At that same moment, the side door burst open and some of the patrons from inside the club poured out into the alley.
“Get back!” Micah shouted.
Too late. The group of Breed and human civilians ran straight into the melee. Gunfire from above kept ringing out. One of the fleeing Breed males took a hit. It wasn’t severe, but he dropped to the pavement, clutching his arm and howling in agony.
All too soon, Micah realized why.
Light spidered under his skin, creeping up his neck and into his face. The glow of it intensified in mere seconds, spreading like a disease. The Breed male convulsed, light pouring out of his eye sockets as the infiltration rapidly overtook him.
Holy shit.
“UV!” Micah called out. “They’ve got UV.”
Darion wheeled on the growing crowd still flooding into the alley. “Get back inside!”
Chaos erupted as Breed civilians fled, some scattering to the streets, others frantically pushing their way back upstream of the crowd as they ran for the shelter of the club interior. Terrified humans were shoved along with them or trampled underfoot in the sudden chaos.
Micah and his comrades continued unloading on the attackers, one human sniper after another careening lifelessly from their posts. Beside him, Eli bellowed a war cry and let his bullets fly, a pistol in each hand as he dropped two more shooters, then a third.
They ducked behind a dumpster to reload, while in his nearby position in the alley, Darion provided cover. In his peripheral, Micah saw Eli grab for another magazine on his weapon belt. His fingers slowed, then paused. A strange look came into his eyes. He swiveled his head toward Micah, his irises lit with bright sparks from the combat.
Except it wasn’t amber light in them.
It was another kind of light.
Micah’s blood ran cold. “Ah, Christ. Eli . . .”
Elijah’s mouth twisted into an incredulous smirk. “Fuck. I think I’m hit.”
The UV began to spread like gasoline through his veins and arteries. He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, pain contorting his face. It was too late to do anything for him. Too late to stop what was coming as the light sped through his system.
“No,” Micah growled.“Goddamn it. No!”
He turned his head away as the warrior’s skin and hair ignited. He’d seen a lot of hellish things in his line of work, but he couldn’t bear to watch the moment the poisonous UV incinerated his friend.
Micah roared with fury.
Before he could say another word, he was blinded by a sudden burst of shimmering silver light that filled the entire alley.
CHAPTER 12
Cold, bone-deep fear.
That’s what Phaedra felt as she and Jordana burst out the side door of the club into the middle of a vicious assault on Micah and the other warriors. Neither she nor Jordana had been comfortable with the order to simply wait behind in a secured suite while the men went off to battle, but then the panic downstairs erupted into full-scale terror when a patron shrieked that the alley was under attack by gunmen with UV rounds.
There hadn’t been any reason to doubt it.
Jordana’s blood bond to Nathan confirmed the horror taking place outside.
Now, the two women stood side-by-side just outside the door as the civilians scattered out of the alley under a dome of silver Atlantean light that Phaedra had cast over the area with a sweep of her hand.
She didn’t know how it happened, or how long she could hold it. All she knew was the still-thrumming presence of the crystal’s power—energy that had enveloped her, infused her, from the moment she’d drawn near the crystal earlier tonight—and a desperation to shield Micah and the rest of the Breed warriors and civilians from the incoming barrage of bullets.
Bullets that were somehow enhanced by lethal ultraviolet light.
They kept flying down from several snipers stationed on the surrounding rooftops. But one by one, the rounds hit the exterior of the shield she’d created and disintegrated with harmless puffs of blue smoke.
“Holy shit,” Micah said, throwing an astonished glance at her. His eyes glowed hot amber, his Breed pupils transformed to catlike slits and his fangs enormous behind his parted lips.
