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This was his chance. If he stopped Saint now, Mikalis would have to listen. But also,fuck. Saint had just thrown Mikalis into the path of a truck, then set the Brotherhood leader on fire, while Saint himself didn’t appear to have a scratch on him.
“Stop.”Octavius flung the demand at Saint, unleashing it like a right hook.
Saint rocked back a step. He gave his head a shake, fixed his glare on Octavius again, smiled, and continued forward. That smile was a wicked, curious thing. Full of hunger, and knowing, and a thousand ways to kill Octavius.
Saint had resisted the demand. Just how ancient was he?!
Saint blurred, turning to a liquid shadow, and rushed Octavius in a wave. The shadow swallowed all the light from the fire, or had it swallowed Octavius? He tried to push it off, to fight back, but whatever Saint was, it wasn’t solid. Firm arms crushed Octavius close, the shadow coalescing once more into something solid and real. Saint opened his mouth, fangs gleaming, venom dripping.
“No!” Octavius bucked, but Saint’s arms crushed tighter. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight. “Stop!”
The mental demand sank its teeth in, and Saint stopped. A puzzled expression softened his face. Octavius wheezed around the crushing pressure of Saint’s arms. All right, so he just needed a moment to catch his breath, to figure out how to control Saint.
Mikalis suddenly loomed behind Saint. He swung a metal bar, striking the back of Saint’s head, and Octavius dropped to the sidewalk a second time. He scrabbled backward, out of their radius.
Saint spin-kicked Mikalis back toward the flames. Mikalis’s clothes had all burned away, leaving just rags behind. His skin was scorched, melted off in places.
They traded blows quicker than Octavius could track, two titans fighting for their lives. This was no longer Octavius’s fight.
Whoever won, they both wanted him dead. He couldn’t intervene.
Sirens wailed, coming closer.
It was time to get away.
Octavius hurried out of the fire’s glow, broke into a run, veered down a side street, and vaulted over a fence. If he could get some space between him and those two behemoths, he’d buy a few hours to put some distance between himself and the winner. He was going to need more time to think this through. Saint’s strength had been on par with Mikalis’s. And his shadow form? How was Octavius supposed to capture that?
Once out of their orbit, and away from St. Louis, he’d adjust his plan to make sure when he approached Saint, Mikalis was not nearby. And now he knew he could use mental demands on Saint, he’d be able to make him listen.
Octavius ducked under a chain-link fence, entering a train yard. He hurried over slick tracks and ducked behind an old diesel locomotive. Pausing, cloaked in darkness, he slumped against the train’s engine, surrounded by the heady smell of diesel and wet metal. Octavius was no easy target, but battling Mikalis and then Saint… They’d made him feel weak. He’d vowed never to feel helpless again. He hated it, hated the uneasy sickness churning in his gut. He’d made sure to be the most powerful creature in the room, always better, always smarter, always stronger. He couldn’t be weak. He couldn’t stand it.
He breathed too fast. He couldn’t lose it now. He had to get out of the city, had to think, and he’d come back harder.
Something crunched in the railroad gravel.
He knew—even before he looked up—who was there.
Black trousers, white shirt, and a black jacket, still smoking at its edges. His smile said he’d won. He’d beaten Mikalis. And now he’d come for Octavius. There was a moment, a second, in which he could have demanded Saint stop, forced him back, but Octavius froze, weak with fear.
Saint slammed Octavius’s head against the train carriage, batting his consciousness away.
CHAPTER2
Octavius
He woketo distant sounds of lapping water, the hiss of wind through trees, and a thumping headache. No sirens, no traffic, no background noise at all. The bedroom around him was basic, but comfortable. He sat up and fingered the bruise on the back of his head, wincing as the still-healing fracture warned him not to touch.
Someone had brought him here, put him on the bed. But where was he?
He recalled seeing Saint and Mikalis fight. After that, little else. Train tracks, perhaps? He remembered the smell of diesel. The more he tried to remember, the more his head pounded.
He threw off the blanket—at least he was dressed still—and got to his feet. The blinds were closed, but he sensed it was past sundown. Daylight weighed heavier on his bones.
Had Mikalis brought him here? No, if Mikalis had gotten to him, he wouldn’t have woken at all. Saint then? That also seemed unlikely. Saint had tried to kill him too.
The clatter of cutlery and pans sounded from somewhere in the house. He wasn’t alone.
Whoever had kidnapped him had taken the time to remove his boots and place them neatly by the door. They’d also laid him on a bed, not dumped him on the floor. That suggested someone cared.
