With a screech that nearly busted Santiago’s eardrum, Nefri launched herself toward Styx, her power exploding through the room to send them tumbling to the floor.
Fighting against pulses of frigid energy that threatened to crush him, Santiago forced himself back to his feet. Step by painful step he inched forward, his heart clenched with fear as Styx struggled to hold off the vampire lost in her bloodlust.
Nefri went for his neck, her fangs instead sinking into the Anasso’s forearm, which he raised to block her. His other hand shot out, gripping her lower face as he prepared to crush her jaws.
“Styx,” Santiago called. “Don’t hurt her.”
The king turned his head to regard him with a furious disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”
“If you damage Nefri the creature will simply take control of you, then we’ll never stop it,” he warned.
Nefri’s power was off the charts.
Styx, however, had gained a connection to thousands of vampires who called him their Anasso. If the spirit’s infection could be transferred through his bond to his people . . . mierda.
Perhaps following his line of reasoning, Styx strained to contain the rabid vampire trying to chew her way through his arm, shifting his attention to Roke and the witch, who were kneeling next to the safe.
“Sally,” he commanded.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.”
The pretty witch wrinkled her nose as she rose to her feet, reaching into the safe to pull out a book.
Or at least, he thought it was a book.
There was a hazy, insubstantial quality to it, as if it weren’t entirely solid.
Typical.
Was anything what it seemed to be anymore?
Carefully she walked forward, an anxious Roke hovering next to her.
It was only as the witch neared Nefri that Santiago realized the fierce power that had been pulsing through the room had abruptly diminished.
Was Nefri so consumed by her bloodlust that the spirit had lost control of her?
Or was the approaching book draining its powers?
He had his answer when Nefri abruptly turned, her mouth bloody and her eyes glowing.
“No,” she snarled, headed straight for the witch.
With a roar, Roke was shoving Sally behind him and meeting Nefri’s charge.
“Dammit,” Styx muttered, diving forward to grab Nefri with his one good arm. His other was a mangled mess. “Santiago, help me.”
Santiago instantly moved to wrap his arms around Nefri, realizing it was going to be impossible to convince Roke not to do his best to kill Nefri.
The male vampire’s mate was in danger.
There was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect her.
Just as there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect Nefri.
Trapping her arms against her slender body while Styx looped his arm around her waist, they pulled her away from the infuriated Roke.
It was a struggle, but the fact that they’d managed to contain Nefri at all was yet another sign that the spirit’s resources were being rapidly drained.
“Sally, finish this,” Styx commanded between clenched teeth.
The witch tried to step past her bristling mate only to be halted when he grabbed her arm and growled low in his throat.
“Roke,” she murmured, her expression pleading. “You have to let me go.”
He bared his fangs, any sanity lost beneath the primitive instinct to protect his mate. “No.”
“We have to end this now,” she said softly.
“She’s right,” a female voice said as a jolt of electric energy penetrated, and then smothered, the power surging from the vampires.
No one had to turn to know who had so unexpectedly crashed the party.
Siljar was the only one who could make such a spectacular entrance and overwhelm even the most dominant vampires.
Slowly the tiny demon moved to stand at Sally’s side, her black almond eyes unblinking and her heart-shaped face somber. Wearing her traditional white robe and her silver hair pulled into a braid, she had the regal bearing of a queen.
“Let her go, vampire,” she commanded.
“Shit.”
With a glare that should have made the Oracle spontaneously combust, Roke grudgingly released his hold on the witch. Even lost in primordial instincts, a demon understood there was no fighting one of the Commission.
“I’ll be fine.” Lifting her hand, Sally gently touched his cheek before turning back to Nefri with a bleak resolution.
As expected, Nefri went wild as the witch moved forward.
Styx cursed, grunting as one of Nefri’s arms came free so she could rake her claws down his face.
“Dammit, Santiago, hold on to her.”
Santiago’s knee shattered beneath the impact of Nefri’s kick, and a rib cracked from the swinging elbow.
“I’m trying,” he muttered, regaining control of her arms only to have her jerk her head backward to bust Styx’s nose.
“Try harder,” the king gritted, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
Together they slowly halted her struggles, her screams of frustration becoming whimpers of fear as Sally pressed the book against her stomach.
“If I die, she dies,” the spirit warned, the glowing gaze turning toward Santiago. “Do you hear me, Santiago? This host will die just as Gaius did.”