Her heart raced, and her sweaty palms could barely grip the wheel. She glanced at her container of horses. They were her last remaining connection to her father, her most cherished possession, but they may have cost them all their lives.
She should have let them go, but it was too late for should haves now. All she could do now was pray they made it out of this mess and fight like a rabid dog.
Keeping the gun in one hand, she grasped the stake in the other. She didn’t dare put the vehicle into drive again. She couldn’t see past the Savages enough to navigate it without risking hitting one of her friends.
When the window beside her shattered, she wasn’t surprised. Leaning across the passenger seat, she turned and fired the gun again. She’d probably be deaf for the rest of her life, but she would take as many of these fuckers down as she could.
She was still firing at the Savages trying to come through the driver’s side door when hands grasped her from behind. A scream lodged in her throat. She hadn’t heard them breaking through the passenger window, but they jerked at her arms as they pulled her from the vehicle. She kicked and thrashed as they dragged her across the earth.
Their brutal grip pinched her flesh. She didn’t realize she was still pulling the trigger until they tore the gun from her hands. Her fingers bent, and she was sure a couple of them broke from the wrenching motion. She’d been out of bullets, but she felt more exposed without the weapon.
She retained the stake in her other hand, but it wouldn’t do much good against these things. She was a mere mortal against supernatural beings.
They suddenly stopped dragging her and lifted her to spin her around. Callie thrashed against their hold, but her movements did little good as the creatures barely noticed her struggle.
Callie shook back her hair and lifted her eyes to glower at her captors. No matter what, she would never let them see her terror. She bit back a gasp when Yannis stepped in front of her. His eyes were a vivid shade of red, and his face was strikingly similar to Lucien’s.
How could this monster be related to the man she loved so much?
And he was a monster. There was no doubt about that as she took in the gleeful joy he exuded while he watched her. His eyes ran over her and his lips curved into a smile.
“So, we meet again,” he said.
His words barely penetrated the ringing in her ears, but she made them out. Callie didn’t recall meeting him the first time, but he’d been amongst the vampires watching her in the pit. When she lifted her chin, his eyes fastened on Lucien’s bite marks on her neck.
“And I was right,” he murmured.
Callie had no idea what he was right about, and she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking him either.
“I suppose you would be my sister-in-law, which makes it such a shame to kill you.” He leaned toward her. “But it’s going to be so much fun to watch my brother suffer.”
He held his hand out to another Savage and took the sword the monster handed him. Callie’s mouth went dry as her gaze fell on the blade. The sharp edge gleamed in the headlights from her abandoned vehicle. And staring at that edge, she knew she would not survive this.
An ache started deep in her chest, and she lifted her head to search for Lucien. All she wanted was to see him one last time, but a throng of Savages engulfed him. She refused to shed the tears burning her eyes as she considered everything she would lose tonight.
Lucien managed to dig his way out from under the crush of bodies and turned toward where he last saw Callie. They’d taken her out of the SUV. She stood, silhouetted against the glow of the headlights, in the center of a group of Savages. They restrained her as Yannis lifted a blade.
“No!” Lucien bellowed as Yannis lunged forward and sank the blade into Callie’s heart.
Chapter Forty
Callie croakedout a scream when the steel pierced through her flesh, broke through her rib cage, and embedded itself deep in her heart. She blinked as from one beat to the next, her heart jerked like a zombie first learning to walk again.
And with the next beat, agony pierced through her as the shock faded. She felt something warm spread across her chest, but the bleeding wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be, and she realized it was because the blade was still in her heart.
When Yannis leaned closer, his breath warmed her face as his black eyes held hers.
“It’s nothing personal,” he said. “This is all about my brother.”
With that, he yanked the blade free, and Callie gasped as blood poured forth. She opened her mouth to scream, but the blood surging up her throat choked off any sound, as well as her air supply.
Weakness seeped into her body. The hand holding her let go, and her knees gave way as she sank to the ground. She tried to lift her hands to staunch the blood flowing from her chest. It wouldn’t do her much good as every beat of her heart pumped out more blood, but it was all she could think to do.
However, her hands wouldn’t rise, and though her mind commanded her body to dosomething, it did nothing. She was completely helpless, and she was dying.
That hit her hard, as well as the knowledge Lucien wouldn’t survive this either. That was when she realized the roar reverberating in her ears wasn’t the rush of her dwindling blood supply; it was coming fromhim.
The sound was primal, animalistic, and filled with so much fury and sorrow it caused her broken heart to twist in her chest as she slumped forward. She managed to turn her head before hitting the ground, and her cheek pressed into the dirt.
