Mikjall had signaled a group of guards was approaching. A big enough unit that I couldn't take them all out by myself before someone sent up a warning. Alek and Jared were with Mikjall on the other side of the cross street, leaving Killian and I with Travis and Garrett.

The soldiers pa.s.sed our cross street, armed to the teeth with automatic rifles. My hand went to the hilt of the sword at my shoulder. Alek whispered, "Go," and I lunged forward, the others following behind me.

My sword slipped through their bodies easily. Men fell left and right. Killian's blade did the same, and the few men we hadn't eliminated were taken out by Travis, Garrett, Alek, and Jared. Mikjall crossed our paths, touching the lifeless bodies as he pa.s.sed, turning them to ash.

Sixty seconds later, we were standing in the center of the cross-streets surrounded by bodies. Mikjall was moving as quickly as possible to burn away the evidence that they'd ever been there. The scent of blackened flesh filled the air as the ashes began to rise into the breeze.

Alek and Jared picked up several of the soldier's rifles. Following suit, Travis and Garrett each s.n.a.t.c.hed up one before Mikjall turned all the weapons into puddles of liquid metal on the asphalt.

Jared shook his head. "I have fire to burn, but d.a.m.n, dragon fire is just..."

"Magick mixed with fire," Killian answered.

Mikjall glanced up from the last body with a wicked grin. "This is what I plan to do to that mother-f.u.c.king a.s.shole. Except I'm going to just burn off his arms and legs first so he has to feel every second as long as I can draw it out."

I shuddered and took a step backward. The story of how Mikjall came to Sanctuary wasn't a secret, but the young man did his best to stay out of sight and out of mind. According to Diana, Rose had a.s.signed Jared and Alek to mentor and teach him what it was to live in this century.

He seemed to be adjusting to life. It was the revenge brewing in his soul that I worried would cost us lives on this trip. Anyone so consumed by hate was not long for the world. It clouded judgment and made you sloppy until death became inevitable.

We started down the now quiet alley. Killian and I crouched behind a sign as Mikjall and Jared moved a little ahead.

"I've been where he is," Killian whispered. "I've been there a long time. If you hadn't shown up in my barn, nothing would've ever changed for me."

I glanced over, catching my love's blue gaze. The moon was showing just enough to catch the slightest hint of color in his irises. They sparkled like a star. I knew he had struggled. I knew he wasn't done struggling, but something that any person who lived as long as we did knew was... life always moves forward. Time was your friend when you experienced loss.

Eventually, the pain lessened. Eventually, you find something else to give meaning to your life. At least, that was what I hoped would've happened.

In a thousand years, I'd never been able to feel love again. Never felt as though I could connect with a man the way I'd connected to Killian. h.e.l.l, I'd adopted a pack of crazy Lycans that risked their lives to save their kind. The rush of sneaking in and out of the closed Republics of the former United States gave at least a little satisfaction and some feelings of worth. I had a connection with members of the pack that simulated family, which was more than I'd had in centuries.

"I'm not going to rush him. But we have to watch out when we get there. The Masons are family to me. I won't endanger them because of his vendetta."

Travis and Garrett scooted closer to us. "You think he'll lose it when we get there?" Travis whispered.

The men ahead motioned us forward, and I rose, the three men beside me following in tight formation. It was sweet how they protected me, though I was probably the least in need of it.

"I don't know what to expect. But I'm glad Alek and Jared are here with him. Our priority has to be rescue, not going after and trying to kill Xerxes."

I heard a gasp to my right and blurred from the group, snapping the neck of a guard who had exited a nearby building and seen us running down the street.

"Eira," Killian growled under his breath after noticing I was gone.

I took a deep breath of the guard in my arms. He was clean and strong, and his still-warm blood called to my inner beast. A drink would calm my nerves. My fangs descended, and I pierced his neck to drink. The warm liquid poured down my throat and began to burn. Dropping the body, I coughed and gagged, desperately trying to vomit out the blood I'd just taken. I tried to blur, but only moved a few feet back toward the group.

f.u.c.king h.e.l.l.

My vision swirled, and I fought to see straight. "Killian." I moaned in pain as the fire spread through my body. What in the f.u.c.king Republic had that guy had in his blood?

A few minutes later, the entire group was at my side. I knew one of the Lycans would've heard me.

"Eira, what did you do?"

I shook my head. Pointing toward the dead soldier. "There was something in him... poison," I muttered, coughing up more blood.

"Why did you drink from him?" Killian's voice rose in decibel.

"Shut it, dude!" Travis hissed. "You'll attract more attention."

"I'm a vampire. Blood is kinda my thing, and his smelled really good for a human's," I whispered, fighting through the cramping pain in my stomach and the shooting pains now running up and down the length of my arms and legs.

"He was on something chemical," Mikjall said, crouching above the dead body of the soldier I'd killed and bitten. "It's faint, but I smell the difference. It's sweet-smelling even to me, and I don't drink blood."

I nodded weakly.

"It was a trap," Jared said. "She needs fresh blood to recover."

"Mine is the most powerful," Mikjall answered.

Killian stiffened next to me. "She's not going to drink from you." Anger laced his voice, but my consciousness was fading. Whatever they were going to do, it wasn't happening fast enough.

I used the last bit of strength I had and grabbed Killian, yanking him to the ground with me and sinking my fangs into his neck.

"Holy s.h.i.t!" Travis jumped.

Killian's blood brought me out of the encroaching darkness, but his magick wasn't enough to clear out the chemical. I sealed where I'd bitten and shook my head. The world around me still spun.

"Eira?" Killian's voice held the question they were all dying to ask.

I shook my head. Unless I could heal myself right now, I was a liability to this mission. "If Mikjall is willing," I said, coughing, "I need more." The pain had dulled to a throb, but I was seeing double of all the men around me and felt like I was on a tilt-a-whirl from an old fairground before the Riots.

"Lean her head backward." Mikjall shouldered closer as he withdrew a small dragon steel blade from his belt.

Killian's hands cradled my head and tipped it backward, which was good because I couldn't feel which way was up or down.

"Hold her down," Mikjall said. "Or the same thing will happen to my arm that just happened to Killian."

The Lycans beside me chuckled, and I felt their hands wrap around each of my wrists.

The first scent of Mikjall's fresh blood made my fangs descend again and a growl rumble from my throat. I jerked against Travis and Garrett and nearly lifted them, along with Killian, upward toward Mikjall's bleeding arm.

"s.h.i.t," Garrett snarled.

Mikjall brought his arm closer, and the blood began to drip into my mouth. G.o.ds, it was good! I breathed deeply and growled again, wrestling against the three men holding me down.

Then two more sets of arms took hold. One set wrapped around my waist from behind me. The other grabbed onto an arm with one of the Lycans. Even Killian wrapped one hand around my ponytail, using the other to keep my mouth steady. If he hadn't, my head would've been swaying every which direction.

More of Mikjall's delicious and magick-laden blood poured into my mouth, and energy surged through my body like a lightning strike. My head cleared more with each pa.s.sing second, and the pain in my limbs and stomach receded. Sweat beaded on my forehead. My body was cleansing itself. It was working.

"She looks like she's melting," Travis said, adjusting his iron grip on my wrist.

"It's working. The poison is coming out." Killian's voice soothed me.

A few moments later, I was able to see all of them clearly again. No multiples. No spinning earth sensations.

"Thank you," I whispered.

Mikjall nodded. "I will always owe you for saving my mother's life."

The men around me slowly let go, and Killian took my hand, pulling me to my feet.

"No more biting guards," Garrett muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

"No kidding. If the SECR has developed some type of supplement for people to take that makes vampires ill, this could eradicate my kind in the SECR in mere weeks if they are able to keep it quiet."

"We don't have time," Travis said, motioning us forward. "We have some Lycans to rescue."

At least the tainted blood had a scent. I would be careful to watch for it again. Somehow we had to find a way to pa.s.s on the information.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

KILLIAN.

Humans with vampire poison in their blood? f.u.c.king SECR. I hated them before. And now they'd nearly taken Eira from me. If that d.a.m.ned dragon hadn't been with us for this trip, she could be dead right now.

My hands clenched at my sides, and I gritted my teeth. Something better show up soon that I could kill. I needed to make someone hurt. Rage was my friend. It'd been with me for so many years I hadn't realized how much of my mind it had occupied.

Eira had calmed me over the last few days. My mind had cleared of the overwhelming addiction to revenge and torturing SECR soldiers.

Now, nearly losing her because of them brought it all out again. Because of something Xerxes was probably behind, I was filled with a rage that came close to rivaling that of the young Drakonae jogging ahead of me. Nothing was worse than losing a mate. Perhaps a child, but I couldn't speak of that experience and likely never would.

Mikjall's hand raised in front of us, and we all ducked to the ground, hugging the building to try and blend into the shadows. With the ever-present floodlights on each street corner, shadows were becoming harder to find.

My shoulder brushed Eira's, and her sweet, evergreen scent flooded my nostrils. I took a deep breath, thanking the G.o.ds she'd been spared and that the dragon's blood had worked as a permanent solution to whatever she'd ingested. My focus lasered in on the smoothness of her neck and the smell of her sweet skin. Little wisps of her long black hair had escaped the high ponytail and waved in the soft cold breeze blowing between the buildings.

Of course my brain had switched from wanting to kill the people who poisoned her to wanting to disappear into one of these empty warehouses with her so I could show her how much she meant to me.

The muscles in her arm tensed, and I glanced forward again, tearing my gaze away from the place on her neck I wanted to taste and kiss.

Mikjall, Jared, and Alek were slinking along the wall toward us.

Eira straightened from her crouched stance. I stood beside her, and the Lycans came forward from where they had been watching the rear.

"What's wrong?" Eira asked, her voice steady but laced with unease.

"Lycans." Alek spoke first.

"There are nine heat signatures coming this direction. They are running hard and should be coming around the corner in the next minute or two," Mikjall said.

Eira's eyes grew to saucers. "They got out... but only nine. That means it's not all of them.

"They are coming down the street one block over. If we stay here, we will be able to watch from this corner as they pa.s.s there." Mikjall pointed behind us, caddy-corner to the street just east of our position. "Then we can follow behind them to see if they are the people you are looking for."

"I can smell them now, too," Eira said, nodding her head. She turned and moved to the very edge of the building and peered around to the lit cross-street where the dragon said they would pa.s.s.

I stood right behind her while the rest of the group waiting in the shadows of the building behind us.

Footsteps echoed through the empty street. I didn't have super hearing, but even I could make out the frantic pace of the group heading our direction. They appeared one or two at a time. Several were running ahead of the others, probably checking each block for soldiers before doubling back to stick close to the group. When the last of them pa.s.sed through the open cross-streets we were stalking, I noticed two people limping with their arms slung over two others to help them move faster.

A growl rumbled in Eira's throat, and she took a half step forward until I laid my hand on her arm. She whirled toward me with a snarl, her eyes rimmed with red and an anger I recognized all too well. "Manda is with them. The lying Djinn b.i.t.c.h who betrayed us to begin with."

"Yeah, there's no way those Lycans didn't just hear that," Travis muttered. "Did you see Charlie?"

"She had her arm over Manda's shoulder. She was one of the injured."

"We should follow them," Mikjall said. "Why are we just standing here?"

"It could be a trap. The whole thing could be another sabotage by Manda," Eira replied.

"Well, they just made that choice for you. They're doubling back. No doubt they overheard our conversation," Mikjall replied.

"Be prepared," Eira snarled. "Hold someone's hand in case Djinn start popping in and out."

Eira grabbed my arm with her left hand and drew her sword with her right.

I withdrew my blade as well, using my left hand. It wasn't my dominant, but I'd practiced for so many years, I could fight without favor to either arm.

The others didn't look pleased about holding hands. But Travis and Garrett moved as a pair, and Alek and Mikjall also moved forward together. Jared was the only one without a partner.

He grinned over at me when I shot him a questioning glance. "If they try to teleport with me, I'll just burn them to a crisp."

Couldn't argue with that. I snorted through a chuckle. Thank the G.o.ds Calliope had created special fireproof clothes for the Phoenix so none of us were subjected to an eyeful every time he used his incendiary powers.

Eira and I crossed the street and turned onto the one the fleeing group of Lycans had run down.

We were face-to-face with the group. They were standing in the middle of the street, waiting.

Two women stood in front of the group. The one on the right, favoring her left leg, used the second woman to balance herself. The second woman had purple eyes.

The Djinn.

It'd been a long time since I'd been face to face with any Djinn. Mostly I just heard about them and how vicious and cruel they were.

Travis and Garrett moved to flank the group, their guns raised distrustfully. Mikjall and Alek moved to the opposite side. The Drakonae was p.i.s.sed. I knew he'd been hoping to come face to face with Xerxes and was disappointed he wasn't here.