He was more than capable of handling himself.
And so were the others fighting with more heart than strength.
He couldn’t spot the Primus anywhere. His Uncle Hiram must’ve hightailed it to safety the instant therians attacked. Slade assumed a khiss as organized as theirs would have Presidential-like procedures for getting their leaders to safety in such an event.
Good thing, too. Eliminating the leader of a khiss would be cutting the head off a raging serpent. Right now, the vampires needed hope. To know they were fighting to protect a worthy cause. For their way of life to rage on.
As Slade’s kill count got higher and higher and he glimpsed groups of therians retreating back to the alley, he thought it was about time to make sure Dylan was safe.
When he reached his studio the door was open, and Ruan and Eve were pacing inside like birds on a live wire.
They rushed him on sight.
Ruan looked like shit. His blonde hair tangled and ratted. His eyes steel gray. Like he’d gone to hell and back since the attack started. “Slade, she’s gone. They’ve taken her. They’ve taken Dylan.”
“Where? Who’s taken her?” He was already backtracking to the great room, Ruan hot on his heels.
“A therian came in. He looked like you. Just like you. We thought you were hurt. Damn it, he grabbed her, Slade. And then she went with him.”
“Why the hell didn’t you do something? I trusted you! How could you let her go without a fight? Without dying first?”
Ruan struggled to keep up with Slade’s demanding pace. ”I didn’t let her. I fought him, but he was just too damn strong. And she wanted to go. Said something about Meridian wanting it that way.”
“Jesus . . .” Slade couldn’t believe this was happening. He shouldn’t have left her side. This was entirely his fault. And now Dylan was in harm’s way, believing Meridian’s master plan somehow deemed it so. “Did he say where they’re taking her?”
Ruan shoved his hands through his hair. “No.”
“Lot of help you are.”
“Wait.” Ruan stopped. “The therian said to follow your nose home.”
Fire erupted in Slade’s stomach. When he spoke, it was a guttural hiss more than a name. “Moses.”
When Dylan finally came to, she was sitting in some sort of office. Could’ve been in a real estate or insurance building. Cherrywood furniture lined the room. Certificates and licenses in plaques decorated the walls. And beyond the open door, through a large open space, she could see a gleaming red sign: EXIT.
She swallowed down the jagged knot in her throat and leaned over the arm of a leatherback chair to search for her captor. He had to be here somewhere. All she needed was a few seconds and a surge of strength and a mad dash. She’d be in the clear.
Her ankles were tied together with cinch-ties, her hands roped behind the chair. Tugging them back and forth, testing their hold, Dylan searched through the dark room.
“You can pull at those ties all you want,” a voice said flatly. “It’s not going to do a damn thing.”
Squinting into the black, Dylan made out the rough form of a man standing just outside the doorway. Even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew he was staring right at her.
“Slade’s not coming,” she said, trying to hide the fear in her voice. “You might as well kill me now and get it over with.”
“Aww, well, listen to you trying to be brave. You sound like a Chihuahua yapping at a pit bull. Just you wait and see . . . he’ll come for you soon enough. When he does, I’ll be waiting.”
She yanked on her hands some more. “I don’t understand. It’s not him you want anyway. It’s me. I’m the one who is supposed to end the war. It’s me that’s referred to in the scrolls. Why are you wasting your time with him?”
“When you’ve lived as long as I have, it’s the little things in life that make you happy. Right about now, Slade’s misery ranks up there near the top of my dream sheet. If I can kill you both and put this whole peace nonsense to rest at the same time, why not?”
“Because it’d make you immoral. Corrupt. Twisted.” She would’ve thrown in the foul kitchen sink, but her mouth was too dry to carry on. It felt like she’d been chomping on cotton for the last hour.
As he came into the office, moonlight shone upon his face. At first glance he was a spitting-image of Slade. Sharp angles of his face. Skull-trim cut. Caramel skin.
Dylan might’ve missed the discrepancies had she not known him so well. Slade’s eyes were coal black, not fire red. And now, even in his vampire form, Slade had that sexy black marking etched along his shoulder. This therian had neither of those things.
“If you think you’re the first person to have shown me my true reflection, you’re wrong, little girl.” He bent down over the chair. “You’ve gotten yourself into a game of cat and mouse that you can’t rationalize your way out of. You don’t insult me in the least with your sharp tongue and dirty looks. I’ve risen to a position of power because I’m immoral. Because I’m corrupt.” He spit onto her face with each breathy word. “Because I’m twisted. And my history with Slade goes way back. I can hardly expect you to understand that.”
“Who are you?” she choked out.
He smiled. It was the same wide grin she’d fallen in love with. Only the passion behind his eyes was pure evil. “I’m Moses. . . . Slade’s Sheik. After tonight . . . after I finish the assignment he declined . . . I’ll take his body, his life, his status as a rogue Assassin and disappear forever. I’ll rid the planet of you parasites one at a time . . . only this time it’ll be by the pulse of my finger instead of the whip of my mouth.”
Shaking her head, she pulled harder and harder on her hands. Kicked her feet. Anything to get out of this chair. “Why Slade?”
“Well, it’s not for his good looks, that’s for sure. Thanks to you and finding your damn true blood source, there isn’t going to be much therian movement in Crimson Bay. After I’ve rallied the therians together and failed, they’ll dethrone me for sure. But if I’m Slade . . . well, I think they’ll always find work for an Assassin on the run with nothing to lose. He even gets the benefit of sneaking in and sneaking out without tasting a drop of battle. To top it all off, he gets to socialize with the likes of you.”
He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She shied away like his hand was on fire.
“You’re a traitorous kind, you know that?” he seethed. “Doesn’t take much before you turn on each other. I hardly had to twist Savage’s arm at all. He turned to the shadows with no more than a promise of a war that was already on the horizon. That was the easiest thing I’ve had to do in my three hundred years on this earth. How a slimy, weak-spined leech like you ever sucked in an Assassin like Slade, I’ll never know. . . .”
He trailed a finger down her collarbone, along her shoulder, dipping down into the cleavage of her blood-stained gown. “Maybe if I slow down a bit and sample some of what you have to offer, I can gain some insight.”
Dylan jerked down, nipping at his hand with her fangs.
“You bitch!” He backhanded her right across the face.
Her cheek instantly swelled. Stung like she’d been pierced by a thousand bees. Warm drops of blood trickled down her face where his ring sliced into her skin.
When she looked up at him, he was holding his hand against his chest, examining the puncture wound from her bite. He lifted his hand to smack her once more. “I should kill you now, you whore!”
She didn’t look away as a lone tear fell down her cheek. Instead, she swallowed hard and stared right into his face.
“How you were ever chosen to be the one who’ll bear the next Primus, I’ll never know. You’re nothing but a—”
His words cut off as the window behind the chair shattered into a thousand pieces. He ducked beneath the desk, but not before the rifle’s bullet shot through the hand he’d smacked her with.
Slade hunched over the scope of the sniper rifle and breathed in and out
. In again. Two of Moses’s guards, hearing the gunshot, scurried inside to check on their Sheik. Three from the back alley scanned the sides for movement.
That made five plus Moses.
He slid a handful of bullets into the magazine and laid low, watching Dylan cower in fear.
When the two therians bolted into the office, Slade fired off one round for each of them, as quick as a serpent strike. The special-branded silver bullets pierced their hearts and came out the other side, blasting through the EXIT sign across the room.
They fell back, disappearing into the dark.
Slade reloaded seamlessly. The rifle was an extension of his body. No less a part than his brain or heart.
He set up his sights again . . . relaxed his breathing . . . calmed his pulse.
He tried not to focus on the fact that this scenario was nearly identical to the one a hundred years before. Fog plumed between the buildings, making it difficult to see things with any kind of clarity. Rain was falling steadily and picking up. Dark skies pressed heavily on the rooftops, creating an ominous landscape that’d make the bravest of the species shudder. But it wasn’t the fog or the rain or the dark making Slade second-guess his natural instincts like Moses wanted so badly to believe—it was the pressure of his mark and the precision with which he needed to execute it.
This time wouldn’t be like the last, Slade vowed. No vampire would die by the squeeze of his finger and the silver of his bullet. He’d killed too many innocent vamps that night who were simply trying to escape the fiery wrath of his rifle.
Slade tried to pretend the one who got away all those years ago—the Primus with the therian marking—didn’t plague him. But he couldn’t deny how it altered his thoughts now.
This time he wouldn’t give undeserving creatures of the night the upper hand by hesitating. And he wouldn’t fail.
The stakes were too high.
Instead of killing his natural enemy, he was lining up his Sheik in his sights. The ramifications of the hit would reverberate throughout the therian world, shaking current beliefs about loyalty and duty to the core. Despite that, Slade never felt surer about where his loyalty and duty rested.
His loyalty was pledged to Dylan. His duty was to keep her safe at all costs. Now the most precious treasure in the world was in therian hands, in harm’s way. As long as Dylan stayed put in that office chair, she’d be fine.
Mind and intentions clear, Slade surveyed the alley, the street, the interior.
Movement on the floor in front of the desk caught his eye. It had to be Moses, crawling for freedom. The coward.
Tilting his head over the scope, Slade stretched out his finger. Covered the trigger . . . and fired. Right through the fucker’s shoulder.
The therian howled, flipped onto his back, squirmed back into the office under the protection of the solid-wood desk. Slade had it in his right mind to shoot through the wood, had Dylan not been sitting so close.
As three therians entered through the back door, storming into sight, Slade popped off one round for each of them. Two met their blood-pumping marks with precision. The other spun the therian around. Injured him but didn’t take him out. He crouched low, flickering . . . changing.
What emerged from the dark, charging into the office was a silky black jaguar. Its jaws hung open wide, its paws striking forcefully against the tile floor. And it was heading right for Dylan.
Another round slid into the chamber as Slade eyed his target . . . and waited. As the jaguar leapt onto the table, Slade heard Dylan scream. She buried her head into her shoulder, shielding herself from the black cat’s attack. As it reared up, Slade took the golden opportunity, shooting it in the center of its wide chest. Right into its heart.
When Dylan glanced up at him through the window, he saw her for the first time with his own eyes instead of through the scope. The red mark on her cheek had bloomed into a bright crimson knot. The loud crack of gunfire was nothing compared to the bursting of his heart.
From behind her a large figure loomed closer. By the time Slade ducked back down onto his rifle and aimed ready, Dylan was held captive in the therian’s arms. It was a good thing Slade had already fired on his hand and shoulder. That meant he only had the left side of the bastard’s body to worry about—and it made his hold on Dylan weaker by half.
As he lined up the therian in his scope, he realized it looked a hell of a lot like him. Wait . . . it was him? Holy hell. Looking at his mean mug in the mirror every morning was nothing like peering at it now. It was beyond surreal. Watching his grimace tighten and snarl.
Knife to her throat, eyes wild with desperation, Moses backed out of the office, using Dylan’s body as a shield.
Slade tried his best to soothe the adrenaline spiking through his nerves. He lined Moses up in his scope. Again.
The next few seconds bounced between a clear, solid shot and hitting Dylan by mistake. They were fading fast into the belly of Mirage. There wouldn’t be many moments left before Moses would take her head, then bolt out the back door and be gone forever.
Without second guessing, without hesitation, Slade set his target between Moses’s eyes and prayed all that last-shift garbage was true.
He fired.
The bullet struck true, right smack-dab in Moses’s forehead. He toppled back from the blunt force of the hit, dragging Dylan down as he fell flat to the floor.
Her scream died out with a gasp. Was she hit? Did the bullet shatter and glance off her?
“Damn it.” Slade ditched the gun and hauled ass to the front door of the club. He thrust-kicked the door down and burst inside. He strode over the four lifeless, flickering bodies with no regard. Until he came to Moses.
Blood and mangled flesh had had a field day on his face, making him nearly unrecognizable.
As Slade stepped over him to get to Dylan, Moses grabbed his ankle. A low gurgle spewed from his throat.
Slade spun around, twisted his ankle free, and unsheathed the knife from his boot. He stood over Moses’s body, the dagger poised to strike his heart.
“You’ll die for what you’ve done, you son of a bitch,” Slade hissed.
“You were . . .” Moses choked out. “. . . just as I thought you’d be . . .”
“How’s that? Dead sexy?”
“I’d hoped for the dead part, you know . . .” He coughed again, the bullet hole in his forehead bubbling red and black ooze. “You fought . . . you sacrificed . . . but for them . . . it should’ve been us. We could’ve had all the power, don’t you see? Now they’re fighting . . . they’ll rise again.” He choked on his own vomit. “Because of you . . . we’ve failed . . . I’ve failed.”
“Above all else, the last part is what you’ll be remembered for.”
“You as well,” Moses hissed.
“No, I’ll be a legend as you promised from the start . . .” Slade held the dagger high, “. . . but it will be for killing you—my greatest mark.”
He drove the blade deep into Moses’s heart. Then he thanked the Lord above that Moses had expended his last shift when he did. He wouldn’t be able to escape the fires of hell now.
With a hiss and smoke routine Slade had seen a hundred times before, Moses disintegrated into a pile of ash that rose into the air. A tiny, slow-spinning tornado formed from his remains before dissipating into the club.
Dylan was sprawled out on the floor, her long neck kinked at an awkward angle. Blood soaked her blue gown to a deep burgundy. Was it her blood? Moses’s? God, if it was hers he’d forever walk this earth with a mark of shame.
Slade slipped his arm behind her neck and pulled her up to sitting. Brushing her curls out of her face, he whispered, “Dylan, baby, can you hear me?”
He didn’t see any wound or scratches . . .
Her eyelids fluttered. It matched the feeling in his heart as a curl turned up at her lips.
He shook her a little and brushed a hand lightly down her cheek. “Dylan, if you’re playing with me, I’m going to have a coronary
. My heart can’t take games right now . . . especially when it comes to losing you.”
She opened her eyes and smiled a thousand-watt smile.
She couldn’t have known how his past replayed in his head over and over again. How he’d hesitated in pulling the trigger all those years ago and lost his footing as an Assassin. How he’d had to rebuild his life over again from the ground up. And just now, when he’d struck without regard, without thinking, he almost lost the thing most dear to his heart. He realized there would’ve been no rebuilding his life if he’d lost her.
She was his life.
“Thank God,” he sighed, cradling her against him. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine.” She whimpered, melting into his arms. “Everything’s fine now . . . you came for me . . . I told Ruan not to let you come.”
“I didn’t know if you’d still be here or what kind of shape you’d be in. I don’t know what I would’ve done if something happened to you.”
“What took you so long, anyway?”
He pulled back. After seeing the playfulness of her smile and the light in her eyes he cupped her face in his hands, pulled her down, and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. “Next time you need me, you’ll only have to look beside you.”
“Forever?”
He shook his head. Kissed her slowly on each cheek before finding his way to her mouth. “No, not forever. I’m thinking longer than that.”
Her mouth quirked. Her eyes softened. “Then I better clue you in so you know what you’re signing up for. If you thought I was obsessed with streamlining ReVamp before, just wait until I get a hold of a solid sample of Eve’s blood. You sure you want to put up with me through all the madness?”
“Only if you’ll bear with my uncontrollable desire to drag you to bed every chance I get.” He scoped her into his arms and laid her head against his shoulder. For the first time in his life, he was fully aware his therian marking could be seen beneath the thin white of his shirt—but he didn’t care.
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