The Rogue had the human down on the pavement, his fangs sunk deep in the front of the man’s throat, greedily taking his fill while his victim convulsed and sputtered wetly under the assault.
Brynne’s bile rose at the sight.
“Get off him.”
Her voice was an airless growl of sound, nothing like she’d heard before. It was her own hunger clawing at her, making her mouth feel desert dry and her vision burn hot with amber light. Twined with her battle rage, she was something beyond formidable now.
The Rogue grunted, swinging his head around to look for the source of the intrusion.
And although his mind was gone, his senses owned by the Bloodlust that made him Rogue, he apparently still had some small spark of sanity—enough to make his own glowing eyes go a bit wider in his skull as he registered what he was up against.
But the madness in him overruled everything else.
Still in his crouch, the Rogue let go of the dying human and swiveled on his bare heels, ready to face off with Brynne to defend his prey.
Brynne braced for the attack she knew was coming. On a roar, the feral vampire flew at her.
Instead of letting his greater weight and unhinged fury catapult her backward, she took hold of him and spun, using his forward momentum to pivot them together in midair. Then she shoved hard, slamming the Rogue into the wall of the brick building at his back.
The wall shook, old mortar crumbling with the impact. The Rogue was dazed from the crushing strike, but he wasn’t down. He came at her again, another ferocious leap and crash that hurtled them both across the narrow alley to the wall on the other side.
She grunted in sharp pain as her back collided into the bricks. The Rogue dropped her, letting her sag to the ground. He rocked back on his heels as if to ready himself for the killing blow. As if he’d won.
Brynne’s smile was not her own. It belonged to the beast inside her. The one whose power surged inside her now, more lethal than anything this lowly blood addict would ever know.
She rose like a wraith in front of the Rogue. He had no chance to react, no chance to stop the violence that exploded out of her.
She lashed out, lightning-quick. Her fingers ripped through clothing, flesh, and bone. The Rogue roared as she opened his chest with slashing strikes of her hands, his agony only feeding her power.
His chest cavity shredded, the Rogue shrieked and convulsed on his feet. But that wasn’t enough for the monster raging within her now.
Grabbing a fistful of the vampire’s mangy hair, she bellowed with battle fury as she drove the vampire’s head into the bricks at her back. The skull caved in with a sickening crunch.
She smashed it again and again, lost to an unearthly violence that seethed through her veins like poison. She didn’t know what finally made her head clear enough to realize her opponent was dead.
But no, that wasn’t right.
She did know.
The scent of fresh blood lifted her chin from the revolting carnage she’d wrought.
On the ground nearby, the human was shuddering in a growing pool of red. He was dying. Easily only moments from the grave already.
But his blood was still alive.
And it called to her.
It called to the beast who’d been pacing its cage for too long—since the last time she’d finally broken down and fed. She hungered now. So severely she could hardly stand the agony of it.
Brynne drifted over to the man. His gaping, sightless eyes probably didn’t register the inhuman face looking down at him.
But Brynne saw what she looked like now.
In the scant light of the street, she saw her face reflected in the glossy surface of the dying man’s blood.
It made her want to weep, that reflection of who—and what—she truly was.
Instead, she knelt down beside her dying blood Host…and she fed.