Chapter Twenty
Hudson
Briar’s eyes closed and her chest stilled. Hudson was held down, felt the needle jammed into his neck and the ice fill his veins, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t.
If Briar couldn’t breathe, he didn’t want to.
“You could save her,” Marcus choked. “Hudson. Do it!”
There would be no saving her, but Hudson moved anyway. The crawlers and soldiers let him. He felt their eyes on him, tracking him as he knelt beside the tiny woman held in his wild brother’s arms. She’d owned him—brought him back to life and given him his family
What was he supposed to do now?
“Save her!” Marcus cried and landed next to him on his knees in the dust. Sylvain, needle still stuck in his neck, held on to her tightly, as if Marcus and Hudson weren’t there. He rocked her back and forth, leaning over now and again to kiss her blistered forehead.
Marcus stared in horror at Briar. With a shaking hand, he reached for her, touched her swollen eyelids and moved aside the sweat soaked hair that hung limp around her ruined face. Then he touched her hand, lifted it to his lips and kissed it. He didn’t ask Hudson to save her again.
Valen joined them next, collapsing next to Sylvain. He reached for her, but Sylvain growled low and warningly. “Please,” Valen whispered.
Sylvain shook his head. “I can’t. Valen. I can’t let her go.”
Valen touched Sylvain’s shoulder, sliding his arm around him and tugged him into an embrace. Head bent over Briar, Sylvain rocked. “I can’t, Valen.” Then he took in a deep breath, one that went from his head to his toes, and slid Briar’s body into Valen’s arms. Until Hudson drew his final breath, he would never forget the pain on Valen’s face or the way the tears tracked across his bloody, dirt covered skin.
“It’s okay, little one,” Valen whispered. He kissed her temple, smoothed her hair. “My beautiful little human. You rest now.” He touched his lips to her ear, whispering something almost too low for Hudson to hear, except the words he said were the ones running a loop in his own mind. “I’ll see you soon.”
Then, their brother, the one with the kindest, most forgiving heart, shifted Briar’s body to the floor and stood to face their maker. Hudson stood as well. He could sense rather than see Marcus and Sylvain at his back. This was how they went down. Together.
Valen attacked first, then the rest of them flew at their maker. The soldiers who waited in the wings flooded the building, attempting to draw their attention away from Asher. But nothing could, not anymore.
Valen was a man possessed. He leapt over Asher’s head, clawing as he flew to rake four even slices across Asher’s formerly perfect face. Blood, black as Asher’s heart, welled from the cuts, and he growled. For once, the patina of sophistication left their master, leaving the demon he truly was in his place. Lips drawn back, Asher’s fangs lengthened. His nails grew, long and sharp, and he attacked. Each swipe of his arm, Valen blocked. Their creator may have taught them how to fight, but it was clear in the years since they’d left him he’d become out of practice.
The next swipe Asher took, Valen met with a downward thrust. Hudson tore the head from the soldier who attempted to keep him from Valen’s side and chucked it toward Asher. It was enough to distract him. Valen followed his thrust with a yank and threw Asher’s arm across the warehouse.
Asher screamed, the pitch so high it shattered the remaining windows in the warehouse, raining glass over them. Hudson leapt toward his father, grabbed his arm, and twisted him as Sylvain reached for his shoulders, holding him tight. They spun, twisting Asher in two different directions. The force was enough to split the vampire at the waist, and he fell, blinking once at the sons who destroyed him.
The soldiers, without their master to control their every purpose, froze, and even the crawlers hesitated, uncertain. Marcus dropped the body of the soldier he’d killed and strode toward Asher’s body.
“He’s dead?” Marcus asked.
Asher lay in four separate pieces. “Yes,” Hudson said. “He’s dead.”
Marcus knelt next to the body and grabbed Asher’s head. One twist, and it detached. Standing, he held it by his side for a moment, shoulders heaving though he hadn’t exerted himself. Asher’s long dark hair covered his face, and Hudson found himself wishing he could relive the moment they killed him again.
Marcus flung the head next to the body, and together, the four of them stood over the corpse.
It happened slowly. The golden skin turned gray and began to flake. It peeled off, floating up into the sunlight like dust motes. In no time, Asher had disintegrated until he was a pile of ash on the floor.
He was gone, and there was nothing left.
His disintegration changed something in the air. The soldiers moved now. There weren’t many of them left, but those who were ran out of the building. The crawlers were long gone. They had the intelligence to know that when Asher fell, their best hope at survival was escape.
Hudson could have given chase. But the monster inside him was silent. It didn’t want to fight anymore. It was curled up, the way Sylvain had curled over Briar’s body and mourned.
Briar.
What would they do with her? They couldn’t leave her here to be found; no family should go through the pain hers was about to face. It struck Hudson that he was suddenly worried about Briar’s mother and father when he’d never spent more than a moment on them before.
Perhaps it was because now he and her family had something in common. They’d lost the girl they loved. No one else on this planet would understand their torment.
Briar lay where they left her. Sylvain knelt by her side, Valen touching his shoulder, offering him support when there was really none to give. Hudson went to them. His feet felt clumsy, like he was wading through cement. When he got to her, his knees gave out, and he landed, hard.
They’d done this to her.
Before they forced themselves into her life, she’d had a plan, a goal. She was going to be a scientist, discover a cure for her condition. Even before he’d met her, Hudson knew that was her fate. She was so intelligent and had so much promise.
They’d taken everything from her.
“How do we do this?” Valen asked, voice rough. He took Briar’s hand in his. Her blood stained the floor beneath them and got on Valen’s hands.
Hudson couldn’t answer, the words caught in his throat. He just wanted to sit next to her until he disintegrated the way Asher had.
Outside, he could hear traffic driving by the warehouse. People went about their business, driving to work without a care in the world. They had no idea that here, everything was over.
Hudson heard the whine of brakes and hiss of air, like a bus rolling to a stop. Then a short blast of siren and an engine idling.
“What is it?” Marcus asked and Hudson went to a split in the wall to look out.
“Cops,” he answered.
“I won’t leave her here.” Sylvain and Valen joined him and Marcus by the wall. They glanced out as well. “There’s a lot of them,” Sylvain mused as yet another car carrying Boston’s finest parked nearby.
Hudson glanced over his shoulder at Briar and froze. He examined the warehouse, gaze raking it from ceiling to floor and every nook in between. “She’s gone.”
“What?” Marcus whipped around and strode toward the spot where Briar had lain. “How?” His body flashed from corner to corner as he searched for her.
Sylvain leapt straight into the air, grabbed a girder, and hung by the high windows. “Someone was still in here,” he murmured. “I don’t see them, but we can follow their trail if we leave.”
It felt sacrilegious to leave the spot where Briar died, but the idea that something had taken her from them had Hudson seeing red. Rage built in his chest, and the voice with which he spoke was purely the beast’s. “We’ll find her.” He pictured the soldiers carrying Briar’s body away. For what purpose? To drain her? The image of their teeth sinking into her put him over the edge, and he roared. It wasn’t only his roar, but the roar of his beast, the one who Briar saw and accepted. Briar had won not only Hudson’s heart, but the black heart of his beast.
Hudson touched the dirt where her body had lain and dug his fingers through the cement to scoop it into his hand. He imagined something of Briar’s, a cell or a molecule, was left in the dirt. Squeezing it tighter, he hoped he could absorb it and then it’d stay with him for always.
“Let’s go,” Sylvain growled.
Hudson stuck the dirt in his pocket. Later, he’d take it out again, hold it in his hands, but for now, he’d carry it with him.