by Anna Abner
The door opened behind them and Caleb entered, followed by Daniel.
“Hey, boys,” Connor called, standing to greet them. “You get settled okay?”
“All good,” Caleb agreed.
To the group at large, Connor announced, “I gave the boys their own room on this floor. Mercy and Kayla are sharing their old room. Anastasia, unfortunately, couldn’t be saved.” He glanced fleetingly at Maks. “She wasn’t interested in rehabilitation.”
Before Ali left, she said to Maks, “Come over for dinner tonight. It’s a small, quiet, welcome home meal for Connor and Lukas, but I’d love for you and Violet to join us. Julia will be here to baby-sit Jackson.” She bit her lip, and Maks sensed the invitation was a big step for her.
It meant a lot to Maks. “We’d love to.”
“Hey,” Connor shouted in their direction. “Volk, come tell everyone how you ended up at the bottom of a mine shaft.”
Smiling, Volk carried Jackson nearer the group. “You mean, for the second time?” he teased.
Chapter Fifteen
Maks didn’t know what to wear to a ‘small, quiet’ dinner. He wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. Dinners for him in the distant past consisted of watching Olek eat a victim’s entrails from his body while Maks held the unlucky sot down. More recently, Maks dined from blood bags and the room service menu.
“I feel ridiculous,” he complained, emerging from the walk-in closet in jeans and a T-shirt.
“Wear what you want.” Violet looked dazzling, as always, with very little effort. Dressed casually in a pale yellow dress and heels, her auburn hair brought out the gold in her eyes. Maks was caught off guard by her beauty.
“It doesn’t matter what I wear,” he decided. “No one will notice me next to you.”
Violet flushed. “You’re too charming for your own good.”
“I’m honest,” he said, and then amended, “Today, anyway.”
In Ali and Connor’s suite, they’d outfitted the dining table—usually the center of their war room—with a cream tablecloth and lilac china for six. Everyone was gathered in the living room except Lukas, who was picking up food from some hot new eatery.
“So, Violet,” Ali asked, pulling her and Maks nearer the French doors opening onto the balcony. “Have you spoken to your family since they went home?”
“I have, and don’t worry,” Violet chuckled, “there won’t be any more cops banging on your door. They’re giving me space. I think they assume it’s PTSD.”
“Well, good,” Ali said. “As long as you’re happy here, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.” She glanced shyly at Maks. “And it goes without saying, you’re welcome here too.”
“Thank you,” Violet said.
Maks heard footsteps. Familiar footsteps. He turned from the balcony doors to shout some kind of warning. Something like, “Get out. Now.” But he didn’t have time to say anything before the front door was kicked wide open and Sergei, the craziest of the Four Sons, stood in their foyer with a Glock in his hand.
The bastard had found a way to neutralize the fact that his left arm ended with a stump at the wrist joint.
“You like guns, don’t you?” Sergei taunted Maks and then fired into the cluster of adults.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion.
Sergei hit Connor in the chest with at least one slug, and then widened his aim. Ali barely made it to the floor behind the couch without being hit. But Roz wasn’t so lucky. She was calling her power and preparing what Maks suspected was a doozy of a spell when Sergei shot her in the gut, but then just to be sure she couldn’t continue speaking spells, he tucked the firearm under his amputated arm, and slung her hard into the wall. She hit the floor and didn’t move.
Maks shifted his feet, he tried to run, but events kept unspooling in real time while he was stuck in a puddle of invisible molasses. When Sergei aimed his gun at Violet’s spine as she ran for cover in the dining room, though, Maks’ quick reflexes snapped back online.
He launched himself at Sergei, taking the bullet meant for Violet in the ribs. His right flank burst into flames of pain as the slug tore through flesh and muscle. He couldn’t stop to evaluate the depth of his or anyone else’s injuries, though. He elbowed Sergei in the face, then wrestled the gun from him and tossed it into the kitchen.
“Why won’t you just die?” Sergei growled, murder in his wild black eyes. Though blood dribbled from his brow line, he seemed totally unfazed by Maks’ blow to his head.
With his good hand, Sergei grabbed Maks around the throat and squeezed.
“Maksim Volk. The beautiful, winged devil of Odessa.” Sergei carried Maks one-armed toward the balcony doors. “Let’s see you fly.”
Maks struggled like a mouse in a trap, wiggling and hitting him in the side of the head with elbow after elbow, widening the cut on Sergei’s forehead and sending thick, red blood cascading over one eye, but the warlord never faltered a step.
Maks used his feet and knees to try to break Sergei’s grip. Anything to get out of his hold and survive for the sole reason of protecting Violet and Ali from this monster. Without supernatural strengths, they were helpless. Sergei, in his current enraged state, would show Maks’ two girls no mercy and no quarter.
But nothing he did broke Sergei’s hold on him.
Roz, wake up. Connor, attack. Where the fuck is Lukas?
Was he really on his own? Again? After all rah-rah, go team go crap, was he doomed to face Sergei mano a mano?
Un-fucking-believable.
Sergei laughed like a madman. “While you fly, think about all the ways I’m going to make your blood slave scream my name.” Sergei hurled Maks through the glass balcony doors and out into the air, fifty-one stories above the ground.
Shattered glass and wood splinters followed him into the bright desert sunshine. Maks somersaulted back toward the hotel, doing the breaststroke in midair, anything to wiggle within grabbing distance of the balconies whizzing by his head. Zip, zip, zip.
He grabbed for a balcony railing, but the force of his fall broke his grip. The second time, though, he got a solid hold on the wrought iron and slammed so hard into the balustrade he crushed the already broken ribs on his left side and may have dislocated his shoulder.
After a quick breath to steady himself and a look below at how close he’d come to splattering on the sidewalk like a human blood bag—he was less than ten stories above the ground—he hoisted himself onto the railing.
He scrambled onto the balcony, shouldered open the delicate French doors, and ran full tilt through a simple, universal hotel room, out the door, and down the hall to the stairwell and sprinted up forty flights of stairs.
If Sergei had touched Violet…
Maks was going to eviscerate the son of a bitch. No, too easy. Maks would flay Sergei’s skin from his bones while he still lived to experience every agonizing second.
He’d heard boiling was particularly nasty.
It was easier to think of ways to hurt Sergei than to contemplate the rest of his life without Violet. Sergei better kill him, too, because Maks couldn’t face that barren, hopeless future alone.
Finally, on the fifty-first floor, Maks slammed his hand through the emergency cabinet in the hall, ripped away the heavy fire extinguisher, and zeroed in on the sound and smell of the worst of the Four Sons. What he saw in the suite’s living room would stay in his mind the rest of his life.
Sergei straddled Violet, his one remaining hand around her throat. As she thrashed helplessly, her complexion bright red and her mouth agape, Sergei smiled. The fucker grinned into her face as she seized and kicked for her final heartbeats.
Violet went limp and pale a moment before Maks smashed the fire extinguisher against the side of the monster’s head. Sergei was knocked off balance. He released Violet to catch himself. Maks hit him again. He kept hitting him until Sergei stayed down.
Silently, Maks retrieved a butcher knife from the kitchen. “You’re not coming bac
k from this,” he promised, sawing through the soft tissue of Sergei’s throat and then pressing a little harder to break his vertebrae. “You’re done. Violet won’t spend another night being afraid of you.” Just to be safe, he nudged the severed head a foot away from the body. Sergei was stronger than any vampire Maks had ever encountered. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if bloody tentacles reached out of the man’s neck to snatch his severed head and pull it back into place.
Maks scrambled onto the blood-streaked carpeting. “Violet?” he begged, patting her pale cheeks. “Moppet, wake up.” He pressed his ear to her chest, but the proximity didn’t help him hear what he could already sense. She had no pulse and no breath moving in her chest.
“God damn it,” he cursed, laying her flat, tilting her chin up, and breathing between her colorless lips. He sent two puffs into her mouth and then compressed her chest.
“Connor?” Dazed, Ali crawled out of the bedroom. “Where’s Connor? What happened?”
“Did Sergei hit you?” Maks guessed, breathing for Violet a second time.
“I don’t remember.” Ali knelt beside him, grabbing his arm to steady herself.
He looked up. Ali was bleeding from the nose and at least one bruise was forming on the left side of her face. But he couldn’t stop to think about it. At least Ali was upright and breathing. Violet needed all his attention. His sweet, amber-eyed girl.
He compressed her chest several more times, then with no warning, she was breathing on her own. But it wasn’t healthy, more like a wheeze. And as she took a few breaths, the bullet wounds in her belly began to bleed again. She whimpered, though she didn’t wake up.
“Connor?” Ali crawled away.
It made what Maks had to do next easier without an audience judging him. He lifted Violet’s upper body against his left arm, cradling her as gently as he would a child. She wasn’t as warm as she usually was. Her abdominal cavity had become a sieve and was leeching all her body heat.
“Here, moppet,” he murmured. Maks bit into his wrist with his fangs, and being as careful as possible not to hurt her, he tipped her head over his arm.
“What are you doing?” Ali had returned, slumping onto her legs. She must not have found Connor. Maks was sure the big guy was fine and would heal. Roz, he wasn’t so sure about, but that was a worry for a later time. Ali’s confusion, too, was a concern. She seemed more out of it than was healthy.
But Violet wouldn’t last long without immediate intervention.
“She’s dying,” he said, staring into Violet’s pale, bruised face.
“You can’t infect her,” Ali said, all of a sudden less confused. That was good.
“I don’t have a choice.” He pressed a kiss to Violet’s forehead, cherishing her human scent and her soft, vulnerable skin for the last time.
“We’ll take her to a hospital,” Ali argued. “We’ll save her.”
Maks shook his head as Violet gasped weakly. He’d been around enough dying humans to know what one looked and sounded like. “She won’t make it to the hospital.”
“Then we’ll bring in Dr. Burke.” Ali teared up. “If you infect her, she’ll never have another baby.”
He pressed his bleeding wrist to her lips and waited until she swallowed, but Violet’s pulse weakened further, stuttering in its last efforts to keep beating.
“You’re mine,” he whispered to Violet. “I can’t lose you.”
“It’s not what she wants,” Ali lamented, crying openly. “She’ll never forgive you.”
“As long as she’s alive,” he answered, rubbing his blood into her bullet wounds. “Then I’ll be happy. She can hate me forever as long as she’s alive.” He stood with Violet draped like a wet towel in his arms. “I’m getting her to the hospital.”
“Her blood will test positive for vampirism,” Ali reminded him.
“Hopefully not until after surgery.” He crossed to the door, but then paused. “Call Lukas,” he said. “Right now. You’re going to need help. Connor is behind the sofa with a gunshot wound to the chest. Roz is in the kitchen with a concussion and a gut shot. You’re going to need help because I can see you have a concussion too.”
Ali stared, dazed. “Connor?” She glanced toward the sofa.
“Ali,” Maks snapped. “I can’t leave you like this until I know Lukas is on his way. Get out your phone. Call him right now.”
Crawling unsteadily, she withdrew her phone from her back pocket and pushed buttons. Lukas’ growly voice answered through the speakerphone, “Ali?”
“I need you,” she said, nearly on her belly now. “Something bad happened, but I can’t remember. Maks infected Violet. I think Sergei was here.”
“You’re not making any sense…”
“Lukas?” Maks shouted to be heard. “Come to Ali’s suite now. Connor and Roz are down. Ali’s disoriented. I’m taking Violet to the emergency room. Say you understand and you’re on your way.”
After a flicker of hesitation, Lukas said, “I’m running. I’ll be there in five minutes, tops. Tell Roz I’m coming.”
With a nod, Maks opened the door. “Stay here until he arrives.”
Ali wasn’t listening. She’d found Connor and was petting his shoulder and the side of his face.
Turning, Maks jogged for the elevator.
#
Maks bounced in the cheap plastic chair, crossing his left leg over his right, but he was long passed comfortable. After sitting for Violet’s three-hour surgery, her two hours in the recovery room, and then another hour while she rested comfortably in an intensive care room, no matter where or how he sat, he was uncomfortable.
Because her six hours were up.
Through the day, he’d been receiving text updates from Lukas. Dr. Burke had patched up the team. Jackson was fine. No one was too worse for wear, not even Connor. After some rest, Roz was awake and casting healing spells. She’d offered to come to the hospital and cast on Violet, but Maks had declined. Roz needed to rest. And he wanted to be the only person there to explain when Violet woke up.
Maks crossed the opposite leg and watched her sleep, cataloguing everything—her hair color, her porcelain skin, and the length of her shapely legs, but also, the strength of her breathing, her heart rate, and the frequency of finger twitches. He’d infected her with his blood to save her life. He had no doubt what she was and would become. He was just waiting for the exact moment the infection decimated her delicate human system.
Violet hadn’t been able to breathe on her own since he’d carried her into the hospital. The emergency room staff had stabilized and then intubated her. The problem was, she hadn’t come off the machine after surgery, and the doctors, believing Maks was her husband, expressed doubt she ever would.
Profound brain damage brought on by oxygen deprivation.
The last doctor to check on her had said, “Give her time to recover from her injuries. She needs rest, but there is a possibility after crashing twice and being without oxygen for a certain amount of time, that she’ll suffer significant damage. Right now, her biggest concern is infection. If we can keep her healthy for the next few days, she has a better chance.”
The doctor, though, didn’t know what was coming.
#
Violet opened her eyes on a new world. One brighter, sharper, louder, and stinkier than she remembered. She felt invigorated like never before. But the odd thing was, she was in a hospital bed, wearing a thin cotton shift with a plastic tube crammed down her throat. The more nervous she became, the quicker her breaths, and the more the machine messed with her chest. She fisted one hand and slammed it against the bed rail. It creaked and bent under the force.
“I’m right here.” Maks’ face wavered above her. He appeared in agony, as if the worst thing possible had happened, which was difficult to imagine considering all they’d already been through. How much worse could it get?
Strangely, he didn’t look pretty anymore. He looked haggard and drawn, as if every one of his forty-two years
on this earth had caught up to him overnight. He looked scared, grief-stricken, and exhausted.
She tried to ask, “What happened?” But the tube prevented her. Thankfully, her beeping machines must have roused the medical staff because a sweet-smelling lady with soft hands came in and removed the tube.
“Can we have a minute?” Maks asked the doctor.
“Of course.” She smiled.
Violet sat up in bed and faced Maks. “What’s wrong? Why do you look like someone died? Oh, God.” Her stomach dropped. Sergei in their hotel room. Bullets in her belly. His hand around her throat. What had he done to the others? “Did someone die?”
He hesitated to tell her. “I need to get you out of here before they run any more tests or perform any scans.” All of a sudden, he was in a hurry. He tossed a change of clean clothes on the foot of the bed and then shut the door to the room. “Please, get dressed. Put your shoes on.”
She was about to say, “Not until you tell me what happened,” but the expression on his face let her know something was wrong. She trusted him, and if he said they had to leave in a hurry, then they had to leave. She stood and scratched her belly. Tiny, stiff black knots came off her pink flesh and fluttered to the ground.
“Sergei shot me,” she remembered as she dressed. “But I don’t have any gunshot wounds.” She wasn’t stupid. She knew there was only one way she could be shot and immediately heal. But she wanted to hear the words from him. “Sergei choked me,” she continued, tying her shoelaces. “But I’m not dead.”
“Please.” He didn’t touch her, but he gestured for her to pass through the door.
She unhooked the last of the tubing in her arm and turned off the machines so they’d stop beeping and buzzing in her sensitive ears, and then she followed him down a hall, down a flight of stairs, and out a side door mostly used by the cafeteria staff. No one stopped them, and Maks flagged down a taxi on the street in front of the hospital.
Violet felt different. She felt strong, brave, fast. She considered jumping from the car and rolling to her feet. She thought of riding on the hood of the cab like a surfboard. She wondered if she could scale the side of the Luxor pyramid and balance on its tip. Yes, she thought she could. With ease.