He fights like hell, fire bursting from his mouth, searing two clean off him—but there are too many. Five more. Ten. They swarm him, driving him to his knees.
A vampire lunges in with something small and sharp. A syringe sinks into his ribs. He bellows then staggers.
I take a step toward them as Snow grabs me, keeping me from going any further.
Talon drops to one knee. Another vampire steps in and, with a gloved hand, slams his fist into Talon’s temple.
Talon collapses.
“No—” The scream tears from my throat.
A blinding pink arc erupts from my chest, seething with raw fury. It doesn't merely whip or curl, it hurtles forward with lethal speed and ferocity. It hits the vampire who struck Talon square in the chest.
I feel it.
Feel him.
Not his body, hislife force.
I grip the pulse of something soft and vital beneath skin and bone. The teeth of my curse sink its teeth into the center of him without ever touching him.
And then I pull. The hunger lunges, a starving animal bursting from its cage. I rip his life straight out of him, and it funnels straight into my veins. My body clenches, shakes, the rush of it so sharp and immediate it borders on orgasmic.
I gorge. Ifeed.
The vampire drops in an instant. Not burned. Not wounded. Dead. Like his soul has been scooped out of him. Or if vampires don’t have souls, whatever animates him.
It tastes as delicious as any other person I’ve devoured but tangier and honestly...a little dry.
My breath comes ragged, my skin flushed and tight as the energy rushes through me, filling in the cracks that Mal carved in me.
Half of them drag Talon back by the arms of his jacket, leather scraping pavement.
I take a step to go after them.
Snow hauls me around, shoving me down a side alley.
“Let me go!” I scream. “We have to go back! We have to help him!”
“There are too many,” Snow says, unrelenting her grip on me.
Behind us, I hear one of the vampires shout, “We’ve got the Dragon! Leave the girl.”
Snow drags me half a block before I shake her off me. I turn and run back to where Talon was being swarmed and drugged. But when I return, there’s no one there. Only spots of blood and a few charred corpses left behind.
Mal has Talon.
The realization hits me like a bowling ball to the gut.
She always wanted Talon. It was never about me.
I stumble. My hands shake from hunger and from the sick, terrifying realization of what I just did. What I could do again.
“We’ve got to go,” Snow says softly before taking my wrist again and wrenching me away from the scene of Talon’s abduction.
Chapter 33
Lost Girls Assemble
