AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I drew a jagged breath. “No.”
I darted a glance around for help, but Philippe and my mother weren’t going to jump in to save him, and Jean-Michel wouldn’t dare. The three thralls were huddled in a corner, their pores literally leaking terror. Philippe’s female had a fist pressed to her mouth and was making high, keening sounds behind it. The pianist was pounding on the locked salon door, begging someone to let her out, and Lainey leaned against the buffet, arms crossed over her candy-pink T-shirt, her expression unreadable.
“Don’t stake him,” Philippe ordered. “I need him.”
The other vampires growled unhappily. But in his own lair, Philippe’s word was law. They sheathed their blades and went at Rafe barehanded.
He fought back, tough and dirty, managing to hold them off until they pinned him to the floor, bleeding from multiple wounds. Two vampires held him down while the others punched and kicked him.
His face. His stomach. His liver.
Each blow he took felt like it landed on my own body.
He grunted, and his pain reverberated in my chest.
My fangs pricked my gums. No more than a minute had passed, maybe two, but I couldn’t stand it any longer. I slipped my stilettos from my boots and started forward.
“Zoe.” Philippe’s hard tones halted me.
I spun to face him. “Then stop them, damn it. He’s down. You’ve won.”
Philippe’s eyes flashed electric-blue. Belatedly, I remembered whom I was speaking to—my mother’s sire, and a vampire with so much power, he could rip my head from my body barehanded.
“He’s in my lair,” was the icy reply.
My hands clenched on the stilettos’ ebony handles. Torn between defending Rafe and obeying Philippe.
Samir kicked Rafe, and his agonized groan vibrated up my spine.
“Please,” I said to Philippe. “I’m begging you.”
Me, who’d never begged for anything in her life. But for Rafe, I’d swallow my pride.
I wouldn’t survive losing him a second time.
“The hell with him,” Philippe growled back. “What I’d like to know is why you thought you could sneak him in here. Do you think I’m weak? Too stupid to know when I’m being played?”
Philippe wasn’t merely angry, he was furious. All the spit left my mouth.
I’d betrayed his trust. To vampires, loyalty was everything—loyalty to your coven, loyalty to your syndicate—and as Victorine’s sire, Philippe was by extension a member of my coven.
I started to apologize, to explain I’d just been trying to discover the truth about Zaquiel Kral’s disappearance. But the words died on my lips.
Because I wasn’t sorry. Victorine had started this by setting the slayers on the Krals, and Philippe had aided her every step of the way. The way I saw it, that was ten times worse than anything I’d done.
Rafe’s eyes were closed. Blood covered his face, seeped through his T-shirt. He’d curled up in a fetal ball, and no longer moved or grunted when they landed a blow. He was either unconscious or so out of it he might as well be.
Something in me broke open. Rafe was hurting.
The hell with begging, or trying to talk my way out of this.
My fangs extended. A livid, animal-like sound erupted from me, torn from a feral part of myself I hadn’t even known existed.
I leapt onto the nearest soldier’s back and stabbed the stiletto into his arm. When another man tried to pull me off, I jabbed the point into his eye. He swore and fell back, a hand to his bleeding face.
Two more soldiers came at me, a male and a female. At least they’d stopped beating Rafe to fight me. And they were trying to contain me, not take me out, which gave me an advantage.
I dropped into a fighting crouch and backed up they couldn’t get behind me—and slammed into rock-solid, living wall.
