“Not dead yet!” came the response from within a tangle of vampires.
That was when she saw the eyes in the wal s, the vampires crouching up on ledges, ready to pounce. She turned just in time to take out two behind her.
Christ, how many of them were there? Then there was no more time to think—her wings made her so vulnerable on the ground that she couldn’t afford to let them get close. Using the blade-bow one-handedly, she began firing the miniature flamethrower with the other. Not so useful a weapon when in flight, but it did a hel of a job in close combat.
Screams, high and shril , fil ed the warehouse as flesh sizzled and charred, the smel nauseatingly akin to a backyard barbeque. And it wasn’t only her and Ransom doing the damage. She glimpsed Venom with the wicked curved knives he liked—where in the blazes had he pul ed those from?—slicing off vampiric heads with that reptilian speed that both repel ed and fascinated her. Blood fountained as he executed a stacked blonde vampire about to claw at his face, spraying his cinnamon skin with ruby red droplets.
“Ransom, look out!” she yel ed as she saw one of the crouchers go for her friend.
Ransom lifted a gun, shot, even as she dril ed one of her blades into the vampire’s skul . The male fel , his body twitching as if he was fighting to rise in spite of the fact his brains were leaking down his temples. But, he was damaged enough that they didn’t have to worry about him for a while.
Fingers, slick and cold on the tip of her wing.
No. Her wings were highly sensitive and she hated having them touched by evil. The urge to spin, to act without thought was almost blinding, but she fought it and instead turned Deacon’s blade-bow backward, calculating the location of the vamp from the scent of honey and marigolds so thick in her nose.
A gurgling sound, fingers spasming then slipping away told her she’d hit her mark. Firing the flamethrower at a vamp who was running toward her in a fucking four-legged lope, she fried the petite brunette midjump before swiveling on her heel to turn the flames on the vampire who’d touched her wing ...
and who was trying to clamp his bloodstained teeth onto her feathers.
When he met her eyes, he smiled. “She wakes.” It was a near-sibilant whisper, his throat almost destroyed by her blade—and stil his eyes, they gleamed with an unholy joy. “She wakes.”
Shaking off the shiver crawling up her spine, Elena said, “Yeah, wel , it’s goodnight for you.” With that, she turned the flamethrower on the sucker.
When she swiveled back around, it was to a scene of carnage . . . with only two other people left upright. Ransom held two smoking big-ass guns, one on either side of his body, his legs spread as he stood checking to see if any of the vamps near him stil breathed. His face was bloody with claw marks, his black T-shirt almost shredded off him, and his hair, having come loose in the struggle, ran a silky black rain down his back.
By the door near where she’d been attacked stood Venom, blades swiveling in his hands, his suit jacket and tie gone, his white shirt splattered with blood. His hair, for once, wasn’t GQ-perfect. Instead, it tumbled over his forehead, and paired with his feral smile, it turned him shockingly attractive in a very disturbing way.
His eyes, slitted and inhuman, met hers at that moment. “I can’t hear any pulses.”
“We’l check one by one to be sure,” she said, chest rising and fal ing in short, sharp breaths like the two men. “This group was far too organized—we don’t want any of them waking up.”
Silently, they did exactly that, covering every inch of the warehouse. “I count fifteen,” Ransom said, when they met in the middle.
“Yeah, that’s what I got,” Venom added. “There’s one outside, too, so sixteen in total.”
Ransom real y looked at the other man for the first time, shook his head, stared again. “Holy hel , your eyes are like a fucking viper’s.”
Venom raised an eyebrow. “You have hair prettier than one of Astaad’s concubines.”
Ransom gave the vampire the finger. Venom grinned.
Certain that al was now wel in the male world, Elena reached into her pocket and pul ed out a spare hair tie, throwing it to Ransom. “I’d say this was impossible if I wasn’t standing in the middle of it. We have what, maybe three rogue vamps in the state in a year?”
“Rogues, yes,” Ransom pointed out, pul ing his hair back in that rough way men had of doing. “Bloodlust? We’d get maybe one that was total y whackjob.”
“The Sire keeps a tight control on his vampires,” Venom said, going down on his haunches to wipe off his bloody blades using the shirt of a fal en vamp.
“This simply shouldn’t have happened.”