Julian lifted the man up and drove him onto the pile of debris. The release of the crossbow broke through the buzzing and fire roaring around him. His head snapped up. The woman stood unmoving before him, her legs shaking before she sank onto her knees. Her head bowed, her shoulders heaving as she gasped for air.

Quinn jerked to the side in time to take the bolt from the crossbow to her shoulder. She rolled and yanked at the rebar until the metal gave way. Reaching up, Quinn yanked the bolt from her shoulder, but the rebar remained embedded in her side as she rose. She braced her legs apart and grasped the end of the rebar. Sweat coated her forehead and slid down her cheeks as she gradually pulled the piece of metal from her. Blood coated the side of her shirt as the rebar clattered onto the concrete beneath her.

Her red eyes flickered to their beautiful honeyed color when they met his. A smile curved her full mouth. She took a step toward him just as he felt a flash of power beneath him. Julian’s hand tightened on the man when an invisible hand seemed to hit Quinn in the chest and shot her backward.

“No!” Julian roared when she was flung into the fire.

She’d been right there! Quinn! Right there!

His thoughts tumbled riotously over top of each other as sorrow tore at his heart. He kept expecting her to rise from the flames, to rush back out of them, but at fifty feet away, he could feel the blistering heat of the inferno against his skin. No matter how badly he wanted to deny it, he knew one truth: vampires didn’t survive fire.

The inferno surged further upward as her body fueled it. The flames rolled over each other to cover the place where Quinn had vanished into them. Fury and anguish tore through him, shaking his muscles and shredding his heart as a hollow pit of despair opened within him. His fingers dug into the man beneath him, tearing into his flesh.

The man howled and placed his hands against Julian’s chest, shoving with his mind and body in an attempt to dislodge Julian from him. Julian’s grip on the man’s flesh made it so he wasn’t thrown off him, but realization pierced through the rage turning everything before him a blood-red hue. This man had shoved Quinn into the fire with his ability; he’d been the one to push her in there.

Dead. Quinn is dead.

Julian didn’t look at the man again as he gripped the top of his head and his chin. The man’s neck cracked loudly when Julian yanked it to the side and tore it from his body. The man’s body fell limply beneath him as Julian rose to stare at the place where Quinn had vanished into the fire. The head fell from his limp fingers.

Dead.

It was all he could think as he ran toward the flames. The fire blasted against him, blistering his skin. He tried to grab the flames as if he could open them like curtains in order to reveal her. They closed over his arms, searing his flesh to the muscle, and blocking anything he may have been able to see beyond.

He’d plunge into the fire after her and pull her body free; maybe he could somehow figure out a way to funnel his life into her. He just had to find her first.

“Quinn!” he shouted through the smoke burning his throat. The lights and buzzing sound abruptly cut off. He didn’t know if someone had shut the alarms off or if the fire had destroyed them. “Quinn!”

A flash of movement on his right spun him in that direction as something fell from the flames. He blinked against the smoke as he tried to comprehend if what he saw was real, or if his mind had snapped and he’d started to hallucinate. When he looked again, he realized the vision wasn’t vanishing.

Rubble shifted beneath his feet as he covered the ten feet between him and Quinn in a single bound. Flames engulfed her body as she managed to lift herself up from the debris and fling herself forward. He had no idea what she was trying to get to until he heard a scream.

Tearing the remains of his pants off, Julian fell beside her. He didn’t acknowledge the man trapped by the rubble as he worked to smother the flames enveloping Quinn’s blackened flesh. His clothes went up in flames almost instantly. Nearly all the bones in his hands and all the way up to his forearm were visible as he beat at the flames with his bare hands. The man beneath the rubble shrank further, and his gray skin flaked away from him.

Quinn was working to replenish her body, but if Julian couldn’t get the flames out, it wouldn’t matter as she would rebuild flesh only to have it burn away again.

A blast of something white burst over them, burying them within its cool depths and pushing back the fire encroaching on them. Julian turned his head away from it as the white spray momentarily blinded him. Lifting his hands, he wiped the substance away from his lashes.

Whatever the white coating was, it had smothered most of the flames on Quinn. He rapidly smothered the rest of them. The man beneath the rubble took on the withered appearance of a mummified corpse before his body crumpled into ash.

“Quinn,” Julian grasped her shoulders.

The scream she released made it sound as if she’d been chewing on hot coals. He jerked his hands away from her, but he couldn’t leave her face down on the concrete. Ever so tenderly, he carefully rolled her over. He didn’t know if she saw him through the haze of pain in her honeyed eyes. Blisters and white foam covered the reddened areas of the skin she’d managed to heal, while other parts of her remained charred and muscle peeked through. Bits of her blackened flesh broke off in his hand to reveal the pink muscle beneath.

“Quinn,” he moaned, afraid to touch her again and bring her more pain. He rested his fingers against her forehead, one of the few places on her that had a patch of nearly pristine skin. “I’m here. You’re going to be okay. Stay with me.”

“Julian! Julian, we have to go!” He barely heard the shouts above the crackling of the flames encroaching on them again. “Julian!”

Movement beside him had him lashing out at whoever had dared to approach them. Julian snarled and snapped his fangs at the intruder as he swung a skeletal hand out. Chris yelped and stumbled away from him when Julian caught hold of something hard. A fire extinguisher flew from Chris’s hands to bounce off the wall.

Rage and anguish clouded Julian’s mind. Before he could launch at Chris and ease his need for death, another fire extinguisher swung out and cracked him in the shoulder, knocking him back. He bared his fangs as he turned to find Melissa standing there.

She held the fire extinguisher as if she were going to bash him in the skull with it. “We just saved your lives, asshole!” she spat. “Now, let’s go!”

Julian shook his head to try to clear it of the bloodlust pulsing through him. He had to get it together, or he’d end up killing his friends.

Feeling in control enough to risk going near his friends, he went to pick Quinn up, but her hands clasped his before he could slide them under her. He felt the jolt of her power as she latched onto him, but she didn’t pull anything away from him.

“Take what you need from me, Dewdrop,” he murmured.

“No. Help me stand.” The words croaked from her throat.

“I’ll carry you.”

“No. Someone else could be lurking nearby. We have to be prepared and… I can’t take that much touch. Not now.”

Fighting against every one of his instincts to lift her and take her from there, he wrapped his arm tenderly around her bare waist and lifted her to her feet. She stood on top of the pile, wobbling like a newborn colt as she surveyed the wreckage around her. Julian wanted to draw her closer against him, but he didn’t dare with her brutalized skin.

When she took a tremulous step forward, flakes of white fell away to expose more of her ruined skin. She had no hair left anywhere on her body, and parts of her ears and lips had burnt away, but steely resolve shone through the agony in her eyes.

“We have to go,” Chris said, his eyes wide and full of disbelief as he stared at Quinn. “This way.”

He turned and hurried forward with Melissa close behind him. Julian kept his arm loosely around her as they walked by the woman who had fired the crossbow at her. All that remained of the woman was a necklace beside a pile of ash. A necklace Julian knew well. He snatched it off the ground before rising to help Quinn forward again.

“You had a hold on her life force before you went into the fire,” he realized. “That’s how you survived.”

“Yes,” Quinn rasped.

Her legs gave out when they stepped off the pile of rubble and into the debris-free area of the tunnel. A whimper escaped her when he caught her before she could hit the ground. “Quinn,” he groaned, his heart tearing in two at the sight of her pain. He’d never felt so helpless before in his life. “Take from me.”

“No. Won’t stop,” she grated from between her teeth, and her tear-filled eyes met his before darting away from him toward something else. “And they’re watching us.”

Turning his head, he realized all of the vampires who had entered the building with them were gathered within the tunnel ahead of them. Their eyes were saucers and their mouths gaped while they watched Quinn unsteadily make her way toward them. There was no denying they’d witnessed her rising from the fire.

Julian moved to try to protect her from their view, but she tilted her chin up and gazed at all of them with a look that caused pride to swell in his chest. Blistered, red and blackened, with skin still missing in some areas, hairless and naked, she still looked every inch the fierce warrior she was. He had no idea how she was walking right now, but she continued to take one unsteady step after another.

He didn’t know what to expect from the vampires, what they would do after seeing her rising from a fire that would have killed any other. His fangs lengthened as he prepared to have to destroy every one of them if it became necessary.

Instead, almost as one, they went to one knee around her, bowing as a servant would bow to their queen.

Vern rested his hand over his heart. “Savior,” he murmured.

Quinn’s eyes darted to him, and her hand trembled within his. The sight of them kneeling around her unnerved him almost as much as it seemed to have her. But it also meant they would do everything they could to protect her.

“Savior,” the others murmured.

“Get up,” Quinn choked out, and they rose around her.

“We have to get out of here,” Julian said brusquely.

Chris gazed at all of the vampires, then at him. He looked tempted to bolt out of here. Instead, he lifted his arm and pointed down the tunnel. Julian couldn’t see the end of it from here. “This way,” Chris said.

Julian followed Chris as he led the way. The smoke cleared, and the heat of the flames lessened as they moved further away from the fire until they reached a set of stairs. Quinn climbed unsteadily beside him with her head bowed. He didn’t miss the tears that slid down her cheeks as her trembling increased.

His hand fisted as he fought the urge to drive it into something. As soon as they were out of this place, he would make sure she took something from him. He wouldn’t allow her to remain in such pain.

The stairs entered into the first room they had passed off the main hallway. He’d seen no door in the back wall when he’d first looked into the room. However, The Commission also loved their secret entrances, something else Chris, Melissa, and Lou seemed to have remembered about them if they’d discovered this door.

Julian led Quinn swiftly outside as the heat of the spreading fire beat against his back. She shivered when the cool air brushed over her brutalized skin and a distressed sound escaped her. Her legs wobbled even more as they threatened to give out on her.

“You must take from me,” he told her.

“I need too much. I won’t be able to stop… Could kill you… I have to… have to… heal on my own,” she stammered between her chattering teeth.

“What if you take from all of us?” Prue asked.

“I can’t… won’t… ask that of you,” Quinn replied.

She didn’t have a choice in the matter as far as Julian was concerned. Stepping closer to her, he rested his other hand tenderly against her cheek. Her skin was so hot he swore it burned the healing skin on his palm. Instinctively, she turned into his touch, wincing when the deeper contact abraded her raw flesh.

“Grab hold of me,” he commanded Prue.

“No,” Quinn whispered.

“Yes,” he insisted.

“We can take it, little one,” Vern said and rested his hand on Julian’s arm.

Prue placed her hand on his right shoulder, and Chris grasped the other one. All around him, the vampires took hold of each other until all of them were connected together. Quinn’s eyes burned into his as tears streaked down her cheeks, but he knew this time they were not tears of pain. He carefully wiped one away with the pad of his thumb.

“All of us are willing to do this for you. You cannot drain us all to the point of death,” he said to her.

“You don’t know that. If I lose control—”

“Yes, I do,” he interrupted. She gulped and her gaze flickered over the group surrounding them before coming back to him. “Trust yourself. Trust me.”

“I do,” she whispered.

Her eyes remained locked on his as the tendrils of her power spiraled into him. Her ability moved sinuously through his body and onward into those standing beyond him. He felt the interconnected pathways binding them as her power slipped further out to the other vampires and she drew the life from them. Her eyes closed as she swayed toward him.

The swell of power increased within him as she funneled from all of those around her. She’d given most of their life back to them before, but he knew she was too badly injured for that to happen now. The vampires had to know that too, yet they all willingly remained standing with him. There should be enough of them that the small loss of a piece of their life wouldn’t create a lasting effect in any of them.

He lifted his head to take in those around him, and for the first time in all his years, he saw a unity among his kind that he’d never seen before or ever would have believed possible. And it was because of Quinn. He’d loathed that prophecy since the second he’d heard it, but he realized now she’d brought them all together, and she would be the key to keeping them united.

They would follow her to Hell and back.

Quinn’s cheek turned further into his hand, drawing his attention back to her. As he watched, what remained of the white foam on her skin flaked away from her charred and blistered flesh. The harsh redness and the crispy black of her surface peeled away. The countless blisters were replaced by smooth, flawless skin. Skin so flawless that the scars on her face and the one on her sternum were no longer visible. Her ears and lips pieced themselves back together as new flesh replaced that which had burnt away.

Her eyelids fluttered open to meet his again, and a small smile curved her lush mouth.

“Dewdrop,” he breathed as her tendrils released him and the others. “Chris, give me your shirt.”

Chris tugged his shirt over his head and wisely kept his gaze averted from Quinn as he held it out to him. Julian took it from him and slipped it over Quinn’s naked form as the others all released him and took a step away. The hem of it settled around her thighs.

“For you, Boss.” A hand thrust forward, and he took the pair of jeans dangling from them.

“Thank you,” Julian said to the male vamp standing in his boxers, who had offered them to him. He hadn’t even realized he was naked until then.

Quinn rubbed a hand over her bare head as he pulled the jeans on. “Still bald,” she murmured.

“You can’t perform all miracles,” he replied.

“I’m alive,” she said with a shudder.

“Yes.”

“My hair will grow back.”

“It will, and you make a beautiful baldy.”

He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her smooth head. Her hair could never grow back, and he wouldn’t care—she was here with him. She hadn’t been destroyed by the flames.

“You are a powerful woman,” he murmured against her ear.

She lifted her head to look at him and then turned to take in the vampires grouped around them. “I didn’t expect this.”

“No one did.”

“Look!” a woman shouted. She pointed to where a figure was emerging from the ground on the other side of the fence, nearly half a mile away.

“Another exit,” Julian murmured before turning to face the crowd gathered around them. “I don’t care who goes after them, but leave one of them alive so I can try to learn if we’ve destroyed them all, or where any of the others might be. Kill the rest.”

The vampires nodded to each other before a dozen of them took off for the fence line. Screams resonated through the air as those who had emerged from beneath the earth fled for the woods.

“So much for our ‘Kumbaya’ moment,” Chris muttered.

Julian bent and swung Quinn up into his arms. She draped her arms around his neck. “I can walk,” she said.

“I know, but I much prefer to hold you right now.”

She didn’t protest further as she rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder and nestled closer. “Where are we going?”

“Away from this place,” he replied as a loud crack reverberated through the air, and the hot wash of flames rushed up against his back.

The remaining vampires stepped out of his way as he carried her down the pathway they’d cleared across the minefield. Chris, Lou, and Melissa stayed by his side while the vampires followed him across the field. Once safely on the other side of the fence, he turned to watch as the flames consumed what remained of the building.

Something within the building exploded with a reverberating bang that echoed throughout the mountains and forest. The vampires around him took a step back, and Quinn jerked in his arms. Like lava erupting from a volcano, flames burst straight upward. They surged into the night in an inferno that illuminated the midnight sky and lit the trees around them.

Across the way, flames burst from the exit that some members of The Commission had just emerged from. A metal door shot high from the exit and into the air before crashing into the forest. Flames ate away at the skeletal branches of the trees surrounding the exit and spread across their barren tops.

On his left up in the mountains, another burst of fire erupted into the air.

“Luther, Dani,” Melissa whispered and took a step toward the woods.

“If they somehow managed to get inside, Luther would have gotten out by now,” Julian said. “The minute the fire started, he would have evacuated everyone from within, but I doubt they were ever able to gain entrance.”

Melissa’s onyx eyes shimmered with tears when they met his. “You can’t know that.”

“No, I can’t,” he said. “But Luther isn’t stupid, and look at what it took for us to get inside that building.”

It was true, Luther was one of the smartest men he’d ever met, and they most likely never would have gotten inside, but Julian couldn’t take his eyes away from the area where he knew Luther and the others had gone. He searched for some sign they were still alive up there, but there was no way for them to know, not from here.

Chris wrapped his arm around Melissa’s shoulders and pulled her close as a single tear spilled down her cheek. About a mile straight across from them, another fire erupted into the trees.

“What did they have in there?” Chris inquired.

“They most likely rigged something to destroy the place if they felt it was going to fall into enemy hands. They would seek to destroy all evidence of whatever they were doing here,” Julian replied.

From the corner of his eye, he saw figures coming toward them and turned to watch as the vampires neared. One of them had his hand around a woman’s neck. He carried the squirming woman relentlessly across the ground, ignoring her frantic movements.

“The only survivor from the ones who fled,” he said and dropped the woman.

She released a small umph when she landed on her ass before Julian. Her eyes rolled in her head as she gazed at all of them. There had been a time when he would have delighted in her terror; now he simply wanted this over with. Reluctantly, he lowered Quinn to the ground and set her on her feet. The woman scurried backward across the ground as he approached, but she came to an abrupt halt against the legs of the vampires standing behind her.

Kneeling before her, Julian rested the tips of his fingers on the earth.

“Don’t kill me,” she pleaded as tears streaked down her face.

“That’s not an option for you.” With lightning speed, he seized hold of her wrist and pulled it toward him. Unlike objects, which sometimes only revealed a secret or two, touching a human could sometimes be an influx of memories and knowledge. He often felt like he was trudging through mud when he tried to sort through everything in order to uncover what it was he wanted from another.

The woman tried to jerk away, but there was no escaping his hold or retaining her secrets. Screams resonated in his head, not her screams but those of the countless victims she’d tortured and experimented on over the years. She hadn’t done her experiments with the ruthless glee that many of The Commission had. She’d done them with a scientific, analytical mind that allowed her to distance herself from her victims. She’d been fascinated by her subject’s many bodily reactions to what was done to them.

He recalled encountering a few like her when he’d been held by The Commission. Despite the fact their faces had remained impassive while they’d tortured him and they’d seemed to take no pleasure in the act, they had unnerved him more than the ones who smiled while they sliced him open. He could understand taking joy in the torture, he certainly had over the years, but he couldn’t understand people such as her.

They were far more dangerous to him. The others would keep him alive to get off on what they did with him; she would gladly end it all to see what would happen and not be disappointed that she’d lost her toy when it was done. There would always be other toys for her, after all.

And this woman had played with many many toys over the years. Not all of them had been vampires; some had been Hunters and others human. Age had never been a factor to her. She was as curious about a five-year-old’s reaction to her methods as she was to a fifty-five-year-old’s.

Julian pulled his hand away from her, unwilling to see anymore. “And you call us monsters,” he murmured.

The woman frowned at him, not because she didn’t like what he’d said, but because she saw nothing wrong with anything she’d done over the years. Julian rose to his feet and wiped his hands on his jeans. No matter how hard he tried, he’d never be able to wipe off the filth of her memories, but he wanted to rid himself of the clammy feel of her skin.

He almost jerked his hand away from Quinn when she took hold of it. He didn’t want her to have any kind of connection to this woman, no matter how remote it was. Her fingers clenched around his, refusing to relinquish him.

“All the remaining members of The Commission and their followers are here, secure in their belief we’d never be able to get to them. Now it’s a matter of making sure none of them escape here as she split off from two others while inside,” Julian informed the group. “Take her into the woods and kill her.”

“Wait!” the woman cried. “I can tell you what we discovered! I can let you know our findings!”

“We don’t care about any of that,” Julian replied. “If we did, I would continue to pull your memories from you. Take her.”

“No! Wait! Wait!” the woman screamed as two vampires slid their hands under her armpits and dragged her into the woods.

Julian stared at where they’d gone until her screams abruptly silenced and the scent of blood permeated the air. His gaze drifted back to the building. The eruption of flames blasting out the top of it had died down to a normal fire again. In the woods across the way, the flames were spreading rapidly through the trees.

“We need to find the other two who were with her, and we have to find Luther,” he said to everyone. “We’ll split up and search throughout the woods until the sun is starting to rise, or until someone arrives to put out the fires. Stay safe and alert for any danger.”