“It is your weakness, this fondness for the animals we slaughter. Do you not know they are nothing but means to gain power? You have claimed this clump of dirt and the insects that crawl upon it. I have claimed all the rest of this world. And now this, too, will be mine.”
He lifted his hand. In it was a gun.
Rossi stilled as only an unliving thing can.
Everything slowed for me. I felt the twitch of Rossi’s hand where the clay dagger was still hidden, a small movement I might have missed if he weren’t still holding me with his palm over my neck.
Since when did vampires use guns to kill each other? I thought only the knife or dark magic, or a beheading or stake through the heart would take out a vampire.
Hadn’t Lavius gotten the memo?
I steeled myself for Rossi to shove me out of the way so he could stab Lavius. Instead, he whispered so that only I could hear him, “Forgive me, Delaney.”
And then he shoved me toward Lavius. Toward his gun.
Chapter 19
I might be fast because of the bite, but I was not faster than a bullet.
It hit me, a bloom of heat and pain, right below my collar bone. The impact felt like someone had swung a sledgehammer at my chest.
Agony.
And then I was falling, the air turned to Jell-O, filled with screaming, yelling, and more gunfire.
I thought then—in that brief moment when I could no longer breathe, but couldn’t bring myself to care about it—that Ryder was in that room. So was Myra, and probably Jean, who was totally stubborn enough to lump her way up the endless stairs to my front door.
I knew Brown was there too, and of course the demon and vampires. But I wished I could disappear, hide myself from my sisters and the man I loved. I wished they didn’t have to see me die.
I also belatedly wished I’d done a little more research on how, exactly, someone was going to bring me back to life. As far as I knew not one of the people in the room had that power.
As far as I knew, a bullet to the heart wasn’t something anyone had the power to bring me back from.
My body was too heavy to move, too heavy to pull air into. I exhaled, and it was a relief, everything foggy and warm and numb and good. I couldn’t open my eyes, didn’t need to. I was surrounded by comfort as if someone had just rushed in and wrapped the softest blanket around me, warm with sunlight, and fresh and clean.
I rested there, finally, happily forever.
“Ah, ah, ah. Not so quick, Delaney.” Bathin’s voice was a shock of cold water.
Everything spun away from me, and then…
…and then I was standing next to where Bathin knelt. No time had passed, the stretch of forever in that sun-warmth comfort leaving no mark on this living world.
The room was slow-motion chaos. Myra ran toward me, firing at Lavius, but the bullets were taking years to cross the short distance of the room, and each fell just short of him, pausing before they clattered at his feet like kites suddenly crashing without the wind left to hold them.
Jean hobbled toward me, no gun in her hand, but the crutch braced in one hand so she could smash it into Bathin’s head.
And Ryder.
Everything in me stilled when I saw him. He was looking at me. Not at my body, which lay in a curled heap, as if I’d fallen asleep in a messy knot, guarding my heart from my nightmares while the deep, red blood beneath me poured out in a growing pool.
He was looking at where I stood, his gaze just a degree to one side of actually meeting mine, his expression locked down and blank, a hardness there, aninhumanityI had never seen before.
Was this the face of the man who trained with the secret government department that hunted paranormal creatures? Was this the face of a man who slid into the position of law enforcement like a fish to the sea? Was this the face of a killer?
Yes.
His eyes ticked so that he was looking right at me. Right through me.
