No, she was bringing the murder and mayhem.
“Hang on, baby,” she screamed above the sound of the Runner’s motor.
Louisa’s arms and legs tightened around her, but not by much. Chelsea could feel the dampness of her night suit from the little girl’s blood and the child’s cold flesh.
“Momma’s waiting for you, baby.”
She prayed that Samara Cerves—the Blood Queen, she was called—was waiting for the little girl who still whimpered for her, and that the savagery she was reported to have wasn’t something her child knew.
Chances were slim, though.
Still, the Cerves compound was the little girl’s only hope. And God help the family if anything happened to Chelsea because her own family wouldn’t play nice.
Automatic weapons were turned on her as a dozen or more soldiers and security personnel braced to fire on her. Faces brutally hard, determined . . . murderous.
Her life flashed before her eyes and one image held in her mind.
“Cullen.” She whispered his name as the gates loomed, coming closer, faster. “I’m sorry . . .”
Metal hit metal, the Runner reducing speed with a force that had the safety seat and harness reacting with the same speed to hold them in place. The collision rippled around the powerful vehicle, the frame taking the brunt of the force, the seat reacting to the still-strong shock wave that hit the interior.
Automatic gunfire ruptured the night as the gates were pushed open, and the Runner came to a stop several feet inside the interior of the compound.
Chelsea was confident the child hadn’t sustained further injuries, though for some reason, her own arm was burning like hell.
“Wait! Wait!” she screamed, fighting the hard hands that reached in, tore at the harness and tried to jerk her from the seat. “Louisa. I have Louisa.”
She scrambled to release the restraint, trying to be gentle, to hold the child securely as she whimpered, crying for her momma.
“I have her,” she cried out, suddenly staring down the barrel of a gun, eyes wide, the certainty of death filling her mind. “I have Louisa.”
Hands shaking, she let the blanket fall back, her eyes lifting to the cold, stark blue gaze of the Blood Queen herself. In those crystal-hard eyes Chelsea saw a mother’s torment and a killer’s need for blood.
“Momma.” Weak, fear and terror worn, the little girl was suddenly trying to struggle against Chelsea, ragged nails dragging against the shoulder of Chelsea’s black top.
Frantic, hysterical desperation filled the child now; those wide, dazed eyes flickering with horror would forever be seared into Chelsea’s memories.
The gun barrel jerked back and the woman was reaching for the girl, screaming for the doctor, and in Samara Cerves’s face Chelsea saw such misery, such pale, terror-filled pain, that she had no doubt little Louisa was safe now.
The question was, was Chelsea safe?
“Move.” She was hauled out of the Runner with a suddenness she found shocking.
The hands that jerked her from the vehicle were rough and bruising as she was dropped to her feet, then dragged through the courtyard toward the side of the mansion. Stumbling, she had only a moment to glimpse the chaotic activity of soldiers and security personnel rushing behind the woman known as the Blood Queen and the blood-soaked body she cradled in her arms.
“Where are you taking me?” Desperation sliced through her as they disappeared around the side of the house.
She couldn’t die here.
Struggling against the powerful grip, she tried to dig her heels into the dirt and loose stones beneath her feet, only to risk falling and being dragged along the ground.
Furious cries were falling from her lips, the need to escape frantic when he suddenly stopped, all but throwing her against the side of the house, his hand pressing over her mouth and his face only inches from hers.
Green eyes flecked with amber rioting through the irises. Rage burned in his gaze, in his expression, along with steely, uncontrolled demand.
Cullen?
Shock blazed through her mind, froze all her senses.