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Wielding dual blades drenched in red, Kaien’s best friend was as much at home on the field of battle as he was behind a desk. Even after centuries of conflict, Remmus lived for the thrill of battle, and his chipper attitude showed the nature of his delight.
In lieu of responding to the jab, Kaien’s blade met the neck of a mercenary that’d come within inches of slicing through Xavier’s forearm. Grunting, the lieutenant merely jerked his chin in appreciation before turning back to his defense of their sovereign.
Blair, fighting alongside him, was beauty in motion. Each slash of her blade was an art form, inspiring nothing but awe from him. A mercenary wielding his own blade had engaged her, and the feral woman was clearly toying with him, enjoying the battle while easily maintaining the upper hand.
Around them, the commotion grew thick as more mercenaries stormed onto the battlefield. Lucius’ vampires—at least those with battle experience—converged on the intruders with supernatural speed, but the weapons the mercenaries held were loaded with sunlight bullets.
As Kaien defended his sovereign from any foes who might seek to disrupt her, he watched as a vampire fell to the earth, his hands clutching at his chest where the bullet had entered. Sunlight crawled through his veins, the advance visible on his skin, the violet orange of it burning outward before he stopped moving entirely.
Evidently, the vampire had been young—and absolutely no match for the liquid sunlight carried within the cartridges of the enemy.
A guttural roar sounded from his left where Lucius had stood defending Isaiah. Blurring headlong into the action, Lucius charged the front of mercenaries who were taking aim at his people. Vicious and lethal, the ancient vampire tore through their tidy line almost singlehandedly.
Using telekinesis to ward off incoming bullets, he met the human’s blade for blade with vicious reprisal. Eyes spearing over the humans that lined the bloody battlefield before him, Kaien belatedly discovered a sniper who’d taken residence in a tree just outside the commotion and well behind enemy lines.
The sniper’s rifle was trained on Lucius. Kaien didn’t think twice.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Blair’sferalsmilegrewwide as she plowed through the humans. Each beat of her heart pumped adrenaline through her veins, her hunger for vengeance rising. Her razor-sharp incisors tore through carotid arteries while her borrowed blade gleefully sliced through flesh. Like ages past, the wildness inside her had been given free rein.
The humans who’d come to kill vampires would be solely disappointed.Noneof them would leave here alive.
Kaien hadn’t stopped cutting them down since he arrived, the ruthless man’s strikes fluid and flawless. A part of her was riveted to the spectacle of her mate—but she knew her attention couldn’t be split.
A short distance to her left was her first fledgling, the towering vampire male cutting a swathe through enemy combatants like a raging machine. He was a predator in action, a caged lion that, when let loose, rampaged with deadly accuracy. Lucius, though a kindhearted soul to the core, was more fiercely protective than any man she’d ever met.
Besides Kaien, that was.
Smirking, Blair’s blade cut clean through another human when she spotted him.Torrin. The human was sitting in the open door of a military Hummer just yards away from her, behind the line of fire.
When his piercing grey eyes landed on her, his thin lips curled into a maniacal grin. Cold and calculating, it was a look that would have inspired fear had she been anything less than a predator herself.
The growing need to avenge both her mate and her fledgling seared through her blood, all at once eclipsing any other thought. Renewing her ferocity, she battled toward him and away from Kaien, the bodies piling up around her. Savage, the feral animal that resided in her spirit salivated for Torrin’s death.
So close.
Blair edged forward, no more than twenty feet from her prey, when a tingle of awareness prickled down her spine. Mystified, she pivoted toward the familiar male presence she’d come to know so intimately.
At first, her mind couldn’t comprehend what her eyes were telling her.
And then her brain caught up.
Kaien had teleported himself behind Lucius, his hands coming to the vampire’s shoulders. Protective was the word that echoed in Blair’s mind half a moment before the bullet tore through Kaien’s flesh. A gargantuan spray of blood and flesh exploded from his right bicep muscle only milliseconds later.
Her mate’s body plunged to the blood-spattered earth, taking Lucius with him.
It took her only seconds to locate the source of the bullet, and only seconds more before her hand loosened the dagger at her back. She hurled it directly into the sniper’s chest, the human dropping out of the tree to land with a heavy thunk.
A shriek hurtled from her throat: animalistic, feral, and absolutely devoid of mercy.
She blurred toward where Kaien had straddled Lucius in blatant defense. His right arm hung uselessly by his side, cascading blood, but it didn’t stop him from using his gifts to keep any enemy at bay. The pulse of his telekinesis was weakening—as was his strength.
It took Blair less than ten seconds to reach them.
Lucius, unaccustomed to being the one protected, quickly took over when Kaien’s strength gave out. Deadly accurate, their blades removed any human that edged too close to them, working as a unit to protect the fallen Raeth.
The lioness at her core snarled at every mortal who dared approach. Near feral with concern and anger at Kaien’s injuries, she gave no quarter to any human who stood against her.
