“Last time I’m asking. How many are on their way?” Ember’s eyes were hard as she gazed down at the prone beautiful woman.
“Fuck you,” she hissed.
Ember’s smile was chilling. “And that was the wrong answer.”
She shot her. Point blank. To the head.
Blood splattered all over her face, and she didn’t even flinch. Fluidly, she jumped off the dead woman, glancing around, asking quickly, “If anyone can move, speak up now.”
No one moved or spoke to the war painted redhead.
“Fuck,” Ember cursed, holstering her gun inside the leg of her pants, already running over to Grigori, pulling a cell phone out of her pocket.
She pressed a button, her gaze glued on Grigori, and listened for only a heartbeat, saying, “It’s Ember. Unknown totals of hostiles inbound to our house. Need assistance ASAP.” She hung up without listening or saying anything else, stuffing the cell back in her pocket.
She grabbed Grigori’s hands and pulled, but he had to weigh at least two hundred forty, and all of that solid muscle. He didn’t go far. She started murmuring, desperately, her facial expression turning frantic as she stared down at him, “No. No. No. No. Come on, dammit. Come on.” She put a foot up between his legs on the couch and heaved, her face turning red under the drying blood splatter.
“Shh,” Grigori stated hoarsely. “Get…out. Run.”
“Not happening,” she grunted, her chin trembling as she stared at him. Her face turned red again, grunting low, yanking him. “You’re not going to die. Not dying. Not dying. Not dying.” She kept this mantra up as she put both feet up on the couch, so she was leaning back in the air, and yanked with all her might. And Grigori’s body lifted, and tumbled off the couch, falling right on top of a red-faced Ember.
She groaned under him, her body barely visible under his mass. She managed to crawl out from under him after a lot of grunting and cursing, getting on her knees and—I blinked—quickly rolling him behind the couch, away from any doors or windows. The whole while Grigori growled at her to run, the only word he appeared to be able to say now. She kept telling him to shut the hell up. She popped up behind the couch, putting two guns in the back of her the waistline of her pants, racing over to Zane next, and grabbed his hands, but the sound of cars rolling up in front of the house stopped her.
“Goddammit. Three, at least,” she muttered, her head tilted, listening. She dropped his hands and started lifting his shirt, her hands running around his waist, and pulling a gun free, before she sprinted across the room, straight at my couch. Her hair hung in her face, and her tiny hands started searching Daniil for weapons, pulling a small arsenal out from under his clothing, stashing them anywhere she could on her person.
I managed to puff out a breath, saying, “Ankle.” Oh. My. God! I couldn’t believe how badly it hurt to say just that, not understanding how Grigori had managed. But I had a gun there. Daniil had made me, and I wanted her to take it. She was the only thing keeping us alive at the moment.
“No time,” Ember stated hurriedly, running across the room, hitting the lights, darkness enveloping us. She slammed the huge doors closed behind her.
I heard Ember race up the stairs only moments before the sounds of the front doors crashed open. And what came next, I was really hoping I would never hear again inside my home. It sounded like Ember let a huge group of men enter—I lost track of how many voices I heard, but it was close to thirty—before she opened fire, probably from somewhere up on the balcony that looked over the foyer where they all seemed to congregate.
Some men screamed, but the most I heard was the piercing sound of rapid gunfire volleying back and forth. The doors to our room slammed open, and men threw themselves inside, rolling to a stop. It was as if they were spotlighted from the lights in the foyer, the rest of the room dark. The couches everyone was sitting paralyzed on were back in the deep study, hidden by shadows. They didn’t even look our way as they positioned themselves around the door, all…I counted…five of them, taking their turn returning fire on Ember, aiming high.
I could still make out screams, just as one of the men stepped too far out behind the door, and his throat exploded in a shower of blood, his head falling back on his shoulder blades as he dropped to the ground. I swallowed down the puke that wanted to rise.
The four remaining men all stared at their dead assailant, cursing Daniil’s name, and turned to open fire. Two more went down, even as other gunfire erupted from below.
And I heard it. Ember screamed. Everyone fucking heard it. Even over the gunfire.
Suddenly, there was a hail of bullets from above as the men went silent. I heard thumps and shouts from men, and the return fire made my ears ring. It was so fucking loud.
Just as I was praying Ember was still alive and not bleeding out, a figure raced past us from behind, silent and fluid, hair flying behind the silhouette, knives in hand. It was Ember—and how the hell she got into the room, I had no clue. It had to have been another hidden staircase somewhere in the depths of the room.
She snuck up behind one of the two men, and in one quick motion, placed one hand over his mouth before slitting his throat, the blood spraying in an arch of the spotlight right before she let him drop. The blood hit the other man, and she slammed her knife in his throat, twisting under her arm and wrenching the knife out in a beautiful, lethal move, ripping his throat out before he could scream.
Before he even fell, she was sprinting back through the room, past us, and fifteen seconds later, even before the gunfire ceased in the foyer, it sounded like she was returning fire again from above. It all happened so fast, she appeared an apparition, but the two dead men with blood pooling out of the library told a different story, making her all the more real.
Three new men threw themselves into the room, not even getting up before they turned on their bellies and started firing, rolling to take cover on either side of the door. Only two made it. The bodies were piling up quickly in here, making me wonder how many were lying dead in the foyer or the stairs, where I distantly heard them crashing against the wall after trying to get upstairs to her, only to be mowed down.
Heavy gunfire from above again, with long return fire quickly repeated. And again, she came out of nowhere, rushing past us like a creature of the night.
She killed those two just as easily as the others, but this time, she stopped in her dash back upstairs, right in front of me, dropping and grabbing my ankles, feeling quickly, and lifting my pant leg where my gun was hidden. She took it with one hand, and moved on to Artur, her free hand immediately going to his right pant leg where he kept his gun. She popped up, and raced off into the darkness, the gunfire slowly trickling off…until she opened fire again.
And, like a bad fucking dream, six men dove inside the room, much more efficient, pushing the dead men aside so they could get cleaner shots outside the door.
Only one went down immediately, leaving five. I didn’t hear any more gunfire outside of their volleys with Ember upstairs. She managed to blow one guy's hand off as he randomly stuck his hand out the door to shoot blindly up, and he screamed, dropping, and unfortunately for him, into the light. Ember took him out quickly enough, leaving four. And again, suddenly, lots of fire from above, and the men waited for a break before returning fire all at once.
I figured she would be down any minute since that seemed her game plan.
