Page 18

Bloodlust hazed his vision. Her ladyship hadn’t expected him to be there when she went after Kim, and she was arrogant enough to forgo the quick kill. She wanted to play like she had with the Cubs fan.

He pursued, uncaring of his bare feet and chest. She was climbing into the back of an unmarked van when her driver—Lake—saw him. The vampress hit the gas, and Francesca leapt into the interior. Raze dove into the open doorway, tackling the baroness as the van jerked back into the traffic flow to the blaring of horns and squealing tires.

She fought, her claws raking into his flesh, her fangs bared as she hissed like a wild creature. A gun went off, the bullet whistling by his head. Raze crushed her to his chest and rolled, using her body as a shield against the shooter in the passenger seat. Her ribs cracked in the vise of his grip.

Her scream pierced his ears. As Lake skidded around a corner, they nearly fell out of the open van door. Gaining his knees, Raze threw Francesca backward into the passenger, startling the man into firing. The bullet lodged in her back, her eyes widening with agony. Horrified by what he’d done, the man dropped his gun, sliding it on the metal floorboard into Raze’s waiting hand. He took out the minion with a shot to the head and grabbed Francesca by the wrist, yanking her into him so he could pierce her throat with his fangs.

As her blood pumped down his throat, he caught everything she knew—every plan she’d made, every minion she’d told aboutthose plans. He learned the identity of the traitor who’d been providing her with Fallen blood, and he knew how to find the names of those he needed to hunt. Not so many, but that wasn’t what disturbed him.

He released her before the silver poisoning from the bullet tainted the blood he drank. She slumped to the floor. Lake screamed and hit the brakes, sending him crashing back into the bench seat. She shoved the transmission into park and threw the door open.

“Take another step,” he warned, straightening, “and I’ll kill you slow instead of fast.”

She paused, sobbing, standing in the apex of the open door and the vehicle’s body.

Raze gestured her back into the van with a jerk of the pistol. He directed her to drive to Baron’s safe house when she returned to the driver’s seat.

16

Francesca, Lady Seagrave, eyed the big vampire who prowled around the refuge she and Baron had created together and felt the hatred sizzling in her blood along with the silver that burned like acid. He was lost in the recording he listened to on her wireless headphones, his face a mask that revealed none of his thoughts. But he had to hear what she’d heard through the bugs she’d placed in his hotel room. The tenderness and affection that had developed between him and his mortal lover were evident in every word they spoke to each other, every breathless cry and pleasured moan.

It would wound him terribly when he lost her, perhaps even break him, considering how long he’d gone without anyone being necessary to him.

The crash of something breakable shattering on the floor sent a jolt through her. There were others in her home; two men Raze had called to assist him. They were presently rifling through her things, watching the videos she’d made of certain memorable kills. They watched and listened with such horror as if it was a surprise that a vampire should hunt prey. That’s what was fundamentally wrong with those in power of the vampire nation—they acted like animal rights activists who advocatedvegetarianism, an impossible stance when ruling those who could be nothing but carnivores.

Mortals were food and sport. It was a joke that vampires should hide their existence and scrape for scraps to eat when there was so much to be had. The Sentinels were powerful, but Syre had never once attempted to break out of their rigid boundaries. Who knew what they could accomplish? She and Baron envisioned a world in which vampires ruled as they should. She hadn’t Changed to live like this. What was the point of having so much power if you never wielded it?

Raze yanked the headset off his ears and shot daggers into her with his gaze.

Her mouth curved. “It’s my right to take her from you. Baron gave her to you as surely as if he’d introduced you. You wouldn’t have been in Chicago to meet her if not for us.”

“Were you planning on going through my entire black book?” he shot back. “Taking out every person I’ve fucked?”

“Oh no,” she crooned, nursing her vicious fury like a babe at her breast. “She’s special to you, not like the others. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been at her place this morning. You would’ve taken what you wanted and left before sunrise. I miscalculated how quickly and deeply you fell for her, but it doesn’t matter. Whether or not it’s my hand that kills her, she’ll die. You have so many enemies, Raze. She won’t last a minute in the grand scheme of things.”

Francesca had to give him credit; his face and body language gave nothing away. But she knew the impact of her words. Tossing her head back, she laughed.

“You’re a crazy bitch,” he said grimly. “I’m just wondering if you were always psychotic or the Change warped your brain.”

“I Changed for him. We Changed for each other, so we’d always be together, and you’ve taken him from me. And for what? You’re as much of a Sentinel pet as the lycans. Nowyou’lllose something irreplaceable. You’ve finally found what you’ve been missing, and it’s about to be ripped from you. I hope you’ll see what’s done to her. I hope you watch while she’s cut, torn, and broken. I hope her screams stay in your head?—”

She registered the gun in his hand in a split second. And then there was nothing.

17

Raze studied the baroness’s slumped head with icy detachment. She remained upright courtesy of the ingeniously heinous chair he’d found in her home—a chair with silver-plated spiked manacles at the wrists and throat and a bottom and back with blades that protruded or retracted via a handle on the backside.

Turning away, he looked around the warehouse loft and considered what she’d left behind. There was an entire bookcase of recorded atrocities stored in jeweled cases. It was a collection that could never fall into a Sentinel’s or a lycan’s hands, or questions would be raised that had no good answers. Some of what he’d seen would haunt him for years to come, minions who’d succumbed so wholly to bloodlust that they were little more than ravening beasts. Raze wasn’t certain there was anything—even the Creator’s command that the Fallen live endlessly with their vampiric curse—that could prevent war if Adrian believed vampires were a threat requiring complete eradication.

After all, Adrian had broken other commandments without punishment.

“This place is a house of horrors,” Crash muttered behind him, tossing the disks into a crate to be destroyed. “And they were proud of it. They could’ve kept all this shit in a cloud or on a hard drive, but they wanted to see how many kills they had under their belt.”

Raze’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out. “Raze.”

“How extensive is the infestation in Chicago?” Adrian asked without preamble.

His back stiffened. “I’m taking care of it.”