Luckard twisted around with a grin on his face before he flipped me onto my stomach, rested his knee between my shoulders, and pinned me to the ground. “I think we’re getting somewhere, Archios,” he called out, then picked up the blade again.
Terror threaded its way through my veins like ice water. Where the hell were Colby and Gwen? What had only been a few minutes felt like hours. My heart beat so hard it should have jumped out of my chest by now. I stared at my lover, pleading with my eyes.
Rurik wrapped the last chain around his arm. With his legs braced to the wall, he fought to break its hold.
The knife cut into my arm, deeper this time, and I shrieked at the agony. Trapped under Luckard’s knee, I couldn’t get away. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to stand it anymore.
“Rabb—Connie.”
I peeked at Tane. He’d been so quiet and still, I thought he’d surrendered to our fates, but now determination was set in his jaw. With a sharp jerk, he tore his left shoulder from the bar, leaving a huge gaping wound with snapped bones poking out.
Blood oozed as they began to knit back together before my eyes.
His intense pain rolled from him and struck me like a tsunami through our bond.
Blind and deaf to anything else, I couldn’t breathe as I drowned in torment.
Then a wall slammed down, cutting it off.
I stared at Tane and our gazes met. With his eyes, he pleaded for forgiveness as he did his best to shield me, despite the drugs that weakened him.
The sound of a chain snapping caught both of our attention. Rurik moved so fast, I never even saw him until he stood over me. He grabbed Luckard by the back of his t-shirt and hauled him away.
Archios returned to the room without Bel as Luckard spun in my lover’s grip then shoved him across the room toward his accomplice. “Take care of him. I’ll finish her.”
He licked his lips as his gaze fell to my bleeding arm.
I rose to a sitting position and pressed my wound to my chest, trying to stand, but the floor was slick with my blood.
Catching Rurik, Archios spun him around and punched him across the jaw.
Tane roared as he tore his other shoulder free.
“Luckard, secure Tane first. The girl can wait,” Archios ordered.
The Nosferatu hesitated. He grimaced in disappointment and went to his escaping prisoner. “Why can’t you cooperate?” he shouted.
“Leave these mad ideas behind.” Tane pushed Luckard, who laughed at my bald vampire’s statement. “Archios has poisoned your mind. You never used to lust for power.”
“I went to him, Tane. He only wishes to protect his little bloodthirsty wife from your no tolerance idealism.”
Something finally clicked in my head like a missing puzzle piece. Bel’s hunger, the six dead girls made to look pretty like dolls, her admission of being lonely and my being her only friend. The facts added together equaled Bel as the killer Colby hunted. We kept assuming whoever was trying to assassinate Tane was the murderer too.
The tray of torture tools tumbled to the floor, knocked over by both Archios and Rurik, wrestling like titans in the far corner. A wooden stake skittered close to my feet.
I rolled onto my stomach and scrambled for it. Grasping the weapon, I got to my feet.
Rurik extended his hand. “Toss it.”
Throwing the stake with my uninjured left hand, it flipped through the air, but never reached its destination. Luckard was too fast and caught it mid-air.
“Not so soon.” He shook his finger at me. “This—” he lifted his prize, “will hurt and most probably kill you.” One step at a time, he followed my retreat until I was cornered.
Tane wrapped his hands around one of the metal bars poking him through the hip and began to extricate it. I didn’t think he’d make it in time to stop Luckard. I was on my own against a Nosferatu vampire, an ubervamp.
Luckard raised the stake over his head and aimed at my chest.
Raising my hands in a futile attempt to block the strike, I closed my eyes and said a little prayer.
The room echoed with sounds of fighting and struggle, Rurik’s cries, and Tane’s growls. Yet, I still heard the stake pierce flesh over all that chaos.
Someone in heaven must have heard my prayer because it didn’t hurt. My eyes sprung open, expecting to see a huge toothpick sticking out of my chest, but instead golden hair blocked my view. I shifted over for a better look.
Archios’s wide eyed expression surprised me as he cried out. “No!” He shoved Rurik away and ran across the room.
I stepped around Bel who somehow stood between me and Luckard. The stake protruded from her chest.
She stared at it then at me. “It hurts.” She slowly crumbled to ashes before me.
Everything went empty inside my soul. I covered my mouth to hold back my screams. If I started I’d never stop. This tipped my sanity scale into the crazy zone.
Bel saved me.
Archios fell to his knees at her feet and tried to hold her disintegrating body together.
The anguish in his horror-filled cries left no doubt of how much she meant to him.
Unable to prevent the inevitable, he jumped to his feet and turned on Luckard. “You killed her.” The heartache made Archios’ voice hoarse. He grabbed his accomplice by the shirt collar and smashed him into the wall, leaving a dent.
Something slick sounding popped behind me. I spun to watch Rurik pull the last of the steel bar from Tane.
Wrath embodied him as he stumbled free. Dark pits of revenge filled his eyes. He stormed past Rurik and plucked Archios from Luckard’s grasp, tossing him to my lover as if he were a doll. Tane then turned his attention to Luckard. “I won’t let you escape this time. One of us will be joining Belatia in her fate.” Then he grabbed him by the shoulders and head butted him.
I swung around, half expecting to find Rurik and Archios at each other’s throats.
Instead, I found Archios in a heap at Rurik’s feet, crying uncontrollably.
My lover gestured for me to come to him. “Connie!”
When I took a step my toe kicked a hard object. The wooden stake rolled away. I glanced at Tane, who appeared to be trying to tear Luckard’s head from his shoulders without success.
This dick-head tortured me and my vampires, haunted my dreams, and killed…my friend. Tucking my fear in a dark corner of my mind, I chased the wooden stake across the floor toward the Nosferatu and snatched it. I tightened my sweaty grip to make sure it wouldn’t slip when I got my chance to pierce Luckard’s black shriveled heart.
Tane’s gaze met mine and traced down to the stake in my hand. An understanding passed between us without the need of a blood bond or a mental link. The malicious grin that spread across his face sent a pleasant shiver down my spine.
He spun around and shifted his hold on Luckard to pin his arms behind his back.
I’d seen Colby slay enough vampires to have a clue how to stake one. Needing momentum to pierce their hard flesh, I ran as I raised the stake over my head.
Luckard’s glare ensnared me, my mental shield gonged as if he’d swung a baseball bat and hit it. Disoriented and dizzy, the world tilted, yet I managed to keep my sight on his chest. I plunged the stake into his heart and applied my weight so it would sink deep.
Tane dropped him. “We need to severe the head and burn the heart.”
I stared at the limp body on the floor. My chest heaved as if I’d just run a marathon instead of a few feet. No more Luckard. No more nightmares. I kicked his foot and half expected him to jump, but nothing happened. We were safe. We’d won. Then out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Archios gathering Bel’s ashes.