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He tripped over something. Fell down. Pushed himself up—
Burning now.
Was it his skin? Yes. And the pain was so paralyzing, he landed face-first in dirt.
Holy shit, he thought. This was how he died. He couldn’t believe it.
There had been a number of other situational volunteers for the lights-out trophy, from accidents, to fights, to an infection when he’d been a young . . . and then there had been the dreaded transition, because he was a half-breed and that was how vampires matured.
But after surviving all of those assaults on his mortality, he had lived to discover that this, this oven-hot-baking-sheet stretch of asphalt, was how it happened. This sun bath was the answer to the question that every person who was alive, be they vampire, wolven—even human—wondered about in some dark corner of their mind.
And the weirdest thing was . . . he couldn’t stop thinking about Rio.
Fear for her life made him try desperately to find the door. Casting his hands out, he dragged himself forward, even though he knew damn well that he could just be pulling himself farther and farther away from safety—
“Luke!”
The voice confused him. What was Rio doing out here? Oh, right. The white landscape around him had to be the Fade—the place where vampires went to spend eternity. And hey, it turned out that the female you wanted to be with was your greeter—
Shit!
“Rio,” he mumbled. “Are you dead?”
“Come on, stand up.”
In the great abyss of his pain, he still wanted to please her, do what she asked of him. So he attempted to get to his feet.
“Fuck,” he groaned as a hold locked around his waist and yanked him forward.
He stumbled into something hard, his face taking the brunt of the impact, and then his balance listed. There was a series of beeps. And then another series—
“Goddamn it, what’s the code?” Rio barked.
Lucan weaved on his feet, and the collapse that was coming his way speeded up like it was a boomerang looking for the hand that threw it: One minute he was holding his own against gravity; the next, he was horizontal, his face back in the dirt, his body not responding to all kinds of get-up, get-up, get-up’s.
After that, there was a split second of relative silence. Which was followed by a helluva lot of noise.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Mayhem! I need the code—he’s dying! What’s the code—”
Lucan threw his hand out toward Rio’s voice, and he got something on her, an ankle, he supposed. “Rio—”
“I need the code! Mayhem—”
“Shh. Rio. Listen to me.” When it was clear he wasn’t getting anywhere, he used what felt like the last of his strength to yell, “Rio!”
There was a pause, and then her voice was very close to his ear. “I’m getting help. I just need to get help—”
“Listen.” When she fell silent, he talked fast because he knew he was out of time. “I’m so glad I met you—”
“What are you talking about? I need to—”
Lucan grabbed at thin air—and then happened to snag her hand. Pulling her back down, he said hoarsely, “I wish we’d had more nights and days, you and me. I think we really could have been something.”
“Stop talking. Save your strength.”
As he went quiet, he wasn’t sure whether he was following her directive—or was just about to stop breathing altogether.
He wished he could have told her more because they had had more together. More time, more peaceful surroundings, more kissing.
More . . . love.
But that, his dying heart knew, was not a gift given to the likes of drug dealers and half-breeds.
And more was the pity.
Through the swirling smoke and terrible grilled-meat smell of burning flesh, Rio restarted with the pounding on the metal panel. She couldn’t hear the sound the impacts were making or what she was yelling. All she was aware of was that Luke was facedown on the ground beside an out-and-out bonfire and she needed to get him back inside.
“Mayhem!”
She glanced back at Luke. His big body was in a sprawl, and one of his hands seemed to be smoking—and it was obvious what had happened. Even though there were no gas fumes in the air, he’d clearly used an accelerant on the dead body and tossed a match, and the explosion had blown up in his face and lit him on fire. In a fit of self-preservation, he’d done a stop, drop, and roll, and she worried about what the front of him looked like.
God, she prayed his lungs were okay.
“Help!” she yelled.
Right next to them, the fire was doubling and redoubling, the heat curling off the remains of the guard in ever greater intensity. If the blaze kept growing, she was going to have to drag Luke away—
The door flew open, something breaking through it—a black bag—no, the other guard’s body had been used like a battering ram. And as she caught sight of the shallow stairwell, she had a split second image of Mayhem with his arm raised to cover his face, his balance falling away, his body landing back on the pine steps like he’d passed out.
