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Midnight Unbound(39)

By:Lara Adrian


She was Scythe’s now. He was hers. She had to help him if she could.

Carefully, she retrieved the automatic rifle she had watched him stow on one of the wine racks. It wasn’t her first time handling a large weapon. After Vito Massioni had nearly killed Pietro in Matera, she had taken it upon herself to learn a bit about self-defense, including how to shoot a firearm. Hitting the side of an unmoving barn was hardly preparation for the savagery she knew she would find outside the villa, but she had to try.

For Scythe—for the future she prayed they might have together—she was willing to do and risk anything.

Holding on to their bond like a lifeline as well as a guide, she hurried out of the wine cellar and into the main area of the villa. All of the lights were out, everything cloaked in darkness. Everything except the flashes of gunfire exploding like fireworks on the back lawn of the house.

Oh, God.

Scythe.

She could feel that he was alive, but he was hurting. He was injured, but he was full of battle rage so sharp and violent, she felt it erupting within her too.

She wanted to unload her weapon into the fray.

She wanted to kill and punish and destroy.

Scythe’s emotions, twining with her own.

She wasn’t sure whose were the most ferocious.

On a guttural cry, she ran outside to the porch, the automatic rifle raised and poised to shoot. But she couldn’t squeeze off a single shot. She stopped on the porch as surely as if she’d hit an invisible wall—blinded by the bright pops of light amid the inky darkness outside.

Each one seared her retinas, momentarily blinding her. She stood there, shaking with violence and nowhere for it to go. She was useless to Scythe when any errant bullet she fired could very likely hit him instead of the countless Rogues besieging him from all sides.

The rage inside her began to twist like a tempest. The strange hum she’d felt in the core of her being—in her marrow—now swelled into something bigger. Something too powerful for her to contain.

The hum became a whine, then a howl... then a scream.

It burst out of her in a gale force, a blast of energy and crippling sound she could not control.

Windows shattered all around her.

The headlights and windshield on the black sedan parked in the driveway exploded, sending pellets of glass skyrocketing into the night sky like glittering hail.

The gunfire ceased.

Everything seemed to slow down as her power overtook her.

Everything except for Scythe.

Only he seemed immune to power that flowed out of her. She saw him now, standing in the center of the battlefield, torn-up and bloodied, a crossbow hanging broken at his back, a long dagger gripped in his hand. His eyes were aglow, burning like lit coals in his skull. As the Rogues shrank back under Chiara’s lengthening cry, several of their dark shapes skulking toward their escape, Scythe let out a bellow that shook the wooden planks beneath Chiara’s feet.

And then he drew a semiautomatic pistol from somewhere on his body and opened fire on the retreating pack of Rogues, mowing down the entire lot of them with relentless, exacting aim.

Once she saw that he was okay—that he was alive—Chiara let go of her power and sagged back on her heels. Her breath raced in and out of her lungs. Her heart sped so fast it seemed to want to leap out of her chest.

She couldn’t utter a word in that second. Whatever it was that had overtaken her sapped her of both her voice and her strength. Her head felt stuffed with cotton, her ears too. She had never felt so drained in her life.

No, not true.

She had felt this same odd miasma the night of the attack, after she’d fended off her assailant with Sal’s sword. Had she felt this swell of energy and sound on that night too? Maybe a little. She couldn’t remember the details.

That awful night had been a blur. Her only concern had been the protection of her innocent son sleeping in the other room.

Tonight had been a glimpse of a different hell, seeing Scythe nearly overcome by so many Rogues. Fearing she could do nothing to help him. Horrified that he might die.

But he survived.

Thank God, they both had.

“Chiara!” His deep voice reached out to her through the darkness. She didn’t realize it was out of fear until she felt the spike of his terror pierce the fog of her clouded senses. “Chiara—look out!”

A band of iron hooked her around the neck, yanking her off her feet.

She stumbled backward—into an immense wall of menace and seething madness.

Something cold jammed up tight against her temple.

“Stay right where you are,” her attacker snarled at Scythe. “Drop your weapons on the ground—all of them. Take one goddamned step, you crippled fuck, and I’ll paint this porch with the bitch’s brains.”