Before I have a chance to say anything, he strides out, down the passage, and starts firing into the air.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he calls out, tossing the rifle over his shoulder and turning on his heel as he scans the area for hunters.
A crossbow bolt zips through the air, but Dominik easily avoids it. A volley of the things come at him, and he dissipates into mist before reforming just as he was.
“I think you’re going to have to do better than that,” he calls, his strong accent, deep voice, and complete assurance with himself curling my toes.
“Yes.” A hand curls around my throat. “I am,” my uncle says into my ear. “I’ve missed you, my dear.”
“I haven’t missed you,” I respond, feeling the prick of a knife in my skin.
“It’s time to end your vampire and for you to return to the fold,” he says. “I guess you’ll be ready to pop in another month, and I’m looking forward to having a new protege.”
“Over my dead body,” I snarl.
“Over his dead body, I think you’ll find.” His lips are on my ear, and my skin wants to crawl off my body. “Or the alternative is, he lives, or whatever the vampire equivalent is, and you come quietly. Your choice, Lucy.”
A hand flops over my shoulder, a heavy black pistol gripped in it. It’s pointed directly at Dominik who is still calling out for some action.
“So, what’s it going to be?” my uncle says wetly into my ear. “You…or him.”
Dominik
If the othervampire hunters are sticking to the old ways, it is clear Van Helsing Senior is not. He has hold of my mate and my temperature rises. I see red in all the varying hues, including the blood pounding inside his body, the veins on his skin like red hot lava.
He is the last creature on this earth I would choose to feed from, but I would happily rip out his throat for daring to touch my mate, let alone threaten her life.
But the older Van Helsing is a wily one, and I can’t let my emotions get hold of me as much as I’d like them to. I have to channel what I am, the reason I’ve survived as long as I have. There are far more tricks to be conjured.
He wants me to attack.
“Brother!” Damek’s voice hisses out above me.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” I say, leveling my gaze at Van Helsing. “Expecting some thanks for your help?”
“I thought it might keep everyone occupied while you work out your differences with your mate’s relatives.”
“Oh, really. The same relative staring at me with eyes as old as those who took our father from us?”
“Exactly that.”
I resist my desire to look up to where Damek is surely stuck to the ceiling like a large and deadly spider and snarl at him.
“And presumably you have a plan?” I query.
“Don’t you?”
“On this occasion, I’m winging it.”
“His gun is loaded with bullets containing a garlic extract,” Damek says. “And he has arranged for a net made out of silver crosses to fire out of the wall on his left.”
“That sounds suitably insane.”
“And pointless, but I thought you might want to know as both of those items will slow you down.”
“Just how long have you been hanging around with unhinged vampire hunters?”
“Too damn long.”
