“Stop. She needs us,” Finn said aloud, his voice thick with emotion.
I blinked. Once, twice. It hurt so much to even breathe. Zane and Finn loomed over me, faces pale with shock.
“My…” I coughed, leaking a single trail of crimson from my mouth. “My…serum. Quick.”
“The serum,” Zane repeated, louder, shouting at Finn, who wouldn’t hear it no matter what volume he used. The Deaf vampire’s champagne eyes were darkened and darting around in panic. Zane grabbed his shoulder, shaking him thoroughly, before signing,The healing serum. Now!
Finn jolted and went out of my line of sight. I counted two agonized breaths before he returned with a syringe in his hands. A precious vial of my catalyst, blue as a piece of the noon sky.
Zane took it from him and injected it cleanly in my arm. The moment the plunger went down, magma crawled through my veins. It raced straight for my heart and flooded outward in a scorching wave that stole my breath.
For a moment that stretched too long, nothing else happened. The tingle of my dhampir regeneration fought a losing battle waiting for the serum to join in.
“You’re all right, sunshine.” Zane stroked the side of my face, repeating the words over and over. Trying to reassure us both.
Minutes later, my limbs convulsed as the serum woke, pushing my healing into motion. The acceleration helpedbut not nearly fast enough for the desperation clawing through me.
My mates held my hands, and I gripped them like lifelines, my knuckles white with strain. I fought for air, each gasp a jagged rasp that burned my throat. Sweat poured from my skin as the heat intensified, settling in my gut.
“Take. Out. The. Dagger.” I bit off every word with clenched teeth. My mending flesh ripped anew around the buried blade.
This time, Zane hesitated. Leaving a foreign object buried was Triage 101 for slayers. It was Finn who pulled the weapon ever so carefully from my body and set it aside. Zane tore a piece of cloth from the cart’s cover and pressed it to the wound.
It was only then that our quiet observer spoke up from where he was restrained. “Do I get to lick that at least?” Noir asked. “It’s the least you could do for me, after barging in here and bruising my banana delivery.”
Chapter 30
Noir
The restraints felt like old friends. I’d been bound more times than I could count, but never by living shadows. The way they moved in a subtle dance with the nearest light was fascinating.
Another tendril of darkness formed a fist and slammed into my face. The shadows constricting around me kept me upright.
“You’re lucky you’re still breathing, bloodsucker,” the shadow wielder snapped, beginning a litany of other, slightly more creative curses.
Oh, right. I’d just made his vampiress stab herself. Oopsie.
It looked like she was going to live. I wasn’t as disappointed as I could’ve been. My head was already awfully crowded with the bits and snatches of everyone else whose powers I’d stolen at their deaths. It’d be foolish to assume I could hold a piece of every power in existence.
Yet I must’ve been a touch foolish. Because I wanted to try.
Through the material of my shirt, my amplifier felt hot.The heat would be radiating from the ruby. It was a rare token, a gift of affection from?—
No, I wouldn’t think of her.
It’s not supposed to be overloading yet, I thought with forced cheer. How exciting. If it grew too hot and stopped working, it’d make this predicament an actual challenge. It must’ve taken more power than I realized to break the suffocating magic from the vampiress—Sidney, as the shadow wielder had so helpfully shouted in his distress.
Maybe Ihadrun into her power before? I’d met so many vampires in my time. They all started to look the same after a while. The situations they put me in, too.
The team of three Queen Sabine had sent were young. They’d underestimated me from the moment they stepped into the room, and they continued to do so now that I was bound in shadows. I could’ve still escaped at any time.
Probably.
Maybe if I focused.
The shadow wielder had taken my silence for submission and turned back to Sidney, helping her sit up as the wounds in her gut mended with incredible speed. She breathed raggedly, clutching at the bloodied rag that he held firmly to her belly. The unique blend of her blood replaced the sickly sweet tang of fresh death. I sniffed, trying to place why it seemed different.
Sidney stood on shaky limbs, bracketed by her two companions. Sweat dripped from her wan face. The trio clustered around me. Well, more like a quintet. A mouse peered at me from the collar of the redheaded male’s shirt, and the honey badger snuffled by his side, muzzle still stained with my blood.
