For the Power (For the Blood Book 2) Page 12

  Weak light filtered in through the many grimy windows, enough to see by. I flicked off the slender torch and tucked it into my back pocket. An old, dusty fountain sat in the foyer, surrounded by several wire baskets. A sweeping staircase sat beyond the fountain and a balcony ran around the perimeter at first-floor level. Shops glared at me like eyeless sockets, and a prickle ran up my spine.

  I quashed the impulse to call out to Logan, listening to gut instinct. Walking on the balls of my feet and keeping to the pockets of heavy shadow, I headed left past two semi-shuttered shops, opening my senses, looking for any sign that Logan was here. Something dashed across the foyer in the periphery of my vision.

  My body froze.

  There, behind the fake potted plant. There was something there. Not enough moonlight to see. My hand inched to the torch in my back pocket. Dammit. If I used the light, the thing, whatever it was, would know I’d spotted it. Could it see me?

  Not Feral Fang, not Claw. Claws and Fangs didn’t hide. They scented prey, and they attacked. This was something else.

  Not Logan.

  Definitely not Logan.

  Another shadow ran along the balcony above, gone too soon. Shit. The one in the foyer had just moved again. It was behind the fountain now. A flash of ivory? Nails? Teeth.

  My pulse was speeding up as adrenaline hit my system. The fire exit was mere meters away, but to get to it I’d need to head past the fountain, past the creature hiding there. Movement on the balcony. The thing was headed for the stairs. Shit. I glanced at the shop to my left—shutters almost all the way down, but enough space for someone of my size and stature to squeeze through. Wait, was that a bloody handprint? Glistening and still wet.

  More movement, at the top of the stairs—a humanoid, hunched figure.

  Fuck.

  I leapt for the shutters, hit the ground, and rolled into the darkness beyond just as something slammed into the metal. A pale hand grabbed at me, fingers curled into claws. Not claws, nails. Human nails—long and thick and curled.

  Oh, shit.

  Human. The thing was human.

  Another thud was followed by the shudder of the metal barrier. I needed to close it, wind it all the way closed. Usually the shutter doors would be controlled by an electrical panel, but there had to be a manual override. Using the torch and ignoring the growls and grunts from beyond, I located the panel on the wall by the doors. Beside it was a crank. Damn thing was stuck.

  An arm pushed its way into the store all the way up to the shoulder. Hairless, pale skin mottled with inky black veins. Shit. If it persisted, could it force the shutter up? Two more arms slotted through.

  Heart pulsing in my throat, I pushed on the crank.

  Come on, Eva.

  My neck strained, blood rushing in my ears as I pushed with all my might, and then, with a creak and a clatter, the shutter began to move. The things shrieked, and the arms vanished as the metal came down with a clang.

  The darkness was now absolute. Shit, shit, shit. I had to get back down to the basement. I had to warn the others.

  The flashlight beam scouted my surroundings to find empty racks where clothes were once hung and toppled-over display stands. There had to be a back exit for fire purposes. Picking my way carefully over the debris, I headed to the back of the store. A low, purposeful growl had me pausing mid-step.

  Seriously?

  The coppery scent of blood hit me next, and then a shadow rushed at me. It swept me off my feet and cut off my yelp with a hand over my mouth, and then another aroma hit me, buried beneath the blood. Vanilla.

  Logan?

  He was moving fast but clumsily, and then we came to a halt. His chest rose and fell against my back, and his lips caressed my ear. “Shhh. There’s something in here with us.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  There’s something in here with us …

  Ice filtered through my veins in response to his words. I nodded beneath his hand, letting him know I got it, and he slowly uncovered my mouth and turned me in his arms. It was black as pitch, so impossible to see his face, but he was breathing too fast and shallow. Not good. I patted his chest, moving down until I hit the spot that made him hiss with pain, the spot that was wet, warm, and slick.

  “How bad is it?” My pulse stalled. “Is it a bite?”

  He gripped my hips, probably to steady himself. “No, it got me with its talons. I’m losing a lot of blood.” His voice was barely above a whisper, and then his forehead pressed against mine, feverish hot. “It’s fucking deep. It’ll take time to heal; I need to stay still, but with that thing out there, just waiting, staying still isn’t an option. I won’t be able to stay conscious much longer if we don’t patch up the wound.”

  Shit. “There are more of those things outside.”

  “Fucking great.”

  A lick of anger in my belly. “Why the hell did you come up here?”

  “I heard a noise.”

  “Everyone knows you don’t go investigate strange noises without backup. Have you never watched a slasher movie?”

  “No.”

  Figured. He’d been an experiment, barely nine years old when he’d escaped into the awful wide world. No cinemas or movie nights for him. My hand was still on his chest, just above the wound, fingers grazing the rapid beat of his heart, and then he pulled away from my palm. It took a second to recognize the wobble, to realize he was keeling back. I made a grab for him in the dark and wrapped my arms around his waist to hold him steady. My face was level with his collarbones. It was the first time I’d been this close voluntarily, and it was like hugging a man carved from stone, all hard planes and dips.

  “Eva …” His mouth brushed my earlobe, sending a shiver through me.

  There was no getting out of this without him. There was only one thing to do. “Drink.” I tilted my head to the side, offering him my neck. “Quickly.”

  He inhaled sharply. “You sure?”

  He wasn’t turning me down, because he knew the predicament. He knew the only chance we had was if we were both in fighting form.

  I swallowed the lump of apprehension in my throat. “Yeah, I’m sure. I need you.”

  His laugh was short and bitter. “No, you don’t, but I’ll take it.” And then his fangs pierced my flesh. I pressed my mouth to his chest, gasping into the material, breath warm against the fabric of his shirt. His grip on me tightened as he drank from me, fingers pressing into my hips as if eager to leave impressions. I bit down on his shirt, on his flesh, to quell my moans as the euphoria rushed through my bloodstream like a delicious heat wave. My hips jerked in primal reaction to the pleasure that he was injecting into me. Oh, God. Please be over. Even as the thought swam through my mind, I was holding him tighter, urging him to continue, to take more, to give more.

  His chest rumbled, and then he pulled back, mouth still brushing my neck but fangs no longer piercing it. The silence was interrupted by our ragged breath and the sharp tang of pheromones. His hands skimmed up my spine, fingers moving as if he was playing a tune.

  “Logan.” My voice cracked.

  “I’m done.” He laved my neck to close the wound.

  If it was over, then why was my body still singing? Why was I still holding onto him as if he were a life raft? Why was my mouth traveling up to caress the base of his throat?

  The muscles beneath my hands tensed, and he sucked air in through his teeth. “Dammit, Eva. Snap out of it. So not the time.” His voice was harsh, almost angry.

  I dropped my chin, reining in the rolling desire. Fuck. This wasn’t me.

  My head cleared. “Good. I’m good. You?”

  “Healed up. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  We needed to take stock of the situation. “There’s one in the store and two outside. I think they’re human.”

  “I know.”

  “How is this possible?”

  “I can’t answer that, so let’s focus on staying alive long enough to figure it out.”

 
; “I can’t see a damn thing. I’m useless in a fight right now.”

  “I don’t think that thing can see too well either, but I can see it fine. It’s camped out toward the rear of the store. I don’t know if it realizes there’s an exit only a meter away, and I’d rather it doesn’t find out.”

  A plan formed in my mind. “We can use my flashlight to distract it, draw it away from the exit. I’ll act as bait, and then you can take it out. Once it’s down, we take the rear exit, grab the others, and get the fuck out of here.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I made to take a step back, but he cupped my shoulders, holding me in place. “Why’d you come after me, Eva?”

  What? “I woke up, and you were gone. I was worried.”

  “So, you came after me without backup?” There was a smile in his voice, a hint of the cocky Fang I knew he could be.

  “I woke Jace and told him … Oh, fuck.”

  “What?”

  “I told Jace that if I wasn’t back in ten minutes he should sound the alarm.”

  “Dammit.”

  It had been more than ten minutes. No doubt Ash and Jace or Sage would be coming to look for me and Logan. Shit.

  “We need to get back out there, Logan. If they come up those stairs, they’ll be walking into an ambush.”

  There was no time to waste. My flashlight bloomed to life; the room lit up, and Logan’s beautiful face was finally visible. His perfect mouth was a determined line, lips rosy from feeding. We were in a small changing room. I swung the beam of light, found the door, and headed out onto the shop floor.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are.” My tone was a taunt.

  The light swept the floor before snagging on the pale form headed right for me. I turned and ran, hopefully in the right direction. Metal clinked and scraped across the ground as the thing pursued, my blood rushed in my ears, and the flashlight beam dashed about like crazy. Metal shutters. Yes!

  A yelp and a growl were followed by a snarl that was pure Logan. I spun, locating them with my light. Logan was in full Claw mode with the pale Feral human pinned beneath him. The human was naked and hairless, its eye whites crimson and glaring, and its mouth was an aperture filled with jagged teeth that snapped desperately, trying to take a bite out of Logan. And then Logan ripped its head off with a slash of his claws.

  I stood, back to the shutters, heart hammering to get out of my chest as if I’d run a marathon—running from a monster would do that to a girl. Logan rose off the Feral and padded toward me. His dark fur rippled with the pantherine movement of his body, and fear tightened my abdomen. This was Logan. He wouldn’t hurt me. He came to a standstill before me, his snout barely a foot away from me. Damn, he was big in this form, his head coming up to my collarbone. My hand reached out as if of its own volition and stroked him, running from between his eyes to down his nose. He was silken and smooth and so fucking powerful. He chuffed and shook his head.

  Something slammed into the shutters behind us. I jerked in surprise, and Logan snarled low in his throat.

  An exclamation followed in a voice I recognized.

  Sage.

  I rushed to the shutter controls. “We have to get out there.”

  The crank wasn’t so stiff this time, but it was still a bitch to turn. And then Logan was at my back in his Fang form. His hands cupped mine, helping to wind the shutters up halfway. Enough for us to duck into the moonlit foyer to join Sage and Ash.

  Sage was lit up, his hands balls of flame. Two Feral lay dead on the ground by the fountain. Heads twisted at odd angles. Ash’s work, no doubt. The rest hovered at the foot of the stairs, held at bay by the threat of fire. They were tall and short and squat and slender. The varied shapes and sizes that humans came in, and they were naked and hairless. Feral humans … How the fuck?

  “If I light them up, this whole place will go up in flames,” Sage said softly so as not to spook the monsters. “They’re not going to stay back for much longer, though.”

  Ash’s crossbow was strapped to his back—no good in close quarters, and getting up close to snap heads was risking a bite, risking infection. Logan’s bat was nowhere to be seen. He must have dropped it in the store, but they could both shift to wolf form. In wolf form, they could use their claws, and their hides were too thick for the Feral to bite through. In wolf form, they were safer from infection because any blood they did accidentally ingest when tearing off Feral limbs would be filtered out of their systems before hitting their bloodstream.

  I looked to Sage, but his attention was on the threat. “Sage, on the count of three, I want you to make a run for the fire exit. Get Jace and Benji and get out of here. Head north. We’ll catch up.”

  “Like hell am I leaving you.” His gravelly voice was deeper than usual.

  I drew my sword. “I’ll be fine. I have Ash and Logan. We’ll take care of the Feral and join you shortly.”

  He looked torn, but then he nodded. His muscles rippled as he prepared to make a dash.

  “One. Two. Three.”

  Sage turned and ran. For a split second, the Feral did nothing, and then they surged toward us. Motorhead blared in my head, and my sword cut a path through the air, ready for the dance.

  The Feral humans were strong and fast. Almost as strong and fast as the Feral Fang, but not quite. My sword cut through flesh and sinew, and the guys mauled and maimed with fang and claw.

  It took mere minutes, and then we were standing in the midst of a bloodbath. My borrowed oversized clothes were spattered with blood, and my sword was kissed with crimson.

  “More will come,” Logan said. “Ash can hear heartbeats, erratic and getting closer. There are more above us.”

  “Let’s get out of here before they come down.”

  I turned and ran with them, back through the fire doors and out into the night. The others would have been away by now. Please let them have made it out.

  “There!” Logan said.

  Two figures were up ahead, sprinting farther and farther away. Sage and Jace had made it out. Thank goodness. The land before us was bordered by woodland. It had once been a slip road and was now home to nature.

  “Twenty miles to our next stop,” Logan said. “Doesn’t look like we’ll be getting much rest.”

  Our next stop—the Claw camp that Noah had told us about. To seek refuge with his friend Nate Summers before making our way to the second bunker. Twenty miles … my feet ached at the thought.

  Up ahead, the two figures had slowed down, wait … what was happening? “They’re headed back this way.”

  Logan and Ash slowed down and came to a standstill. “What’s that behind them?”

  Shadows poured out of the woodland, pale in the moonlight. Feral humans. A sob caught in my throat, not fear but frustration. How much more? Seriously? What the fuck?

  I drew my sword and broke into a sprint toward the guys. Up ahead, Jace’s body blurred, shifting into his silver wolf form. Sage faltered and Jace snapped at him, as if to say go, before turning back toward the Feral.

  Almost there.

  “No!” Benji screamed as Sage put him down. Fire lit up the night, hitting the Feral and setting them alight.

  “Watch out!” Logan shouted. “You’ll set the woods alight.”

  Benji’s terrified face glared up at me as I passed him. I swerved to the right, running parallel to the fire to cut off another wave of Feral humans. The Talwar opened throats in a neat, orderly line.

  “Too many,” Sage called out. “There’s too many.”

  My heart sank, because he was right. The woods were crawling with them, and the fire was drawing them to us, as some primitive part of what was left of their brains probably associating it with safety and home brought them out from hiding.

  Ash’s golden flank was to my left, snapping and snarling to keep the Feral off me. Logan’s chestnut body growled to my right. This time, it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Fall back.” I began to walk backwards, away from the infes
ted woods. “We need to make a run for it.”

  “Nowhere to run,” Sage said. “They’re coming out of the service station.”

  Sure enough, figures were clambering up the rise toward us from the building. We were food, they were hungry, and we were pinned in with nowhere to run.

  I met Sage’s eyes briefly as he cradled the boy in his arm. The rage and sorrow swirling in their golden depths mingled with the dark despair opening like a chasm inside me.

  I’d been trained not to give up, to find an opportunity in every situation, to survive at all costs, and Dad’s voice had always been there to advise and urge me on. But for the first time since he’d gone, there was only silence in my head.

  A silence that shouted out that we were fucked.

  But I’d be damned if I’d go down without a fight. If those fuckers wanted to feast, they’d have to get past my blade. My sword played its tune, and my body danced, taking out as many Feral as it could. The Fangs did the same. Keep fighting, just keep—

  The roar of an engine rose over the crackle of fire and the rush of blood in my head. Headlights blinded me, and then a beast of a vehicle slammed into the horde, flattening the Feral in its wake before coming to a grinding halt across the path, engine idling.

  It was an armored van, customized for rough terrain with Tonka truck wheels, bars at the windows, and spikes on the boot and hood. The side door slid open, and a pixie-haired woman dangled out.

  “Get the fuck in if you want to live.”

  There was no time to hesitate. The van meant life. Sage handed Benji over, and then helped me up into the vehicle before climbing in. Seats lined the opposite wall, and I fell onto one as Jace, Ash, and Logan filled the space behind me. Benji climbed onto my lap. The door slammed shut and we were off, bumping and jolting as we left the monsters behind.