of adrenaline gave her a burst of strength. Shoving Jack back, she put the muzzle of her gun into the oozing open wound of that face—
And pulled the motherfucking trigger.
She wasn’t even horrified as the body jumped under her, the extremities bouncing on the floor, a horrible gurgle rising up as the popping sound disseminated.
Where had she gone, she thought as she lifted her eyes to Jack.
He was staring back at her with a remote expression, and meanwhile, Apex loomed over them both, not a threat so much as a condemnation of her and her actions. Sometime between her entering that crypt and finding her way down here into the prison, a part of her had gotten lost. Or perhaps been ruined.
And she knew it wasn’t coming back.
Apex laughed dryly. “Nice shot. Then again, point-blank improves accuracy.”
“Shut up,” Jack snapped.
Putting her hand out to him, he read her mind. He helped her up onto her feet, and as she steadied herself on his arm, he looked her over as if searching for arterial bleeds. With uncharacteristic deference, she waited for his conclusion even though it was her body and he wasn’t a physician. Then again, she felt like she couldn’t trust her read on anything.
“We’ve got to move fast,” he said.
Before she could start running again, he bent down and scooped her into his arms.
“No arguments,” he barked. “You need to shoot if we get into trouble. Let my legs do the work for the both of us.”
Just before they took off, Apex smiled again, flashing those gold fangs. “Quite a honeymoon you two are enjoying.”
“Fuck off, Apex,” Jack said over his shoulder as he took off at a jog.
All the Jackal could smell was Nyx’s blood. All he could feel was the warm flush of it soaking through the clothes she had on and the sleeve of his prison tunic as he carried her. Al
l he knew was the distance he had to cover if he was going to get her to safety.
Make that relative safety.
He ran as fast as he could without bouncing her around too much, but going by the way she grunted and stiffened in his arms, he knew he was hurting her. She wasn’t lowering that gun, though. As he backtracked through the Command’s compound, she had that muzzle up and ready, and she was alert, leaning into the corners he took and staying steady on the straightaways he bolted down.
Damn it, he’d lost the weapon she’d given him when he’d gone after that guard. There had been no time to look for it, though. At least she had more in her backpack, going by the metallic shifting it always made.
When they came up to the prison cell with the closed mesh panels, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing inside—
Nyx’s shout brought him back to attention.
Shit, he thought as he skidded to a halt. Four guards were lined up in front of them, a uniformed wall of thou-shall-not-pass with plenty of gunmetal in their hands.
The Jackal considered a turn-and-bolt, but there was nowhere to go. Worse, the Command would be returning to these quarters soon, either because the review of the work area was over, or, more likely, because an alarm had been sounded. More backups for these guards were also surely on the way, and Nyx did not have the strength for another protracted battle.
“Gun to the temple,” he whispered. As Nyx’s eyes flared, he bared his fangs. “Put your gun on my temple. Now.”
As she did what he told her to, he addressed the guards. “I want you all to throw your weapons at my feet and go facedown or she’ll shoot me. She’ll fucking do it, and then you’re going to have to explain how you let me get killed right in front of you. Do you want to be the bearers of that news?”
To prove his point, the muzzle of Nyx’s gun, which was still warm and smelling distinctly of discharge, pressed into the side of his skull, right by the corner of his eye.
“No, no,” he warned as the fair-haired guard on the left bent his mouth down to his shoulder, where his communicator was mounted by his epaulet. “None of that. Facedown, right now. Or this is going to get very, very ugly—and not just because my brains are blown out all over the wall.”
As the guards tossed their weapons and lowered themselves, a figure entered the corridor from the fissure that led to the Hive. Whoever it was was draped in black folds from head to foot, and their face was hidden under a hood. They had covered their scent well, too, masking their identity with smells from the prison’s kitchen. Bread. And garlic.
Thank the Virgin Scribe, the Jackal thought as he motioned the wraith down with the hand that was under Nyx’s knees. Kane came quickly.
What a wise, wise male to hide his identity. And as always, the wellbred was on time.
“Hands behind your backs,” the Jackal ordered the guards.
There was shifting on the floor, wrists presented at the small of backs, and Kane moved with the kind of grace only the aristocracy possessed, his lithe body under those folds smooth of stride and stretch— and yet he had a soldier’s practicality and efficiency. Picking up one of the discarded guns from where they’d been thrown, he handcuffed each of the guards with their own equipment in the work of a moment. And in the course of his confining duties, the male also stripped them of their ammo and communicators, as well as a number of knives, creating a pile of equipment by their feet.
When Kane nodded, the Jackal took off once more, holding his precious load as gingerly as he could while he ripped past his dear friend as well as all the incapacitated guards.
“I had the safety on the whole time,” Nyx said as they rushed forth. “Just so you know.”
The Jackal could only shake his head. His emotions were too chaotic to put into proper order, but he suspected, even if he could have parceled them out, he wouldn’t want her to know how much or of what he was feeling.
The fact that he couldn’t have asked for a better partner seemed like something best kept to himself.
As did the reality that he was going to relive her getting shot for the rest of his life.
When Jack brought them up to the fissure, Nyx was ready to get down and hustle on her own. Good thing, because there was no way he could carry her through the tight squeeze. There was barely room for one person to fit through, much less an on-the-chest carry of a gunshot victim.
Not that she was a victim.
Pushing against his shoulder, she peeled herself free of his hold, and she could tell by the way his hands lingered on her waist that he didn’t want to let her go even as her legs accepted her weight. No time to talk. She went directly into the darkness, pressing her body into the narrow, earthen embrace of the fissure—and she did not look back. No reason to. Jack would be behind her. He would back her up. And as she shuffled along, the damp rock scraping over her backpack under the tunic, she was curiously unafraid.
Which made no sense. Then again, at least no one was shooting at her inside this super-dark, super-cramped little hole.
Although when they reached the end, maybe that was going to change.
A soft glow marked the terminal of the crack in the cave’s core, and Jack’s hand on her shoulder slowed her as she reached their exit. For a moment, they waited. Breathing in, she got a refresher on the stench of the Hive, but she recognized that it was less intense somehow. Things were quieter as well. Maybe after the fight Jack’s buddies had playstarted, the place had been emptied out?
More likely, some alarm had been sounded as a result of the video game’s worth of bodies they’d left behind in the Command’s quarters.
“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered. “Is it safe?”
“Keep your gun ready, but hidden.”
As Nyx had been the first in, she had to be the first out, and in retrospect, she maybe should have let him go ahead of her. Too late. No trading places.
Turning her head, she wished she could see him, if only to take some strength from the sight of his face. It was too dark, though.
“I’m okay,” she said softly. “Just so you know.”
“You’re in shock.”
“I am not—”
“Of course you are—”
“Don’t tell me what I am—”
They both stopped at the same time. And she had to smile—although the expression didn’t last long.
“Under different circumstances,” she said, “I really could have fallen for you.”
She didn’t expect a reply from him. But then his voice, so deep and low, weaved its way through the darkness to her.
“Under different circumstances, I would have fallen even harder for you. And not regretted my heart’s tumble for a moment.”
Closing her eyes, she felt a pain that had nothing to do with her bullet wound lance through the center of her chest. To hell with that better-to-have-loved-and-lost-than-never-loved-at-all bullshit. She would much rather have never met Jack.
Now, she was going to have to live with everything she would never have.
Assuming she made it out of the prison alive.
Tilting forward, she peered out into the Hive. “It’s completely empty. Is this normal?”
“No. Not at all.”
“What do we do?”
“We can’t stay here, and we can’t go back. We need to return to the hidden passageway. Head to the left and move fast, but don’t run. Just walk like you know where you’re going.”
Taking a deep breath, she said a quick prayer, and when she slipped out of the fissure’s cover, she did not look around. She stuck close to the Hive’s outer rim, so close that her wounded shoulder bumped along against the stone walling, each impact making her grit her teeth. Head down. Eyes down. Shoulder on the wall. Head down. Eyes down. Shoulder on the—
Jack jumped ahead and she was relieved. In the lee of his huge body, she felt safer—until she realized the gun was in her right hand. Under the loose cover, she switched the weapon to the left so that it was on the wa
ll side. The last thing she needed was some flash of the metal giving things away.
It wasn’t until they were back in the main tunnel, the wide one that had been crowded with prisoners, that she realized they’d left the Hive behind. She hadn’t even noticed. Where was the turn . . . where was the turn . . . that would take them back to the hidden place. To the waterfall. To the pool.
She craved that cloistered space as if it were something from her childhood, a destination she had visited many times, an enclave of security from any storms outside the family home.
Oh, emotions. Nonexistent if you were looking for something to touch or hold in your palm, but still so very corporeal given their capacity for great feats of transformation. Sure as if they had hands to build, to paint over, to wallpaper and carpet, they could turn a carved-out cave in the middle of a prison into a dreamscape home.
That was what was on her mind as Jack tugged her sleeve and took her around a corner to pull her to a stop. As he checked to see if they were being followed or about to be jumped, she studied him. The lower part of his face was still stained by the blood of the guard he’d all but eaten, and strands of his long dark hair had come loose from its braid. Fresh red blood stained his tunic in a couple of places, and every time she breathed through her nose, she caught her own scent. Meanwhile, Jack was panting hard and very flushed, but he was not scattered. His eyes were sharp and decisive. So were his movements as he reached around her and flipped something on the wall.
As the hidden panel slid back, she all but threw herself inside the protected passageway. Still, she didn’t relax until they were closed in together safely.
Candles flared down at the ground level. But Nyx knew which way to go.
She led them once again—not that there were any decisions of direction to make—and as the sound of falling water and the fresh scent of clean air reached her senses, she started to tremble.
Her legs gave out as she came around the last bend and saw the pool.
Jack caught her. As always, or so it seemed.
When he eased her down onto one of the smooth sofa rocks, she gave into gravity’s greedy hold and stared up at the glossy ceiling. Their movements had disturbed the flames at the heads of the wicks all around, and she watched the shadows on the rough rock ceiling dance above her.