Supported us.
Attempted to pivot.
Feeling Eli on the move. Firing.
I shifted my weight but my body was bent wrong. Staggering.
I screamed, “Koun! To me!”
People were shouting. Gunfire. Multiple shots. Bruiser’s blood . . . Pulse. Pulse.Carotid artery. Or subclavian. Or the main arterial trunk between the two.His blood.Over me.
His knees buckled. My feet out of position for the weight shift. Beast shoved strength into me.
I twisted beneath Bruiser’s weight.My husband’sweight.
Eli raced behind me, lateral to my position. Firing.
Koun lifted Bruiser in one arm. Over his shoulder. Yanked me up, my upper arm in his hand. Racing vamp-fast. Dragging me. Out of the fairy lights. Into the dark.
Blood gouted from Bruiser. More shots fired. Bruiser’s next pulse slowed.Seven so far? More?Bleeding out. Dead in ten seconds.
More shots were fired. Koun cursed in some language I didn’t know. Shouted. All the lights went out. The music died.
Leo popped in front of us and eased Bruiser to the ground. The bigger Onorio was no burden to the much smaller vampire. Koun shouted orders. Covered us. Bare seconds had passed.
Leo held out his wrist to me. I jerked up the silk dress. Removed a throwing knife and my nine mil. Sliced Leo’s wrist. Racked a round. Placed the weapon at my knee as Leo’s healing blood dripped into the entrance wound in Bruiser’s throat where it joined his shoulder.
I cut off a section of the voluminous skirt, the entire train, and crammed it into the exit wound on Bruiser’s upper back. The exit hole was the size of my palm. Fragments of bone scraped my flesh.
Koun knelt at Bruiser’s side, his pale hair bright in the night, above his black tux. He held a wrist to me. I sliced it. He added his blood to Leo’s, a faster stream into the bloody flesh.
The former master of the city of New Orleans was so pale he almost glowed in the moonlight, his blue veins a dark tracery, his hair a silken black tangle in the night. Leo seldom fed, making his blood powerful, but limited. Koun held out his wrist to Leo. Something arcane passed between the two menand Leo’s fangs clicked down. Delicately, he bit into Koun’s wrist and drank. Quicky, he withdrew his fangs, licked the punctures closed, and again extended the clotted wound on his own wrist to me. He had fed so he could feed. I sliced.
I cut another swath of fabric from my wedding dress, exposing my legs to the knees. Padded it into the entrance wound, leaving a spot for Leo’s and Koun’s blood to trickle in. Took up my weapon again, scanning the area.
I wanted to hold Bruiser. Tell him everything would be okay. But I was needed here. Doing this. Standing guard while others bled for him. To keep him safe while he stabilized.Onorios are hard to kill, I thought. Or maybe I prayed. Especially hard to kill with Koun and Leo feeding and healing him. He would live. Hewould. He had to. I wasnotgoing to be a widow on my wedding day.
Beast had opened her vision, everything in greens and grays and I scanned the grounds for bodies, scanned the higher elevations looking for shooters. Where did Eli say our own shooters were? Not that it mattered. He would have moved them to cover the back of the chapel for the party. So whoever shot my husband had known way too much about our security plans.
A greenish form appeared at the Stone Inn, positioned in a shooter’s stance on a balcony. Third floor. Was it one of ours? I couldn’t tell. I wouldn’t try take the shooter out even if I knew it was an enemy. Odds of making it were nonexistent for me, with this weapon and with silver-lead ammo. The rounds were good for close-in work, not distance shooting. But I could aim at the window for cover fire if necessary. I had a full mag.
Koun was talking into comms, ear piece in his ear. He took my small knife and sliced his other arm, this time bleeding into Bruiser’s mouth. I slid my short-bladed vamp-killer from its sheath on my leg.
The shooter at the inn adjusted a rifle. I tapped Koun’s shoulder and pointed at the inn. He nodded and spoke again. I was deaf from the shots. Cold. Very cold. Blood, wet and cold across my chest and shoulders, in the winter air. Future forecast was a nasty ice stormfront moving in. I could feel its bite in the air. Strange thoughts during a firefight.
Koun tapped my shoulder and put his mouth to my ear so I could hear. “That’s Grizz. She took down one enemy at the edge of the woods. Spotted at least one enemy shooter on the chapel roof. None of our shooters can get to them.”
“All our shooters are human.Wearen’t,” I said.
Koun’s pale eyebrows raised. He studied the grounds while slicing his arm again, adding more blood to Bruiser’s mouth. My Sweet Cheeks actively swallowed. A massive weight fell off me, though he was still far too pale in Beast’s night sight. Death pale.
Leo eased the saturated dressing, formerly a wedding dress, to the side and licked the wound, his saliva clotting the blood. Once upon a time that would have grossed me out. It was still yucky, but now I was grateful to see it happen.
I put my fingers on my husband. His newly healed flesh pulsed, fluttering in the night, the skin thin beneath my fingertips. Ridges of shattered bones, dangerous to his healing, pressed against my touch. He’d need surgery. Like Quint, probably pins and chunks of metal.
Koun said, “Our shooters are moving into better positions. We—”
A form popped into position in front of me.Sword. Slicing down. As I aimed with my nine mil, I lifted my blade, blocking the descending strike. Steel clanged on steel as I fired. Three shots. Silver. Mid-chest. The attacker grunted. Dropped to one knee. Her head fell off.
