Midnight's Kiss(49)

He snatched Anthony’s keys up as well, and strode out of the cell. Moments later, the snarling began. She covered her ears and buried her face against her raised knees, while inside, she remained frozen in a place of stricken realization.

TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT ME TO DO, AND I’LL DO IT! he had said.

You’re going to be okay, he had told her. You, not we.

He had come down here in the tunnels, fully expecting to die. Calmly waiting for it. Possibly a part of him had been hoping for it?

He’s broken, she thought. Something, or a combination of things, has broken him. In spite of everything he had done to her, she had room to feel a horrified sense of compassion.

He had also gone into the darkness to fight over a hundred ferals for her, just as he had given himself up to Justine, without complaint or hesitation.

She was so tired. This wasn’t supposed to be her fight.

But she couldn’t take it.

Leaping to her feet, she snatched up Anthony’s big flashlight, her stake and the gun. She checked the gun over quickly. It was a large .357 revolver, with seven bullets left. She should save two bullets in case Justine showed up. Unless she got incredibly lucky with a shot, those bullets wouldn’t kill Justine, but they might help to slow her down if it came to a fight.

That meant Melly still had five. Five shots to the head or heart would mean there would be five less ferals that Julian would have to fight.

A glint of metal caught her eye. It was Anthony’s whistle. After a second’s hesitation, she snatched it up too.

Her heart rate revved up in preparation for battle. She strode out of the cell.

The scene at the gate was something out of a nightmare, dark and claustrophobia-inducing. Ferals upon ferals clawed over each other to get at Julian, who whirled, lunged and kicked so fast, she could barely track his movements.

Steadily and inexorably, he was taking them out, two by two. He was an unstoppable juggernaut, but there were too many of them for him to stake without taking some damage himself. They slashed and tore at him with fangs and talons, and blood flew everywhere.

It sickened and enraged her all over again.

She told him telepathically, I’m right behind you.

She caught a brief, piercing flash of his reddened gaze. He snapped, Go back to the cell and lock the door!

I can’t do that. You’re going to have to make sure they don’t get through the gate. She set the flashlight on the floor and directed the beam toward the open gate where Julian fought. What if we tried blowing Anthony’s whistle? It might back them off.

There are too many, he said. They’re not just trained to back away. They’re trained to expect food, and we don’t have any to give them. We can’t risk confronting them outside the only shelter we’ve got — we’ve got to get rid of them.

Sometimes she hated that he was right.

She told him, Watch yourself. I’m firing to the right of you.

Some of the ferals turned their attention away from Julian and fixed on her. Taking careful aim at one, she pulled the trigger.

The revolver was a lot bigger than the trim semiautomatic pistols she used in target practice. Not only did it have quite a kick, but the report in the enclosed space was deafening.

The forehead of the feral she had shot exploded. More blood spurted everywhere, until the feral’s body collapsed into dust. The noise made her ears hurt, but damn, making a feral disappear felt good.

Carefully, she took aim again. She couldn’t afford to waste a single bullet. Refusing to let the emotional impact of the battle push her into shooting too quickly, she didn’t pull the trigger until she felt confident of her shot.

Another feral vanished into dust.

Then a third. And a fourth.

After the fifth one vanished, she almost kept shooting. It was so difficult not to pull the trigger again when she saw how hard Julian was laboring. His broad, muscular chest and heavy, powerful arms were torn again with wounds. He was caught in the toughest kind of marathon, one that wouldn’t come to an end until every one of his enemies was dead.

How many times throughout the years had he been forced to fight alone, without anyone to stand by him or guard his back? For so much of his long life, he had been a commodity to somebody — to his owner in the arena, to his emperor, and then for so many centuries to his sire, Carling. Even now, he was a commodity to the Nightkind council, useful and yet never fully trusted, no matter how much he did for the demesne.

Sometimes he would have had people at his back. Yolanthe was unswervingly loyal. So was Xavier, and Julian had once commanded entire armies.

But all too many times, he would have had nobody. Certainly there wouldn’t have been anybody in that ancient Roman arena, not for the young, half-starved alley cat Julian had once been.