She swallowed, some of her resistance leaching away. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Then help me do my job. Let me focus on killing this bastard so I can come back for you.”
A broken cry wrenched from her throat, but she nodded. He guided her into the panic room, his hand on the heavy vault door. As soon as she was inside, she turned and threw her arms around him, kissing him as if she feared it might be the last time.
“I hate this,” she whispered against his mouth. “Don’t you dare die on me, Hunter.”
“I won’t,” he promised. “Not when everything I’ve got to live for is waiting for me right here.”
Stepping out of her embrace was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Her eyes stayed locked on his as he pushed the concealed panel closed, sealing her inside.
And not a moment too soon.
His internal warning system was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. The tap, tap, tapping inside his skull became a deafening drum. Inside the pocket of his black combat vest, his phone was buzzing with the triggered alarms of virtually every tripwire on the property.
He slung a crossbow onto his back and slipped two knives into the belt at his waist. A pair of semiautomatic pistols loaded with hollow points bristled in their holsters at his hips. Armed to the fangs and hungry for the fight, he sped out of the wine cellar, then up to the cupola window of the villa, which afforded the best vantage point of the outlying grounds.
Under the blue glow of twilight, half a dozen Breed males prowled in from multiple directions. He wasn’t surprised to see that Chiara’s assailant had returned with reinforcements. But he hadn’t been expecting this.
These feral looking beasts were Rogues, every one of them.
As they stole toward the house, another group emerged from the shadows of the vineyard to encroach on the villa.
Son of a bitch. Scythe’s vision bled amber in the second it took for him to assess the incoming threat. His fangs ripped from his gums, battle rage seething into his bloodstream when he imagined what this small army of blood-addicted animals would do if any one of them got their hands on Chiara.
And then there was the male at the center of it all.
Scythe looked for him among the beasts who swarmed the property, but didn’t see him. The prickling of his senses told him the bastard was out there somewhere. He would get the bastard. He would end him painfully and permanently. Even if he had to rip through a dozen feral Rogues to do it.
Silently, he lifted the cupola window and climbed out onto the roof. A pair of roosting doves exploded into the sky, flapping their wings in an effort to escape the apex predator in their midst.
Below him on the ground, the pack of Rogues swept in from the vineyard and the lawn, preparing to surround the house. One of them had already reached the back porch.
Scythe dropped down behind the male, as silent as a cat. Before the other vampire even realized he had a problem, Scythe slashed a titanium dagger across the Rogue’s throat. The shriek that rang out was short-lived, like its owner, but explosive.
The animal cry rent the night, and suddenly the ground began to rumble with the sound of Rogues charging in from all directions.
Chapter 13
A jolt of pain lanced her so brutally, Chiara looked down at her midsection, expecting to find her stomach sliced wide open. Her heart pounded frantically, sweat drenching the back of her neck. She felt another strike bite into her biceps, then a bruising blow to the center of her spine.
But it wasn’t her pain.
Not her injuries... His.
She rested her forehead against the wall of the panic room, her hand over her mouth to stifle her choked cry. “Scythe!”
It had been unbearable enough to stay behind knowing he was walking headlong into danger, maybe even death. Her only comfort had been the fact that he wasn’t afraid. He was confident, determined. Hellbent on coming back to her.
But this?
Feeling his pain the midst of that battle was an anguish she couldn’t endure. Not knowing what he was up against out there was the worst kind of torture. Not being with him when the only thing holding her back was his worry for her safety was an agreement she couldn’t keep.
She wasn’t trapped in the panic room; she could free herself anytime using the combination lock on the inside.
She had barely let the thought take root in her mind before she was slipping out to the wine cellar on the other side. The sounds of combat and violence outside the villa flew at her like wraiths now that she was out of the sealed chamber.
Dear God, it sounded like war.
One that had the man she loved—her mate—caught in the center of it.
Every fiber of her being railed against that knowledge. Hiding was worse agony than risking her life. She had spent a lifetime cowering in fear and intimidation. No more. The meek, powerless woman she had been before and after Sal no longer existed.