Hunger (27 page)

The temperature rose, the air thick with smoke and stifling now, making it impossible to breathe. She tried to stop her breathing again and succeeded for longer this time before her mind screamed that she was suffocating. She growled at herself. She was suffocating on the damned smoke. Not breathing would save her from that pain.

Signatures moved into the perimeter of her senses behind her. Weaklings and they were coming up on them fast.

An ominous rumble started in the belly of the building beneath her.

Tor stopped. “Eve.”

She turned to look at him and he handed Angelica to her, settling the woman’s arm around her shoulders.

Eve cursed him when he leaned down and kissed her softly, slowly, drawing it out and filling her eyes with tears as she sensed what he was going to do. He wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t want him to leave her again. Not even to help her.

He drew back and looked deep into her eyes, right down to her soul, leaving no part of her untouched by the love in his ice-blue gaze.

“Run,” he whispered and stroked her cheek, his pale eyebrows furrowing. “Don’t look back. Don’t stop. Run and don’t look back. Swear to me. Promise me. Just run.”

A shiver skated down her spine, dread churning her stomach as he spoke the same words he had that night when he had been dreaming his vision of her. She shook her head, unable to find her voice to beg him to come with her.

His hand slipped from her face and he turned and hurled himself into the group of vampires pursuing them.

Her instincts told her to fight too, to stay by his side no matter what, but she couldn’t leave Angelica and she didn’t think the woman could make it out alone. Tor wanted her out of the building to protect her from whatever horror he had witnessed in his dreams. She needed to be with him, but knew that if she went against his wishes, he wouldn’t be happy with her. He wanted to keep her safe, just as he had promised.

It killed her but she dragged herself away, leading Angelica along the corridor in the opposite direction to Tor.

She would get the woman to the surface and out of danger, and then she was coming back down to give Tor hell for thinking he could order her around. That wasn’t how things were going to work between them.

She was going to have his back and he would have hers, and they would fight together.

“Come on,” Eve whispered, willing Angelica to move faster.

They made it to the buckled metal steps and Eve breathed deeply as they hit fresher air, the smoke dissipating around her. She kept moving forwards, dragging Angelica, forcing her to move with her.

Someone had opened the main doors of the warehouse, leaving a huge gap for the smoke to pour out into the night. Eve trudged onwards and reached the threshold of the warehouse.

The ominous rumbling beneath her became a roar. Heat blazed across her back and the blast sent her sailing through the air with Angelica, twisting them around each other. She lost her hold on the woman and somersaulted, a scream burning up her throat as the world spun around her.

Eve grunted as she landed hard, pain exploding through every bone in her body, and tumbled across the tarmac. Intense heat rolled over her as another explosion shook the ground, quickly followed by another and then another.

She rubbed the grit from her eyes and shoved herself up, ignoring the pain that shot down her left arm, warning her that she had broken more than one bone.

She didn’t care.

Didn’t feel the pain as numbness swept it away. Didn’t hear the growl of the inferno over the ringing in her ears.

Flames engulfed the entire warehouse, huge explosions twisting the remaining metal and greedily consuming any wood. Debris rained all around her.

Her whole world fell down.

T
he shockwave slammed against Tor’s side, hurling him into a darkened room. He smacked into the wall and hit the tiled floor, rolled onto his front and covered his head with his arms as a fireball roared over him and huge chunks of the ceiling rained down. Heat licked his skin, blistering his bare arms and singeing his hair.

The moment it abated, he did a mental body check and shoved to his feet. He rolled his shoulders and stretched to crack everything back into place, shut down the pain echoing through his tired body, and stumbled to the door. The blast had taken a large section of it out, leaving a huge gap in the wall.

He squinted against the smoke and searched for the vampires he had been fighting when the explosion had interrupted them.

Their broken bodies lay buried beneath what looked like most of the concrete ceiling, fire consuming what was left of them, turning them to ash.

Tor coughed to clear his lungs and scrambled over the rubble. The entire warehouse was ablaze above him, the intense heat warning him he wouldn’t make it out that way. He quietened the primal instinct burning within his heart, demanding he go that way despite the danger and ensure that Eve was safe, and focused on his blood and their bond.

She felt distant. It wasn’t just the concrete and steel dampening his senses this time.

She was in shock, and hurt. He could feel her pain. It was concentrated in his left arm, separate from his own pain, the constant ache of the right side of his ribs. She had broken something in the blast and so had he. It was times like this he was thankful that he didn’t have to breathe.

He scanned his surroundings again.

His only option was to head deeper and hope there was another exit.

He could sense vampires down that way, some of them strong. The Law Keepers. Tor held his ribs and stumbled down the corridor, following his limited senses towards the strongest signatures, hoping he was right and it was the Law Keepers. He was in no fit state to fight. The drug still infested his body, weakening him, and he needed blood to heal the wounds from his captivity and the fight that had come after his escape.

Tor pressed his right hand to the wall, skimming it along the rough plaster to support his weight as he walked. The signatures grew stronger and clearer. There were three. Definitely the Law Keepers.

The red lights above him flickered, barely holding on. He switched to his true guise and his vision sharpened as his eyes changed, driving back the darkness. The red light hurt his eyes but it was better than walking blind whenever they faltered.

He banked right and then left, and frowned as he found himself in a new area of the compound, beyond the room where they had held him.

Voices sounded ahead.

“They have offsite backups,” Serge said.

“Can you track them down?” Vincent this time.

Tor followed the voices to a room, leaned against the doorframe and grimaced as pain ricocheted along his ribs.

“Given time.” Serge nodded towards Tor.

Vincent looked his way, his blond hair a mess with tufts coming out of his ponytail. Black soot smudged across his cheek and up his arms, mingling with blood. Serge looked just as grim, his cold blue eyes meeting his across the room before he went back to his work, destroying data on the laptop in front of him.

Daemon lounged shirtless in the corner of the room on the table top, covered in soot and lacerations from head to toe, playing with what looked like a home-made Molotov cocktail in a white plastic bottle. Beside him, a stack of servers were merrily blazing, crackling and spitting molten flames onto the concrete floor. He figured it was Daemon’s handiwork.

“You look like hell,” Tor said to him and he shrugged. “You responsible for me nearly getting wiped out up there?”

“No.” Daemon picked at the black material sticking out of the top of the bottle.

Tor took that no as a yes.

“I was.” The voice came from behind Tor and he moved in an instant, leaping forwards over two metres and spinning to face the owner.

The brunet grinned at him, blood plastered down the left side of his face, trickling from a wound that darted across his temple and into his hair.

“Now I have all the powerful pure blood I need.” He eyed them all.

Daemon popped to his feet, sliding off the table, and palmed the bottle. Vincent straightened and covered Serge, giving him time to continue tracking down and erasing the data.

“You’re insane,” Tor said, keeping Adam’s focus on him, unsure what the man would do if he realised that Serge was busily destroying his years of hard work. “The entire building is about to come down on top of us.”

Five vampires appeared out of the gloom behind Adam. If the man thought six weaklings to four purebloods was enough to tip the balance in his favour, he truly had lost his mind.

Vincent palmed his sword. Tor flexed his fingers. Daemon set his bomb down and drew a blade from the sheath strapped to his thigh.

“Detain them,” Adam said and the five vampires rushed forwards.

Tor blocked the punch a young dark-haired man threw at him, grabbing and twisting his hand. He shoved his other palm against the man’s nose and blood burst over his lip. The vampire stumbled backwards, clutching his face and howling. Tor pushed him aside into Daemon and growled as Adam rabbited again.

He ran after the bastard, following him around a corner.

Pain erupted across his shoulder and chest, the air knocked from him as the steel pole smashed into him and sent him stumbling backwards. Adam laughed.

Tor snarled.

He launched himself at Adam, slamming his shoulder deep into the man’s stomach and tackling him to the ground. Adam’s breath left him in a rush as Tor landed on top of him. Tor shoved himself up and started hammering away at Adam’s face, landing relentless blows, pouring all of his anger into each strike.

Adam bowed against him, knocking him off balance, and managed to wriggle his legs free. He kicked Tor hard in the gut, propelling him backwards. Tor hit the ground, curled his legs into his chest to keep the motion going and rolled over, landing on his knees. He kicked off, growling as he ran at Adam.

The bastard grabbed the metal pole from the floor and swung at him. Tor sidestepped to dodge it and then ducked as he swung again. The pole smashed into the wall, raining plaster down on Tor’s back. He shoved upwards and caught Adam with an uppercut before he could pull the bar free, knocking him on his arse.

Tor yanked the pole from the wall and trailed it behind him as he stalked towards Adam, the metal scraping sound ringing around the corridor. Adam scrambled backwards, fear lighting up his golden eyes and tugging a grim smile of satisfaction from Tor.

“I wanted Eve to kill you,” Tor said in a low voice, one filled with menace and every ounce of his fury. He tightened his grip on the pole, his knuckles burning from the force of it, and kept advancing slowly, watching the bastard squirm. “I wanted her to make you suffer in the way you deserved. Hell, I wanted to teach her how to make you suffer the most… but now… now I don’t want you anywhere near her. Now I’m going to kill you myself.”

Adam pushed onto his feet.

Tor swung and Adam blocked with both arms. The pole connected hard with his forearms, slamming into bone with the force of a freight train. Adam stumbled backwards and cried out, the sound shrill in the smoky air.

Tor grinned and flexed his fingers around the pole, his nails becoming claws as he gave himself over to the darker side of his nature. His fangs emerged, punching long from his gums, and hunger for violence and bloodshed rose like an unstoppable tide within him, obliterating all of his pain and his fatigue, and imbuing him with strength.

Adam backed away, boots shuffling on the dusty ground and the fear in his eyes increasing.

Tor swung again and something tugged on the pole, holding it back. He growled and swiftly faced the vampire behind him, and ducked as one of Adam’s thugs threw a fist at him. It caught him with a glancing blow across his cheek and Tor twisted the pole, forcing the man to lose his grip on it.

He brought the pole up in a fast arc, using all of his strength, and smacked the thug across the side of his head, sending him down in a heap.

Tor turned on Adam before he could think to escape and growled as a crack echoed along the hall and pain exploded in his right shoulder, jerking him backwards. Cool liquid cascaded down his chest, saturating his ruined black t-shirt and sticking it to his skin. He growled at Adam.

“How does it feel to get shot by your own gun?” The bastard smirked at him, waving the black semi-auto in front of him.

To be honest, it hurt like a bitch, but he wasn’t about to admit that to the piece of filth wielding it. He snarled, flashing his fangs. Adam could shoot him full of bullets and it wouldn’t stop him from killing him.

The vampire started to pull the trigger again. Tor hefted the pole into his hand, brought it above his shoulder and launched it like a spear, throwing all of his might into it. The gun fired, the bullet whizzing towards him, aimed higher this time.

For his head.

Tor threw himself forwards, narrowly missing the bullet, and hit the ground, pain shooting from his wounds as the impact jarred him.

Adam howled in agony, the sound divine to Tor’s ears. He looked up. The male gasped as he gripped the pole skewering his side. Not quite where Tor had aimed. Having to throw himself out of the path of the bullet had altered the flow of his makeshift spear. He had meant to send it plunging into his dead black heart.

Tor carefully pulled himself onto his feet and slowly approached Adam. The male tugged at the pole, grimacing and growling as he tried to wrench it free of his flesh. Tor could help with that. He reached Adam, grabbed the end of the steel pole and yanked it hard, ripping another scream from the weakling vampire.

A scream he cut off by plunging the pole into Adam’s chest, straight through his heart, and straight out of his back, dislodging the vital organ completely.

Tor’s senses blared in warning.

He grabbed the gun from Adam’s hand, released the pole to let the dead vampire fall to the floor, and spun on his heel. He fired off a round as the thug launched at him, a blade in his hand aimed straight for Tor’s neck, and nailed him between the eyes. The man dropped at Tor’s feet, his short sword clattering across the tiles.