“We have to get out of here before we suffocate!” Samantha yelled, running out of the cage and over to Trey, laying her hand on his shoulder. “The ceiling could collapse any moment.”
He froze at the feel of her warm hand against his fur, subconsciously leaning against her hip as her fingers weaved themselves into its thickness and tugged gently. It was hard to put into words how amazing it felt. But he forced himself to put those thoughts out of his head. Samantha was right: they needed to get the hell out of here.
Trey moved toward the far end of the basement, and the stairs he knew were in that direction. Samantha was right beside him, but he’d barely gone ten feet through the heavy smoke and falling firebrands before he realized Kyson and Shaylee weren’t following.
Stopping, he swung his head around to look over his shoulder. Shaylee was trying to get Kyson to follow them, tugging on his hand and encouraging him, but his eyes were locked on the burning ceiling again and he wasn’t moving an inch. Shaylee wasn’t big enough to get him going, and her words were obviously having no effect.
Trey ran back to help but quickly realized there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do, short of clamping his fangs down on one of his friend’s hands and trying to physically drag him out. Which was likely just going to piss Kyson off. Or freak him out.
Doubting they had time for this, but not knowing what else to do, Trey tried to calm down enough to reverse the werewolf shift and regain his human form. As he expected, it took longer than he’d hoped, but it helped when Samantha came over and knelt by his side, running her fingers through the fur of his shoulders and down his back. It was enough to help him forget the fire and smoke raging around them and the fact that his soul mate was choosing to stay down here with him instead of attempting to save her own life.
The pain of his bones cracking and reshaping was just as horrendous in this direction as it was in the other, and it was damn near impossible to ignore all the smoke pouring into his lungs as he gasped for air. But after another minute or so, Trey found himself lying naked on the concrete floor, the burns he’d gotten earlier in wolf form appearing along his back and sides. Huge pieces of the ceiling were falling all around them now, and the heat of the flames made every breath feel like his last. Samantha and Shaylee looked like they weren’t going to last more than a few more seconds.
Ignoring the curious way Kyson was staring at him, Trey shoved himself upright and ran toward his friend, grabbing one of his hands. He would have liked to try to talk his friend through this calmly, but there simply wasn’t time. “Kyson, we’re leaving. Now!”
Then he yanked his friend’s hand so hard Kyson almost tumbled off his feet. But when he kept pulling, Kyson didn’t resist. Samantha and Shaylee moved to join them.
They had to dodge several pieces of burning wood as they made their way to the stairs, along with an entire section of one of the massive support beams. Right before they made it to the door out of the basement, he couldn’t help looking back at the bodies they were leaving behind. The vita was lying limp and torn over by the cages, the doctor’s corpse burnt and curled into a ball in the midst of the broken glass from the vat his son had been suspended in. But when Trey glanced at the wall where Jamison had rolled earlier, he was surprised to find that the body wasn’t there.
Every instinct screamed at him to stop and find the kid, that something was wrong. But with the place falling apart all around them, he simply couldn’t. Samantha and Shaylee were barely able move as it was. He had to get them out of here.
They were halfway up the fire-filled staircase when Shaylee collapsed, though whether it was from smoke inhalation or exhaustion, Trey didn’t know.
“I got her,” Kyson called out as he reached down and scooped her up in his arms without even slowing. “Keep going!”
Trey had no idea which way to go when they reached the top of the stairs and stepped out into the middle of ornate open-air atrium, suits of armor everywhere and burning staircases curving up to the upper levels. He wasn’t sure how it was possible, but the fire seemed worse up here than it had been in the basement. This place wasn’t going to last long.
He was sniffing the air, hoping it would lead him to the nearest exit, when a completely unexpected scent hit his nose.
Trey spun in time to see Rogi standing there holding a large bore hunting rifle. In that split second before the man pulled the trigger, all Trey had time to do was take one step to put himself between Samantha and the weapon. Then he flew backward like a train had just smashed into his chest.
Chapter 24
Samantha was so focused on the fire rapidly climbing the walls around her that she didn’t even see Rogi until he stepped out of Louis’s study with the big rifle in his hand. She opened her mouth to scream, but the warning never had a chance to make it out before Rogi pulled the trigger. The resultant boom vibrated through her chest like thunder, then Trey was flying past her, smashing into one of the suits of armor along the wall, the bullet going right through the middle of his chest.
Her scream made its way out then, even as Rogi turned the barrel of the rifle toward Kyson, his hands quickly working the bolt atop the weapon, loading another round in the chamber in a fluid motion as if he’d done it a thousand times before.
With Shaylee in his arms, there was little Kyson could do to avoid the shot beyond twisting awkwardly to the side in a desperate attempt to protect the woman he cared for. Samantha heard the gunshot, saw a line of red slicing across Kyson’s back from shoulder to shoulder, watched the blood start to flow. Trey’s friend stumbled forward as some distant part of Samantha’s mind realized Rogi was working the bolt of the rifle again, undoubtedly preparing to put another round into Trey or Kyson, finishing whichever one he deemed the biggest threat first.
Samantha would be damned if she’d let that happen.
She spun around and grabbed for the first thing within reach, almost shocked when she realized it was the hilt of an antique sword resting in the hands of another suit of armor. The weight of the weapon shocked her. It was far heavier than she’d expected. It also seemed to somehow be attached to the armor. But there was so much adrenaline pumping through Samantha right then that she didn’t have a problem jerking the weapon free and lifting it. She ended up holding it more like a spear than a sword as she turned and charged toward Rogi with a savage yell.
Rogi was so focused on putting another bullet into Kyson’s back that he didn’t see Samantha coming at him until the last second. He whirled around, swinging the barrel of the rifle in her direction. She didn’t bother trying to slow down, knowing it was too late for that. The rifle went off just as she shoved the pointy end of the sword into his side right below the ribs.
Time seeming to slow as she realized the blade had gone nearly all the way through man’s body. Blood trickled down Rogi’s lip, shock on his face. Then the rifle dropped to the floor with a clatter, Rogi slowly tumbling backward, his weight dragging the sword from her hands.