“More like lethal,” Valor cut me off, whispering to keep the words from Lachlan.
A corner of his mouth ticked up, his vampire hearing catching the words anyway.
“Where do you want to go tonight?” I asked, trying to clear the tension from my chest. It was sudden, the tightening in my lungs. Was it because of the way Lachlan was looking at Valor? All predatory and calculating?
“I’m starving,” she said, never taking her gaze off Lachlan. I was shocked that she didn’t flinch under his stare. “Want to head to—” I halted so suddenly it cut off Valor’s words. “Lyric?” She asked, concern coloring her tone.
Ice burst along my skin, a metallic warning blaring at the back of my mind. Dread pooled at the base of my spine, clawing its way up to clench my heart.
Death.
Revenge.
Malice.
Each horrid emotion ebbed over me in sticky waves that numbed my limbs. Froze me to the spot. I turned, scanning for the source—
Lachland growled, his head snapping to the right. He moved toward me in a flash of speed.
A soft whistling sliced the air—
Pain exploded on my chest. A hot, wet, fire that stung every inch of my body.
Lachlan’s roar broke the air as we both fell to the ground, his heavy mass covering me.
But too late.
“You’re…hurt,” I said, my voice so weak. My vision blurred at the edges, but I pointed to the blood covering his right shoulder.
Valor screamed, falling to her knees beside me. “Omigod, omigod, Lyric,” she said in broken sobs. “I’m calling an ambulance,” she said as she pulled out her phone with frantic fingers.
Lachlan’s arms were under me, holding me to his chest as his eyes scanned the area. I trembled, fear coating my soul. Not only because of the life I could feel draining out of me, but because of the absolute lethalness to his eyes. He was livid, enraged—
“Alek,” I coughed out. “No. Hospital.” I could barely think straight through the fog threatening to suck me under into the blackness, but I knew enough that a hospital would be a terrible idea. I’d been fed twice, there is no telling what they’d find in my blood, and I couldn’t risk exposing the vampires.
“What, no!”
“Valor,” I pled. “Please.” I tried like hell to focus, to call him to me through our bond, but my internal grip was slippery as if the blood from my chest made it harder to grasp. “I need him.”
“He’s coming,” Lachlan said, his voice cold, low.
My vision trembled, dots of black bursting along the edges. “Lachlan,” I said, whispered. “Keep…Valor…safe…”
“Lyric!” Alek’s roar sounded from the end of a dark tunnel that swallowed me whole.
13
Alek
“Lyric!” I shouted, lunging and rolling Lachlan off her. My second had covered her, had sacrificed his own life to save my mate—his queen.
Fear spread like frost through my veins, slowing my thoughts until they narrowed to one: my wife was dying. The bond between us had dimmed but wasn’t broken. She was still here, and there was still hope.
“Oh my god!” Valor—Lyric’s best human friend, cried out, her hands covering her mouth.
Ransom materialized next to me. “Fuck!”
“Take Lachlan!” I snapped over my shoulder, cradling the back of Lyric’s head to cushion it from the unforgiving pavement. The scent of her blood overwhelmed my senses. She was covered in crimson at her shoulder, but the puddle at her chest pulsed and grew. Arterial? I couldn’t see. We needed Gabriel. “Stay with me, love.” I sent up a prayer to whatever God felt merciful today.
I ripped off my hoodie—the closest bandage I could think of, and pressed it to Lyric’s wound, hoping to staunch the blood loss. Then I concentrated my power not on her mind, which was impervious to it, but her body, willing her heart to beat slower to give us more time.
“He’s hit in the shoulder,” Ransom called over, already fashioning a bandage from his shirt.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Valor exclaimed.
Benedict materialized just behind the human, his eyes flying wide at the mayhem before us. “Holy shit.”
“Two shots, not sure how many shooters,” I said to Benedict, who immediately drew his weapon and left for the hunt, then looked at Valor, who was fumbling with her phone. “Valor, look at me.”
Her eyes snapped to mine in surprise. What? That I knew her name? I also knew where she lived, who she spent her time with, and the fact that her father had gotten two of her brother’s sexual assault charges dismissed, but there wasn’t time to get into any of that.
“Put your phone away. The hospital can’t help her.” I diverted just enough of my power to curl around the human’s mind and alter her thought pattern.
“They can’t help her,” she said softly, putting her phone in her back pocket.
“When we leave,” I sent another push, which was twice as much as it took to compel a human. “You won’t remember we were here. Lyric left with her bodyguard. You’re going to go home and get a good night’s rest. Lyric will call you in the morning.”
The girl blinked huge brown eyes at me and tucked her long red hair behind her ears. Then she stilled so completely that her only movements were the rise and fall of her shoulders with each breath.
She was under compulsion, and there was no time to lose.
“Infirmary,” I snapped at Ransom, gathering Lyric into my arms.
He nodded, throwing Lachlan over his shoulder, and we both wended deep beneath the grounds of the estate.
The lights were so bright I had to blink as I materialized into the state-of-the-art emergency trauma room we had for just this reason.
“Gabriel!” I shouted, placing Lyric’s limp frame on the gurney.
“Sire?” The vampire raced from a hallway, a nurse right behind him. “The queen!” The guy was big enough to be an assassin, but he’d followed in his father’s footsteps, choosing to serve as our doctor.
“One bullet to the chest. Lachlan is hit in the shoulder.” I spoke sparingly, using all of my power to convince Lyric’s body to slow her demise.
“He’s still unconscious,” Ransom noted. “It’s just…a graze. What the hell?”
Gabriel glanced at the second gurney, where Lachlan lay, before turning his full attention to Lyric. He sliced away her sweater, revealing a hole directly above her heart.
Sweat beaded on my brow, but I couldn’t keep the blood from pumping out of her frail, breakable body.
“She’s bleeding out,” Gabriel said calmly. “Get the O negative,” he ordered the nurse, who went running. “I had a supply brought in just in case she needed it.”
I nodded, incapable of saying anything else as he started tests, and another nurse hooked her up to the monitors. The world went hazy at the edges as I focused solely on Lyric’s heart and the fraying bond between us.
Benedict materialized. “Shooter was gone, but I found two casings. I’ll take them for lab work.” He wended out again.
“Hawke is with Avi?” I asked Ransom.