Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 93727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
And the boys, my poor baby cousins, had to watch.
It was the most heinous thing I’d ever done—making them use us as human shields—and in the few quiet moments, when I had the ability to think, I wondered if Daniel had felt this way when he left me behind. We were protecting them, but I wasn’t sure that they’d ever recover from it.
At first, when the humans swarmed us, I didn’t realize what was happening. We’d been facing one or two of them at a time for the last ten minutes, and it took me a few moments to realize that the game had changed.
They rose like specters from the bushes around us, and there were so many of them I was struck dumb that the Vampires with me hadn’t heard them breathing. These humans were highly trained. They moved like liquid, rising and attacking in one smooth movement.
“Descendre,” I hissed to Seamus as I turned to meet a human who hadn’t even unholstered his weapon.
I felt Seamus drop to his knees and the kick of his rifle as he shot the human.
My guts clenched in fear. By shooting his rifle, he’d become a target to eliminate instead of collateral damage.
“Don’t—”
“You won’t make it without us,” he replied grimly, cutting me off.
There was so much movement around us that I struggled to aim and fire. There were too many of us in the melee, and I was terrified that I’d hit one of the Bouchers or Aunt Halle or Grant. Pulling my knife from my belt, I met the next human that came at us.
I felt feral as I stabbed at his neck and shoulders, struggling to stay on my feet as we grappled.
It took longer than it should have. I was losing too much blood, and between that and the mating heat, my body was slowing down. My arms and legs didn’t move the way they should have. My instincts weren’t as sharp as normal.
Seamus cried out behind me as the man finally slumped to the ground, and I spun to find him scrambling backward, his pistol in the dirt. A large man was taunting him, the rifle in his hands pointed straight at my baby cousin.
Then out of nowhere, fur that was as familiar to me as my face—even covered in blood like it was—sailed through the air. Thunder’s paws hit the man’s chest.
“Fass,” I croaked as the man fell.
He screamed for less than a second before Thunder ripped out his throat.
I stumbled toward Seamus and was yanked to a stop, my head snapping backward as someone wrenched at my braid.
Then I was falling. Panic filled me as I landed flat on my back.
There were people all around, their legs filling my vision. I tried to roll, but was stopped as the human kneeled on my chest.
Get the pistol, Seamus. Get the rifle that human dropped.
“Fass,” I wheezed, using up what breath was left in my lungs, hoping Thunder would hear me. I searched my empty sheaths. I’d used and lost my knives and given Seamus my pistol.
The man leaned down, his smile glaringly white in his darkly painted face.
Then, he was gone.
Coughing, I tried to see who had pulled him off me.
“Flower,” Seamus groaned, his voice barely a whisper.
I turned my head and found my cousin, half propped against a tree, his eyes wide and terrified.
His hands were pressing against his lower belly where the vest I’d given him ended.
“No,” I choked, scrambling toward him on my hands and knees, my arm buckling beneath me.
“It hurts,” he whispered, his voice shaking.
“You’re okay,” I assured him, tearing off my hoodie. Everything around me disappeared as I pressed it against his wound. “You’ll be fine.”
“I wasn’t fast enough,” he groaned. “I got him, but I wasn’t fast enough.”
“You did well,” I replied, pressing harder as blood seeped through the sweatshirt.
He was so goddamn pale.
The noise around us died in increments. First, the yelling stopped. Then the shooting. Then the grunts and thumps of hand-to-hand violence.
I didn’t even realize when the forest around us was quiet again.
“Seamus,” Uncle Dalton called frantically.
“Over here,” I called back. “See, your dad’s here. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
“Stop,” Erik’s voice seemed to come from everywhere. “Rosemary, I need you to back away from the boy.”
“What?” I looked over my shoulder. “No, I—”
“Move, Rosemary,” Uncle Dalton ordered angrily.
I looked back at my hands, the only thing staunching the bleeding. I couldn’t let go. If I let go—
“Please,” Uncle Dalton whispered.
That broken word was the only thing that had me scrambling backward. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on or why they’d want me to leave Seamus. Had I done something wrong? What the hell was happening?
As soon as I was about twenty feet away, Uncle Dalton rushed forward.
“Oh, fuck,” Uncle Dalton said as he dropped to his knees. “How bad?”