A hunting rifle cracks—bam—and Johnny goes down hard, rolling with a raw scream as half his shin explodes into blood and bone. It's too deliberate to be stray fire. It must have been Jace's revenge shot.
Ru doesn't waste a second. The laptop clatters to the dirt as his form ripples, stretches, then collapses into something monstrous. A black hound bursts forward, massive, eyes like coals, a snarl tearing from its throat as it prowls toward the barrier.
Thud. Astrid's axe embeds in the ground where the beast had been a heartbeat ago. The hound veers off, fast, circling.
I drop over Kayden, shielding him. The skin around the bolt is darkening. Damn it. They used black hawthorn, an herb poisonous to vampires. It burns them from the inside out.
Shots hiss past. Glass bursts. Car alarms wail. The hound howls. I cover Kayden with my body and taste dust, metal, and wildbane that makes me weak.
I try not to breathe.
"Nobody harms her!" Darius bellows, planting himself in front of me as I shelter Kayden. It's madness.
"Up," I grit, hauling Kayden to his feet. "Move!"
Asher is there, firing clean and controlled from a revolver as we fall back toward the house.
"Line up ahead of me!" I shout.
We run. Slam through the door. It bangs shut. A bolt punches into the wood a heartbeat later.
Outside there's more shouting. Darius's order. The gunfire dies. Engines rev. Tires peel away.
Asher lowers his gun, breathing hard. "They're pulling back," he says.
The silence rings. This isn't the end. This was just the opening shot.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kayden
Fuck me, it burns.
I writhe on the goddamn floor, half-sitting against the wall, gripping my shoulder like I could rip the pain out. It spreads fast, crawling from the wound like it's hunting every nerve ending I have.
Gritting my teeth, I wrap my hand around the arrow. It's buried deep. Just touching it sends another flash of agony through me.
"Fuck it," I hiss and pull.
The scream that rips out of me isn't dignified, but screw dignity. I'd like to see anyone take a poisoned crossbow bolt to the shoulder and not sound like a tortured animal.
I toss the bloody shaft aside and suck in air like it might put out the fire inside me. But something's wrong. The wound isn't healing. Not even trying to.
I blink through the haze. "What the fuck was on that thing?"
My voice comes out rough, teeth clenched so hard my jaw aches. I try not to groan again, because yeah, bleeding out in front of everyone is one thing, but whining about it… that's just embarrassing.
Sage rushes over, her steps frantic. Asher's shouting orders behind her—secure the perimeter, regroup in the living room—all that tactically reassuring shit I'd normally mock.
But right now, I can barely breathe. The pain's eating my brain alive.
Sage drops to her knees beside me, her face pale, eyes wide. Worry looks damn good on her for some reason.
"It's black hawthorn," she says.
"A what?" I growl, every syllable slicing through clenched teeth.
"It's a relatively benign shrub," she explains, tearing open my shirt. "Only mildly toxic to vampires. Darius's biochemical team weaponized it. They synthesized a version and made it into a proper anti-vamp poison. That arrowhead was soaked in it."
