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She didn’t even look over as Lassiter entered.
“Rahvyn.” At the sound of her name, she snapped to attention and swung her head his way. “Are you hurt?”
“Ah, n-no.” She covered her mouth as if she might be sick or was trying to hold in a sob. “No, I’m not.”
There was black blood on the front of her sweater, and the stink of the lesser wafted off of her—and holy shit, the idea she’d gotten that close to one of those undead slayers made him dizzy.
“Stay here.” When she nodded in a herky-jerky way, he wanted to curse at all the could-have-happeneds. “I’m going to make sure they’re protected out there, okay? I’m right on the other side of this door. Do not move from here.”
More nodding. “Is Theox okay?”
“Just stay here. So I know where you are—”
“I am not bringing him back,” she said in a low warning. “Do not even ask me.”
Tears gathered in her silver eyes, turning them luminous, and as she wrapped her arms around herself, everything about her tangled hair and her stained clothes came into sharp focus.
“You shouldn’t be out here like this. What the hell are you thinking.”
She wiped under her eyes, clearing tears from her cheeks. “I am not a prisoner.”
“No, instead you’ll get people killed while innocent males are trying to make sure you’re not hurt. Come on, Rahvyn. This is wartime, not playtime—”
“That is so unfair!”
He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “That male out there is dead. You want to tell me what was so fucking important that you had to come out here, to this club? With those two kids? Just stay where you are, for fuck’s sake, while I make sure this situation doesn’t get even worse.”
Back outside, he forced the door to re-close and searched the parking lot, in case there were more slayers on the periphery—or some of those shadows that had been showing up in various places, at very inopportune times. Then he looked at Shuli, who had sat back on his ass.
The poor bastard. He was barely out of his transition, a newly minted adult, and not from any kind of family or situation that would have prepared him for this. And yet he had manned up when it had counted and made sure Rahvyn wasn’t hurt when the consequences of her bad decisions had put the three of them, as well as others, in danger.
Lassiter went across and put a hand on Shuli’s shoulder. “Give me the gun, son.”
Eyes that were confused raised up. Then the kid looked back down to his lap with surprise—like he had no clue what was in his grip.
“Here,” the kid said as he offered the weapon forward. “I got it back.”
Taking the nine millimeter, Lassiter flipped the safety on. “Just hang tight. The brothers are coming with medical help any second.”
“I didn’t mean to shoot him,” came the tortured reply. “Oh, God, I know his family and—”
A massive vehicle with a set of headlights bright enough to light up a football stadium trundled into the parking area, and Lassiter had never been so glad to see Vishous as the brother materialized on the other side of the victim.
“Let me get a look,” V said as he crouched down.
Manny Manello, the Brotherhood’s personal surgeon and medical officer, jumped out of the mobile surgical unit with a black bag, just as Tohr, Z, and Phury arrived to set up a guard formation.
“I killed him,” Shuli said to no one in particular. “It was my bullet. I killed him…”
Nate said something that was too low to hear, and then the kid crab-walked over to his friend, pulling the guy into an embrace, his bloodstained hands wrapping around the other male’s shoulders.
As Lassiter stepped away to give the medical types room to work, he looked over to the burn spot on the pavement again. Then he went back to the door into the club. Pulling it open, he was in mid-sentence as he—
Only the bouncer was standing in the hall.
Rahvyn was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Okay, fine, it should have only been about the suit, Devina thought.
But really, since when had she been into “shoulds.”
As the demon re-formed on a gracious, tree-lined street, she kept herself invisible, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t corporeal. The instant her body habitus came back into being, all kinds of aches registered and there was a glorious wetness between her legs. Smiling to herself, she enjoyed a brief flashback-buffet of images of her getting pummeled from behind in the men’s department of her now absolute-favorite store of all time.
Maybe there was hope for them yet, she thought as she glanced left and right. Assured that there were no cars coming—not that it would really have mattered—she crossed the lane and paused in front of a tall pair of iron gates that were just re-closing. On the far side of them, extending into some very nice formal landscaping, a driveway wound about and disappeared over a rise.
