I supposed we were lucky the vampires hadn’t thought to snipe us from here.
Speaking of, Clyde was on the floor, flat on his back, his eyes closed and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His bare chest didn’t rise and fall, but I didn’t think he was actually dead. Stunned, maybe, or out cold, but not the permanent kind of dead.
Fabian was thoughtfully picking between one of his fangs with his thumbnail, leaning against a desk by the windows, his gaze distant. He gave Devon a once-over—a rather lascivious once-over at that—and then turned a disinterested glance in Sara’s and then my direction. He then turned a pleased, cat-that-got-the-canary smile on Gideon.
“Very good. Yes, this is very good indeed.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“What’s with . . . ?” He jerked his chin in Devon’s direction.
Gideon arched his brows. Fabian’s sly smile grew, and Devon visibly paled. A sick fear for Devon coiled in my stomach like a serpent, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike.
“The stud’s a bit of insurance. Maybe a bonus, depending on whether we finish up here before the rest of the hunters regroup.”
Fabian nodded, then folded one sleeve up past his elbow. He lifted that hand, clenching and unclenching his fist a few times. He then raised his newly bared wrist to his mouth where he quickly cut a gash. Fangs gleamed with the splash of crimson before they were licked clean.
He pushed off the desk and knelt beside Clyde’s prone form, pressing his cut wrist to the other vampire’s lips. Clyde didn’t move at first, but then I detected a feather of movement at his throat. Swallowing, maybe involuntarily. Fabian stroked his hair in a loving, possessive gesture that did a fantastic job of creeping me the hell out.
It was eerily reminiscent of the time Max bound Royce’s house guard Mouse to him by forcing her to drink some of his blood. A shiver of foreboding crawled down my spine, but there was nothing I could do to stop any of this. With Clyde under his power, who knew what Fabian might do to this city, or how he might abuse his power over the weaker vampire.
Gideon yawned and stretched, then leaned an indolent elbow against the shoulder of the vampire holding Devon. The hunter shifted his weight, trying to pull away, but his captor had such a tight hold of his arms that Devon could barely move.
“One down,” Fabian said, pulling away. He rose in a smooth, predatory motion, stalking across the carpeted floor in bare feet. He stopped in front of Devon, smiling down at him with just a hint of fang. “One to go. . . .”
“No!” Devon and I both cried out at the same time.
“Stay away from him!” Sara shouted.
Fabian didn’t bother looking at us, running a fingertip down Devon’s cheek. This was like a surreal reenactment of Max’s takeover in New York, only . . . the vampires were more interested in the dudes than the women.
I don’t think I have ever seen Devon look that frightened in my life. Fear for him as much as my own remembered terror drove me to renew my struggling against the vampire’s hold, knowing, but not caring, that it was futile.
And then Gideon was stumbling forward, blood bubbling from his lips.
I couldn’t see at first what was going on, but Fabian was whirling, aghast, anguish twisting his handsome features into a caricature. Then Tiny stepped into view, the machete he had used to stab Gideon in the back spraying thick red droplets in an arc as he tugged it free and slashed at Fabian in one deft motion.
The elder sidestepped, stumbling back, clearly too startled and shaken by this turn of events to immediately retaliate. Tiny didn’t give him the opportunity to regain his footing. He had a Desert Eagle in the other hand.
Though I’d been listening to gunfire all night, the mini hand cannon was deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. The shot must have missed, because Fabian was lunging at Tiny, his eyes burning with the hellish red of agitation as he sought to grab the hunter.
The fingers on my arms briefly tightened—then loosened, the vampire holding me shaking his head and pulling back slightly. “Wha . . . ?”
The ones holding Sara and Devon were also coming to. Devon’s didn’t quite let him go, still holding him with one hand, the other lifting to his temple. Sara’s did release her, taking a step back to clutch his head with both hands.
She fell to her knees, creeping forward to check on Gideon. God, he was her only hope of ever being free of those runes. If he was dead, I’d never forgive Tiny for that, even if Tiny’s actions were the only thing that could have saved Devon from becoming Fabian’s eternal, unwilling boy toy.
Devon jerked out of the arms of the vampire holding him, pulling a small knife out of his boot. It would be about as effective as a toothpick against a vampire as old and powerful as Fabian, but with two experienced hunters after Fabian’s ass, I wasn’t sure if it mattered. Devon could probably find a way to make a weapon out of anything in the room if he needed to.
The vampire holding me finally let go, all three of the younger vampires skittering out, running for the exit with inhuman speed, clearly knowing better than to stay anywhere near the necromancer in case he might recover and enslave them again. Without Clyde awake and capable of protecting them, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get out of there as fast as they could.
As Devon and Tiny went on the offensive against Fabian, dangerous as it was, I tuned them out, all of my focus on Gideon and helping Sara with the wound.
Those incredible green eyes were open wide, and he was gasping for air, every breath wet and flecking his lips with beads of scarlet. Sara looked up to me, stricken.
“I don’t know how to deal with this. His lung must be punctured.”
Medical treatment for wounds like that wasn’t in my repertoire either. If he stayed on his back, it seemed more likely he would either bleed out or drown in his own blood. I yanked him up into a sitting position, his hands weakly clawing at my shoulders and breath hot on my neck as he rested his cheek against my collarbone. Shock, maybe. I didn’t think he was entirely conscious of what he was doing.
Sara tugged at his shirt, pushing it up to bare his back. The snarling and cursing and gunshots didn’t get my attention, but the shattering glass as something was thrown through a window did. Craning my neck to see, I gaped at Fabian, who was forcing Devon to kneel at his feet with the fingers knotted in his hair and holding Tiny by the throat out the window. The fall might not kill him, but I wasn’t about to risk it.
“Don’t! Don’t you do it!”
Fabian glanced in my direction, fangs bared, eyes burning crimson. As soon as he saw that I had pulled the knife I’d been keeping at my back and that I was holding it by the back of Gideon’s neck, panic quickly replaced the anger in his expression. “Stop! Let him go!”
“You first. Don’t drop him—bring Tiny inside and put him down. Do it now!”
Slowly, carefully, Fabian drew Tiny back into the room. The big man was gasping for breath, his hands clawing at the fingers closed vise-like around his throat. Tiny easily had a hundred and fifty pounds on Fabian, but the vampire held him like he weighed no more than a house cat.
Once Tiny’s feet were no longer dangling out the window, Fabian thrust Tiny away with a harsh snap of his wrist that sent the hunter sprawling on the carpet. However, Fabian didn’t let go of Devon, instead taking the opportunity to haul him to his feet by the hair and then hold the hunter against him, nails biting into his neck and abdomen where he rested his hands.
“Let’s make a deal. Give me Gideon, and I’ll give you the hunter. Yes?”
“Don’t do it, Shia! Kill the fu—”
Devon’s words were cut off as Fabian’s nails dug deep furrows in his throat. I narrowed my eyes and dug the point of my blade into Gideon’s skin, drawing a drop or two of blood and making the guy hiss audibly and jerk in my arms.