Keeping low, they rushed to either side of the doorway. As agreed, she counted to ten. Then kicked in the door.
With the battle-ax, she decapitated the one on her right, then used the staff of it to block the hack of a sword. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a ball of fire flash into Hoyt’s hand. Something screamed.
From overhead, Larkin and a vampire flew off the loft to land hard on the floor. She tried to hack her way to him, took a hard kick in her healing ribs. The pain and the force knocked her back into a table that broke beneath her weight.
She used the splintered leg to dust the one that leaped on her. Then she threw the makeshift stake, striking one that rushed Hoyt from behind. She missed the heart, swore and shoved herself breathlessly to her feet.
Hoyt thrust out with a back kick that made her warrior’s heart sing. When the vampire fell, Larkin finished it with a sword clean through the throat.
“How many?” Blair shouted. “How many?”
“I took two,” Hoyt said.
“Four, by the gods.” Even as he grinned, he was grabbing Blair’s arm. “How bad?”
“Off my game. Caught my ribs. I only got two. There’s another left.”
“Gone out the window above. Here, sit, sit. Your arm’s bleeding as well.”
“Shit.” She looked down, saw the gash she hadn’t felt. “Shit. Your nose is bleeding, mouth, too. Hoyt?”
“A few nicks.” He limped toward them. “I don’t think we’d need worry overmuch about the one that escaped. But I’ll be doing a spell to revoke any invitation. Let me see what I can do for your arm.”
“Spell first.” Breathing through her teeth, she looked at Larkin. “Four, huh?”
“It seems two of them were mating, and distracted with it when I came through the window. So I had them both with one blow.”
“Maybe we should only count that as one.”
“Oh, no, we won’t.” He finished tying a field dressing on her wounded arm, swiped blood from under his own nose. “Jesus, I’m starving.”
It made her laugh, and despite her aching ribs, she wrapped her arms around him to hug.
“They’re fine.” Glenna let out a shuddering breath. “A little battered, a little bloody, but fine. And safe. Sorry, sorry. But watching it like this, not being able to help…I’m just going to have a short breakdown.”
As promised, she buried her face in her hands and wept.
Chapter 7
Escaping, Cian left Glenna to Moira. In his experience, women dealt best with women’s tears. His own reaction to what they’d seen in the crystal hadn’t been fear, or relief, but sheer and simple frustration.
He’d been delegated to do no more than watch while others fought. Cozied in the bloody parlor with women and teacups, like someone’s aged grandfather.
While the training sessions were some level of entertainment, he hadn’t had a good fight since they’d left Ireland. Hadn’t had a woman in longer than that. Two very satisfying ways of releasing tension and energy had been denied to him—or he was denying them to himself.
Hardly a wonder, he thought, he was tied up in nasty knots over a pair of steady gray eyes.
He could seduce a serving girl, but that was fraught with complications and probably not worth the time or effort. He could hardly pick a fight with one of the very handy humans, which was too damn bad.
If he went out on a hunt he could likely scare up at least one or two of Lilith’s troops. But he couldn’t rev himself up to go out into the endless rain on the chance of a lucky kill.
At least back in his own time, his own world, he’d had work to occupy him. Women if he wanted one, of course, but work to pass the time. The endless time.
With none of those options available to him, he closed himself in his room. He fed, and he slept.
And he dreamed as he hadn’t dreamed in decades and more of hunting human.
The strong and salty scent of them stung the air, rising as even their puny and smothered instincts warned them they were prey.