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A flash of metal. Marek ducking a second before the knife opened his throat. He pushed her away to block the next attack. It was the other Hunter, the one with the vampiric aura she’d seen at the airport. He was fast, his movements a blur.
“You’re coming with me.” Alessandro grabbed Olivia’s arm and jerked her to her feet.
“Let me go!” Olivia struggled in his hold. She wasn’t leaving Marek!
“Stop fighting, or I’ll throw you to them.” Alessandro shot the thing that lunged out of the darkness.
Between the flashes of car headlights, Olivia finally recognized their attackers as some sort of large jungle cat. Jaguars, maybe? If jaguars were the size of grizzly bears.
“You won’t kill me,” she said between gasping breaths.
“No, my brother won’t kill you, but I’m happy to.” Alessandro’s grip on her tightened to a painful degree. Olivia threw another desperate look at Marek, but he was gone, lost amidst all the other shadows fighting for their lives in the darkness. They ducked behind an overturned van. Dmitri was sitting on the ground, groaning with a hand over his temple as Alessandro fired into the darkness.
“What are they?” Olivia asked.
“Shifters,” Dmitri groaned. “Local guardians of the Ruins. They don’t want us here.” He gave her a pained smile. “For good reason.”
Cold spears of fear lanced through her. “They know about Drakos. They know why we’re here.”
“Yes, so you see, we’re the only thing standing between you and certain death,” Alessandro said before shouting, “Mike!”
Another man in camo gear covered in blood and gore emerged. Alessandro pointed to Dmitri and ordered, “Help him.”
Dmitri got to his feet with Mike’s help while Alessandro reloaded his rifle. “We’re going to make a run for it. It’s not far.” His dispassionate gaze sent shivers down her spine. “Keep up, and don’t do anything stupid.”
Alessandro took the lead, and Olivia followed, trying not to flinch every time a scream of terror bounced through her. Several other Hunters joined them to fend off the jaguar shifters.
Marek?She reached out tentatively and shied back at the wave of bloodlust and killing rage.
Must survive. Must get to Olivia.
Pain flared. He was hurt! The feeling was gone in another second, him blocking her again. She glanced backwards, wishing she had the vampires’ eyesight so she could locate him. Could she do it? Fight off the Hunters and the jaguars and return to Marek? No, that was too much, even with her magic.
Besides, she had to get to the Ruins, face Drakos, and free Betsy. Marek would find her again. She had to trust him. Their plan required her to reach the Ruins, so whoever escorted her—Marek or the Hunters—didn’t matter. No, Marek was here to save her after she dealt with Drakos. Except, they hadn’t factored in the shifter pack throwing everything into disarray. Olivia didn’t know how long they ran in the dark. It felt like forever, dodging their shifter pursuers, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.
Suddenly, the underbrush gave way to a wide clearing the size of a village. Stone buildings, one to two stories tall, glowing with a soft yellow light, lay scattered about the area. In the middle loomed the main tower, its base the size of a city block but rising thinner and thinner as it reached toward the sky.
Olivia had thought the Ruins meant safety, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. A ferocious battle raged here as well between the shifter jaguars and vampires. Vampires that looked wrong somehow. Their clothes torn, dark veins along their skin, and their features scrunched up with hunger and madness.
“You made it.” A black-haired Chinese vampire appeared in a blur of wind. He didn’t look as beat up as the other vampires, but he’d seen better days. The shirt over his left shoulder was ripped, revealing slowly healing jagged red edges.
“We could’ve used your help,” Dmitri said.
“What do you think we’ve been doing?” The vampire gestured to the carnage surrounding them. “We had to make a path to the spire.” His gaze landed on Olivia, and she refused to look away despite her racing pulse. She’d faced Marek and Julian Blackmore head-on. This vampire was nothing compared to them.
“Olivia!”
They turned as one to watch Marek carving his way through jaguars and vampires alike in their direction. Behind him, Olivia recognized the tell-tale brown-orange flashes of Andrea’s magic.
“Go!” Alessandro was already sprinting toward Marek. “Mike, with me!”
“Mar—Oomph.” Her breath rushed out as the Chinese vampire threw her over his shoulder. Before she caught her breath, she was on her feet again, at the base of the towering spire. The wall’s surface was smooth, with no entrance to speak of.
“I thought Dmitri’s your partner,” she wheezed once she realized she was alone with the vampire.
“He knows his place, and he’ll live. You’re the prize,” her captor said. He grabbed her hand with vampire speed and sliced open her palm with a sharpened claw.
Fire burned across the cut as he pushed her bleeding hand against the wall. A different sort of heat rushed through her. She gasped. Magic. So much magic. She was drowning in it.
