Eternal Flame (Night Watch 3)

“Dammit!” His head whipped back.

That bastard still held the gun—and he was getting ready to fire again.

Zane gathered his power and prepared to blast the ass**le once again—but his knees gave way.

“No!” Jana hit the ground first, thudding hard against the pavement. He sagged behind her. But the woman moved fast. She jumped to her feet, wrenching him with the cuffs, and her flames raced for the two men.

An engine roared in the distance. Tires squealed.

“They’re coming.” No fear in her voice … but her voice- it sure sounded far away. Weird, when she was standing so close.

A thick heat began to spread through his blood even as a wave of nausea had Zane sucking in a deep breath.

“Get. Up.” She was yanking at him. Trying to pull him to his feet. “If you don’t move, they’ll get us both.” Her eyes were glinting in the night. “Get up.”

He looked at his left arm. Blood trickled from the hole in his shirt. Not bullets in those guns.

Drugs.

The beast inside began to claw and scream.

“Come on!” Her nails bit into his chest. “Don’t just stand there and let them take us!”

And he was standing. He’d made it back to his feet. The fire around them rose higher. Higher.

“Run with me,” she whispered.

With his body already feeling leaden, but his heart beating too fast, he did. Zane knew there wasn’t much time, not long at all depending on the drug they’d given him.

He could feel the darkness calling to him. The slide had already begun.

“Got to slow the other cars down …”

He saw her eyes narrow for an instant. Then an explosion rocked the night. A roar echoed and rolled down the street.

Zane managed to turn his head and, oh, hell … his car was in pieces, burning pieces, and the big rig was covered in flames, too.

But the flames were blocking the road, and two black SUVs were trapped behind the fire.

“Move that ass, Wynter!”

Her voice cut through the drone in his head, and he moved. One foot in front of the other. Move. Move.

Voices shouted behind them. Doors slammed. Hold it together. Get out of there. Hold it-

“Get on!” she yelled, pulling at the cuff.

He blinked. Jana was straddling a motorcycle. A motorcycle that she already had throttling. He climbed on behind her.

“You’re gonna have to stretch your arm,” she told him. “Stretch your right arm and wrap the left one around me so I can hold the handlebars.”

He stretched. His thighs pressed tight to her as he sealed his body to hers. His left arm throbbed, but he held her as close as he could.

A hot tension began to slip through his blood. A dull ache blossomed behind his eyes. And that darkness beckoned. So tempting.

“Hold on.” She gunned the bike. They bolted forward, streaking fast as another steel fist hit his back.

Sonofabitch. They’d shot him. Again. He hunched his body and tried to protect her as best he could. A chill shook him, a long, hard shudder, and his breath blew against her hair.

“Zane?” He heard her shout over the roar of the engine. “Are you okay?”

No, no, he wasn’t. His eyes squeezed shut. The drugs were slipping through his body, dragging him slowly down into hell. A hell he’d promised never to visit again. He wasn’t okay, and before he was done with her, before the thing inside was done, Jana wouldn’t be, either.

“What the hell happened? This was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission!”

Ron stared at his feet, refusing to meet his boss’s stare. Mostly because he knew the boss didn’t like it when folks looked too long at her face, and his eyes did have a tendency to wander. “She … ah … the demon had handcuffed himself to her. We couldn’t get them apart—” He’d waited too long to cut off the bastard’s hand. He swallowed. “But Ben shot him. The bastard took two tranq shots.” And those shots could take down an elephant. The demon would be out soon, and he’d drag the woman down with him.

Those cuffs.

They’d be easy prey once the drugs kicked in.

“You dumb sonofabitch.”

The icy growl had his gaze flying up.

“You drugged a demon,” she snapped. “They don’t react the same way humans do to the tranq. Hell, they never react the same way to anything.”

Because they were freaks. He licked his lips. The boss held a too-tight grip on her gun. “It’ll just knock him out. He’ll be a dead weight slowing her down.” Then his job would be easy. Kill the demon. Take the woman.

The boss lifted her gun and aimed it right at his chest. “It won’t knock him out. It hasn’t knocked out any demon we’ve tried it on.”

How was he supposed to know that? “Wh-what will it do?”

“It will either make him high. It will boost up his power and give him a rush he’s never had. Or …”

He gulped. Her finger was tightening around that trigger. Only, her gun was loaded with real bullets.

“Or it will make the bastard psychotic. He’ll turn on the woman and kill her long before we can get to him.” She stepped closer, her pale blond hair floating around her face. “And if that happens, guess who else will be dying?”

The promise was there, glittering in her dark gaze. His eyes began to dart to her scarred cheek….

“Now let’s get the hell out of here!” she shouted. There were sirens wailing, coming close now. No way could anyone miss the flames. The cops would swarm any minute.

They couldn’t be on the scene then. Everyone scrambled inside the two SUVs. The boss shoved him inside with her.

“Get to Jana Carter’s safe house,” she ordered the driver. “If she’s running, she’s going to try and disappear.”

The guy threw the SUV into reverse, and the vehicle spun back. He shifted gears and drove the SUV down the street, easing right past the line of approaching cop cars.

Jana had to get them off the road. Had to get them someplace safe before the ass**les back there came hunting again.

“Are you with me?” she shouted as the engine growled.

Zane’s body was pressed close to hers, and he seemed … heavier.

“Zane?”

His lips were next to her ear. No helmet, not for either of them. If they crashed, even his demon blood wouldn’t save him.

Nothing would save her.

Her fingers tightened around the handlebars. “Zane?” Shouted louder.