He staggers back and begins screaming as I realize having only one arm fucking sucks. I tuck my tranq gun under the armpit of my left arm and pull out my regular gun. I know how to load the gun with one arm, but it takes time and right now, I don’t have time.
The next vampire is moving fast, but I steady my breathing and let my eyes follow the movement—a movement most humans can’t pick up on, let alone follow. Then I hold my breath and fire. The bullet slams right into the vampire’s head and he hesitates, allowing me to get two more bullets in before he rushes back for cover.
Marcus moves toward me and grabs my coat. “This way,” he says, half dragging me. He tucks me behind a stack of boxes that makes it so they can only come straight at us. His breathing’s heavy, which is strange, when I’ve never seen Marcus affected by anything. He’s older and stronger than a regular vampire. So that means the bullets shouldn’t affect him as much, right?
“Are you okay?” I ask because he looks pale. Paler than regular, which is kind of hard to accomplish.
“Fucking dandy,” he growls.
But he’s bleeding a lot. Did they do something to the bullets?
“Marcus… this usually wouldn’t affect someone as old as you, right?”
He hesitates before shaking his head. I can hear voices and noise as they begin to fill the building.
“No. Smith hit me with something…”
He turns his head and listens before pulling me back and moving toward a sound only he heard. The issue is that he’s moving slowly, so the other vampire gets to him first. I feel like, at this rate, even I could be moving faster than him and manage to do so by shooting the other vampire, which makes him retreat. I grab onto Marcus who is leaning against a pallet set along the wall.
“I’m going to distract them and you’re going to run,” he says as he tries to push me away from him.
“No, I’m not leaving you,” I say as I struggle with my guns. He takes them from me and reloads them before passing them back. “I’m sorry I’m not more help.”
He looks over at me with an earnest expression. “Are you joking? You’ve taken more down than I have.”
“No, I haven’t. But thanks. And I’m not leaving you.”
“You might have to.”
Without Marcus, we’re not going to win this. I didn’t come here planning on taking on an army of vampires and humans with guns. But Marcus could stop them if he wasn’t hurt. That’s when something pops into my head.
“Marcus, I have an idea and don’t just immediately say no. If you drink my blood, it’ll heal you, right? I mean, maybe not perfectly, but enough you could get us out of here.”
He almost recoils away from me. “Absolutely not,” he growls.
“Marcus, there’s a huge chance we could both die. I know you’re scared you’re going to hurt me, but I trust you.”
“No,” he growls, expression hard and eyes narrowed. “Get in that corner and hold position until I can get an opening for you to run.”
“Run? So I can get shot? Marcus, listen to me. You’re not young anymore. You can do this. You can stop them but not like this.”
“Do not go against me,” he growls.
I pull out a knife and he rushes toward me, but he’s not fast enough as I nick my throat with it just so he can smell the blood. “It’s going to waste,” I say as I feel the small bead of blood.
“No! I could kill you while I’m this hurt.” He yanks his mask over his face, telling me that even the drop is bothering him.
“Marcus, trust me. We will both die if you don’t heal yourself.” I walk up and grab his hand that’s coated in blood from his stomach. I squeeze it gently. “Please. Please trust me.” I let go so I can reach up and pull his mask down. He raises a hand but he doesn’t pull away.
“Fuck,” he whispers and grabs me. His teeth slice into my throat and there’s a moment of panic—a moment where I remember him biting me—but the pain is instantly gone. He never made the pain go away. He liked it when it hurt. Instead, my neck feels numb… it almost feels good. If I wasn’t surrounded by death with killers coming for me, I feel like I could give myself to him. Give in to him and just feel him like I’ve never felt anyone as his arms hold me close. I get so fixated on the euphoria of it that I almost forget that he could kill me if he drinks too much, and I’m starting to feel weak. “Marcus.”
He hesitates but doesn’t let go.
“Marcus,” I say as I set a hand on his chest and he jerks back and looks down at me with wide eyes. “See? You stopped.”
He clearly wants to say something, but a noise behind him draws his attention and he rushes for it.
Either the blood helped, because he’s moving faster than I can follow, or I can’t follow because I feel light-headed. I decide leaning against the wall would be best in this scenario.
“Finn?”
“Hmm?” I ask as I look up and am surprised to see golden eyes looking down at me.
“I took care of everyone.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Seriously? Could you have not gnawed on me a bit earlier then and just wiped everyone out instead of…” I wave my arm around for emphasis. “All of this?”
“I didn’t want to bite you.”
“You’re such a stubborn man,” I say in exasperation.
“Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” I ask as I wave to the blood all over his shirt. “Yes, let’s worry about my light-headedness instead of the four bullet holes in your abdomen.”
“Okay. I agree. Let’s worry about that.”
I sigh and push off the wall as I hear sirens. “Don’t tell anyone you bit me. You’ll have to go through a bunch of nonsense at work.”
“Yeah, but you should get looked over.”
I reach up and pat his face. “You know what? You act like you want to get rid of me, but you’re always so worried about me. It’s kind of cute and makes me feel all warm inside. I’m fine, Marcus. I promise.”
When the officers flood into the building, Marcus calls out to them. The first to reach us is DeGray. He gives us a nod once he confirms we’re alive but continues searching the entire building with the others. Once they’ve cleared it and have collected anyone who is still living, we head out to where Brooks is standing.
“What the hell is going on?” he asks.
“It was a setup,” Marcus says. “Smith called us here—”
Wren rushes over to us the moment he hears Smith’s name. “Smith wouldn’t do this,” he says as he looks around in disbelief. “Smith… no. She’s a good partner.”
I almost feel bad for the guy.
“Did anyone grab her?” I ask. “She was out by our cars.”
Brooks shakes his head. “We haven’t seen her.”
“See? It couldn’t have been her,” Wren says, shifting uneasily.
Brooks pats his arm. “Wren, let’s give them a moment to explain their side.”
Marcus takes over since I’m not sure how coherent I’ll be at the moment. “She called and told us Wren managed to get more information out of the man in the hospital. And that you ordered the four of us to come here,” Marcus says before explaining everything. I kind of feel like he’s talking far too fast and a nap should be in order. He leaves out biting me but does explain that whatever he was shot with was clearly more powerful than a normal bullet. They send him over to get medical attention, but he grumbles the whole way.