The Darkest Kiss

Chapter 10

That was a threat even Jack would be proud of,” Rhoan commented, as we climbed back into his car. “Looks like he’s going to make a proper guardian of you yet.”

“Bite it, brother.” I didn’t even want to contemplate actually having to back up my words if Vinny decided to make trouble for us all.

“Where to next?” Quinn asked, as he started up the car and drove off.

“Beechworth, obviously,” Rhoan said, then glanced at me. “If you believe what she said was the truth.”

“I do. You want to ring Jack, and see if he can get us an address? And ask if he’s had any luck with those names in Liander’s photograph. I’ll give the cow a call, and see if she can patch me through to the guy who used to be the cop there.”

“You know,” Quinn said conversationally, “for a woman who didn’t want to be a guardian, you’re sure doing a whole lot of guardian-type organizing.”

“You can bite it, too, vampire.”

“Oh, I have, and it tastes divine.”

A smile tugged at my lips. “How about you concentrate on driving, seeing as we’re going so fast?”

“Ah, but I’m old, and with age comes versatility. I can now manage to do two things at once. As I believe I demonstrated earlier this evening.” He raised an eyebrow as he glanced at me. “You enjoy it, don’t you?”

I smiled. “Sex? Vampire bites? Yes to both.”

“You know what I mean.”

I sighed. “Yes. There are still lines I won’t cross, but I can’t not do this job anymore. The thrill of the chase is highly addictive, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, yes,” Quinn said softly. “It can be very addictive.”

The odd note in his lilting tones caught my attention. “You were a cop sometime in the past?”

“I was a cazador.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And that is?”

“Cazadors are vampire enforcers. They were policing the vampire world for the old ones long before the Directorate ever came into existence.”

“I’ve heard tales of them,” Rhoan said, with the phone to his ear. “From what I understood, not all of them were on the side of the angels.”

“Unfortunately, that is true.” Quinn shrugged lightly. “It is very difficult not to become addicted to the kill rather than the hunt if you do it for a long time. Especially if you’re a vampire. That’s why cazadors are now employed for no more than a couple of decades. The risks of addiction are far less that way.”

So they still had them? Meaning there were worse psychos out there than what the Directorate dealt with? That was a scary thought. “Even if they are only doing the job for a few decades, wouldn’t the craving to kill still become a problem?”

“Vampires learn very early on in their rebirth to control their darker desires. It generally takes a lot of time—and bloodshed—to break that training.”

I studied him for a moment, seeing the darkness beneath his serene expression. Seeing the sorrow. Once it would have worried me to know what he was feeling, but not now. Maybe I’d grown up. Maybe I was simply more accepting of the gifts and intuitions that were mine. After all, even if they now kept me in this job, they also helped me survive it. “Who did you kill?”

He didn’t meet my gaze. “Someone who didn’t deserve to die.” He hesitated, then added softly, “Someone I loved.”

“Then she had no contract out on her?”

“No. But she was good friends with someone whose house was slated to be cleaned.” He glanced at me then, and the brief bleakness in his eyes left me in no doubt that the cleansing had been total—every man, woman, and child. “She was at their house when I went in there to fulfill the contract. I didn’t even see her—didn’t even realize what I’d done until afterward.”

“That’s when you gave up life as a cazador?”

He nodded. “When I came out of the killing haze, there I was, covered in her blood, with her broken body at my feet.” In his dark gaze I saw echoes of a pain that still wasn’t healed, even though I suspected this had all happened a very long time ago. “I swore to never again kill on somebody’s order. It is a vow I have kept to this day.”

Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t killed. I’d seen him do it more than once, and had no doubt that, even after that event, he had a history littered with bodies. He was a very old vampire, after all, and none of them were saints.

Even the ones who were descended from angels.

“How long were you a cazador?”

“Two hundred years.” A humorless smile touched his lips. “I was very good at it.”

“After two hundred years, you’d expect nothing less than expertise.” I hesitated, then asked, “So how long ago was all this?”

“I was a little over three hundred when I started.”

So it was over seven hundred years ago that he quit. “Three hundred years was a decent age for a vampire to reach back then, wasn’t it?”

“There have always been older ones, but yes, the past was a bloody place to survive.” He grimaced slightly. “Humanity might not have had the numbers that it has today, but it had a whole lot more superstition, and a tradition of killing anything it didn’t understand.”

“So why weren’t the old ones cazadors? I would have thought the older the vampire, the better cazador they’d make.”

“True. But also, the older you get, the more you appreciate the years and your life.” His smile regained some warmth, and amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Like all Hollywood and literary myths, the one about old vampires mourning what they are or regretting their long existence has very little to do with reality.”

“And yet there must be some who do kill themselves, because in most myths there lies a kernel of truth.” Even the worst of the werewolf myths had the occasional grain of truth behind them. Besides, he himself had once believed that an old friend had walked out into the sunshine because a love affair had gone horribly wrong.

Of course, that had turned out to be little more than a cover story spread by a madman intent on creating an army of clones, but why would he have even believed it if it had never actually happened before?

“Indeed it does happen, but rarely.” He glanced at me, the warmth in his eyes growing stronger. “And before you ask, no, I have never loved anyone that much. Even if I did, I doubt I would contemplate such a thing.”

“Because you never give all of yourself to one person?”

“Because I love life too much.” He gave me an amused look. “And you’re a fine one to talk about never giving all of yourself to one person.”

“Hey, I tried. Not my fault it didn’t work out.” Not my fault he’d made demands that were just impossible for me to obey—even if I had been able to. “Besides, I will commit when my soul mate finally decides to make his appearance. Until then, I’ll just have to muddle along as I am.”

“Okay,” Rhoan said from the backseat. “Enough chitchat. Jack says eight of those fifteen names have gone missing in the last six hours. There were witnesses to two of the kidnappings, and both gave descriptions matching Aron Young. One of them also gave a description of the vehicle—a white van that matches the plate number you asked Jack to trace earlier. Jack’s currently trying to patch into the satellites to track him.”

I twisted around to look at him. “So the eight were definitely taken, not killed?”

“Yes.” Hope had dawned brighter in his eyes. “And we’ve got an address for the house he lived in at Beechworth. Apparently, it’s just outside the town itself.”

“No indication as to the current owners and whether it’s occupied?” Quinn asked.

“The current owners have no relationship to Young, apparently. He’s tried ringing the listed number, but there’s no answer.”

“Young wouldn’t be up there yet, anyway.” After all, he’d only taken Liander little more than an hour ago. “Besides, there’s no guarantee that is where he’s going.”

“We’d better hope it is, because otherwise Liander’s a dead man.”

“Give him more credit than that,” Quinn said softly. “He’s a fighter, and he has something worth fighting for. You.”

Rhoan gave a soft, derisive laugh. “He might have decided otherwise after my stupid behavior tonight.”

“Well, with any sort of luck, you’ll get the chance to fix that.” I gave him a dark look and added, “And you had better.”

His smile was wan, but there nevertheless. “It’s like that old cliché says—you never know what you’ve got until you almost lose it.”

“Just make sure you tell Liander that when we finally rescue him.”

“I intend to, trust me.” He blew out a breath that didn’t seem to do a whole lot to ease the tension still evident in his body.

I resisted the urge to say “you’d better,” and asked, “I don’t suppose Jack found the files for Young’s disappearance?”

Rhoan snorted softly. “Apparently it’s regular procedure for regional police offices to purge computer files after twenty years. They have a hard-copy record, but it’s still being found.”

“Just as well we can go straight to the source, then.” I dragged my phone out of my pocket and pressed the button to ring the Directorate. “Has Jack got any other information about the house Young used to live in?”

“He’s going through the council records for house approvals. He’ll let us know if he finds site or floor plans.”

“What can I do for you, Riley?” Sal said.

I shoved the phone to my ear, and said, “I need to be put through to a Jerry Mayberry. He used to be the local police officer up in Beechworth. He’s retired, but apparently he’s still living up there.”

“Hang on, and I’ll see what I can do.” She put me on hold, and tinny elevator music blasted me. I winced and shifted the phone away from my ear.

“How is the cop going to help us?” Rhoan asked.

I glanced around at him. “He was the cop on duty when Aron Young disappeared. He might be able to tell us a little more than what was reported in the papers.”

Sal came back online. “Okay, I found an address and a phone number. You want me to patch you through now?”

“Yes. Thanks, Sal.”

“Hang on, then.” I went back on hold for a second, then there was a click, and the phone was ringing.

And ringing.

Come on, come on, I thought, then glanced at the clock and realized I was actually ringing at an ungodly hour. The poor man was probably tucked up nice and warm in his bed.

Eventually a gruff voice said, “Hello?”

“Is this former sergeant Jerry Mayberry, from the Beechworth Police Station?”

“That would be me.”

“Mr. Mayberry, it’s Riley Jenson, from the Directorate. We’re investigating several murders that appear to be linked to an old case of yours, and I was wondering if you could help me with some details.”

“I’ll try, but my memory is not as sharp as it used to be.” He hesitated. “The Directorate, you say? Which section?”

“Guardian division, Mr. Mayberry.”

“Martin Bass still in charge there?”

I smiled. There was nothing wrong with this man’s mind. Nor, I suspected, his memory. “There’s no Martin Bass working in the guardian division, sir. Jack Parnell has been in charge for the last eight years or so.”

“Ah, yes.” His tone softened a little. “What case we talking about?”

“Aron Young’s disappearance.”

“Ah. That was a strange one.”

“In what way, Mr. Mayberry?”

“We had evidence of rope marks on a tree limb, we had blood splatters we believe came from the victim, and we’re sure he was killed. But we never found a body and none of the kids would talk.”

“But you think they knew something?”

“Oh, yeah. Half of them were drinking or taking drugs within weeks of Young’s disappearance.”

“How many kids we talking about?”

“Seven. They were good kids at heart, but a little wild. They tended to egg each other on when in a group situation.”

And that was when a lot of bad things had happened. Peer pressure could be an incredibly powerful thing, especially when you were a teenager and trying too hard to fit in. As I suspected Young might have been. “What do you think might have happened?”

“Probably an initiation gone wrong. We had a gang problem at the time—most of the kids were in one, except for a couple of the wolf cubs. These seven represented the rowdiest of them.”

“So initiations were common, as well?”

“Hell, yeah. Usually it was something simple like stealing a street sign or getting their head flushed down the toilet, but Harvey’s mob believed in testing the strength and commitment of their inductees.”

“How?”

“We had one kid crack his head open with a rock. Apparently he’d been told to hold it above his head for several hours—starting at noon, in midsummer.”

“They sound like they were a bunch of charmers.” And if that was a sample of their stunts, then it wasn’t hard to imagine them slipping into more testing—and more dangerous tasks. “Who’s this Harvey you mentioned?”

“He was the gang’s leader. A real tough nut, with a mean streak a mile wide. He definitely didn’t have a heart of gold.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was found in the bush not far from where Aron Young was last seen. He’d been dead a few days by the time his body was discovered and the animals had gotten to him. His guts had been eaten away.”

A chill ran through me. Bhutas fed on the intestines of the dead, and it seemed a little too coincidental that the man in charge of the gang just happened to be found that way. So why didn’t he kill Denny back then? Or Ivan? Or even Cherry Barnes? Why wait until now?

“What did the coroner say?”

“There was a large contusion on the side of his head, but there was no indication of a struggle or other injuries. The coroner said he probably slipped and smacked his head open, and died as a result of blood loss and exposure.”

And I was betting the blood loss had more to do with his guts being munched on than any head wound. “Time of death?”

“Ten o’clock, give or take an hour.”

Bhutas could walk in daylight, so it definitely wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Young was behind Harvey’s death. “How soon after Harvey’s death did Young’s parents move out of town?”

“You’re not thinking they were involved, are you?”

“No. Just curious.”

He paused, and in the background a kettle whistled. “It wouldn’t have been more than a week or so afterward that their house went up for sale. We did question them, by the way, before we got the coroner’s report. They both had watertight alibis for the day of his death.”

Of that I had no doubt. It was their son who wouldn’t have, I bet.

So were they responsible for stopping Young’s rampage before he could even fully begin it? Was he the reason behind their sudden decision to move? “Where exactly was Harvey’s body found? We may need to go up there and have a look at the area.”

“We didn’t miss anything.” His voice had sharpened slightly.

“I’m not saying you did, Mr. Mayberry. We just have new evidence about Young’s disappearance, and it may help us understand it better if we see the area.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding mollified. “He was found in Historical Park, near where the gang used to meet. It was a clearing surrounded by granite outcrops and black cypress, which made it something of a natural amphitheater.”

“You can’t give me anything more direct than that?”

“Well, it was past the old powder magazine building, down near Spring Creek. You’ll know it when you see it.”

Great. We could be wandering around for hours. Which we didn’t have. “There’s nothing else you can tell us about the case? Any odd tidbit that might not have made the report but instinct said might be related?”

He hesitated. “Well, there were two kids I swear were witnesses—”

Witnesses. Puzzle pieces suddenly began clicking into place. “Not Jake Cowden and Ivan Lang?”

“The very ones. Like the wolf cubs, they tended to be loners, but they often used to sneak off and spy on the gangs. Cowden used to e-mail me photographs every now and again, which were often quite helpful when we were investigating minor incidents.”

“Did he e-mail you anything about Young?”

“No, but he reported his camera missing the next day, and he was sporting quite a shiner. Ivan looked pretty messed up, too.”

“But they never talked?”

“Refused to. Cowden started drinking not long after that, though.”

“What about Cherry Barnes?”

He snorted. “That one was more trouble than she was worth.”

“In what way?”

“She was Harvey’s girlfriend, and a real tease. Harvey was always getting into fights because of her.”

And she’d grown up to become a wannabe Trollop. Oddly appropriate. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Mayberry.”

He grunted. “If you do find out what happened to Young, I’d appreciate a call.”

“Will do, Mr. Mayberry.” I hung up.

“Anything?” Rhoan asked.

“Maybe.” I shoved my phone back into my pocket and repeated what Mayberry had told me. “I think it’s highly likely Young will be going back to the scene of his death, rather than where he used to live.”

“He’ll probably think it’ll be safer,” Quinn commented. “After all, he knows the Directorate is onto him, and he also knows you can trace his home addresses. But finding the location of his death more than twenty years after the event is a different matter.”

“I still don’t understand why he’s doing all this now,” Rhoan said. “Why didn’t he finish the lot of them when he finished off Harvey?”

“I suspect because his parents discovered what he was doing and stopped him. They had him locked up for years, remember.”

“Being locked up in a room filled with silver wouldn’t exactly enhance his sanity prospects, either,” Quinn commented.

“No.” I glanced at the clock again. “We need to be up there before dawn so we can have a chance of killing the bastard. How fast does this baby go?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Quinn said, pressing the accelerator firmly. The car took off with a throaty roar.

“This isn’t a sports car,” Rhoan said dryly, “so just watch the shudder when you climb over one twenty. It’ll do your arms in.”

“One twenty won’t get us into Beechworth before dawn, will it?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then don’t worry about the shudder and just get this rust trap moving.”

Quinn glanced at me, amusement touching his lips and glinting in his dark eyes. My hormones did a happy little dance, but I shoved them back down and told them to behave. Now was not the time.

“Your wish is my command.”

Rhoan snorted. “The day either of us believe that is the day we fall over dead.”

“Who asked the peanut gallery for an opinion?”

“No one,” Rhoan snapped. “So shut up and drive, my friend.”

For a change, Quinn did exactly as he was told.

Maybe there was hope for him yet.

Red fingers of light were beginning to scrape across the sky by the time Quinn stopped the car beside the old stone walls that surrounded Beechworth’s powder magazine building.

I climbed out of the car and sniffed the air, my nostrils flaring as I sampled the aromas within. The predawn air held a chill that felt like ice, but underneath it ran scents of eucalyptus, earth, and the freshness of water.

And underneath all that was the hint of fear.

Fear that was thick and strong, and coming from more than one source.

People were alive out there. Hopefully, Liander was still one of them. I grabbed my phone and dialed the Directorate, asking the cow to call in ambulances and any medical help she could find close by.

“I can hear heartbeats,” Quinn said softly, as he came around the front of the car. “They’re a ways off, so it makes it hard to define just how many.”

“But there’s definitely more than one,” Rhoan said, closing the car door softly. “And that’s good news for those of us needing some right now.”

I squeezed his arm lightly. “How are we going to attack this?” I glanced at Quinn. “And how are we going to kill something that’s not only invisible, but all but invincible in the daylight?”

Quinn glanced at the red-flagged sky. “We have a good half-hour before the sun actually rises. We need to attack him before then, or we’ll be forced to wait until the following night.”

“Waiting is not in my plans at this particular moment in time,” Rhoan said, voice flat. “So do we attack as one, or as individuals?”

“Together,” I said. “I’ve seen him fight. He’s fast and he’s strong, regardless of the fact he’s been locked away for years.”

“Insanity often gives people an edge.” Quinn glanced at Rhoan. “I’ll find and protect Liander and the other hostages. I’ll leave the killing to you two. You’re here officially. I’m not.”

And Jack could sometimes get cranky about involving civilians in cases—unless, of course, he did it himself. I looked at my brother. “Don’t suppose you’ve got an arsenal in the trunk?”

He grimaced. “No. I removed the guns and locked them up before I took the car to the car wash.”

Obeying the rules, as usual. Whereas I would never have even washed the car, let alone obeyed Jack’s safety rules about where to store weapons when not on duty. Which would undoubtedly get me in trouble one day, but on this day, it would have been a boon.

“So you’ve no weapons at all?”

“I’ve some stakes.”

I glanced at Quinn. “Will they work?”

“If you stake him while he’s visible, they will.”

“Then stakes it is,” Rhoan said.

He walked to the trunk and fetched them, then handed two to me and flexed his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

His gray eyes had become cold and dead. The eyes of the hunter. The eyes of the killer.

I glanced at Quinn. He gave me a smile that was a nice mix of confidence and desire, then turned and melted into the semidarkness. I switched to infrared and watched him run toward the tree line, then turned and followed my brother.

While I couldn’t hear heartbeats like he and Quinn, I was still a wolf, and the scents of sweat and blood and fear that rode the air were unmistakable. And they were getting stronger.

As the granite outcrops began to grow more numerous, and the eucalyptus gave way to black cypress, Rhoan paused, pointing to the right then holding up five fingers. I nodded, but wondered if Young would actually give us that much time. He was a vampire after all, and he could hear heartbeats as well as either Rhoan or Quinn. No matter how caught up he was in his whole revenge scenario, he’d realize eventually that we were here.

I made my way through the trees and the shadows, stepping carefully but quickly, keeping low where possible. It was tempting to shift to wolf shape, because she was quieter and far more deadly in the forest. But if Young happened to see me and attack, my wolf would be at a distinct disadvantage. Teeth against fist and feet—especially when they had the speed of a vampire behind them—was never a good thing.

The blood and fear scents were growing stronger, and with them came the sound of voices. One of them I recognized. Liander.

He was alive. I briefly closed my eyes and said a silent thank-you to fate.

And yet the knowledge didn’t ease my tension one little bit. Because there was another voice riding the wind besides Liander’s, and that one didn’t sound particularly calm or sane. I eased up on the speed and, using a rock as cover, peeked out into the clearing.

Liander and another man were tied by their wrists to a huge branch that overhung the clearing. Both men had been stripped naked, and their feet hung several inches off the ground. It had to hurt to be suspended like that, but there was little evidence of pain on Liander’s somewhat-battered features. His body was littered with bruises, evidence of the fight he’d put up and the pain Rhoan had felt, but the thin man hanging beside him was almost unmarked, except for his wrists. Though I suspected the bloody condition of those were not through anything Young had done, but rather his desperate writhing to escape.

I had no idea where the other captives were. They certainly weren’t in the clearing, but then, the van Young had driven up in was nowhere in sight, either. Maybe he was keeping everyone else tucked away to play with another day. Quinn would find them, and keep them safe. I doubted if even a bhuta would have much hope against someone who had spent two hundred years as a vampire assassin.

I couldn’t see Young, but I had no doubt his was the other voice I’d heard. Part of me wanted to rush out there right now, to grab Young and pummel him senseless for what he’d done to Liander and the other man. But there were still two minutes of Rhoan’s five to go, and I had no doubt my brother would pummel me if I didn’t do exactly what he asked. Besides, not only was he the senior guardian here, he had a whole lot more at stake. I silently blew out a breath and settled in to wait.

And I was betting the two minutes would seem like an eternity.

I’ve found the van and the other people who were kidnapped, Quinn said.

I hesitated, fearing the worst, then asked, Are they all alive?

Yes. Beaten and bloody, but alive. I won’t move the van because Young will hear it, but you can be sure he won’t get near these people again.

That was one vow I had total faith in. Thanks.

Just be careful, Riley.

Now you’re starting to sound like Jack.

His warm laughter ran through my mind. My lips curved into a smile, but it quickly faded as Young came into view. His thin face contorted with rage and lank hair slapped at his back and shoulders. His hand struck his thigh in time with his movements, and with every blow the scent of blood became stronger. I frowned, concentrating my gaze on his hand and seeing for the first time the sheer length of his fingernails. They had to be a good inch long and were razor sharp. Every time he slapped himself they were tearing through the fabric of his stained jeans and into his flesh.

He didn’t seem to notice. Or care.

The image of Ivan’s back rose—the torn and bloodied strips of flesh that hadn’t appeared cut by a knife or a whip. Was that how Young was killed? I hadn’t thought to ask Vinny that question.

“You have no idea what these people did to me.”

Young’s voice was high and uneven. He continued to pace the length of the clearing as he spoke, slapping away at his thigh. The scent of blood continued to grow, and so did the mad spark in his eyes. Working himself up to the task almost at hand, I realized suddenly.

“And you have no idea how they wrecked my life.”

“No one can understand what you’ve been through,” Liander said, his voice very calm and very even despite the pain he had to be in. “And you have every right to be angry.”

He was trying to empathize with Young and diffuse the situation. Worth a try, I guess, but Young wasn’t your everyday madman. He’d had more than twenty years to fantasize about his revenge, and I very much doubted that a calm, sympathetic tone would help.

“Those bastards left me for dead. They sliced me open and left me for dead.” Blood splattered wetly now when he slapped his thigh, and his teeth had begun to protrude from his lips. “But I didn’t die. I found a way to live, and I will have my revenge. On everyone.”

“If you didn’t die, then you weren’t meant to. Fate obviously had other plans for you.”

As Liander spoke, his gaze went from Young to the trees surrounding the clearing, and I knew then he was aware that we were here. God, I hoped Young didn’t come to the same realization.

I glanced at my watch. Still thirty seconds to go.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and tried to stifle the growing sense of anxiety.

“But not everyone here was responsible for your death, Aron,” Liander continued, still in that soft, calm tone. “Not everyone deserves to die.”

Young swung around and stalked to Liander, his face inches away and spittle flying as he said, “No one here lifted a finger to help.”

“It’s hard to help when you don’t know anything is—”

“Everyone knew what that gang was doing,” Young said, cutting Liander off, “and no one did anything. For that alone, you deserve to die. All of you.”

And with that, he raised his bloody claws and slashed at Liander’s stomach.

I thrust to my feet and ran into the clearing. But I was slower, far slower, than my brother. Liander’s skin had barely begun to split and bleed when suddenly Rhoan was there, a howl on his lips and murder in his eyes.

He hit Young full force and the two of them went flying, hitting the ground yards away and tumbling into a tree. I swerved around them and kept running toward Liander. His stomach was still opening and there was blood and bits and God knows what else beginning to spill from inside him.

“Why does the cavalry always arrive too late?” he said, the amusement in his cracked voice not hiding the pain suddenly evident in his expression and his eyes. I threw the stakes down and grabbed him around the hips, trying to take the weight off his arms with one arm, while I thrust my free hand against his bloody stomach. Only my grip slipped in all the blood, and suddenly my fingers were inside him.

Bile rose, but I swallowed hard and jerked my hand free, ignoring the metallic reek of blood and the stench of fear—fear that was mine as much as his—and grabbed as much of his innards as I could to stop them falling out any farther.

“Quinn,” I screamed, not even taking the time to open the link between us. “I need a knife and some help here.”

From behind me came a scream. A thick, high-pitched scream that didn’t even sound like it had come from a human throat. Rhoan’s, not Young’s.

He knew Liander was dying.

They were soul mates, and he could feel it.

No, no, no.

The fighting behind me increased. I wanted to look, wanted to know that my brother was okay, but I didn’t dare. I needed to look after his lover first, because without Liander, I’d have no brother.

“I’m not dying,” Liander whispered, his skin so pale and his body shaking. “I won’t die on you, Rhoan. I promise.”

He couldn’t keep that promise. Not if we didn’t get help soon.

God, where were the fucking medics?

Where the hell was Quinn?

I’d barely even thought that, and he was there.

“Hold him,” he said, and something silver flashed up high. Liander was suddenly a deadweight in my arms, and I grunted softly, holding him against me, my body trembling with the effort of not letting him drop.

Quinn freed the other man and lowered him to the ground, then stepped over him and came back to me.

“Okay, I’ve got him,” he said, and suddenly Liander’s weight eased away from me.

“Careful,” I said, panic in my voice. “There’s bits of his insides leaking from the wound.”

“Small intestines, probably.” He wasn’t looking at me, but rather Liander, gently feeling his upper abdominal area. “Is that tender?”

Liander shook his head. Quinn grunted. “Hopefully, no liver or spleen damage, then.” He glanced at me. “I saw a first-aid kit in the car. Run and grab it.”

I couldn’t figure out how the hell a first-aid kit was going to help, but I didn’t argue. I simply got up and ran. Rhoan was fighting like a madman, and the real madman was getting beaten to a bloody pulp.

Rhoan had no intention of killing him fast. No intention of using the stakes lying nearby on the ground just yet. Young was going to pay.

I couldn’t feel chilled by that. I really couldn’t.

I reached the car, flung open the door, and saw the kit on the backseat. As I grabbed it, I heard the sirens and hope ran through me.

They’d get here in time to save him.

They would.

I had to believe that. For Rhoan’s sake, and for mine.

I ran back to the clearing as fast as I could and dropped down beside Quinn. Liander’s skin was pale and clammy looking, and his breathing seemed rapid.

“Shock,” Quinn said. “Has the kit got sterile bandages?”

My fingers were shaking so hard it took several attempts to open the kit. “Yes,” I said, looking at him.

“Open it and give one to me.”

I did, adding, “It’s moist.”

“Perfect.” He covered the leaking intestines with it. “Is there a large abdominal or universal dressing in there?”

“There’s a thick bandage.”

“That’ll do.”

A scream hit the air, a thick sound of pain that went on and on, and vaguely sounded like words. My eyes, my eyes…

Rhoan, still bent on revenge. I closed my eyes and said, “Rhoan, end it. Liander needs you here.” I looked up at Quinn. “There’s an ambulance on its way.”

“Then get up there, and get them down here fast.” His voice was grim. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

I got up and turned around. Saw Rhoan grab Young by the neck and snap it sideways. There was a crack and Young went limp. Not a killing blow, because broken necks didn’t kill vampires outright, but it was certainly disabling.

I closed my eyes. “Finish it, Rhoan.”

He looked at me briefly, his bloodied face free of emotion, his gaze still that of a killer. Then he turned, grabbed a stake, and plunged it into Young’s heart. Young screamed, but the sound was abruptly cut off as blue fire erupted from the wound, spreading rapidly across Young’s body, consuming and destroying.

Rhoan watched dispassionately for a moment, then turned away. His gaze went past me and his face crumbled, and suddenly he was sobbing and running toward Liander.

I resisted the instinct to grab him, comfort him, and ran to find the only hope Liander had.