“Broken.” She winced. “Trying to heal it now.”
“More darts incoming,” Liam yelled. Then he groaned and fell to his knees with several bullet holes in his temple, face, and neck. He dropped forward onto the stones, blood seeping from beneath his face.
Paxton turned and fired perfectly through the air. A groan sounded, and thena crash echoed.
Everything wavered and went dark around Paxton. “What was in those darts?” He looked around. There were four fallen Kurjans as well as the one off the roof. There would no doubt be more coming. “Were you hit?”he asked Hope.
She was holding her neck with her good hand, and she’d gone stark white pale.
Panic clawed through him with a force he’d never experienced.
“Damn it.” Collin reached down and hauled his brother over his shoulder.
Hope sank to her knees, pitching forward.
Paxton forced the darkness away and caught her before she hit the cobblestones, ducking his head to toss her over his aching shoulder. She sputtered and then fell unconscious as the drug in the darts must’ve taken effect.
Collin leveled a grim look at him. “You hurt her, and there won’t be one inch on this world whereyou can hide.”
Paxton ignored the threat and turned, loping into an unsteady jog as he led the way out of the labyrinth. Each step was excruciating, and the darkness kept coming for him as the drugs moved through his system. He stumbled, and the scent of vanilla beans and orange spice wafted around him.
Hope’s scent.
He growled low, dug deep, and kept moving. They finally emerged onto a quiet street where an innocuous off-white van waited silently, the delivery driver long gone.
Collin tossed Liam in the back with a low groan.
Paxton gently flipped Hope over, cradling her easily against his chest. Possessiveness pummeled him, stronger and more primal than any drug from a dart. He’d never made himself look down deep inside where his monster lived, but today the door to that hellhole cracked open, and the beast roared, rattlinghis very bones.
“Give her to me.” Collin reachedfor his cousin.
Paxton bared his teeth as that possessive predator inside him protested. She washis.
Collin caught sight of his expression and reachedfor his weapon.
“No.” Paxton gently handed her over, sensing more Kurjans coming. “Go. I’ll fight them off.” He turned to run back toward danger, and the darkness finally took him.
He went down, landed hard on his elbow and then his face. Collin didn’t try to break his fall. Pain exploded, and the gleeful blackness opened up its jaws and swallowed him whole.
Chapter Five
“I can’t believe I was out for the entire flight home.” Hope sat on a plush leather examination table in her aunt’s lab, having blood drawn. Her head hurt, and her tongue was swollen. When she’d regained consciousness after arriving at Realm headquarters in Idaho, her arm was already in a cast.
“I set your fractured ulna while you were out. Now I’m going to look at the components in those darts,” Emma said, inserting an IV needle into Hope’s arm. “Here’s a nice concoction that’ll help you feel better.”
It was nothing new for Emma to take Hope’s blood, but today she just ached. Her head hurt, and she couldn’t grasp the thought that Paxton had betrayed her, had betrayed all of them, actually. It didn’t make sense. She desperately needed tospeak with him.
Emma smoothed Hope’s hair away from her face. “We’ll figure this out, honey, I promise.”
“I know.” Hope tried to force a smile for her aunt, who was also the Queen of the Realm. She was their chief scientist, and she spent more time inside the lab trying to cure diseases than she did outside it. Her hair was raven black and her eyes sparkling blue, and as usual, she wore a goofy T-shirt, frayed jeans, and tennis shoes beneath awhite lab coat.
The door opened, and a large figure came inside. “Are you all right?” asked Hope’s uncle Kane, moving to her and lookinginto her eyes.
She blinked. He was actually her great-uncle, but when one lived forever, it was necessary to condense titles. “Emma? You called Uncle Kane?”she whispered.
Emma swallowed. “There’s nothing wrong with a second opinion.”
Except there was. Warning ticked down Hope’s spine. Emma hated anybody messing with her equipment, so she must have been more worried than she appeared to be, to call for asecond opinion.
