Chest tight, she opened her mouth to say something—though she wasn’t sure what—but he was moving again, fighting his way through the rapidly thinning crowd to take on another one of Stefan’s men. She stared after him, not sure if she wanted to consider the possibilities of what she’d just seen. But then the sounds of fighting pierced the fog surrounding her, forcing her to stop thinking and go after Zane.
She’d barely taken two steps before realizing Zane had followed Jake to help protect the twins, but it already seemed too late. Some of Stefan’s men had the girls corralled and were herding them toward the far end of the dance floor, violently shoving aside anyone who got in their way. The rest of his Neanderthals forced Zane and Jake back in Alyssa’s direction. One of the assholes lifted his .45 and pulled the trigger. There was a bright muzzle flash and a deafening boom. Zane staggered back a step.
Alyssa’s heart seized in her chest. Even though she couldn’t tell exactly where Zane had been hit, she knew it was bad. Any wound from a weapon of that caliber would be. Eyes filling with tears, she ran across the now-empty floor toward him, only to halt in her tracks when Zane let out a terrifying snarl. She watched in disbelief as he grabbed the wrist of the man with the .45 and snapped it like a twig, then quickly slashed the guy’s throat with his claws, cutting off any sound he might have made.
The man hadn’t even hit the floor before Zane was moving again, this time into the middle of the remaining Neanderthals, snarling, punching, and tearing apart anyone unfortunate enough to be close to him. Jake fell in beside him, claws and fangs flashing. Together, the two of them were more violent and unrelenting than anything Alyssa had ever witnessed—or even imagined.
If there’d been time, she might have been terrified by what Zane was doing and how he was doing it, but then one of Stefan’s men rushed at her. She lifted her weapon and fired, not thinking anymore as the man went down and another took his place.
Alyssa started to pull the trigger again, but then hesitated when she realized the second man wasn’t carrying a weapon. Hair as dark as pitch and skin unnaturally pale, he wasn’t dressed in a suit like Stefan’s other muscle. Instead, he wore dress slacks and an expensive silk button-down. He walked toward her almost casually, his expression amused. Even though he didn’t look like he posed a threat, something told her he was far more dangerous than the armed Neanderthal she’d just shot. She’d seen enough weird over the past year to make her tighten her grip on her gun and aim for the center of the man’s chest.
“Don’t come another step closer or I will shoot you!” she shouted.
The man didn’t slow. Flat, dark eyes locked on her, his lips pulling up in a snarl, revealing two long fangs. A shiver of fear ran down her back, leaving her short of breath. Forcing herself to ignore it, she focused her attention on the sights of her weapon and squeezed the trigger before the damn thing got any closer to her.
The first 9 mm round tagged the man in the left shoulder but didn’t slow him down. Worse, it didn’t even knock that creepy snarl off his face. Instead, the damn freak’s mouth opened even wider, exposing an entire mouth of razor-sharp teeth. Shaking in revulsion, she put five more rounds directly through the center of the thing’s chest.
The silk shirt he wore shredded as each bullet hit, yet he still kept coming.
Alyssa emptied the rest of her magazine into the man from less than five feet away, then quickly backpedaled, trying to give herself room to reload, even though she knew it wasn’t going to help. She’d dropped an entire mag in the thing from point-blank range, and it hadn’t even fazed him.
She slammed her second clip home and thumbed the slide release, bringing the weapon up for a head shot when a blur of movement crossed her vision and someone fast and growly kicked the bullet-ridden thing with fangs squarely in the chest, sending him flying a good fifteen feet across the dance floor. Zane had come to her rescue again. He was still all fangs, claws, and animal snarls, but it was him.
Before Alyssa had a chance to sigh in relief, another man in dress slacks and a silk shirt appeared from the darkness and charged forward. Zane slashed the thing across the throat with his claws, causing horrific damage, but the creature barely slowed as the wounds immediately healed, leaving behind little more than dark-red smears.
Alyssa brought up her weapon, intending to shoot the thing in the head, only to freeze when it let out a high-pitch screech. The primitive sound tore through the club, turning her muscles to jelly.
Before she could squeeze the trigger, the thing leaped at Zane. The creature was faster, inflicting five wounds for every one that Zane got in. But Zane was more powerful. When he landed a blow, it was devastating.
But then, without warning, the thing lunged forward, going for Zane’s exposed neck with its sharp teeth.
Zane grunted in pain as he got his left arm up to protect himself, and while Alyssa knew it had hurt him to move his injured arm, that was nothing compared to the howl he let out when the creature’s fangs sank into his forearm.
She held her breath, expecting the monster to go for Zane’s throat again, but instead, it immediately released him, shrieking in pain as it fell to the floor. The skin around its mouth and along its jaw bubbled and hissed, like someone had thrown acid on it.
Alyssa didn’t hesitate this time. Lifting her weapon, she took aim and shot the thing in the head.
The creature paid no attention to the hole in the center of its forehead, but instead frantically wiped at its half-melted face, and Alyssa watched in shock as the bullet wound slowly healed itself.
“You can’t kill vampires that way!” someone shouted from the floor above them. Alyssa snapped her head around to see the woman who’d accosted them earlier on the stairs. “You have to rip out their hearts or tear off their heads!”
Vampires?
Time staggered to a standstill as Alyssa’s mind attempted to process the word she’d just heard. In the past year and half, she’d dealt with dozens of horrible creatures, including several that drank human blood. But none of them had come close to fitting the stereotypical vampire image that Bram Stoker and Hollywood had put into the collective human mind. Hell, most of them hadn’t even looked human. Which was why she’d come to accept that the whole vampire mythology was nothing more than a grain or two of truth mixed in with an overactive imagination.
Apparently, she’d been wrong.
She barely saw Zane move he was so fast. One second, he seemed as stunned as she was, and the next, he was on top of the vampire, right arm around the monster’s head. The vampire let out another one of those screeches as Zane ripped its head off.
All at once, the blaring techno music stopped, and the lights came on. The harsh glow was unexpected and overwhelming, and it took a few moments before Alyssa could see anything at all. When she finally was able, she wasn’t sure she wanted to because it was an image she knew she’d never be able to forget.
Zane stood in front of her, almost unrecognizable in his current form. The muscles of his shoulders, chest, arms, and legs had twisted, somehow becoming larger and thicker than they’d been before. Two-inch-long claws tipped each finger, blood dripping off them onto the floor. She knew he’d killed those vampires to protect her and everyone else in the club. Still, it was difficult not to heave at the evidence of the violence he was capable of.
She lifted her gaze to his face, flinching when she saw that his nose was pushed outward a little, making his features seem more animal-like. His upper and lower jaw were wider, too, and the fangs hanging down over his lower lip had to be as long as her fingers and razor sharp.
But it wasn’t until Alyssa saw his eyes that she finally realized how different Zane had become. They were striking, glowing yellow gold even in the bright light of the club. But the eyes staring at her then didn’t seem to possess any of the humanity she’d seen when they’d glinted earlier while they’d been making love. Those eyes had been filled with hunger and desire. Now, they seemed to be filled with rage and loathing.
Alyssa was vaguely aware of Jake saying the twins were missing, and Rachel and Diego announcing that Stefan, some of his guards, and one of the vampires had gotten away, but she paid no attention. Unable to take the contempt in Zane’s eyes anymore, she looked away. She needed to get some space to think—and breathe.
