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“Don’t you have anything better to do than be difficult?” Jackson said before Dominique could decide if he wanted to risk that weapon going off anywhere near Cassidy. With his new, vampire-blood-enhanced abilities, Jackson had no such reservations. He went for the firearm holstered on his hip with what, for a human, amounted to stupendous speed.
Stupendous, but not sufficient.
Monica pulled the trigger an instant before Jackson.
Dominique used his own new strengths to focus on the bullets crossing paths in slow-motion. The one heading for them was on a collision course with Jackson’s head. The slug moved too fast to catch and hold, but not to deflect. It seared through his hand and streaked away at a new angle to crash into the vanity mirror.
The other bullet smacked into Monica’s thigh, causing her to stumble and cry out. Dominique ripped the pistol from her hand and slammed her against the nearest wall. The smell of her spilling blood hit him between the eyes like a rusty nail. The beast shivered just beneath the surface of his skin.
She stared at him, open-mouthed. Human. Weak, frightened human.
Prey.
A pawn in his sire’s games.
He stepped back from her, from the brink.
Monica slid to the floor, clutching her leg. Blood squelched between her fingers. “Please. You can’t do this.” Tears burst from her eyes. “My lord will never permit it.”
“He can go fuck himself,” Jackson said as he bundled Cassidy in a blanket with brisk efficiency. “Let’s go.”
Dominique engaged the safety on Monica’s gun and handed it to Jackson, then carefully gathered the blanket cocoon in his arms. Cassidy’s head flopped against his shoulder. The look she gave him was one of utter trust and surrender.
“I will not fail you,” he vowed. He could not fail her.
She closed her eyes.
In the hallway, Garrett Striker bounded toward them, hair askew and blood smeared across his chin and neck. His dark-gray aura sparkled with an even stronger silvery energy than his nephew’s. “We’re about to outstay our welcome.”
Jackson pulled at the soggy gash in his uncle’s black shirt, revealing unblemished skin. Not even a scar. His shoulders slumped with relief. “You’re okay.”
“That loon forced his magic juice on me before he pulled the dagger out,” Garrett said, resentment soaking his voice.
“That loon saved your life.”
Dominique continued carrying Cassidy toward the stairway. “His judgment is often suspect.”
“Wait,” Garrett called below his breath. “Your daddy is down there, and he’s not looking happy about that mess.”
Dominique’s steps slowed, but he didn’t stop until he caught the first whiff of cedar smoke.
Jackson came up beside him. “Back stairway? Window?”
“Futile,” Dominique whispered as though Kambyses could not hear him anyway, didn’t know every thought in the minds of the humans from whom he so recently fed. “We can’t outrun him. The only way out of this—”
“Is through,” Jackson finished, echoing Dominique’s thoughts.
He exchanged a look with his erstwhile enemy, who now stood by his side with an uncanny understanding of the situation. This realization struck him as both comforting and disorienting.
“Exactement.” Dropping a kiss on Cassidy’s brow, he deposited her in Jackson’s arms. She was unconscious and fading. “Follow me down at a distance. Whatever you see or hear, keep moving. Get her out of here. No matter what.”
Jackson nodded.
Garrett shook his head. “You’ve both lost your minds.”
Dominique blurred away to the landing, overlooking the foyer. Bijou’s body still lay where it fell on the white tile. Kambyses stood over her, his crimson silk shirt and ebony slacks crisp, unbound hair falling in a sable curtain from his bent head.
Serge cowered on his knees at the room’s far end and hugged himself against violent shivers. The look on his face was more crazed than ever. With his eyes locked on the ancient vampire, he muttered and mumbled, whined and gasped, buffeted by whatever future he perceived in Kambyses’s aura—or maybe just overwhelmed by the sheer, ancient power.
