He shouted her name again, but still there was no answer.

Jogging now, he ran more than a block, then paused as he neared a narrow side alley. The sight—and smell—staggered him. He wasn’t Breed, but even he was rocked back on his heels by the coppery stench of pooled blood on the pavement inside the alleyway.

He approached the foulness, his eyes rooted to the pair of bodies that lay in crumpled heaps on the ground.

Relief washed over him when he saw that neither of the dead was Brynne. One was a Breed male, his corpse savaged beyond description. The other was a human of slight build, whose bloodless pallor made his skin glow milky white in the thin moonlight.

The horror of what had plainly taken place in the alley sickened him. Although the Rogue’s death had been brutal, the human had suffered horrifically as well. The front of his throat was torn away, no doubt by the Rogue. Another bite wound pierced his wrist—this one less violent, and certainly not the injury that killed him, but there was no mistaking the predation that had taken place.

Zael stared at the two large punctures, and something troubling nagged at his senses.

He wanted to call out to Brynne again, but the silence in the alley held his tongue.

He wasn’t alone.

He took a step forward and the prickle in his veins became a throb.

“Brynne?” He said her name in little more than a whisper as he tilted his head back and looked up, following the wall of old red bricks that rose on both sides of the narrow street.

And there she was.

Huddled in the corner of a rickety black iron fire escape four stories up.

“Ah, fuck… Brynne.”

The crystal at his wrist put him up there with her in that next instant. She flinched under the flash of pure white energy, drawing herself into a tight ball as far away from him as she could get. Her dark hair was a chaotic tangle that all but covered her face, many of the strands soaked and stiff with drying blood.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

The sound she made when he took a step forward and reached for her made the hair on the back of his neck rise in warning.

The growl that came out of her was anguished, pained…alien.

“Brynne, look at me. It’s Zael. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Go. Away.”

If he wasn’t looking at her with his own eyes now, he never would have believed the twisted, gravely rasp belonged to her. She kept her head down, her arms wrapped around her updrawn knees. Her feet were bare, the skin on the tops of them covered with dermaglyphs. Deep colors surged and pulsed in furious, changeable hues on the backs of her hands too.

He looked closer, his gaze snagging on something peculiar about her fingers.

Her nails… They were black.

No, not fingernails, he realized now.

Talons.

Sharp as razors, the nails on the tips of her fingers gleamed as black as obsidian.

“Brynne,” he murmured. “Let me see you. Let me help you.”

“You can’t.” Anger lashed out at him with her reply. She gave a brief toss of her head, a moan leaking out of her. “Go away, Zael. Please.”

“No. Not this time. You’re not pushing me away when it’s obvious you’re in trouble and need help—”

“I said go away!”

Finally, her head came up. But it wasn’t Brynne glowering at him now. Zael gaped at the molten amber light that poured out of her eyes. Thin pupils locked on him in rage—in staggering deadly intent. Glyphs surged all over her face now, drawing attention to the sharpened angles of her cheekbones and brow, and the enormous lengths of her fangs.

Not Breed, because not even the eldest Gen One transformed like this in the throes of hunger.

Brynne was something else. Something other.

Something Zael and his people hadn’t seen up close for thousands of years.

The beautiful, tormented face staring back at him now in dangerous fury was the face of an Ancient.

 

 

CHAPTER 20

 

The Rogues were running through Georgetown like a pack of wild dogs.

Faces painted red with human blood, eyes blazing as bright as yellow coals in their feral faces, two more howling males bounded into the empty street where Lucan stood over the body of another he had just stopped a second ago with a titanium bullet to the head.

Like humans hopped up on heavy narcotics and adrenaline, Rogues didn’t go down easy. It took brute strength or a hell of a lot of lead—sometimes a combination of both. Titanium helped. The metal was highly corrosive poison to the diseased blood system of a Rogue, as evidenced by the sizzling mess that was growing near Lucan’s boots. The dead Rogue would be nothing but ash in a few minutes.

Lucan turned to deliver the same end to the pair of newcomers now closing in on him in the middle of the swanky Georgetown shopping district. He took the first one down with a single shot of titanium between the eyes—before realizing it was the last round left in his weapon.

Ah, fuck.

The second Rogue roared as his companion dropped into a puddle of melting flesh and bone. He charged at Lucan, head lowered and jaws snapping. Lucan drew his backup pistol and fired multiple times, but the lead rounds only pissed the Rogue off. The vampire vaulted at Lucan, leaving him no choice but to meet the threat up-close-and-personal.

They crashed together and tumbled onto the pavement.

Lucan scrambled to withdraw the titanium blade from its holster on his weapons belt as the Rogue’s gnashing fangs came at his face and throat in blinding speed. Finally, he worked the knife free.

With the Rogue struggling for any advantage, he left himself open to attack. It was a fatal mistake. Lucan drove the titanium blade into the vampire’s side. The resulting shriek was ear-splitting, purely animal. With the Rogue convulsing from the wound, Lucan shoved the body away from him and got up to his feet.

It wasn’t until he was standing that he heard the sawing breath of another Rogue at his back.

He turned to face it, seeing the Rogue poised to spring at him. But instead of lunging, the vampire abruptly stilled, then dropped to the ground as dead weight.

Dante stood a few feet away, one of his curved titanium daggers planted solidly in the Rogue’s spine.

Lucan gave him a nod. “Thanks.”

The warrior arched a dark brow. “Just like old times, eh?” He strode over and retrieved his weapon, cleaning it on the disintegrating Rogue’s jacket. “If this shit keeps up, Nikolai may have to go back to supplying us with titanium custom rounds from his command center in Montreal.”