“As many times as I want,” Drake told her, voice rough and dark. “Until you can’t breathe without feeling me on every inch of your body.”
Her ni**les ached. She wanted his hands on them. His mouth.
Did he smell her arousal? Those wolves…
His lips curled in the faintest of smiles. Damn him, he did.
His hands rose and tangled in her hair. He began to pull her toward him. Toward his mouth.
Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. They had a deal, and finally, she’d have him.
His lips were so close. She could already taste him on her tongue. Would taste him. And he’d taste her. He’d–
A shrill alarm cut through the room.
Sonofbitch.
She blinked, confused, aroused and–
Drake pushed her to the side of the bed and jumped to his feet. “Stay here,” he ordered and rushed for the door as the alarm kept shrieking.
Stay? She was a vampire, not a dog. Paige jumped up and raced after him.
He was already thundering down the stairs. More men and women were out now, all racing toward the main level of the house. She joined them, and hoped no one decided to attack the vamp in their midst.
“Fire!” Someone shouted even as she caught the scent of smoke drifting in the air.
Then they were shoving open the front doors and hurrying into the darkness that waited outside of the main house. She saw the flames then, rising quickly, burning right up that thick wall that surrounded their compound. Red and gold flames, burning in a world of snow.
Paige stumbled to a stop even as the wolves fought the blaze. They had buckets of water. Hoses. The water blasted at the flames, but the fire kept attacking all around the compound walls. To the left. To the right.
“You can’t escape me.” Gabe’s words rang in her ears. He’d warned her of this, so many times. He’d said, “I’ll find you and destroy anyone who gets in my way.”
Someone bumped into her and Paige jerked, then she realized–I can’t just stand here. She’d seen this type of attack before. It was Gabe’s specialty. Distract and conquer. He’d been using this technique for centuries.
Gabe…or rather, Gabriel, had been born long ago, in the midst of battles and carnage. War was what he knew, what he craved.
When it came to fighting strategies, he liked to think he was a master. The pureblood vamp was always plotting and planning.
The wolves didn’t realize that this was just a trick. They were scattering. Each going to a different spot to fight the flames. Each–vulnerable.
“Stop!” Paige screamed.
No one listened to her.
More water. More fire.
“Stop! They’re coming for you!” An attack that had been planned for far too long. She ran forward and grabbed the arm of one woman, a chick with long red hair. “They’re coming!”
The woman spun around and her eyes widened. “Vampire.”
Yes, she was. “And more of my kind are coming. Move away from the walls! Get ready.”
Because Gabe didn’t fight fair. He never had.
Thunder rumbled. Someone screamed. No, no, that wasn’t thunder. In the wild confusion of the fire, that was someone shooting. A man fell to the ground as blood covered the snow behind him.
Gabe always planned so well.
She looked up, her gaze flying along the length of the burning walls. There, to the left. Covered in darkness, she could just see the outline of the shooter.
Only…he wasn’t the only one up there.
Paige pushed the woman away. “Get back!” Paige yelled because she knew those guns would be loaded with silver bullets. The fire was just the bait. Carefully placed and targeted to draw out the wolves…
So they could be taken out easier.
She raced forward and leapt up that wall. As a human, she never would have been able to make that climb. The wall was at least fifteen feet high. As a vamp–
Two seconds. That was all it took.
The gunman turned on her. Fired.
The silver bullet tore right through her shoulder. She gasped at the pain, and, somewhere below her, she heard a roar. “Try…harder,” Paige gritted out to the shooter as she snatched the gun from him. Then she shot him, right in the heart.
He fell off the wall, tumbling down below.
The vamp wouldn’t be dead, not from a silver bullet hit. He’d just be stunned for a while.
More gunshots. More screams.
She whirled around, balancing easily on top of the wall. More vamp shooters had positioned themselves, carefully hiding away from the flames. But the wolves were seeing them now. They were launching at the vamps, trying to take them out.
They just had to take them out faster.
Because there was blood on the ground. Injured shifters crying out in pain. And vamps were always attracted to that blood…
Her fangs burned in her mouth as they stretched and sharpened. An instinctive response to the scent of blood. She hurried along the wall’s edge, being careful to stay away from those flames. She had her eyes on another gunman. That jerk waited just five feet away, aiming down below. Her gaze darted to the right as she tracked his target. The vamp was–
Aiming at Drake.
No! Drake was rushing toward her, not even looking over at the gunman. “Get down!” She yelled at Drake, and she slammed her body into the vamp’s.
His gun fired. The bullet thundered as it exploded from the weapon.
The vampire laughed. “Got the alpha. Fuckin’ got him in the heart!”
She drove her fist into his jaw. She heard bones snap and wasn’t sure if that snapping was from the breaking of her own fingers or his jaw.
Her gaze lifted and flew to the area below. “Drake!” He was on the ground. Not moving.
The vamp’s gun had fallen into the snow near the bottom of the wall. Didn’t matter. She could deal with this jerk. He’d shot Drake. She grabbed for the stake that she kept in her left boot, strapped to her ankle. The vamp was twisting and fighting, and the ledge of the wall was barely a foot across and–
They both tumbled off the wall–falling not toward the inside of the compound, with the werewolves, but back outside.
When they hit the ground, Paige landed on top of the vamp. Even with the snow to cushion them, the thud of the impact shook through her body.
When she sucked in a deep breath, the vampire drove his knee into her stomach.
“Bitch,” the vamp snarled. But he wasn’t just any vamp. Henry DeVeau. She knew him. Had always hated the prick. He liked to torture his victims. The way he’d tortured her.Henry was Gabe’s number one attack vamp. A sadistic bastard who deserved to burn forever.