If a bullet hadn’t stopped him, I doubted a rock would.
“Hit him again!” Inara screamed from where she clung to the lip of Deborah’s messenger bag.
Lowen fired his arrow. It missed Ahrun, hitting my arm instead.
My magic swatted at it. A little slow and lethargic until fizzy bubbles started spreading from where it was. They popped in my blood stream. Tiny bits of power that awakened my magic, forcing it out of its drugged state.
It quested through my veins, searching for another fuel source. I could feel it flickering and almost extinguishing before I shoved it through the thin connection between me and Ahrun. Courtesy of the life blood he was sucking down.
My magic latched onto something in Ahrun. Something I didn’t have words for as it gobbled it down before I could understand. Ravenous now, it hunted further. A force that spread like a forest fire until finally it dove into the place I’d trespassed against in his mind. His internal world.
It caught on something. I struggled, knowing we shouldn’t eat that.
To my surprise, Ahrun pushed from his side, nudging it my way. Something tore free, my magic pulling it into itself.
Ahrun’s eager relief bloomed before the emotion was swallowed in the same fashion as that other, unnamed thing.
Ahrun’s fangs left my throat, his gaze holding shock and a wildness I didn’t understand.
“What did you do to her?” Liam asked from beside us.
We looked up to find him standing next to us, his face the stuff of nightmares. The hunters from earlier mostly dead, but not all.
“Ahrun, if you’ve hurt her,” Liam trailed off, the rest of his sentence unnecessary.
For the second time that night, vampires glided out of the shadows to surround the area. Only this time they were on our side.
Anton broke off to help Eric with Helen. The crazy bitch was cackling madly as she hacked at him with a jagged piece of metal. It wasn’t even a knife. It was something she’d probably picked up from the floor around us.
Thomas stopped at the sight of Ahrun crouched over me. A mixture of emotion covered his face. Fear, I think, mostly for me. Worry. Apprehensiveness. And beneath it all, longing. “Ahrun.”
The ancient didn’t speak, watching Thomas with the same complicated mix of emotions.
Thomas’s gaze dropped to me and the wound on my neck. His lips parted.
To say what, I didn’t get the chance to know.
Ahrun’s voice sounded in my mind.Rest, my child.
Liam screaming my name was the last thing I heard as my eyes slipped closed against my will, my mind retreating. The din of battle fell away. The sensation of being carried accompanied me as I felt wind on my face. I wasn’t quite asleep, but I also wasn’t awake.
A numb chill that stemmed from blood loss invaded my limbs. I couldn’t move as I was set on the ground and a pair of cold lips touched my forehead.
“Thank you,” Ahrun whispered.
Then he was gone.
I drifted again, not coming back to consciousness until the furtive sounds of someone wiggling around intruded.
I cracked my eyes open to find Connor regarding me with a gentle expression.
“I finally found you,” I croaked.
“Yes, you did.”
“I knew I would.”
“You’re a good battle buddy,” he assured me.
