It didn’t matter what the bitch said.
As Apex’s boots cleared the door, the reinforced panel slammed shut and locked itself. And then she stood over the former prisoner with a smile that was vengeance personified.
She didn’t see the attack coming. And Kane trusted his other side to do what it knew it could. With a sudden burst of speed, he was at her leg, and he shot up her calf and thigh faster than a blink.
The first strike went in right at the juncture of torso and leg, because Kane told his other side that that was the most effective circulatory access. The female screamed, or at least a loud noise emanated from her. And then she pointed the gun in her hand right at his head—
The popping sound of the discharge was loud as a lightning strike and Kane flinched inside his other skin, assuming he had been wounded and would be in immediate, debilitating pain.
Except, inexplicitly, the female was the one who was somehow hit by a bullet coming from a different direction, her arms throwing back as she arched and stumbled, her own gun firing into the room as it swung out to the side.
Kane’s viper took it from there. In a split second, the snake sped up the female’s torso and wound itself around its prey’s throat, the constriction quick and deadly. But she didn’t die from strangulation.
The bites were one after the other after the other, the fangs penetrating her face as she screamed and bled.
As the snake head went down repeatedly, the venom being injected again and again, Kane just let the attack happen.
And when her visage began to melt away, the flesh and bone going liquid, the eyes sinking back into the skull, before they, too, disintegrated… he was perfectly content with the outcome.
From Apex’s vantage point on the floor, he let go of the gun he’d taken out of where he’d hidden it inside his crotch and rolled onto his side so he could watch the hideous death happen. Though his head was throbbingand his vision iffy, he’d managed to retain enough awareness to get that one shot off into the chest of that evil fucking female—and now he had enough mental acuity left over to watch what appeared to be a massive black snake turning that female into a pincushion.
Kane. In his other form.
With the immediate threat neutralized—or soon to be denatured, as the case was—Apex focused on the bedding platform. Taking a deep breath, he meant to stand up, but he didn’t have the strength to get on his feet. Fine. He’d crawl.
Dragging himself across the floor, he hoped that viper knew the difference between friend and foe because the damn thing was about to have nothing else to chew on. The female’s head was totally disintegrating.
As Apex came up to the bed, he pulled himself up and—
“Callum. It’s me.”
There was no response from the male. Nothing but that blank stare at the ceiling and the autonomic blinking, which was somehow scarier than any moaning in pain could have been.
“I’ve got you,” Apex said hoarsely. “I’m going to get you out.”
From deep within him, a sense of purpose animated his body and strengthened him. Using the knife on his belt, he cut through the leather restraints, and when the wolven was free…
There was no response at all. Callum didn’t look over, he didn’t move, he didn’t respond. He just laid exactly where he had been with his arms and legs splayed out from his naked torso, as if he were still tied down.
As those eyes just continued to stare up at the ceiling, it was as if he were nothing but a shell, his soul gone from the living husk that had seated it.
“Callum…”
With gentle hands, Apex reached out—
The flinching and pulling away was instinctual, the last reflexes of survival kicking in, nothing that seemed conscious.
“Here, I’ve got you,” he whispered to the male.
Sitting himself on the edge of the bed, he shifted Callum into his lap, and as the wolven’s head changed angle, he expected to finally see some recognition. There was none. The wolven just stared at the floor, as if his moonbeam-colored eyes were frozen in the forward position and whatever crossed their path was what he saw.
Apex brushed the sweat-matted white hair back. And as he stared down into the face he had seen in his memories with such clarity, blood from his own head wound fell on Callum’s cold cheek.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “You’re safe now—”
An explosion loud enough to sting the ears, powerful enough to shake the foundations of the hospital, erupted from across the way—and the door leading out into the hallway fell forward into the private quarters with a tremendous bang.
As the smoke cleared, there were two males standing on the threshold.