Killean grasped the throat of the next Savage who lunged at him while another jumped onto his back. Before Killean could react, the one on his back sank its fangs into his throat.
Pain burst through his body, but instead of immobilizing him, he channeled the agony into his body and turned it into something he could thrive on as his skin deepened in hue. An almost brutal glee descended over Killean as he enclosed his arm around the Savage’s head.
When Killean squeezed it like a nut in a nutcracker, the Savage’s skull gave way with a crunch of bone before he ripped the creature over his shoulder and threw him on the ground. The vamp barely had time to recover before Killean seized its shoulders, lifted him, and sank his fangs into the Savage’s throat.
The vamp’s fingers tore at Killean’s face before it stilled in his grasp. Keeping the vamp’s back against his chest, Killean fed on it as he used the Savage’s body to batter back the others. When the last of the vamp’s life flooded his veins, Killean threw aside the Savage and ran at Joseph.
Joseph’s eyes went beyond him, and for the first time, Killean saw uneasiness on his face as his smirk vanished. Killean didn’t have to look to know the sun had reached the horizon, he’d become acutely attuned to it since its rays became lethal to him. Killean was almost to Joseph when the bastard turned and glided into the trees.
“No,” Killean snarled as he poured on the speed.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Killean barreled through the remaining Savages in his way and was almost on top of Joseph when Nathan burst out of the woods to the left of him. Killean spotted Ronan charging at them from the right with Kadence and Simone running behind him.
From somewhere within his coat, Joseph produced a crossbow and fired it at Nathan when the hunter was only three feet away from him.
“Nathan!” Kadence screamed when the bolt pierced through her brother’s chest, lifted him off his feet, and knocked him on his ass. She broke away from Simone to rush to her brother.
Killean spotted more Savages gliding through the trees and closing in on Ronan. “Ronan, behind you!” he shouted.
Ronan turned as two of the creatures launched at him. Simone skidded to a halt to avoid running into Ronan when the weight of the Savages knocked him to the ground. Ronan gripped the shoulder of one and threw it away as he rolled to pin the other beneath him. Killean was closing in on Joseph and about to jump on his back when another Savage loomed up behind Simone.
“No!” Killean bellowed and switched course.
He closed the ten feet separating them in less than a second, and swinging his fist forward, he plunged it into the vamp’s chest cavity. His fingers clinched around the creature’s pulsating heart, and he tore it free. Simone gazed at him with wide eyes as he released the heart and the Savage toppled to the ground between them.
“Killean?” Simone whispered.
She barely recognized the blood-drenched man before her as his fangs hung low over his bottom lip and his skin continued to pulse with those colors. Then gold flickered through the ruby color of his eyes and she once again saw the man she loved. Red swallowed the gold again, but she’d seen enough to know that Killean was still there.
He almost touched her, but the blood dripping from his fingers stopped him from doing so. “It’s okay.”
Simone didn’t know if that meant he would be okay or not, but his love for her shimmered across their bond. And then Killean’s attention was drawn away from her and to Nathan, who had regained his feet and was closing in on Joseph.
Lunging forward, Nathan clamped his arms around Joseph’s waist. Joseph twisted in an attempt to throw him off, but Nathan clung tenaciously as Kadence jumped onto Joseph’s back, seized his hair, and ripped his head back. She delivered three, bone-crushing blows to his face before Joseph reeled backward and bashed her against a tree trunk.
Kadence cried out, and when Joseph staggered away from the tree, she released her hold on him and hit the ground. Ronan, having fought off the other two Savages raced over to kneel beside her as Nathan, still hanging off Joseph’s waist, gripped Joseph’s crotch and twisted his hand. Joseph howled as his dick and balls were almost ripped from him; he lifted his hand and swung it back to deliver a crushing blow that snapped Nathan’s neck to the side and caved in the left side of his face.
“Stay here,” Killean commanded Simone.
He ran through the trees at Joseph, and as the Savage freed himself from Nathan, Killean lowered his shoulder and drove it into Joseph’s back. The Savage was thrown ten feet forward and hit the ground with enough force that the earth and trees shook. Killean didn’t give him a chance to regain his feet before he closed the distance between them and slammed his foot onto Joseph’s back to pin him to the ground.
Joseph rolled faster than Killean anticipated, and before he could pull his foot away, Joseph grabbed it and jerked him off his feet. When Killean’s back crashed onto the ground, his breath wheezed out of him as Joseph rose into a seated position. When Joseph leaned toward him, Killean gripped his head and shoved it down as he lifted his knee and smashed it into Joseph’s nose.
A whistling sound issued from Joseph’s crumpled nose as he lurched forward to grasp Killean’s shoulders. His fingers shredded Killean’s flesh as Killean drew his knees up and wedged them between their bodies.
He shoved up with his feet but couldn’t fully dislodge Joseph. A purebred vampire who was trained by Ronan and had killed countless innocents since turning Savage, Joseph was far more powerful than the other Savages Killean slaughtered.
Instead of trying to shake him free, Killean gripped his shoulders and rolled him over. He had only a second on top before Joseph rolled him again. Killean dug his fingers into Joseph’s shoulders and tore away chunks of flesh and muscle before smashing his fist into Joseph’s face.
Lifting his knee, Joseph rammed it into Killean’s crotch. Killean grunted as pain lanced throughout his body. His distraction gave Joseph a chance to release a rapid series of punches into Killean’s stomach. The blows left him nearly as breathless as his aching balls, but as the agony spread through him, his body absorbed and twisted it into a strength that fed him.
“Your little mate was the best thing I ever tasted,” Joseph taunted.
Killean thought he’d experienced rage before, but those words pushed him into an entirely different state of it. A sound, more monster than man, issued from him as, grabbing Joseph’s hair, he rolled with him again. There was no reason left to him as a yawning pit of darkness rose up to engulf him. He tore and beat at Joseph with the intensity of a rat burrowing through the earth to escape a fire.
Simone gawked as Killean’s skin became almost entirely pitch-black. It was so deep a black, it looked like tar coating him as an inhuman sound she would associate more with a demon than a man issued from him.
Simone’s hand went to her throat as Killean and Joseph pummeled each other. Joseph had appeared to have the upper hand in the beginning, but Killean had turned the tables and Joseph’s blood now drenched him.
“What’s happening to him?” Simone whispered out loud.
She’d thought she was alone and didn’t realized Kadence stood beside her until her friend replied, “It happens to purebreds when they’re enraged, or their mate is threatened. He’ll be… he’ll be okay.”
Kadence’s words would have been more reassuring if she hadn’t sounded so uncertain. Simone glanced behind her to find Ronan and Nathan battling more Savages. When she turned back, she discovered that Joseph and Killean were rolling toward the edge of a clearing. The sun streaming through the trees spilled across the leaf-strewn ground only feet away from them.
“Killean!” Simone screamed as she ran toward him, but they were rolling again.
Killean feasted on the pain of Joseph’s fingers digging into his throat as the Savage sought to kill him.
“You’re going to fucking die,” Killean promised as he drove the heel of his hand up under Joseph’s nose and snapped his head b
ack.
Gripping Joseph’s shoulders again, the distant sound of screams barely pierced the bloodlust thundering through his veins as he once more rolled with Joseph. Agony blazed down his spine, the sound of crackling flesh filled his ears, and it took him a second to realize that he’d rolled them into sunlight.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Simone watched in horror as Killean rolled into the clearing with Joseph and smoke coiled from both vampires. “No!” she cried.
Simone, her name was a cry of longing in Killean’s head. What had he done? He couldn’t leave her; he had to survive this or else she would be lost too. Focusing on the memory of her scent, her smell, her laughter and love, Killean gathered his dwindling strength to roll Joseph on top of him.
“Killean!” Ronan shouted.
Flames erupted from Joseph’s clothes and crackled in the air. Holding Joseph above him, Killean turned his face away when fire shot down toward him. Joseph bellowed as he rained punches down on Killean’s face. Pulling his hand back, Joseph aimed it over Killean’s ribs and directly above his heart. When he drove it downward, Killean captured his wrist before Joseph could sink it into his ribcage.
Killean struggled against the weakness seeping through his sun-ravaged body; his arms shook as he held Joseph’s wrist over his chest while Joseph bore his weight down on him. “Fuck you,” Killean gritted through his teeth.
His eyes clashed with Joseph’s red ones until flames burst from Joseph’s eye sockets and licked his hairline. Joseph was far from done though as he lifted his other hand and delivered a staggering blow to Killean’s temple. Like a spastic caterpillar, Joseph began to jerk and squirm to break free of Killean’s hold.
Killean clung to Joseph as the sun seared away the flesh and muscles of his hands before spreading up his arms and crackling over his chest. Not having killed as much as Joseph, he was better able to withstand the sun’s rays, but Joseph’s flames were fueling his.
Killean closed his eyes when fire seared over them, but he didn’t know if the flames were coming from him or Joseph anymore. Pain no longer fueled him as flames seared his nerve endings. He only knew the fire was still devouring him because of the stench of burning flesh.
“Let go of him, asshole!” Simone shouted.
Killean’s eyes flew open when Simone’s words pierced through the roaring fire. Despite his growing certainty that he was going to die, he felt a trickle of amusement as she planted her foot against Joseph’s side. Simone’s shoving against him did nothing to dislodge the burning Savage as Joseph’s muscles were locked tight. Reaching through the flames, Ronan seized Joseph’s shoulders, lifted him, and tossed him aside.
Nathan and Kadence sprinted out of the woods and stopped beside Joseph. Nathan pulled a stake free of the holster strapped to his side, and gripping it with both hands, he lifted the weapon. Ignoring the flames consuming Joseph’s spasming body, Nathan sank the stake through Joseph’s back and into his heart. When fire shot up around his wrists, Kadence used her shirt to help beat them out.
Ronan plucked Killean off the ground, draped him over his shoulder, and raced into the shadows of the woods with Simone following. When Ronan set Killean on the ground, she fell beside him and, uncaring of the fire searing her skin, beat at the flames.
When her hands and clothes proved not to be enough to douse the fire, she threw herself on top of Killean to smother the worst of the blaze. Ronan stripped out of his burnt shirt and used it to put out more of the flames while Simone continued to beat at them with her badly burnt hands.
Smoke and fire clogged her nose and throat while her skin blistered and peeled away. The inferno seared her lungs with every breath she took, but she ignored the pain of the flames eating through her clothes and searing her chest and legs as she worked to save Killean.
When Ronan smothered the last of the blaze, Simone bent her head and strands of her charred hair fell forward. Her scorched throat and nose made breathing difficult as tears pooled in her eyes while she gazed at Killean.
The only skin remaining on him was on his feet where his boots protected him more than his clothes, but the boots had eventually burned away too, and the flesh on his toes was blistered and raw. All his hair, including his eyebrows, was gone. His lips, or what remained of them, had burned away to reveal his fangs; his nose and ears were only small nubs.
“Killean,” she breathed and barely recognized her voice as emotion and smoke choked it.
His lips pulled back further, and she realized he was trying to smile though his golden eyes were dazed. His lashes and part of his lids were also gone, but the spark of recognition in his eyes eased some of her tension.
“You swore,” he said in a voice that belonged to a corpse rather than the man she loved.
Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went completely still.
Chapter Fifty
“Killean?” she gasped. She wanted to grab his cheeks and attempt to shake him awake, but she couldn’t get her fingers to do what she willed them to do. “Killean!”
“It’s okay, he’s alive,” Ronan said. “We have to get him inside.”
Simone tried to peel herself away from Killean before realizing some of their skin had melted and fused together. She still didn’t feel any pain, but she suspected that would come when she started healing.
“Easy,” Ronan said and knelt to help pull her free.
For a second, she feared she would pass out too, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay awake while they were separated.
“You have to save him,” she croaked, and her head rolled on her neck when she tilted it back to look at Ronan.
Ronan rested a finger on top of a barely burnt patch of flesh on the back of her hand. “I will,” he vowed.
The crack of a branch behind Simone caused her to turn as Nathan and Kadence came forward. Nathan had his arm draped around his sister’s shoulders as she led him forward. The bolt Joseph fired into him had been removed from his chest, but judging by the amount of blood staining his shirt, he’d lost a lot of it before the hole started to close.
“Simone!” Kadence gasped before her gaze fell on Killean. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Yes,” Ronan said brusquely. “I have to get him inside, and he needs blood.”
“Simone?” Kadence whispered questioningly.
“I’m fine.” Simone coughed and then winced when the motion sent a rush of pain over her.
Her nerve endings were coming back to life, and she was feeling every one of them. Killean was so much worse than she was though. She went to grasp his arm but pulled her hand back. There was nowhere on him she dared to touch without fear of hurting him, but he was so far gone, he probably didn’t feel anything anymore.
Don’t leave me, she whispered to him and prayed he heard her.
Ronan slid his arms under Killean and lifted him off the ground. Unwilling to let him out of her sight, Simone staggered to her feet and nearly collapsed when agony radiated through her and her burnt flesh cracked.
“Simone!” Kadence cried.
Ronan shifted his hold on Killean to cup her elbow and steady her. “Declan, help her,” he commanded.
She hadn’t realized the others were there until Declan glided toward her. Bruises marred his face, blood splattered his clothes and skin, and gashes streaked his face and chest, but he seemed undaunted by any of it. Bloodied and battered, Saxon was propped against a tree while Lucien rested his hand on the trunk of another one. Logan and Asher leaned heavily against one another. Hunters and vampires stood around them; most were battered, and others carried some, but they were alive. Although, she had no idea how many were lost.
When many of them glanced nervously away from her, she looked down and realized the front of her clothes were gone. Only tattered remains adhered to her blackened flesh. Before, she would have been mortified over being exposed like this, even if she was so badly burnt she looked more like a charred chicken leg than a woman. Now all she care
d about was getting Killean somewhere safe.
“The remaining Savages?” Ronan inquired.
“They’ve fled into the woods,” Lucien said.
“Good,” Ronan said. “Hopefully the sun will destroy more of them too. We have to go.”
“I’m going to pick you up,” Declan cautioned her.
Simone was in no condition to argue with him. She bit her lip to keep from crying out when he lifted her into his arms and followed Ronan through the woods at a dead run. Every step jarred her reawakening nerves, but Simone didn’t make a sound as she gripped Declan’s shoulders and did her best to remain still. She heard the footsteps of the others behind them, but she couldn’t see them over Declan’s shoulder, and she didn’t dare move to look.
Smoke trailed from Killean again when Ronan sprinted across the open area separating the woods from the asylum. Ronan hunched over Killean, shielding him the best he could, but more flames erupted across Killean’s chest. Throwing his shoulder down, Ronan smashed through the front door and ran inside.
Simone couldn’t tear her gaze away from them as Declan followed. Ronan carefully set Killean on the floor near the stairs and away from the sun’s rays. Kneeling beside Killean, Ronan smothered the flames with his hands before lifting his wrist to his mouth and biting deep. He held his wrist to Killean’s lips so the blood went down his throat.
“Ronan?” Kadence asked; the shock evident in her voice.
The others all stopped on the threshold, and Declan’s arms briefly constricted around her as disbelief rippled through him.
Ronan didn’t look up as he replied. “He needs blood, and mine is the strongest here. Simone’s would probably help him more, but she’s in no condition to give right now.”
Bound by Darkness: The Alliance Series, Book 3 Page 30