The better to trap them.
Vampires and fire didn’t mix. He’d seen too many of his brethren fall to the flames.
It wouldn’t happen to them. Not to Dee. He grabbed the tangled covers from the bed.
Dee jumped up and kicked the glass from his window. No fresh air came in, just more billowing smoke.
She hurtled through the broken glass and Simon lunged right on her heels.
Couldn’t see the sky. No stars. No moon. Only that hungry circle of flames, burning closer.
“We’re surrounded.” Dee’s tight voice. And they were. The vamps had planned well, and he’d been so distracted by Dee that he’d let them get killing close.
Won’t make that mistake again.
They’d fed the flames, poured so much gas on the area that the air tasted rancid on his tongue.
“Burn, bitch, burn.” The words echoed in the night, crackling above the flames.
Not on his watch. He threw the covers over Dee, heard her grunt as he grabbed her and tossed her over his shoulder.
Then he jumped through the flames.
The fire bit his arms and licked across the side of his face. Touching hell. The white-hot pain seared him, singeing skin and lancing flash in the seconds it took to leap through the fire.
They hit the ground. His arms were burning. The cover surrounding Dee blazed with fire. He rolled her, pounding at the fire, and the dirt flew around them.
The pain—aw, fuck. He sucked in a breath, choked on smoke, and took the hot agony. Used it.
Dee shoved out of the cover. “Simon, what the hell were you—”
“Fucking bitch,” a snarl, too close.
Simon’s head jerked up and he saw the vamps closing in. Four of them. The survivors from the alley.
Shouldn’t have let them live. But his priority had been getting Dee the hell away from that place before any of the vamps had been able to make her death permanent.
Mateo came in first. The big, thick Italian was at least a century old, and he had one serious addiction to pain—giving it and hearing the screams of his prey.
He came at Dee, the claws of his left hand swinging toward her neck even as he brought up his right hand, a hand that Simon knew would be clutching a stake in that bulging fist.
“No! Dee, watch out!”
She twisted, her legs still partially trapped in the smoking covers as she fought to rise.
Simon jumped in front of her, and Mateo’s claws sank into his chest.
Shit. His teeth snapped together. Oh, but the bastard had been begging for a killing for far too long.
He slammed his head into the vamp’s. Handy little trick he’d learned from Dee.
But Mateo just laughed and that stake came up even as the claws twisted in Simon’s chest.
Okay, a little help would be good right then. “Dee!”
Mateo’s eyes widened. His lips opened, a high keening cry gurgling up in his throat.
Then he slumped forward.
Simon looked over the stiff man’s body. Saw Dee. Saw her jerk the wooden stake from Mateo’s back. “Don’t worry, I got the heart.”
Uh, yeah, he bet she had.
He wrenched the vamp’s hand and the claws ripped from his chest.
Pain blasted through him.
Take it. Use it.
Simon didn’t look down at his body. Couldn’t. Not then. If he saw the damage…
“What are they waiting on?” Dee whispered.
His head shot up. The other three vampires stood less than five feet away. Their claws were out, their fangs glinting in the firelight.
He knew them all, just as he’d known Mateo.
Katya, the Russian vampiress, an ex-mob boss’s lover. She’d gutted the fool who’d loved her.
Vince, the newbie who’d turned less than a year before. So much bloodlust there, burning in his eyes.
And Leo, tall and dark, standing and waiting with that damn twisted grin on his face.
Waiting, all of them, just waiting.
“Who the hell are you assholes?” Dee demanded and damn if the woman didn’t put herself in front of him.
Aw, well, wasn’t that sweet. But, considering the way he was starting to waver on his feet, maybe it was necessary, too.
“We’re the welcome wagon, sweetheart.” From Leo. He crossed his arms, raked his gaze over her, and seemed to ignore the flames.
“Uh, yeah? Well, here’s a tip. Flowers work well. They say, ‘Hi, here’s a present.’ Fire, ummm, not so much.” The stake was in her hand. Dripping blood.
Leo’s black stare drifted to Simon. “You sure this is the side you want to choose, buddy?”
Before he could speak, Dee growled. “Buddy? Hell, Simon, tell me you don’t know these freaks.”
A laugh from Leo. Should have been a warning. It was. “I’m the one who changed Simon, and Katya—”
Katya smiled. Don’t go there. Don’t!
“She’s the one who gave him his first vampire fuck.”
Oh, great. Like he needed this shit. “Let’s just kill ’em, okay?” The talk was part of Leo’s technique. The way to distract. To weaken.
Dee glanced at the redhead. “How about that.” She fired Simon a hot stare. “Bad taste. You go for killers? Cause Katya, I’ve heard about you.” The Russian liked her bloodbaths, so that was no surprise.
“I didn’t screw her, Dee.” The bloodlust had been riding him hard when Leo had brought him in to the pack. But he’d fought the dark temptation and Katya.
Katya wasn’t the kind of vampire he wanted. Dee was. “I’m not like them.” Could she see that?
Her eyes held his a second longer. “I know.”
“Bitch.” Katya pulled two knives from the sheaths on her hips. “I’m going to cut your head off.” Fifty years and the woman’s accent still rolled Russian.
A sigh from Dee. “Bring it.”
Katya lunged forward, knives up, fangs bared, she went in quick for a brutal attack and—
Dee drove her stake into the vampiress’s heart.
Katya fell to the ground.
“Next.”
He blinked. No, she hadn’t just said—
Vince screamed and barreled toward her. Oh, right, rumors said Vince and Katya had been an item since his change.
Dee scooped up Katya’s knives. Sliced fast and deep.
Another body hit the ground. This one, um, minus a head.
“You ready?” Dee asked a no-longer grinning Leo. “Or do you want to make things interesting and try to run?”
Yes. He’d been right about her. She’d be more than strong enough to kick Grim’s ass. The Born Master would go down.
This nightmare could end. Finally.
Sirens wailed in the distance. The cops were coming. So someone had finally noticed the giant ball of fire that was eating its way into the night?
“More will come for you.” Leo spat on the ground.
One shoulder lifted. “Let them.”
“You and the traitor—you’ll both die, screaming.”
“Uh, wait, let me guess.” A pause as she held up her hand. “Begging for death? For mercy?” A hard shake of her head. “Not my style. Didn’t do it the first time, won’t be doing it the second.”
Bright red lights filtered through the smoke. The loud blare of a fire truck’s horn had Leo jerking. “It’s not over.”
“For you, it is.”
Simon’s knees hit the dirt. “Dee…” Too much pain. Too much. Mateo’s claws had dug too deeply into his chest. He glanced down now, finally, and—bastard almost took my heart.
This wasn’t good. “D-Dee…” He tried to call her again.
But Dee, with her slightly scorched hair, shot forward and slammed her fist into Leo’s face.
Then Simon slammed face first into the ground.
Chapter 10
He woke on a gurney. A mask covered half of his face and some crazy woman had her hand pressed hard to his heart. Simon’s hands jerked, snapping through the binds that held his wrists in place.