“Would have been a lot simpler if she’d cooperated,” Myne muttered, putting his spine to a wall to peer between the slats of a window blind.
Riker’d give Myne that one. Now they had to evade the authorities while hauling an unconscious human through the forest. Assuming they didn’t get hunted down and executed in front of TV cameras, that still left them having to take the human to the clan’s headquarters. Had everything gone as planned and Nicole cooperated, VAST would still been sent after the vampires who broke into the Martin mansion, but kidnapping one of the most prominent people on the planet was going to launch them into a whole new level of manhunt.
“We don’t have a choice,” Riker said. “If we don’t get Neriya back—”
“Then we rain hell down on ShadowSpawn before they know we failed and come after us.”
Attacking ShadowSpawn clan before they knew what hit them would give MoonBound a distinct advantage, but eventually, the enemy’s sheer numbers and utter lack of ethics would result in MoonBound’s destruction. Riker would never risk that.
No, Nicole was the key to MoonBound’s survival, so she was going with Riker and Myne. One less human in the world, especially a Martin, would only be a good thing.
Myne brought up the rear as Riker hauled ass to the back of the mansion and took the old servants’ passage to the south entrance. The dust on the scuffed wooden floor spoke of months, if not years, of disuse, and the door Riker had seen his mate disappear through too many times had been chained closed from the inside.
Myne tugged on the lock. The thing snapped with a loud crack, and they slipped out into the night.
The hedges were manicured to perfection as if frozen in time. Memories clawed at him as they ducked between the shrubs, and he made a point of not looking at the spot where Terese had taken her last breath.
The scene had been too well preserved, and although he knew it was impossible, he didn’t want to risk seeing his mate’s blood splashed on leaves or pooled in the grass.
Using the landscape and shadows as cover, they made their way toward the stone security wall. Three Rottweiler guard dogs merely watched as Riker and Myne broke out of the hedges and jogged across the expansive lawn. Riker had zapped them with his hypnotic gift on the way in. They’d love him forever now, which was cool, because he liked dogs.
They’d made it just more than halfway before half a dozen humans in black and red Vampire Strike Force uniforms flanked them. Riker assessed the enemy in an instant, and if Myne’s lopsided grin was any indication, he had, too. These were first responders, their weapons deadly but average.
“Put. The human. Down.” A male with a blond high-and-tight cut that made his head look like a toilet brush broke away from the pack, easing forward in a smooth crouch. “Do it now, or I blow your head off.”
Complying slowly, Riker set Nicole on the ground.
As he straightened, he cut a let’s do it glance at Myne. In an instant, Myne was in motion. He took down Toilet Brush and another dude before Riker could land his first blow.
Oh, but when he did, the sound of the VAST officer’s jaw breaking was like a stiff shot of bourbon. The officer flew backward, his weapon flipping into the air.
Riker snagged it one-handed and whirled, jamming the butt of the rifle into the gut of another asshole who made the mistake of trying to use a shock stick on him.
Spinning, he laid out another guy with a boot to the chest, but as Riker landed, he took a blow to the kidney, followed by a sweeping kick to the back of his knee. He grunted as he hit the ground, narrowly avoiding a shot from the VAST guy’s AE- rifle. One bullet from that particular Daedalus weapon modification would torture its victim for hours as it delivered a series of powerful electric shocks through the body, burning organs and flesh. Vampires had a fifty-fifty shot of surviving. Humans had nil.#p#分页标题#e#
Riker shoved his palm into the guy’s throat and watched with satisfaction as the human went down, futilely gasping for air through his crushed windpipe. A sudden spray of blood splashed on the lawn in front of
Riker, and he glanced over to see Myne standing over the decapitated body of one of the agents, his fangs buried deep in another’s throat.
The remaining humans either were dead or wouldn’t be recovering anytime soon.
“Come on.” Riker scanned the horizon for more humans, but so far, so good. “The next wave will be here any minute.” And they’d have better training, deadlier weapons, and greater numbers.
Nicole lay where he’d put her, still unconscious, her long strawberry-blond locks spilling over the gras like blood, her bottom lip swollen from biting it. He gathered her in his arms, aware that he hadn’t held a female this way since his mate. But Terese had been smaller. Lighter. Much more fragile. And where Terese had smelled of rosewater, Nicole’s warm skin carried ahint of crisp pears.