AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The Elementals and Raeths showed up only minutes later. Remmus led the charge, with the red-haired air Elemental Jeremiah quickly on his heels. Out of nowhere, tour buses arrived on the scene, ushering bleeding vampires into their shadowed confines.
Cortana stumbled upright, needing to confirm that her people weren’t in danger. She swiftly cut through the crowds to the first bus that’d appeared on their curb.
Gideon, the monarch of the Elemental race, leapt from the doors and locked eyes with her. “Get them inside. The Raeths will teleport them to the safe house in Lexington from there.”
Nodding quickly, she began to move her injured Housemates into the waiting buses. True to his words, multiple Raeths were waiting inside. In a mess of bodies and flares of energy that had her spine tingling, her people were moved out of danger.
On the other side of the street, she saw her sire continuing to carry his people out of the House, his white shirt stained with soot and blood. His wife was nowhere to be found, but, knowing her, she’d be where the fire was, attempting to control it and keep the skyscraper from further damage.
As the buses slowly became ‘filled’ with vampires in need of teleport, the crowd on the streets thinned, finally parting to allow firetrucks and police cars through to assist. Cortana went to the doorway to direct the crews, but she found Nina already there, giving instructions.
Each comment from her grandsire was heavily laden with suggestion to assure none of the humans discovered the true culprit or motives behind the attack.
Relieved, she glanced around to ensure no one had been left behind on the streets. Every vampire that exited the House was now ushered directly into a waiting bus, and when Drake finally came to a halt, fatigue wore on his face.
“All of our House is accounted for,” came his tired pronouncement. “We’ve counted twice in Lexington.”
Nina frowned, gazing up at the façade of the imposing onyx building. “There are still several minds in the building, Drake. Remmus, two Elementals, and a wolf.”
Cortana’s chest constricted painfully.
Riaz.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Smoke poured into the hallway above his head, starving his lungs for a clean breath of air. He’d lost count of how many vampires he’d taken from the building, grabbing them from where they lay bleeding and unconscious.
It was only after clearing the tenth or eleventh floor that the first hints of rabidity whispered in his mind. The wolf, fur threatening to burst out of his skin, snapped ferally at the traces of sunlight in the air.
There wasn’t time to stop and soothe him.
He’d barreled through what seemed like hundreds of doors, clearing them with Drake, Remmus, and Gideon. When the vampire had finally deemed the building empty, Riaz had sprinted back up the flights of stairs. If the building was going to burn—and there was no way of knowing for sure—there was one thing he knew his mate would want.
He made a beeline for Cortana’s rooms where she’d left her belongings and most prized possessions. Door already off its hinges, he crashed inside, skidding a bit on the overly polished floors—because, of course—and slid into a wall.
Drywall dented and crumbled.
Growling, Riaz tore into what he perceived to be her bedroom, taking only a second to locate the handbag she’d had in his den. A noise of triumph sounded from his chest, as he grabbed it and ran out again.
The air, however, seemed to be thinning—and moving.
Jeremiah.
The air Elemental must have arrived. It was their only backup plan for when they knew the Citizens would strike in an air attack. Jeremiah, the strongest air Elemental to walk the planet, had offered the rulers of the immortal breeds an option for when ‘The Choke’ took place: he would neutralize the threat and rid the air of the gaseous sunlight.
Riaz had heard of the other man’s abilities through the grapevine: stopping bullets with a wave of his hand, becoming invisible, drumming up Cat 5 tornadoes on a whim. The man was an unparalleled threat.
Good thing he was on their side.
The bad news was that Riaz was still in the building while the Elemental was cleaning the air, and in the process, it thinned what little oxygen was available to breathe. When he leapt down the last few stairs, his legs collapsed under the strain, sending him sprawling across the landing. The impact bit into his knees a second before his palms slapped against the floor.
He sucked in a deep breath through the mouth covering. Gaseous sunlight filtered into his lungs, and an instant later, a burning sensation followed.
It felt as though he were swallowing mouthfuls of glass, slicing through his lungs. Every second was torture. His wolf, already enervated and agitated, growled deeply beneath his skin. The darkness courted the beast within him.
As he remained frozen, battling against the seductive loss of control, his sanity began to slip away. Everything that had made him who he was slowly began to disappear beneath the shifting sands of rabidity.
Riaz gritted his teeth, desperately clutching to the vanishing images of his life: Cortana running alongside him, his mother’s lifeless body in his arms, the excitement of the pack during a party, Benny’s face. As despair set in, he felt the presence of something other begin to warm within him.
