An inset doorway was the best that he could do, and he propped Butch up as there was a pause in the shooting. The sonofabitch with the gun was exchanging clips.
This was Syn’s only chance.
Diving a hand into his jacket, he—
Felt only slippery shit.
He couldn’t seem to grip anything, and he pulled out his hand in confusion. Red, everywhere. He’d been shot in the palm.
Putting his body in the way to protect Butch, he went leftie—and at that moment, the lights came back on in Caldwell. Sure as if someone had cranked the dimmer switch back in the direction of wouldja-look-at-that, suddenly he could see his enemy. A dark-haired human dressed in black.
The mobster’s son. Carmine Gigante Jr.
He had to have been driving that SUV Syn had bounced off of.
Syn’s shoulder injury meant his second-choice hand was numb, some kind of nerve cut. So when he went for his gun, he had no strength in that hold, either.
Gigante’s progeny didn’t have that problem. Junior readily brought his weapon up again, and this time he had plenty of sight to go by. The muzzle pointed directly at Syn. A death shot, if there ever had been one—
The gun went off with a pop and Syn knee-jerked into his torso— but it wasn’t like he could stop the bullet. Gasping, bracing, trying to stay conscious . . .
The mobster dropped to the pavement, his weapon skittering away from his palm, the back of his skull cracking as it fell back onto that filthy, hard asphalt.
Syn looked down at himself in confusion.
“T-t-torso.”
He nearly tripped on himself as he wheeled to the voice of his female. “Jo?”
His beautiful, brave, extraordinary female was holding her double-gripped gun straight out with stiff arms. Everything was shaking on her, her legs, her shoulders, her head—even her teeth were chattering. But those arms and those hands were rock fucking solid.
“You t-t-told me . . .” she stuttered. “Aim for the torso. It’s the b-b-biggest target.”
Syn let out a strangled sound as he lunged for her. His body was full of lead and leaking like a sieve, though, so it was a messy reunion. Not that he gave a shit.
He disarmed her as he landed next to her on the ground and pulled her against him.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said as he held her to his heart.
“I c-c-can’t stop shaking,” she said into his throat.
“It’s over. It’s okay . . . it’s over.”
Closing his eyes, he allowed himself one brief moment of reunion. Then he got on his communicator and started barking out orders. When the responses came in, from Manny, from V—and especially from Doc Jane as she materialized out of thin air right next to Butch, he relaxed a little and pulled back.
Staring into Jo’s wide, shell-shocked eyes, he brushed her hair out of her face. “Are you okay?”
She was trembling so badly, her molars were castanets, and speaking was hard. “You weren’t going to kill me, were you.”
“What?”
“You weren’t. You were protecting me. You killed Gigante to keep me safe.”
Syn shook his head. “None of it matters anymore. As long as you’re all right—”
“You were trying to save my life.” Jo grabbed the front of his leather jacket. “I’m so sorry. I was wrong about you. I was so wrong—”
“Shh. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I do. Syn, I—”
“Everything is forgiven,” he said because he had the sense it was the only thing that would calm her, and he was worried about whether she’d been shot.
Plus, that was a true statement. He would always forgive her, even though, in this case, there was nothing to excuse. At all.
“I love you,” she said. “You and only you. No matter what the future is, I need you to know that. I need to say the words to you.”
As her miraculous statements registered, Syn lost his voice—or he would have spoken back to her what she had said to him. Lacking words, he touched her hair with awe, and as if she understood what he meant, she turned her face into his bloody palm and kissed it. Then she kissed it again. Then she—
The moan she let out was part relief, part starvation. And then her lips locked onto his bullet wound, the suction hesitant. At least for the first draw. For the second, however, she swallowed hard and moaned again, turning her whole body to the source of the blood flow, seeking sustenance.
Fuck. Her transition was here—
Rearing away from his palm, Jo let out a plaintive howl, her eyes confused and focused at the same time. “What’s happening? What’s . . . happening to me?”
“It’s okay,” he soothed her, “I’m going to give you a better draw.
” Biting into his wrist, he made sure the punctures were nice and deep, and then he brought the wellspring to her lips.
“Latch on,” he told her. “Drink of me so that I may give you strength.”
When he realized he had spoken in the Old Language, he nearly translated, but she didn’t require the vocabulary. She formed a perfect seal over his vein and started to take from him in earnest, her eyes frightened as they held his own, her trembling getting worse instead of better.
“I will not leave you,” he said. “Until it is done—”
“Syn, we need to get you looked at—”
At the sound of the male voice, he jerked Jo even closer to him, his body forming a cage around her own. As he let out a vicious warning growl, the circle of Brothers, who had formed around them without him realizing it, jumped back like they had seen a rattlesnake in the grass.
All at once, the alley was bathed in red.
Upper lip curled back, fangs fully extended, Syn was ready to attack—
He shook himself back to reality. Clearing his throat, he said, “Shit. Sorry.”
Butch pushed his way through the crowd. In a fond tone, he murmured, “I gotta approve of how you follow directions, Syn. I asked you to take care of my sister and you are. It’s a real example for others.”
Feeling suddenly shy, Syn stared down at his female and tenderly brushed her cheek. “If she’ll have me, I’d like to care of her for the rest of her life.”
It was all such a blur.
As Jo’s hormones went wild and her body was taken over by an unstoppable force, she had trouble putting the events that led up to her transition in proper order. Then again, did any of that really matter? She was with Syn and she was . . . doing something that would have been repugnant and shocking at any other time in her life.
Instead, it was natural. It was . . . right.
With her lips to his wrist and the taste of dark wine down the back of her throat, she gave in to what her body seemed destined to do: take from him to survive.
And as she drank, the chill that had trembled through her very bones gradually abated, replaced by a warmth that flowed freely, filling her up from the inside out.
Closing her eyes, she kept taking what Syn provided her, aware that she was being moved, that there was some kind of relocation happening, not that she could track much of what was going on. And then there was movement, subtle and uneven. A soft, engine-like purr. Was she in some kind of vehicle?
Summoning her eyesight, she lifted her lids . . . and saw a whole lot of medical equipment in a cramped space. And was she on the floor?