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The sudden quiet is eerie. Groans emanate from the injured and dying. The surviving Syndicate members pick themselves off the floor.
Mario helps me to my feet with a new air of respect. I've really proven myself now. Shown my claws. No longer am I a passive captive hanger-on to the group…I'moneof them.
I've been blooded.
The realization is both terrifying and exhilarating.
Hadria strides over and lifts my chin gently. Her gray eyes pierce mine, filled with swirling emotion.
"You saved my life," she murmurs.
I shake my head weakly. "I just reacted without thinking…"
"No." Hadria's voice is firm. "You were brave. Well done."
My heart stutters at her words. Perhaps it would have been smarter to just escape completely in the carnage. But the thought of her pale corpse splayed on this filthy floor, herbrilliant flame extinguished forever, fills me with such sharp and sudden anguish I can hardly breathe.
And she seems to notice, pulling me close. "Come on," she says softly. "Let's get out of here." We leave the warehouse together, Hadria's warm hand pressed against my lower back. And my panic bleeds away, replaced by a hunger that surprises me with its ferocity.
In the car, I huddle up closer than necessary to Hadria, who keeps her arm around me. But she exchanges a look with Lyssa, who seems grim.
"I hope that little experiment was worth it," Lyssa says. "You know he'll retaliate."
Hadria nods. "And we'll be ready." She presses her nose into my hair, inhaling, and a chill of anticipation runs through me, raising the hairs on my arms.
Lyssa tuts. "At least wait until we get home," she growls, settling back in her seat.
But Hadria's arm stays tight around me and her fingers stroke softly against my arm the whole way back to Elysium.
CHAPTER 21
Hadria
When we get backto the house, Lyssa stalks off, but I don't let go of Aurora until she's safely back in her bedroom. She started shaking about halfway home when the adrenaline began to wear off and only now, in the privacy of her room, does she finally speak.
"Did I…did I kill that guy?" she stutters out.
"You winged him," I tell her. "Hitting a moving target is tricky. Next time, Sunshine. Next time, you'll nail it."
"Oh," she breathes out, and it takes a moment to register that she sounds relieved rather than disappointed.
And that I am, too. She's ventured far into the darkness, this little sunbeam, but her hands still remain clean of blood—metaphorically, anyway.
I stand there looking down into her face, almost unfamiliar under all that makeup, and I want so desperately to taste her that I know I need to leave the room. But when I take a step back, she takes a step forward. "Don't go," she says. So simply, not begging, just saying it, as though she already knows I won't.
I couldn't, not now, not if my life depended on it.
"I won't go," I tell her. I should. God knows I'll need to have the Syndicate regroup, debrief…
But those are fleeting thoughts that evaporate like smoke when I see the clear need in her eyes. She takes another step, so that her breasts brush against me under that soft blue velvet, and she reaches up a tentative hand to my face.
I don't move, though I want to touch her so badly my fingers are aching. I want to grab up that honey-blonde hair and pull her head back so that I can slide my tongue down her throat, hear her gasp out in shock and pleasure?—
"You were amazing tonight," she says, a note of wonder in her tone.
"Youwere amazing tonight," I retort, and the next thing I know, I'm kissing her. Her lips open under mine eagerly, and she responds with the same fervor I'm giving her, pulling her body up against mine, one of her hands sliding into my hair and the other pressed between us, covering my heart.
And I stop thinking and justact, seize a handful of that soft, sweet-scented hair that feels like a cloud in my palm, pull her head back so I can taste her throat, run my tongue right down that smooth column. She gives a soft moan so erotic that my clit jolts as though in response to electric shock, and I find myself baring my teeth, about to mark her out as mine?—
