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“It’s the blood!” Xero shouted as he shoved Kai away with his boot. “That feral vamp’s blood, it’s mixing with his!”
That thing had been a vampire? Shit. So much for Dracula being a suave, sexy lady killer, I guess.
“What do we do, Piper?” Kingston’s question was more a warning than anything. “I don’t know how to stop him without killing him.”
My bond with Kai was sti
ll very much alive, even though he’d lost his mind. I could feel his bloodlust, his insatiable hunger, and his confusion. The brutal animal inside of him was tearing him apart. If he died, I knew I’d feel that too.
And I couldn’t let that happen.
“Just slow him down,” I ordered. “Do not kill him!”
Kingston shot me a look halfway between fury and helplessness, and I felt that too. I was on all sides of this conflict, imbued with the emotions of everyone around me—feeling focused and frightened with Jayce, analytical and precise with Xero. It was paralyzing. I stood on the fringes of the conflict, eyes darting everywhere. It was too much. It had to stop. I had the power to stop it, I knew I did, I just couldn’t reach it in the midst of all of these strong emotions.
Fuck this. I’m not letting any of my men get hurt.
Persuasion. I thought the word, trying to summon my power, but I couldn’t make the controlled, soothing feeling rise. Persuasion, damn it. Come on, work with me here!
It flickered this time, almost rising up to where I could grasp it, but it was shoved away by a flash of terror from Jayce.
I felt the emotion radiate from him like a bomb’s blast.
“We got company!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The men’s attention shifted away from Kai as three more of those monstrous vamps roared into the little hollow. It was just enough for me to break free of the emotional and mental paralysis and hurl myself at my feral mate, taking him completely by surprise.
He grunted as I slammed into him, knocking him onto his back. Behind me, Kingston had taken flight and was busy lighting the newcomers on fire.
“Stakes! We need stakes!”
Jayce’s voice was panicked, and it was distracting. His emotions were calling to me so strongly it was almost impossible to think of anything else. I shoved my last shred of calm at him as Kai recovered and lunged at me. I backed away, picked up a heavy branch, and swung it at his gut. He caught it and shoved it back at me with an animalistic snarl.
“Kai!” I screamed, persuasion forgotten for the moment. “Look at me! I know you’re still in there. Stop this, right now.”
He ripped the branch out of my hands and broke it in two, then charged at me again. He’d somehow managed to get between me and the rest of the guys, and as I dodged him again and again he pushed me deeper into the woods.
Fear flickered through me at the realization. I was on my own, isolated out here with no backup. But it was also easier to focus without my men’s confused reactions to Kai’s transformation swirling in my mind.
Refocusing, I reached down into myself, calling on my power.
Persuasion. There it is. “Kai, you want to be nice to me.”
Whatever the feral magic was doing to him, its effect was strong. Not reacting to my words at all, he snarled and swiped at me. I jumped backward, and as I landed, my heel slipped over the lip of a sharp decline. I pinwheeled my arms, throwing my weight forward, but it was too late. I crashed down the hill, smashing through bushes sharp as glass and barely avoiding the gnarled trunks of massive trees. Kai was coming down after me on all fours, leaping down the hill as easily as if it were flat ground.
I rolled to a stop on my back, stunned and breathless, aching from head to toe. Heart pounding, I tried to scramble to my feet, but before I could, he pounced on me, pinning me to the ground.
My battered face reflected back at me in his sharp, slitted eyes. I was bleeding from a thousand tiny cuts. He lowered his head and sniffed my neck like a dog, then lapped at the blood leaking from my cheek. It would have been hot if I hadn’t known that he just wanted to eat me for lunch, and not in the fun way.
Goddamn it. He’s going to kill me. And he won’t even realize it’s me.
I didn’t know what possessed me to do it, but as he moved his head toward my other cheek, I turned my face and kissed him.
It was nothing big. Just a quick peck on his mouth, a small, desperate gesture. Maybe I was just hoping to claim one more little piece of him before my life was extinguished, to remind myself of our bond while I still could.
But in the millisecond after I did it, Kai’s expression changed.
