Radomir grinned, his eerie gaze sweeping the room, landing on Mikhail, then locking back with Friedrich.
“Not even your Bloodguard can help you now, Your Grace.”
He glanced at his man holding Denny, and with an almost imperceptible nod, he crashed through the glass window, taking Izzy with him. In the same second, the scraggly vampire stabbed his dagger straight into Denny’s chest, the sweet-faced boy’s brown eyes going wide then glassy before he’d even hit the ground.
Brenna’s blood-chilling scream filled the room as she leaped for her fallen boy. The killer had already blurred after his master.
“Stay with them!” Friedrich yelled at Grant, falling to the floor to pull Denny’s limp body into his arms.
Mikhail followed, speeding into the night, rent with screams and clanging metal and the overpowering smell of black smoke. Not just wood smoke but the distinct foul scent of burning flesh. That’s when Mikhail realized this wasn’t an attack on Brennalyn’s home. This was a full-scale attack on the Black Lily. Grant was fast on the heels of Radomir, and Mikhail on the child killer.
Catching his prey as Mikhail leaped a snow-covered log, they tumbled to a stop, once more with Mikhail straddling his chest. He didn’t waste time but slit his carotid artery, finding some overwhelming satisfaction in the sight of his blood spilling onto the white snow.
“Rot in hell, you fucking bastard.”
He laughed on a gurgle. “You shouldn’t’ve taken the princess, Cap’n.” He grinned, mouth bubbling his own blood. “She wasn’t yours to take.”
Icy fear sliced down his spine like the reaper’s blade. He raised his dagger and with a powerful force hacked once, then twice, the killer’s head rolling away.
Mina.
He fled back toward the cottage with horror on his heart, sending up a brief prayer to the stars if anyone was listening on this cold, black night.
Chapter Sixteen
Screams and cries filled the night. Mina huddled behind the bed gripping her dagger, sensing the fear and turmoil taking place in Brennalyn’s cottage, and even farther off. In the distance, she sensed rage filling the air. The furious bellows of men at arms, engaged in a battle for blood. The howl of a hart wolf broke through the din of death, a haunting call to their pack. The weight of dark, sinister emotions threatened to cripple her.
Then someone rattled the doorknob. She didn’t call out. Mikhail would’ve let himself be known.
“Yasha! Bring your ax,” barked a commanding voice. “She’s in there. I can smell her.”
Then the fear was her own, spiking adrenaline through her body, igniting her she-beast to the forefront.
Crack. Crack.
The wood around the door splintered. The frame disintegrated under the vicious blows of the vampire named Yasha on the other side.
Crack.
Mina refused to be dragged out like some defenseless lamb. They knew she was here.
Crack.
Someone’s boot kicked the fractured door in. But before anyone stepped in, the thumping sounds of combat echoed into the chamber. Grunts and metal on metal and bones crunching and blood spilling. There were more than two or three men fighting outside the cottage. Mina could make out the thrumming of ten heartbeats. Then nine…then six…five…and finally two.
The panting of the victors drew closer. Mina held her ground, her vampire claws sliding out of her fingertips for the very first time. She recalled Mikhail’s teachings, where to thrust the dagger in easiest, as they sidled through the doorway.
The officer wearing Queen Morgrid’s Legionnaire colors strode confidently into the room, a scarlet-stained short sword in one hand. Then a burly beast of a man in commoner’s clothes entered, eyes as black as the devil’s heart, his ax in hand.
“There now, Your Highness,” crooned the officer, holding up his hands in a calming manner. “Best come easy, sweetling.”
As they crossed the fireplace, now only a few feet separating them, the officer stopped and inhaled deep.
“Oh, my.” His blue eyes dilated, his fangs elongated more, thickening his speech. “Seems our little princess has been naughty.” He shook a finger at her like she was a child. “Tsk, tsk. I don’t believe King Dominik will like that at all.”
The beast called Yasha grunted, his nostrils flaring. Mina knew sanguine furorem made men feral. Not just like animals, but like crazed monsters. Craving blood above all, but their primal instincts to dominate rode parallel to the bloodlust. At this moment, Mina’s empathic senses felt the air changing around the ax-wielding creature.
His black gaze shifted down her body in a caress of menace. His emotions were a blistering concoction of malice, hunger, hatred, and sinister lust.
“Yasha!” The officer put his hand to the creature’s chest. “Wait outside. I’ll handle her.”
Yasha didn’t move as the officer advanced. Mina readied herself. No way would she be taken without a fight. She hissed a warning at them both.
The officer smiled one second before he was on her.
…
Mikhail smelled the pungent blood before her small cabin came into view. Bodies lay in the snow outside her shattered door. The two closest to the entry caused Mikhail’s heart to stutter, his stomach clenching in grief. Not now.
Someone struggled inside. He flashed over the bodies and into the dark room. A Legionnaire lay dead on the floor, Mina’s emerald-studded hilt jutting out beneath his chin.
Then Mikhail’s entire body lit into scorching rage. A giant vampire pinned Mina down, one hand on her throat, the other ripping at her skirt, trying to subdue her struggling body. In swift succession, Mikhail lifted the ax on the floor, gripped the bastard by the hair, lofted him off Mina and onto his back, then started chopping.
The head rolled off in four hacks, tongue lolling, but it wasn’t enough. Mikhail aimed where the beast’s heart lay. It might still be beating. He wanted it stopped. He wanted this foul fucking beast to be nothing but an unrecognizable mass of mutilated flesh and bone.
On what must have been the twentieth upward swing, he heard her call his name.
Heaving, he turned. She stood straight and tall, her dress bloody and torn, starlike eyes filled with pain but bright and burning. He dropped the ax and swept her into his arms, fearing she might still be swept away from him.
“Are you hurt?” he rasped. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms tight around his neck, squeezing him as hard as he was.
A mournful wail echoed on a sob from Brenna’s cottage. Mina gasped and pushed back.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Come on.” Taking her hand, he guided her out the door.