“Is that Alek?” Valor asked, motioning her head toward Lachlan.
“Him? No,” I blurted, a laugh bubbling in my chest. I flashed an apologetic look toward Lachlan. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I hurried to say as Valor and I walked toward the car. Lachlan was incredibly, terrifyingly attractive, but as my mate’s best friend, he felt like a brother. I shook my head at him, hoping to make up for the laugh. “You’re wonderful—”
“More like lethal,” Valor cut me off, whispering to keep the words from Lachlan.
A corner of his mouth ticked up, his vampire hearing catching the words anyway.
“Where do you want to go tonight?” I asked, trying to clear the tension from my chest. It was sudden, the tightening in my lungs. Was it because of the way Lachlan was looking at Valor? All predatory and calculating?
“I’m starving,” she said, never taking her gaze off Lachlan. I was shocked that she didn’t flinch under his stare. “Want to head to—” I halted so suddenly it cut off Valor’s words. “Lyric?” She asked, concern coloring her tone.
Ice burst along my skin, a metallic warning blaring at the back of my mind. Dread pooled at the base of my spine, clawing its way up to clench my heart.
Death.
Revenge.
Malice.
Each horrid emotion ebbed over me in sticky waves that numbed my limbs. Froze me to the spot. I turned, scanning for the source—
Lachland growled, his head snapping to the right. He moved toward me in a flash of speed.
A soft whistling sliced the air—
Pain exploded on my chest. A hot, wet, fire that stung every inch of my body.
Lachlan’s roar broke the air as we both fell to the ground, his heavy mass covering me.
But too late.
“You’re…hurt,” I said, my voice so weak. My vision blurred at the edges, but I pointed to the blood covering his right shoulder.
Valor screamed, falling to her knees beside me. “Omigod, omigod, Lyric,” she said in broken sobs. “I’m calling an ambulance,” she said as she pulled out her phone with frantic fingers.
Lachlan’s arms were under me, holding me to his chest as his eyes scanned the area. I trembled, fear coating my soul. Not only because of the life I could feel draining out of me, but because of the absolute lethalness to his eyes. He was livid, enraged—
“Alek,” I coughed out. “No. Hospital.” I could barely think straight through the fog threatening to suck me under into the blackness, but I knew enough that a hospital would be a terrible idea. I’d been fed twice, there is no telling what they’d find in my blood, and I couldn’t risk exposing the vampires.
“What, no!”
“Valor,” I pled. “Please.” I tried like hell to focus, to call him to me through our bond, but my internal grip was slippery as if the blood from my chest made it harder to grasp. “I need him.”
“He’s coming,” Lachlan said, his voice cold, low.
My vision trembled, dots of black bursting along the edges. “Lachlan,” I said, whispered. “Keep…Valor…safe…”
“Lyric!” Alek’s roar sounded from the end of a dark tunnel that swallowed me whole.
13
Alek
“Lyric!” I shouted, lunging and rolling Lachlan off her. My second had covered her, had sacrificed his own life to save my mate—his queen.
Fear spread like frost through my veins, slowing my thoughts until they narrowed to one: my wife was dying. The bond between us had dimmed but wasn’t broken. She was still here, and there was still hope.
“Oh my god!” Valor—Lyric’s best human friend, cried out, her hands covering her mouth.
Ransom materialized next to me. “Fuck!”
“Take Lachlan!” I snapped over my shoulder, cradling the back of Lyric’s head to cushion it from the unforgiving pavement. The scent of her blood overwhelmed my senses. She was covered in crimson at her shoulder, but the puddle at her chest pulsed and grew. Arterial? I couldn’t see. We needed Gabriel. “Stay with me, love.” I sent up a prayer to whatever God felt merciful today.
I ripped off my hoodie—the closest bandage I could think of, and pressed it to Lyric’s wound, hoping to staunch the blood loss. Then I concentrated my power not on her mind, which was impervious to it, but her body, willing her heart to beat slower to give us more time.
“He’s hit in the shoulder,” Ransom called over, already fashioning a bandage from his shirt.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Valor exclaimed.
Benedict materialized just behind the human, his eyes flying wide at the mayhem before us. “Holy shit.”
“Two shots, not sure how many shooters,” I said to Benedict, who immediately drew his weapon and left for the hunt, then looked at Valor, who was fumbling with her phone. “Valor, look at me.”
Her eyes snapped to mine in surprise. What? That I knew her name? I also knew where she lived, who she spent her time with, and the fact that her father had gotten two of her brother’s sexual assault charges dismissed, but there wasn’t time to get into any of that.