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“I asked you a question, vampire,” the disembodied voice demanded. “What have you said about yourself, hmm?”
Darius tucked the gun into his waistband at the small of his back. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated, triangulating the slayer by scent and the source of the chatter…
Locking on its location, he dematerialized into a shallow study. But the lesser was fast, disappearing around a corner, even though it was dark. But then fucking Bruce knew the house by heart, didn’t he.
“You know I’m going to kill her, don’t you,” came the drawl. “I’ve got a score to settle with the bitch.”
The slayer was moving again, and Darius prayed he didn’t take to the stairs. But that had to be where he was headed. He had to know Anne was up in her room—
“Cat got your tongue, vampire?”
One last chance, Darius thought as he closed his eyes again. He had only one more opportunity to—
Some sixth sense directed him, his body disappearing and traveling back where they had started, in the kitchen… where he re-formed right behind the now-undead. By the bread Anne had taken out to make sandwiches after all the lovemaking.
No time to waste.
As the lesser focused ahead on the living room, Darius threw out his arm, snagged a hold around that throat in the crook of his elbow—and choked the fuck back, locking a grip on his own wrist for better leverage. The response was a furious battle, the former Bruce McDonaldson slapping and kicking, the slayer far stronger than the man had been, but not yet fully within the power granted unto him by the Omega’s conversion. That would come within a couple of days.
Assuming he “lived” that long. Which he wasn’t going to.
Banging into cupboards, the fridge, the table, things clattered and fell and broke, and then Darius smelled peanut butter as the open jar of Jif landed on the floor. After that there was clanging, like they had hit pans, a scattering, too, across the linoleum—
Darius shouted as a set of teeth bored into his forearm, and in response, he spun the lesser around and shoved him face-first against the wall. A picture fell and crashed.
Replay of what had gone down back at that apartment. Except oh, God, this was Anne’s place.
Stay upstairs, he prayed. Just stay where you are, sweetheart—
The lights came on overhead. And as the glare blinded them both, he cursed. Anne was standing just inside the room, a pink bathrobe belted around her waist… a gun up and aimed in their direction.
“Bruce,” she said in a voice that wavered. “Stop fighting, I’m calling the police.”
That chuckle returned. At least until Darius drew all the way back on the choking again.
“Don’t kill him, Darius!” she commanded. “I’m going for the phone—”
“No—” As Darius barked the order, she stepped farther into the room. “Anne, go back upstairs—”
“Just hold him where he is—”
Meanwhile, the slayer was still chuckling as he wheezed—and then came a staggering blaze of pain that took Darius’s breath away. As Anne screamed and dived out of sight, he staggered back in shock. He tried to keep his hold, his position, but something wasn’t working right and it was sending him off-kilter—
Things happened fast at that point, the slayer going for his gun, the pair of them do-si-do’ing around as he attempted to retain control of his weapon—at the same time his stomach was rolling and his body wasn’t behaving as it should.
“Put the gun down, Bruce! Or I’ll shoot!”
As Darius looked toward her voice, his balance listed and he threw out his hand for the counter. Which was when he saw the blood running down the outside of his pant leg. Except a superficial wound like that shouldn’t have made such a—
Fuck.
It wasn’t a minor flesh wound and it wasn’t his thigh. The blood was coming from his gut: The hilt of the steak knife Anne had used to spread the peanut butter and the jelly was sticking straight out of Darius’s abdomen. When the hell… did… that… happen…?
As his knees gave out, he landed on his ass, his hands going instinctively to where he’d been stabbed.
Standing over him, the lesser laughed some more and leveled his cold stare in Anne’s direction as she tried to take cover behind the arch into the living room. He was still dressing like Don Johnson, everything teal and white and out of place for so many reasons, although thanks to the scuffle, his togs were all wrinkled and untucked. Add to the dishevelment those crazy eyes? You had a really dangerous, kind of well-dressed sociopath—who was armed with Darius’s own fucking weapon, the one that he should have used right away and to hell with the neighbors.
To hell with the pride of a bonded male who wanted to protect his female with his bare hands.
