His, damn it. To fuck. To feed from. To love. For all eternity.
The thought of what his eternity was really going to look like, however, sobered him instantly. Ana was human. Even if somehow she truly did still desire him and could give herself to him as he was, she was going to die. So was everyone in this bar. Every human currently on the planet. That was what was supposed to happen. What was natural.
Ty wasn’t. He couldn’t forget that.
As an unnatural being with unnatural urges, he had changed mere seconds before he’d attacked that homeless man. Worst-case scenario, instead of protecting Ana as he’d promised, he might somehow lose it and end up taking her blood, or her body for that matter, against her will.
The very thought made him nauseous, and he closed his eyes, taking in deep, dragging breaths. When he finally opened them again, he searched the dance floor for Ana, relaxing slightly when he saw she was still there, smashed up flat against the Hispanic man’s chest.
He didn’t like it. Of course, she was only doing what she was supposed to. The man was obviously someone she knew from the gang, and she was getting close to him for the sole purpose of getting word to Miguel that she was looking for him.
But Ty still didn’t like it. He hated it, in fact.
The drumbeat picked up, intensifying the rhythm of the music. The wild crowd on the dance floor surged to the beat, merging to form a wall between Ty and Ana until he could no longer see her.
Shit.
Seconds ticked by.
Where was she? Why wasn’t she pushing her way toward him? She knew she wasn’t ever supposed to lose sight of him.
But she’d knocked back five shots of tequila while socializing with her old pals. Was she too drunk to remember what she was doing? Why they were there?
Fuck.
Ty moved toward the dance floor where he’d last seen Ana.
He froze when he heard Ana scream.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Control. Ty knew he needed to maintain control. But adrenaline coursed through his body, his instincts triggered by Ana’s scream. He moved through the crowd. Shoving people out of his way, heading in the direction of the scream, he paused at the edge of the dance floor. A narrow hallway with a blinking neon sign for the rest-rooms, ran to the left. A red emergency exit sign at its end marked it as the back exit.
He grabbed a burly man who’d stepped into his path, lifted him off his feet, and tossed him aside. No one was getting in his way. He had to protect Ana. He could hear her screams so loudly, so clearly.
Why were none of the other patrons doing anything? Was this what being human had been reduced to?
He reached the exit and shoved the metal door open so hard it flew off the hinges and clattered to the ground. There was no sound in the air, except for Ana’s continued screams.
Only she wasn’t screaming.
In the dimly lit and cluttered alleyway, he saw her, up against a brick wall, a distance away from the bar, next to a Dumpster and a pile of rubble. Her arms were wrapped around the same man she’d been dancing with and she was kissing him.
So why the hell could he still hear her shrieking the word no? Was he going insane, imagining Ana’s cries of fear and pain?
The man reached down and palmed Ana’s breast. Then—with Ana’s mouth fused to the man’s, her cries turned bloodcurdling.
The sound was so loud and terrifying it ripped Ty’s mind and heart apart.
Her screams were silent.
I’m reading her mind, he realized. I can hear her thoughts. I can hear how much she doesn’t want this. He roared then, flying into action.
Fast. Ruthless. Merciless.
Exactly like the vampire he was.
Ana had her eyes closed, gritting her teeth even as she kept kissing Louis. The guy wanted her, and because he thought he was going to get her, he’d been answering her questions when she could get a word in. He was about to tell her how she could get in touch with Miguel when he squeezed her breast. Even though her body and mind rejected his touch, she let him do it. Just a few more seconds and she’d get the information she needed.
Then she could go back inside to Ty with something that could really help him. Maybe with the information, they could go see Miguel together. Maybe they wouldn’t even have to infiltrate Salvation’s Crossing.
A roar sounded, loud and angry and not quite human. Her eyes flew open in time for her to see Ty ripping the man off her and throwing him to the ground. She stared, shocked, at Louis, then whipped her gaze back to Ty.
“Ty, wait. What are you doing?” she said even as she moved to help Louis.
Instead of letting her help him up, however, Louis tugged at her, throwing her off-balance and tumbling her to the ground, knocking the breath out of her. She lay there, in the muck and grime that littered the alleyway, clutching her bruised ribs and gasping for breath, panic setting every nerve in her body on fire.
Louis scrambled to his feet and grabbed an iron bar lying next to the Dumpster. He held it in front of him, then thrust it in Ty’s direction. “She wants it,” he sneered at Ty. “Just like she wanted it years ago. I’m just giving the slut what she wants.”
A guttural sound came from Ty, as if ripped from the very depths of his being. In a flash of a second he was right up close to Louis. He threw an uppercut, his fist connecting with the underside of Louis’s jaw, and Ana gaped as Louis went flying. He landed a good ten feet from Ty.
No human could punch that hard but Ty wasn’t human. He’d told her that. So had Carly. Now she was seeing more evidence of what that really meant.
“Ty!” she shouted, trying to get him to calm down. “Stop!”
Shakily, Louis got to his feet and dropped the iron bar. For a moment Ana breathed a sigh of relief.
Until Louis reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol. And aimed it straight at Ty’s heart.
“You still planning on fucking with me, hombre?” Louis spat out. He took a step forward. “I’m the one with the gun. Walk away and let me do this bitch in peace or you get a big hole blown in your chest.”
“Get the fuck away from her. From both of us,” Ty said, his voice deep and haunted and eerie. Hollow.
Louis let out a caustic laugh. “Why don’t you make me?”
Ty moved then, faster than Ana could even comprehend. He made it to Louis in under a second. He grabbed Louis and threw him in the air—five, ten, fifteen feet. Twenty feet. Higher than the roof of the bar. And then Louis fell.
On his way down, a gunshot exploded.
Ana saw it happen as if in slow motion.
Louis had shot Ty.
Directly in the heart.
“No!”
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Ana heard the heartbeats coming from her chest. Counted them. Focused on them. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t.
She’d known. They’d told her that a vampire couldn’t die, but part of her hadn’t believed it. Hadn’t truly believed any of what they’d said. Not until now.
Ty had been shot. In the chest. In the heart. She’d seen him get hit. Blood had sprayed everywhere when the bullet entered, and now was spattered across his white dress shirt. Dots of red clung to her. Dripped off her face. And yet Ty still lived. Even now, he was getting up from where he’d fallen back on the ground.
He grimaced. Then hissed, baring his teeth.