“It looks like it is,” she said. “I don’t know all the security they have there, but I know it’s vast, and they work like an army together.”
“They’ve become more comfortable with each other in the field too and more lethal.”
“That’s good. Did you encounter any Savages tonight?”
“Yes.”
His pulse raced as he recalled the rush of battle and the thrill of the kill. He’d always excelled at dealing out death, but now he thrived on ending the life of another as it helped keep the darkness at bay by satisfying his more brutal impulses. He could never go back to the man he’d been before killing innocents, but Killean was learning to embrace the man he was becoming. He was a more lethal fighter yet, because of Simone, he was also kinder.
“Are you still doing okay?” she asked.
He hated the nervousness in her voice and the broken fingernails marring her delicate hands. She tried to hide those bitten nails, but he saw them. “I’m fine, love. Having you is all I need to bring me back should I ever feel myself teetering, and I have yet to feel that way.”
Her fingers bit into his skin, and though his craving for pain lessened when he returned to killing Savages, his cock stirred in response.
“Good,” she said. “Would you let me know if you did?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t keep something like that from you; we’re in this together.”
“And don’t forget it.”
Rolling her over, he nudged her thighs apart and settled between them. “I never could,” he assured her.
He brushed the hair back from her face as he kissed her while slowly entering her.
Chapter Forty-Four
Simone gazed eagerlyout the window as the vehicle bounced over the ruts in the road leading to the asylum. The two vampires in the front seats and the hunter beside her in the back were loudly debating the use of a designated hitter, whatever that was. She’d mostly tuned them out as what they were discussing sounded absurd.
The first time they picked her up from the asylum, the vamps had introduced themselves as Felipe and Edgar; Felipe was driving. The hunter was Sully, a young man of about twenty-five, who she’d known before leaving the stronghold. He was new to being allowed out on the patrols with the other hunters and vampires, but he’d been training since childhood to kill Savages.
Resting her head against the window, she gazed at the woods crowding the sides of the vehicle. They’d only been apart for eight hours, but the closer she got to Killean the more butterflies of excitement fluttered in her stomach. Some of Killean’s friends would be waiting with him; they usually stayed until she arrived.
They rounded a corner, and though Felipe was busy waving his hand in the air as he declared the other two idiots, he still braked when someone stepped out of the woods two hundred feet in front of them. Simone didn’t have time to brace herself against the lurch of the vehicle’s tires coming to an abrupt halt. The seat belt caught and pulled her back before she smacked her face off the seat in front of her.
“Who is that?” Edgar muttered.
Simone leaned over to stare between the two seats and out the windshield. Three hundred feet in front of them, an imposing figure blocked the road. They were on a straightaway in the road, but the spill of headlights barely reached the figure and cast shadows over its face. Ice replaced the blood pumping through her veins when she realized who it was.
“It’s Joseph,” she breathed as the hair on her nape rose.
A sense of impending doom descended on her like an avalanche bearing down on an unsuspecting skier. She loathed tearing her gaze away from the powerful vampire standing in the middle of the road, but she couldn’t deny the sensation of eyes boring into the back of her head. Stealing her nerves, Simone slowly turned to gaze out the back window.
Standing behind the vehicle, with their faces against the glass, stood three more Savages. The blazing red eyes of two of them were joined by the white-blue eyes of a turned hunter. The worst part was, she recognized the hunter.
“Dallas,” she breathed.
“Shit,” Sully muttered.
Dallas, the hunter who established his own stronghold in New Hampshire, the one she’d followed to get away from Nathan’s leadership, leered at her as he tapped his forefinger against the glass.
“Hello, Simone.” His fangs distorted Dallas’s words, but they were still intelligible.
“Floor it,” Edgar said.
“I don’t think that prick is going to get out of our way,” Felipe replied.
“There are more Savages in the woods,” Sully said. “And they’re closing in on us. If we don’t move now, they’re going to surround us.”
