Page 73 of Ryder’s Storm

Finally, he heard heavy boots hit the ground from the double doors.

“Fuck!” Ryder recognized Luther’s curse.

Ryder kicked the V-CON in the back of his knees. But the bastard would still not go down. Ryder’s arm still hooked in the double rail, he now gripped it with two hands and jerked it up under the V-CON’s chin and pressed it back against his neck, trying to choke him.

“Noooo! No!” Lizzy screamed and pushed Scarlet out of the way to rush past her toward the V-CON. “Don’t hurt him! Please don’t hurt him!”

Finally, Luther grabbed hold of one side of the double rail, and together they flipped the V-CON, and he landed with his back on the floor.

“About fucking time! I warned you, Luther!” Ryder ground out.

“Please! Don’t hurt him,” Lizzy screamed again.

“Get back! He’s in bloodlust,” Luther ordered, but Lizzy just pushed in between him and Ryder to reach the vampire they were holding down.

“He won’t hurt me,” Lilly claimed. “We’re blood-bonded.”

Shock charged through Ryder.

“Lizzy…” the V-CON now murmured. “Lizzy…”

“I’m here, my love.”

Ryder exchanged a look with Luther, who looked just as stunned.

“He needs my blood, or he’ll die,” Lizzy said. “Please let me feed him.”

From behind Ryder, he heard a gasp. He looked over his shoulder to see Maya standing there, staring at them.

“That’s why he was getting worse the more blood we gave him,” Maya said, realization evident in her face. “How could we have missed that?”

Luther ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck!” Then he nodded to Lizzy. “Do what you have to do.”

Lizzy kneeled down next to her mate, and leaned over him bringing her neck to his mouth. “Drink, my love.”

Everybody fell silent.

“Lizzy,” he murmured, before he sank his fangs into her neck and let his blood-bonded mate feed him.

Suddenly, a shocked gasp sounded from the door to Lizzy’s room. Ryder lifted his gaze and saw Scarlet still standing there, watching in horror as the V-CON drank Lizzy’s blood. She slowly turned her head and met Ryder’s gaze.

This wasn’t how he’d wanted Scarlet to find out what he was.

35

Scarlet was in shock. She couldn’t believe what she’d seen, nor what was happening now. When the violent patient had flung Vanessa clear across the emergency room, and then attacked Ryder, she’d been scared for the two siblings’ safety. That was before she’d seen the monster’s fangs and claws, and the red eyes. At that point, she’d thought things couldn’t get any worse than they already were.

She’d been wrong.

Ryder and his sister were suddenly showing the same signs as the inmate. Their canines had turned into fangs, sharp, dangerous fangs, and their hands were claws now with sharp barbs where their fingernails had been before. And then their eyes: glowing red. She realized now that Ryder had shown signs of his eyes glowing before tonight. When they’d had sex, she’d noticed his eyes shimmering golden, almost orange, and had dismissed it as light reflecting in his eyes. But she couldn’t dismiss what she saw now. It was staring her in the face: the truth she’d not seen before.

“You’re vampires.”

When Ryder made a step toward her, she shrank back, fear clamping around her heart, panic choking off the air to breathe.

“I’m sorry, Scarlet.” He made a movement with his hand toward the vampire on the floor. “This is not how I wanted you to find out.”

“You should have told her last night,” Vanessa said to her brother.