“I know.” She gazed up at him, seeing the torment in every line and hard angle of his face. “I know that’s why you left with them. I never doubted you. Not for a second.”
A strangled moan leaked out of him. Then he kissed her, deeply and fiercely, as if they weren’t standing in the midst of death and carnage, with the threat of still more perched on the platform over their heads.
But the threat was real.
And Riordan wasn’t finished with them yet.
“Fuck the sentimental reunion,” he snarled from above them. “Release the last fighter.”
The heavy gate on one of the pit’s perimeter access portals lifted, freeing yet another feral Breed male.
“Oh, hell, no,” Carys muttered. She broke out of Rune’s loose hold. “Not this time.”
She aimed her pistol at the snarling vampire as it loped into the arena. She squeezed the trigger several times and . . . nothing happened. Just a hollow click-click-click.
No bullets left.
“Stay back,” Rune said as she tossed the empty weapon down. He swept her behind him and prepared to face this new opponent. “I need you to stay safe, Carys. Promise me.”
No, she couldn’t give him that vow. Everything Breed in her wanted to fight this battle with him. Everything female in her was determined to stand by her man—to her last breath, if it came down to that.
Up on the catwalk, Riordan chuckled sadistically. “As soon as either of them comes out from under here, shoot them dead,” he told his guard. “Both of them!”
Carys growled at the command. As scared as she was, her rage was stronger. She knew Rune would meet this new threat the same way he’d confronted all of the ones that had come before, but damn it, enough was enough.
Shots rang out the instant Rune and the other Breed male clashed with the start of their combat. In the tumble and roll with his opponent, Rune somehow managed to evade the sudden spurt of gunfire. But Carys knew it was only a matter of moments before his father’s guard hit his mark.
She wasn’t about to let them get that chance.
Carys’s body was in motion even before she had decided what she would do. She slipped her shoes off and inched backward on her bare feet, out from underneath the catwalk.
With Riordan and his shooter preoccupied with trying to hit Rune off the front of the spectator platform, neither of them realized she had leapt up from the pit until she was already on top of them.
Carys didn’t waste a second. She shoved the guard over the railing, gun and all. He barely had time to scream before the UV barrier consumed him.
She wheeled on Riordan, lips peeled back off her teeth and fangs in a hiss. His eyes rounded with surprise. Then, coward that he was, the bastard bolted away from her.
In a flash, he had vanished from the catwalk, disappearing into the gloom of the castle corridor.
Dammit!
Carys longed to go after him, but down in the pit, Rune was still locked in a dangerous fight.
And to her horror, she saw that he was injured even worse than before. Fresh bullet wounds peppered his back. Yet he kept fighting. Nothing short of death would slow him down.
No way in hell was she leaving him. Not even in the hopes of killing the bastard who’d raised him.
Carys perched on the railing and waited for her chance to spring. When the struggle down below brought Rune and his opponent within range, she leapt off. Sailing down, she dropped right onto the other male’s back just as he was about to lunge for Rune.
The impact drove him to one knee beneath her, but he was immense. As hard as she hit him, her lighter weight didn’t collapse him. He reared back, trying to toss her off him. His big arms grappled for her while she clutched his mane of greasy hair and wrenched his head back.
Rune was right there, not even a second after she landed. With the vampire thrashing wildly, hissing and snarling in rage, Rune pulled his fist back and sent it driving home like a battering ram—straight through the other male’s sternum.
The vampire went rigid, his scream of shock cut short as he convulsed in a violent shudder. Then the body slumped in a heap on the floor of the pit, blood pooling from the gaping hole in the vampire’s chest.
Carys jumped away from the carnage and flung herself into Rune’s arms. “Thank God, it’s over.”
Rune held her, but tension vibrated in every hard muscle of his body. His voice was gravel, raw and deadly. “Where’s my father?”