“You froze his lips shut?” Ethan whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Why have you never done that to Alex?”
“Because Alex has a nice voice,” Alex piped up. “Smooth, sexy, just enough husky to get the ladies excited, but not so deep that he sounds like a lumberjack in need of a shave.”
“Silence,” I barked, elbowing Alex and bruising myself in the process. Must remember how weak I was, before I suffered internal bleeding.
Mason frowned as we neared a back door. “No.” He shook his head. “No!”
“Mason?” I sniffed the air but even the Angel power couldn’t help me. I tried again, all I picked up was the scent of… sulfur.
Sulfur.
And the high-pitched screams of lives lost, as if the person on the other side of the door was replaying the scene from Pompeii.
“Come.” I motioned to the small boy. “We’ll protect you.”
“Will you be my papa?”
“No,” I barked gruffly, Eva elbowed me in the ribs. “But we’ll find you one.”
“They’re afraid,” she murmured as the children huddled in the corner of the boat. “They think we mean them harm.”
I sighed as the scent of sulfur filled the air and smoke crawled across the ocean toward us. Lifting my hand, I created a shield of water as the boat led us to safety. The little kids gasped in awe as droplets turned to ice crystals decorating the inside of the darkness with pure light, pure winter.
Giggling, one of them stood and started dancing in circles as the ice crystals formed under the dome, shimmering in the air, twinkling and then falling to the floor.
Soon, more children stood.
And Eva… began to sing. She’d always had the most beautiful clear voice, most Vampires did, unlike Sirens who could lull you into a slave-like state, but beautiful still, almost as much so.
“Thank you,” Eva whispered, her hand reaching out to touch mine just as Mason turned and growled in our direction.
“We should not give them hope,” he barked.
The Wolf was right. But I could not bring myself to tear the smiles from their faces. Nor to release Eva’s warm hand.
Though I should.
I should have done all those things.
I fell to my knees as a whoosh of air left me.
“Cassius?” Stephanie was at my side. “Are you okay?”
Marcus turned. “A problem? It’s just beyond this door.”
“Death is beyond that door,” I whispered, my voice shaking the foundation of the bar. I was expending energy fast. I needed more blood, I needed it immediately. Already Marcus looked suspicious, his hand pausing on the large metal black door, his fingernails elongating.
Ethan smoothly pushed Alex and Mason toward Marcus while he shielded me and Stephanie with his body, biting swiftly into Stephanie’s wrist and swiping the blood across my mouth.
It was over in seconds.
And as if someone had just pumped my body full of adrenaline, so much power surged through me that I nearly blacked out.
Because it was enough to see.
It was enough to see with immortal eyes.
Something, I never wanted to see again.