Still shirtless, his skin was ashen and gray. She could count his ribs from the back. It was like he had…decayed, in the time she had been asleep on the sofa. She’d never seen a vampire starved for blood.
Now she wished she hadn’t.
“Raziel?” She crept closer to him, keeping the gun tight in her hand, but pointed downward.
He stood, slowly, as if it pained him. Head lowered, his dark hair, usually so smooth and perfect, was still stringy from the dried blood, serving as a veil to hide his face. Wavering on his feet, he swayed from side to side as if he were simply sleepwalking.
“Raziel…?” She kept her distance, some ten feet away, figuring that was probably how far he could jump at her if he attacked. She had dealt with deadly snakes in the Wild, and she had a pretty good instinct for how far a cornered animal could lash out when pressed.
Circling around slowly, she tried to see his face. His shoulders were curled. His hands limp at his sides, fingers occasionally twitching.
“Raziel, look at me.”
She shouldn’t have asked for that. She really, really shouldn’t have.
Because he listened. He lifted his head. And those crimson eyes were not the ones she knew. They were the eyes of a feral, mad animal. His lips were pulled back from his teeth, making his fangs look longer and more vicious than before.
The snarl that left him wasn’t human. It was the same noise he’d made before, when she’d touched the bullet in his chest. Only now, it was louder. It wasdesperate.
And it washungry.
She fired off two bullets into his chest and jumped backward, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. He staggered, but ignored the wounds in his chest like they weren’t even there.
These bullets weren’t silver.
And nothing oozed from the holes they made.
He fell against the wall, smashing into a bookcase, sending much of its contents crashing to the floor. Weakly, as if every movement was agony, he started pulling himself back up to his feet.
And those red eyes never left her.
He was going to consume her. Every drop.
The gun wasn’t going to stop him. Not unless she put a bullet in his skull. And that would kill him.
Fuck.Fuck—fuck—fuck!“Ivan!”
No one answered. He wasn’t back yet. “Ivan!” she screamed again, desperately hoping the bodyguard was within earshot. But she was on her own. On her own with a feral, blood-starved vampire.
Raziel threw himself at her again, but more weakly this time than the first. His knees gave out and he fell to the ground with a painfulthud.
A ragged wheeze left him, his nails digging into the wood floor as he clawed at the ground in a pathetic attempt to crawl closer to her.
And that was when it hit her.
Raziel… was dying.
He’d been bled dry. And she’d just put two new holes in him.
Raziel was dying in front of her eyes.
This was what she wanted all her life.
To watch her most hated enemy, the man she had vowed revenge upon all those years ago, suffering in agony and slowly, painfully, coming to an end. And she would be the last thing he saw.
It was supposed to be the happiest moment of her life. When the ghosts of her family could be at peace.
So, why was she shaking?
