Claimed

Chapter 25

Dage studied the prophet across the aisle of the Black Hawk as the chopper blasted through the air. Jesus. The Kurjans had worked the man over and well. Deep purple and red bruises covered Guiles’s face and his right arm sat in a sling with the vampire lacking the strength to repair the broken bone. For now. Unease whipped into Dage from his side and he glanced at Talen. “What?”

Talen shrugged, his golden eyes mutating to a pissed green. “The virus messes with my ability to reach Cara. I don’t like it.”

Dage nodded, sympathy tightening his throat. He kept his shields up for now, the residue of the battle still echoing through his brain. He’d killed hard and fast. His mate didn’t need to see the blood in her dreams. “These soldiers were more advanced, more prepared for us.” He nodded to where Conn concentrated to heal several knife wounds in his upper chest.

“Yes.” Talen peered outside as the military helicopter touched down on the cement near the airplane hangars followed by three other choppers. He ripped open the door and jumped out, turning to assist with the wounded.

Dage exited last, stretching his neck as the moon split the night. The calm before dawn. His favorite time. He began to jog alongside Talen across the tarmac, musing he hadn’t made love to Emma during dawn yet. He’d have to rectify that situation in about an hour.

A piercing scream in his head stopped him cold, shifting his gaze to the lab perched in the distance. Fear, Emma’s view from inside the lab, and the strong scent of tulips flashed through him. Then two missiles shot from the sky and the building exploded.

He froze. His heart thumped hard. Opening his senses, he felt nothing. A coldness slithered under his skin. All warmth gone.

Emma.

Fire billowed into the air.

Pain shrieked through his bones. The king slammed to his knees. Rage and an unfathomable agony ripped into him. He lifted his head, howling to the universe. From his power, the earth rumbled. Clouds shot across the sky to bind the moon. Lightning attacked and thunder rose to an unholy pitch that pierced eardrums.

Several military helicopters dropped Kurjan soldiers to the ground.

Dage leapt to his feet, a feral growl erupting from his chest.

They’d all die.

He reached the enemy first and ripped off its head with one hand. His brothers flanked him but he was beyond caring. He roared his mate’s name and set forth to destroy.

More Kurjans dropped and dark blurs of motion leaped out of the forest. A blaring alarm pierced the night. They were under attack.

Jordan and his enforcers ran full bore toward the tree line, shifting into cougars once far enough away not to impact the vampires. Shrill howls rent the air when the deadly cats met the werewolves.

Dage yanked his knife out of his vest and slashed into the nearest Kurjan, snarling when the bastard stabbed him in the knee. He welcomed the pain. “More.” He sliced through the soldier’s throat, running full out for his next target.

“Jesus, Dage, watch behind you,” Jase shouted.

Dage ignored his brother, fighting like the minions of hell lived in his skin. Nothing mattered but getting to the lab. He vaguely heard Talen issue an order through the comm line for the secondary team to evacuate the women and prophets to the mountainous headquarters.

He reached the crackling pile of rubble, tossing glowing cement blocks out of the way, scalding his hands. Jase and Conn covered his back, grunting with the effort to fight back soldier after soldier who wanted the king dead.

If he didn’t find her, they could have him.

She had to be there. Somewhere safe in the rubble.

A thick hand banded around his arm and jerked him around. He struggled in Jase’s grasp.

“No. There’s no life here, Dage.” Jase’s copper eyes swirled with a deep maroon Dage had never seen in them. “I can sense life. There’s none here.”

“No!” Dage roared, shoving his brother back three steps. He opened his mind, his heart again to find her.

He remained empty.

Emma was dead.

So was he.

But for now, he’d kill.

He glanced at the tarmac. Bodies were scattered across the cement, some moving to the side to repair themselves. Vampire guards. His men.

A knife slashed across his cheekbone and he pivoted, hissing at the Kurjan. “This is going to hurt.”

The enemy’s purple eyes widened and he lifted his arm again only to have Dage cut if off with a quick slice of his wrist. The soldier howled in pain. Dage waited until he closed cracked lips over those yellow fangs before stabbing him in the throat and twisting. The Kurjan’s head beat the body to the ground, blood seeping into the cement.

The king in Dage was gone. The soldier in him craved more death. Slashing and gouging through enemy after enemy appeased his pain for a moment.

His fangs flashed, needing blood. Even his own. The sharp points pierced his lips and the taste of his blood, scented now with spiced peaches, threw him into a maelstrom of fire he’d never escape.

This one last taste of her was his undoing.

He growled low. Time stopped. Sound disappeared. An empty hole remained where his heart had beat; a gaping darkness swam where his soul had been. He regressed past human, past animal.

To death.

Maybe beyond.

The destruction he wreaked would be whispered about in fearful voices for centuries. He didn’t care. Her image filled his head. An agonizing picture of her gentleness with Janie. A kindness his own sons would never know.

He slashed and diced and killed, spewing anger in an ancient tongue—in pure notes of pain. More than one Kurjan lost his head with a twist of the king’s wrist. Desperate vengeance. Raw death. Undeniable power.

Until he came face to face with a werewolf.

Fangs glittered with blood as eyes the yellow of hell focused on him, the stench of death billowing out on its breath. The beast rose to at least a foot taller than Dage, coarse gray hair standing up and sharp claws extending.

The king settled into a fighting stance, more animalistic than the creature about to die, an image of Emma, eyes darkened, faced flushed with pleasure ripping through his thoughts. A sight he’d never see again.

The werewolf stretched and bunched thick back legs, leaping forward and taking Dage to the ground. He smashed into the cement, bones protesting as he flipped the animal over his head and rolled to his feet. Blood dripped down the back of his neck. Spiced peaches.

He grunted and took the putrid beast down with a tackle. They rolled end over end until he could lever his knife into its neck. It howled, trying to escape. Dage leaned on top of the hairy abomination and twisted the blade. The words he spewed while killing were even too ancient for him to recognize. The hellish eyes slowly closed. The warmth from Emma’s last kiss against Dage’s cheek faded away in unison.

A voice in his earpiece gave Dage pause. “Janie was loaded into the first helicopter. But the Kayrs women aren’t here.”

The words had a meaning he failed to grasp. Reason had fled. He fell off the dead werewolf to settle on his knees, blood soaking his clothes, pain ripping his skin. Conn and Jase stood above him, flanking their brother. Their king. If he’d had any energy left, he’d tell them it was too late.

Talen barked something through the line and someone answered that Cara had been with Emma. In the lab.

Her name was a needle sharp sword in his gut. Dage lifted his head as shock slammed across Talen’s hard features. “No.”

Leaping over smoldering wood, Talen landed in the middle of the fire and began tossing cement and debris out of his way. Kane stood guard, a desperate anger on his strong face. He and Jase shared a look the king couldn’t decipher.

Jase raised his hands to the sky, muttered something under his breath and the skies opened to pour rain over the battlefield. The fire sputtered out. Black smoke billowed into the air.

Dage lowered his chin to his chest, unable to watch Talen dig. Nobody lived below the debris. His body hurt. Power and energy no longer pumped through his veins. Emma.

The clouds began to part and pinks and golds scattered across the sky to torture him with a new day. The remaining Kurjan soldiers ran for their helicopters, which quickly rose into the sky.

“Now,” Conn ordered through the earpieces.

Missiles fired from the earth and blew all five Kurjan helicopters into sharp fiery pieces that pummeled to land with loud crashes against the ground. Metal rained down almost in slow motion, as if even time had given up.

Dage turned his head to survey the battlefield. Blood ran thick into the greedy earth; dead bodies littered the cement.

Vampire, Kurjan, and animal.

They’d all lost.