“You know, you’re older than my usual, but you’ll do,” Mr. Peterson said, stepping over me. He leveled the gun at Eli’s midsection. “Drop the knife.”
Eli sucked in a ragged, frightened breath. “And if I don’t?”
Mr. Peterson laughed. “Trust me, I’d prefer not to shoot you. It’s not how I usually operate. But I will, if you force me to.”
At those words, I sprang to my feet soundlessly, moving in a blur of motion. Scarcely aware of what I was doing, I grabbed Mr. Peterson by the shoulders and threw him sideways with every ounce of strength I possessed. I didn’t do it because I wanted to kill him. Oddly, that wasn’t even a consideration. I did it because the idea of him hurting Eli the way he’d hurt Joseph filled me with an icy, unthinking rage.
Mr. Peterson, too surprised to resist, went sailing into the concrete wall. He hit it hard enough to shatter bone. His body collapsed into a heap.
“Nicolas?” Eli asked, stunned. His gaze dropped to my chest, where I’d been shot twice. Unfortunately, I’d chosen to wear a white shirt today, so I probably looked like a mess. “How are you not dead?”
“One moment,” I said, holding up a finger.
I crossed the room, grimacing at the lingering tenderness in my knee, and stood over Mr. Peterson’s corpse. His eyes were sightless and staring, a trickle of blood on his lips. His chest didn’t rise or fall.
I knelt and picked up his wrist. No pulse. I didn’t look too closely at the damage I’d done. Somehow, I didn’t really want to see it.
I expected… something.
Perhaps an immediate sense of dissatisfaction. Or maybe even genuine disappointment, the same way Mr. Peterson had looked earlier, thinking he’d killed me too soon. After all, I’d been deprived of my ritual. He hadn’t confessed. I hadn’t controlled the exact moment his heart stopped. I hadn’t experienced the familiar rush of being the apex predator.
None of that seemed to matter. What mattered was that Eli was unharmed.
“Is he dead?” Eli asked, crossing the room and crouching beside me.
Even though there was no pulse and no breath, I still removed the gun from Mr. Peterson’s hand and slid it across the floor, away from us. Just in case.
Without waiting for my reply, Eli took his wrist and checked. “Yeah,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “He’s gone.”
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “This was dangerous! You could have gotten yourself killed!”
Eli met my gaze with defiance, but the tears on his cheeks hadn’t yet dried.
“I thought you were dead.”
I softened immediately, feeling something in my chest go molten at his words.
“I’m okay. I was never in any real danger.”
His gaze dropped to my lips, and I realized my fangs were out. It must’ve happened when I’d thrown Mr. Peterson.
I expected him to recoil, but he didn’t. Instead, he pointed to the other side of the room with a shaking hand. There was a flat wooden bench there, against the wall. “Sit.”
Frowning at him, I crossed the room and did as he asked without protest.
Eli followed close behind. He dropped into a low crouch beside me and started unbuttoning my shirt.
“Eli, what do you think you’re doing?” I asked, my tone deceptively neutral. The warmth of his touch burned against my skin, and with a pang, I realized that I wanted his hands on me.
“You were shot,” Eli said. “You need medical attention.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, reaching out to take his hand. He pulled back and reached for another button. I felt a flicker of genuine fear. My gunshot wounds were already gone. If he opened my shirt, it would just be smooth skin.
“Don’t look at my wounds, Eli.”
He paused. “Why not?”
I hesitated, then grimaced, realizing I was going to let myself be vulnerable with him.
