About to dive into the fray, a pained moan distracted her. Near the boundary wall, a human curled against the stacked crates, reeking of terror, his hand pressed to his throat, blood seeping between his fingers. It was the clerk who worked in the convenience store at the garage.
Torn at wanting to help Nate, she knew, too, she couldn’t let the man die.
Weapons dismissed. Ely sprinted toward the human. He scrambled away from her, his fear scraping her psyche like rusty nails. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said softly. “Just the bad guys. Let me help you, okay?”
Ely crouched at his side and moved his hand away. Blood gushed from the puncture holes in his neck. Assholes missed his carotid, or he would have already been gone to his maker. She held her palm over it and let her healing power flow into his injury.
“Angel?” he whispered.
She smiled, letting him have something to hang onto while she worked.
“They appeared out of nowhere,” he panted. “Vampires. Red eyes. They started knocking things down in the shop. Then they grabbed me, dragged me to the back, and drank my blood,” he gabbled on. “Aba came out. More of them appeared, and the fight started. But vampires don’t exist, do they?”
Damn insufferablefossers. “Look at me…” she added a compulsion to her tone. When his gaze met hers, she scrubbed his mind clean. But faced with the blood stains on his collar, she made a small cut on his palm to explain the bloody mess, adding the thought he’d tripped and hurt his hand. Then she sent him off.
“How are you not dead?”
At the grating taunt, Ely shot to her feet. A tall, androgynous demon with pale skin and hair confronted Nate, holding Aba in a chokehold, his other hand fisting a dagger plunged into Aba’s chest. Two minions guarded his rear.
“You had your wings ripped out, couldn’t shift properly, and here you are, back to a frail human.”
“Let him go,” Nate said, ignoring the baiting, but Ely felt his rage, and she itched to gut the wretch. “My sire’s done nothing to you! It’smeyou want.”
“True. You’ve been a blight on my existence for too long. Evenmysire sees you—avyerav’k—as more fucking important than his own offspring!” His eyes flashed a dark neon red, revealing the vile plague he was.
Thisinsipid reed was Derrodus? Then she recalled where she’d seen him before. In the alley, the first time she’d bumped into Nate. He’d reeked of rapacious hunger then.
For what?
To feed on emotions? Steal souls? The latter would turn him from demon to demonii. And she would have killed him.
“So you faked your death to get at me?” Nate growled.
“I even spelled the damn dagger I stabbed you with before your fight,” Derrodus retorted. “But that shit didn’t work. It didn’t even make you vulnerable to death.”
What?Ely froze. Nate never told her about any spell.
“What is that smell?” Derrodus inhaled deeply, then he groaned, long and slow, his eyes flickering to where she stood. “You brought the unicorn. Beautiful.”
Her jaw clenched at the nickname. The urge to kill the cur had her clenching her fingers, seconds from using the shadows to wring the life out of him.
* * *
Nate ground his teeth, surprised the enamel didn’t crack from the anger gushing through him. How dare this piss-stain inhale his mate’s scent! Her arousal from their brief kiss had faded, but this mofo had picked up its trace. The need to kill the fucker dug its claws deep into him, but he couldn’t, not with the asshole using Aba as a shield and with that damn dagger plunged into his sire’s chest.
“Go,cnati,” Aba panted. “I can die in peace knowing you are well.”
“No!” he snapped.
“Son? Really, Aamon?” Derrodus snorted. “Thisvyerav’kweakling? That’s what he is now, isn’t he? Back to his true self? I’ve waited for this moment.” He sneered at Nate. “Always strutting about as if you’re above all of us when you arenothing. My sire’ssymbiontwas what gave you that strength.” He shook his head in disbelief. “But you had to be the one fuck that could keep a dangerous shifter symbiont under control even with a spell on you. Yes, I found out the truth about the symbiont when you lay, supposedly dying in Ys, and the unicorn destroyed it.”
Nate wanted to tear the bastard to shreds, but his talons were no more—why wasn’t Aba fighting? His sire was ace at combat, yet he appeared resigned, letting this asshole hold onto him by the dagger lodged in his chest—
Shit! The smug piss-stain must have used a spelled weapon or something to bind his sire. It was Derrodus’ signature fallback.
“Let him go, and you can have me.” Nate spread out his arms. “I no longer have the shifter symbiont and none of its powers, either.”
Derrodus chuckled, the sound like ice shattering. His minions behind him tittered.
