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I could have loved you,he sent out in a desperate attempt to have Saint hear his final thoughts. He maybe already did love him. It had crept up on him, and now he faced never realizing it, and never knowing what might become of Saint. The ache in his heart, the desperate need to have Saint close, it might have been the one thing he’d spent millennia searching for.
The nyk pinning him down struck fast. Octavius flung up his right arm, and its fangs sunk into his forearm. Venom spilled like broken glass into his veins.
The biggest damn nyk Octavius had ever seen swooped down from above, grabbed the nyk who still had his fangs embedded in Octavius’s arm, and ripped him free.
“Memento mori, motherfucker,” the beastly nyk said with a savage growl. He tore the nyk’s jaw off, then struck viper-fast at its neck. The nyk burst into a cloud of dust.
Saint.
Saint was here.
Had Octavius dreamed him?
“Hello, Little Wolf.” Saint reached down, and Octavius grabbed him with his good hand, staggering to his feet. He wanted to be strong, to stand tall, but nyk venom was under his skin, trying to weaken him. He clutched at Saint. He’d be dead if Saint hadn’t come.
“Drink,” Saint said.
Octavius smelled the blood, clamped down on Saint’s offered wrist, and gulped the strengthening blood. Exhaustion lifted, setting his veins ablaze with a new desire to fight, to protect, to kill.
Renewed, he licked Saint’s wrist clean and scanned the carnage in the street. Zaine and Storm were in trouble, both surrounded and about to be drowned under nyks.
Saint grinned. “Let’s get medieval.”
He vanished, then reappeared in a cloud of static shadow beside Storm, and plowed into the attacking nyks. Octavius fought his way to Zaine, clearing the mob enough for Zaine to get back on his feet. Zaine nodded his thanks, and together they beat back the tide of nyks, turning the battle in their favor. As the nyk numbers dwindled, the remaining ones fled, scattering like roaches when the lights turned on.
Octavius searched for Saint among the drifts of ash and spotted him offering Storm a hand up. Storm gripped Saint’s forearm and climbed to his feet, eyeing Saint with a hint of trepidation.
Saint smiled, his jaws filled with vicious teeth, and then shrugged off the monstrous guise, returning to his more subtle human form. “Good to see you again, Storm. Aren’t you glad I’m not dead.”
Storm grunted an acknowledgement but said no more. He had to know that without Saint’s intervention, they’d all be dead.
A wave of tiredness sucked any joy and relief at seeing Saint out of Octavius. “We need to find the others.”
“There shouldn’t have been that many…” Zaine mumbled and ran a shaking hand through his hair, leaving bloody streaks in the blond locks. “Where the fuck did they come from?”
Covered in blood and ash, their clothes stained and torn, even they couldn’t hide the weariness and shock from their faces. They needed to get out of the open and away from the evidence of the nyk massacre.
Zaine’s phone chirped. “It’s Kazi…” He answered. “Hey, man, you good?” Zaine looked up. “They’re all right, but it was close. He’s saying we should meet, not at the base. Somewhere else.”
Storm huffed a great sigh and wiped blood from his right bicep, either his or the nyks’. “The fuck if I know where.”
They needed to get out of the daylight and regroup, they needed Mikalis… and the bastard wasn’t here. His absence was a betrayal, and now they all felt the same pain Octavius had been carrying for the past few months, and Saint’s pain, carried for far longer.
“I know somewhere,” Saint said. “It’s mostly full of addicts and pimps. Nobody is going to notice y’all.”
“Classy,” Zaine said with a grin. “Kazimir will fit right in. Lead the way.”
Saint nodded. “You got a vehicle nearby?”
Storm grumbled and headed back down the street, stirring up nyk ash with every step. Octavius glanced up at the windows of the buildings they passed under. Somebody would have filmed the battle. Once social media was back up and working, the footage would go viral. This wasn’t like Poland, where Kazimir’s dramatics had been explained away as a publicity stunt.
The truth was out there. There was no putting it back in a box.
Vampires were real.
Welcome to the end of the world.
CHAPTER34
