Most of the Alliance members injected with that crap remained unconscious, but a few were clawing their way across the earth and toward the shadows the walls provided.
He took down another Savage as a blur of movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He didn’t have time to turn and face his attacker before it crashed into his side and sent him sprawling across the ground. Rolling, he came up with the sword pointed into the air as the Savage leapt at him. The monster impaled itself upon the blade.
The blood that erupted from its mouth splashed Logan’s face, but there was already so much blood covering him, he barely noticed it. He grasped the creature’s shoulder and pulled his sword free as another Savage barreled out of the thick smoke and into Elena.
When she hit the ground with a startled cry, fresh fury tore through Logan, and he forgot about killing his attacker as he jumped up and ran toward her. The Savage that hit her was already running into the smoke as more creatures fled the oncoming day.
Logan reached her side and fell in front of her as she looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes. She held her hand against her neck. A sick feeling twisted in Logan’s gut as her distress ripped across their bond.
Cautiously, he grasped her hand. At first, she wouldn’t let him pull it away, but once she did, he saw the black spreading out from the puncture in her neck.
“No,” he whispered as a single tear fell from her cheek and fell on his hand.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Logan searched her black eyes as he sought to form words. “I’m not going to lose you,” he vowed before she collapsed.
Chapter Fifty-Three
It was nearlyimpossible to salvage anything from the wreckage the Savages left behind after they either fled or were destroyed. The hunters had almost nothing left other than the ashes of their homes. Those living in the mansion saved most of their clothes and anything they deemed valuable.
Callie carried the container holding the horses her father made for her as she passed Logan in the hall. Red rimmed her eyes, and when she looked at him, he turned away from the pity in her gaze as he made his way to the room where he recently created so many wonderful memories with Elena.
Without thinking, Logan started tossing their clothes into a trunk from one of the guest rooms. He did it with mindless determination because if he stopped to think, he might go mad. They’d already packed up as much of the weapons, computer equipment, and necessities as they could and crammed them into SUVs, trucks, and vans.
What remained of the livestock was loaded into trailers and taken off the property. They would be housed at a farm Callie located in Rhode Island. The woman agreed to take them for as long as necessary. Of course, it helped that they were throwing a ton of money at the farm to keep the animals until they could find a place to settle.
Logan doubted they would be settling anytime soon, or at least the fighters wouldn’t. The women and children pulled from the mission were sent to stay with Willow and Vicky’s family in Maine.
They were putting the Byrne family at risk by sending the refugees there, but they had nowhere else to house them, and they couldn’t keep them safe while living the nomad lifestyle thrust upon them.
Willow and Vicky left with Nathan and Declan to take the refugees to Maine an hour ago. He didn’t know if Vicky would remain with Wyatt or if she would leave him with her parents.
He’d find out when they returned. He wasn’t sure when that would be as it would take them time to move over fifty women and children, including Sister June and the orphans, safely to their temporary homes without being detected.
The Savages and demons had somehow discovered them here; they couldn’t take the risk they would follow them to their new location. On the way to Maine, they planned to make a few stops at different locations, take a lot of backroads, double back, and take their time getting there. They also planned to buy some RVs along the way as there wasn’t enough housing for everyone in Maine.
Vicky and Willow’s family were going out to buy some RVs too, as well as tents. It wasn’t the ideal way for them to live, but at least they werealive. That was more than he could say for other members of the Alliance.
They’d done their best to clean the dead and ready them for a proper burial before the women and children exited the mission, but the bodies were still there for them to see when they emerged. They couldn’t bury them without giving their loved ones a chance to say goodbye first.
Some of the Savages were still burning in the sun when they vacated the mission, but most of them had turned to ash. They ignored those burning bodies; no one cared what happened to them. But they held a small ceremony for their dead before burying them all.
Though the refugees left an hour ago, Logan could still hear the sobs of the women and children as they learned of their losses and saw the remaining wreckage. In all, they lost nearly fifty fighters.
They killed thirty of them outright and injected twenty with that shit. Of the twenty, ten were disposed of when the sun burned them so badly they couldn’t survive their injuries without drinking blood, and they wouldn’t take the chance of giving them any.
They didn’t know it for sure, but they all believed it was more than likely that blood would solidify the change and make it impossible to save the injected. And he had to think they could rescue them, or he was going to lose his mind and destroy everything in his way until someone finally killedhim.
He’d been wrong about the Savages and demons only targeting hunters. They’d also gone after vamps too, including Elena. They probably hadn’t injected any vampires in Arizona because there were none there when they attacked the hunters, but they hadn’t been so picky here.
But he wasn’t wrong about them trying to destroy the Alliance. He had no doubt that was their ultimate goal.
Of the ten remaining injected, three were vamps, including Elena. It felt as if a hand squeezed his heart when his thoughts turned briefly to her. For a second, he couldn’t breathe through the intense grief in his chest. His hands trembled, and he didn’t know if he was going to cry or roar.
Finally, he was able to inhale a tremulous breath and get himself back together. She still needed him; he couldn’t fall apart, no matter how difficult it was to keep it together.
Logan finish packing the last of their clothes and left the room. He didn’t look back as he closed the door. This chapter of his life was over. What lay ahead of him was probably going to be the worst time of his life, but he would get through it.
