Embrace the Night

13

“Chloe!”

Windows exploded in the living room, and the choked cough of silenced gunfire reported just before the shril squeal of a woman in pain.

“Chloe!”

She bolted upright, her name coming at her from too many directions. Merek’s bel ow beside her as he flipped her off the bed and onto the floor, covering her with his heavy body. Alex’s mental shout from upstairs she didn’t have the ability to answer. The cry from the living room had been in a woman’s voice. “Tess?”

More gunfire, more shattering glass and breaking wood. “Are you here, Chloe?”

“Merek, that’s Tess.” She wheezed out a breath while he crushed her into the carpet. The glint of light off the dul black metal of his pistol made her swal ow. It was too much like the last time, when Alex was shot.

She pressed her forehead to the floor, regret lancing through her. “I’m sorry, Merek. You were right. We should never have come here.”

He grunted, stuffing the revolver into her hand. Then he jerked on his shirt, grabbed his pants, and rol ed to shove himself into them. “There was no way to have known for sure, sweetheart. Stay here, stay down. I’m going to see what kind of mess we’re in.”

“Broken glass. Put on your boots.” He did, and she clutched the revolver closer, scooting to put her back into a corner behind the bed and away from the windows. “Alex. Make sure Alex—”

“I wil .” He nodded a quick approval when he saw where she’d moved.

Resisting the urge to shove him to the floor and protect him, she returned his nod. “Be careful.”

“I wil ,” he repeated. Then he disappeared, leading with his pistol out into the hal way.

Gods, she was naked. Al she had was a revolver. She shoved down on a hysterical giggle, sucked in a breath, and dredged up the magic inside her. Too late to pretend there were no Magickals here, right? She fought down another laugh.

“Clothes,” she ordered in a low voice. She closed her eyes tight, heard a rush of air, felt a hint of heat from the spel , and when she looked down again, she was dressed. Shoes to shirt, ful y dressed. That was a first, but she didn’t have time to wonder about it.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and she tried to slow it, tried to control her breathing so she could hear anything that was going on outside the bedroom. Who was here besides Tess? How many of them were there? Where was Alex? Where was Merek? She didn’t know, could only sense people moving around her, perceive the faintest creaks of floorboards as they ghosted along. A huge thump sounded against the wal , and her night-light flickered wildly beside her, but its glow was soon dimmed by the streaks of dawn filtering through the heavy curtains.

Clamping her mouth closed to keep in a scream, she shifted her grip on the revolver, held it ready in case anything tried to get inside her room. The thumping continued, muffled shouts and grunts, the impact of flesh on flesh as two large people struck each other. But who? Merek? Other men? She didn’t know. Merek would know. Alex would be able to sense it, but this wasn’t her area of expertise. So she sat, trying not to tremble, and waited for whatever came next.

A lupine howl echoed above her. Alex!

She shot to her feet, her gaze pinned on the ceiling, and she strained with al her might to hear anything, anything that might tel her he was al right. The door to her room exploded inward, screeching on twisted hinges to embed itself in the wal .

A huge, half-shifted wolf barreled in, a gun in each hand. His feral gaze locked on her, but her revolver was already pointed at him. He wasn’t Merek or Alex or Tess. That was al she needed to know.

Her heart stopped, her hands trembled, but she pul ed the trigger again and again until the gun clicked.

Empty.

Merek watched the werewolf stumble back, a blank look of shock on his face as he dropped one gun and clutched at the bleeding holes in his chest. Not a shred of sympathy passed through Merek as he wrenched the man’s other gun from his hand and used it to put six bul ets in his skul . He fel . Dead. Even a wolf’s healing magic wouldn’t bring him back from that.

Tucking the pistol away as a spare, he grabbed the fal en weapon and tossed it to Chloe. She caught it, letting the spent revolver clatter to the floor. Her face was pale, but her step was steady as she walked to his side. She looked up at him, her eyes huge, her lips shaking, yet her voice was calm. “Is Alex okay? I heard him yel .”

“He’s fine. Caval i went to help him out.” Merek ejected the clip in his pistol and shoved in a fresh one, pul ed back the slide, and chambered the first round. He kept his senses open, ready to detect an approaching attack.

Chloe fel in behind him when he moved down the hal to the front of the house. She spoke in a soft whisper, “Luca’s here?”

The breathy tone was almost lost in a roar of gunfire overhead. A hissing shriek of an injured vampire made his ears ring. If Caveat failed and Alex got injured in any way, Merek would personal y end the bloodsucking son of a bitch.

“He fol owed Tess, who got a report of a code change from the security company as wel as the code someone tried to input before making the change. She figured it might be you, so she came to check it out instead of just cal ing the cops.” He swung her into the kitchen and down to the floor behind the island. A bruised, battered, and sopping wet Tess was already crouched there, a neat little compact pistol in her hands. He nodded to her. “By the time our vampiric friend pried that information out of her, he realized that Smith’s men were fol owing them and that he couldn’t cal to warn us because I didn’t fucking leave him my number on the message.”

A muscle in Tess’s cheek twitched. “Maybe I would have been a little more forthcoming if your vampiric friend had ever told me the truth about anything. At al .” She swal owed, shook her head. “Vampire.”

“Yeah, and I’m a witch.” Chloe shrugged, her face stil too pale for Merek’s liking. “So is Aunt Mil ie. Merek is a warlock, and Alex is—”

“A werewolf,” Tess interrupted, stuffing a lock of her dripping red hair behind her ear. “Luca the liar fil ed me in on those little details after his fangs popped out when my boat was capsized by some kind of . . . of force field. ”

“Spel . Not force field.” Chloe swal owed and met Merek’s gaze. “How long do you think we have until the Normal police get here? Or the cavalry you told Luca to have standing by?”

“The spel hit while he was cal ing in. I’m pretty sure his phone’s at the bottom of the Puget Sound.” Tess didn’t look at either of them. “The cavalry’s not coming.”

“I put a silencing spel on the place after the windows shattered.” He didn’t need to tel Chloe the Magickal Council would expect them to die before they revealed themselves to Normals. Their lives were not worth every Magickal person’s. It was the ugly reality of living with magic. “If we’re lucky, no Normals are coming.”

“Luck. Right. We’ve done so wel with that lately.” Chloe’s chest lifted in slow, deep breaths, and he wished like hel they were in a place where he could comfort her, but they weren’t and he couldn’t, so he turned away and did his job.

The women fel silent when he lifted his hand. Something . . . swept along his senses. A person. Magickal.

Hiding under an invisibility spel . He drew in a lungful of air, let half of it out. The brush of a footstep sounded to his left. He swung around the edge of the island. Fired two shots toward what he hoped was the chest.

Flames exploded outward, and he ducked back behind the island, throwing up a shielding spel to protect them, but the effort cost him. Fuck. This Magickal was old, powerful. Fire engulfed them, red and orange light flowing around his shield like liquid. Sweat sluiced down his skin as the heat hit him. Chloe yanked Tess closer to him, threw her own magic around them.

The heat lessened, and he swiveled around, taking a blind shot through the shield. He felt the reverberation as it pierced, but a short scream ended the flood of flames. Chloe col apsed against his side, panting. “Okay?”

“Fine. You? Tess?”

“Good,” Tess choked.

“Me, too.” Chloe patted his arm and chest as if looking for injuries. He used his free hand to catch hers, squeeze in brief reassurance, and then set her aside.

He forced his muscles to cooperate, to not shake from the outpouring of magic. Pushing himself up into a crouch, he kept the shield as strong as he could, and took a quick look at what they were facing. A woman lay sprawled on her back, her mouth gaping open and closed like a landed fish, a clear shot through her throat. Hovering over her was a vampire.

Not Caval i.

Merek squeezed off another shot and tucked himself back behind the island as the vampire returned fire.

He jolted and Chloe screamed in pain as the bul et ricocheted off their shield and exploded into the refrigerator. Shoving Chloe back against the cabinet door, he clamped a hand across her mouth, and looked up. He wasn’t surprised to see the vampire perched on top of the island, fangs bared in a horrific smile.

They both fired. And hit.

The vampire barely jerked as blood bloomed from his chest, and Merek groaned as white-hot agony sliced into his thigh. Chloe dropped her gun to dive for his leg and the crimson that spurted upward.

Femoral artery. His mind registered the severity of the wound, even as his instincts kept him moving. The vampire leaped to the counter across from them, laughed as Tess’s Normal bul ets hit him and did even less damage than Merek’s one shot. He fol owed the bloodsucker with his weapon, but his body felt weak, his muscles unresponsive.

His aim wavered, the vampire’s didn’t, and he knew he’d failed.

A shadow that moved with unnatural speed sailed over the island and crashed into the vampire. Caval i.

They slammed through the wal and into the living room. Furious hissing and blows too swift to sound real echoed through the cloud of white plaster.

Chloe’s healing spel wrapped around his leg, sealed the entry and exit wounds from the bul et, and began to weave the muscle and sinew back together. It fucking hurt. A lot. It felt like hot pokers jabbed into his leg, and stars burst before his eyes. He gritted his teeth and bore it, gurgled on a groan, sweat stinging his eyes.

“Merek! A little help, please.” Alex’s cal was so mild, Merek knew the kid was up to his neck in a fight he couldn’t handle. A short howl ended in a whoosh of escaped breath. Someone had gut-punched the kid.

Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed the counter to keep his leg from col apsing under him. Pain stabbed from his thigh straight to his skul . The healing wasn’t done, but it was good enough that he wasn’t going to bleed out. “You two stay here. Chloe, pick up your gun.”

She fumbled in the pool of his blood to retrieve the pistol. Her hands shook, her lips colorless, her mouth pinched. The look in her eyes was haunted as she wiped the blood off her hands and onto her pants. “Be careful. Help Alex.”

Not bothering to waste time with a response, he turned away from her and stumbled out of the kitchen, almost tripping over the body of the woman he’d kil ed. He had to get to Alex.

Chloe watched him walk away, and it took everything in her not to scream for him to come back. She’d never wanted to hold on to anyone so tightly in her entire life. This need made her childhood clinging to Mil ie seem like nothing. It was terrifying and unstoppable. Only the fact that Alex needed help kept her mouth shut.

Tess shifted beside her. “What can we do? My bul ets aren’t doing shit against these guys.”

“No, you need special ammunition designed for Magickals.” An idea began to percolate. Rocking herself onto her hands and knees, Chloe crawled forward until she could reach the cleaning supplies under the sink.

She glanced back at Tess. “Normal stuff is especial y ineffective against vampires and werewolves.

Because of their healing abilities.”

“I see.”

A sick feeling crawled through Chloe at the expressionless mask her friend wore, but what could she say?

Tess wasn’t an idiot. The conclusions she was obviously coming to were pretty damn accurate. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Tess. I’m sorry we al lied to you.”

“Did you have a choice?”

Pul ing out every cleaning solution she could get her hands on, she lined them up on the floor to see what she had to work with. “No, but that doesn’t make it suck less.”

“That’s for damn sure.” Tess’s voice went hoarse, and her eyes closed for a moment. When she opened them, she was back in control, the mask firmly in place. “What can we do?”

“I can make some explosives.” Chloe didn’t mention that the Council would probably order Tess’s memory altered so she wouldn’t know about magic after this was over. She also didn’t tel her friend that she didn’t have enough magic left to generate a flame spel like Merek and she had blocked. A few nasty potions were the best she could do. She rifled through the cabinets under the island until she came up with a few plastic containers.

“This has the ammo you’l need.” Handing her gun over to her friend, Chloe set to work on the incendiaries.

“Okay.” Tess’s face was milk white, which made her mottled bruises stand out in ugly contrast, but her tone was serene. “So, we’re burning my uncle’s house down?”

Chloe focused on the chemicals she was mixing, letting magic slip from her as she worked, tweaking the compounds to do exactly what she wanted. “No, the people wil burn, the building wil be fine.”

Both women studiously ignored the shouts, grunts, and gunfire from other parts of the house. Tess swal owed audibly. “How is that possible? A magic spel ?”

“A magic potion, actual y.” A flicker of skepticism crossed the Normal’s face, and Chloe managed a grin.

“Trust me, this is what I do.”

Tess flinched a little and looked away, checking her weapon. “Trust. Right.”

The smile slid off Chloe’s face, and she sealed a few of the containers. This was the worst possible way Tess could have found out, and Chloe didn’t have a clue what to say to her best friend. So much had happened since they’d last seen each other, so many changes for both of them. Luca and Merek, for starters. She wanted to talk to Tess, connect like they used to do with just a glance, but this was neither the time nor the place. It would have to wait— if they ever got the chance. If the Council didn’t have Tess’s memories wiped. If they survived this at al .

A shadow moved to their left, someone slipping through the shafts of sunshine coming from the hole Luca had made in the wal between the kitchen and the living room.

Beware. danger. Beware! Chloe’s clairaudience kicked off right on cue, letting her know for sure it wasn’t someone on their side of this fight.

“Heads up,” Chloe whispered when that ominous shadow flickered again. She hoisted one of her concoctions.

“I saw it.” The redhead flipped her damp hair back over her shoulder with a nonchalant shrug. “Ready when you are.”

They didn’t have long to wait. Agony burst in Chloe’s skul , and she wailed. Pain screamed along every nerve ending in her body, and though she knew it wasn’t real, she would have sworn fire ants swarmed over her flesh, biting and burning. Tess writhed on the blood-smeared linoleum beside her, caught in the same evil telepathic spel .

Spasms racked Chloe’s muscles, and her hand clenched and unclenched around the plastic canister. A man moved into the light, his hands outstretched as he focused more of the spel on Tess. She lifted in a hard arc off the floor, an inhuman sound ripping from her throat. Chloe forced her fingers to move through the pain, pointed the container at the man, and used the tiny spurt of magic she could muster to pop the lid off.

The potion exploded forth, spraying the man from head to toe in a quick shower. He blinked down at her for a moment, his spel slacking off until both women col apsed to the floor. Chloe could tel the moment her potion took effect. His eyes widened, and then he gave a guttural shout, slapping at his clothes, dancing in a frenzied circle as his skin began to melt like wax.

She didn’t stop to watch the carnage. Crawling through the drying pool of Merek’s blood, she grabbed Tess and shook her hard. The Normal woman gasped at the touch, bolting upright with a cry. “Tess, honey, it’s okay. We—”

The sharp report of a gun cut her off as Tess swung the pistol around and dropped the melting man with one shot. Hot crimson splattered them as he hit the floor, stil twitching and groaning. Tess swayed where she sat, sweat making clean trails down her face. “That was not an exploding magic potion.”

“No, that one was more corrosive than combustible.” Chloe gathered up her other containers, ignoring the way her hands trembled and the shocks of pain that continued to fire through her nerves.

They both flinched when something heavy crashed into the wal beside Luca’s makeshift doorway. Tess pointed the gun at the opening and Chloe hefted another canister, ready to launch it at anything that came through.

Instead, they saw Luca rol by, wrestling with a vampire and a half-shifted werewolf. The scene was appal ingly clear, each man bleeding from multiple wounds, clothes slashed to shreds from jagged claws, Luca cursing in fluent Italian as he grappled for the upper hand against his two opponents.

The house grew brighter by the minute as morning light managed to filter around the shades that Merek and Chloe had drawn to keep out prying eyes. At the moment it was also keeping out the sun that would burn Luca and the other vampires in the house. Much as she’d like to torch the hel out of the terrorists, she couldn’t do that to Luca.

The bad guys didn’t have those kinds of scruples.

The vampire terrorist hissed and ducked away from the sunbeams, but he opened the front door while the enormous wolf launched a struggling Luca outside.

Slashes of fire carved burns on his face. Every exposed inch of skin boiled and sizzled, and an animalistic shriek of sheer agony assaulted Chloe’s ears as he writhed in the sunlight.

Tess bolted forward, a horrified cry on her lips. Chloe managed to hit the vampire with her flame potion before he touched her friend, and he hit the floor, rol ing to try to put out the fire. As if Chloe would have made it that easy for him. Tess emptied the rest of her bul ets into the werewolf, two shots to the heart and three to the head. He fel , his body contorting as his bones snapped and retracted back to human form.

Chloe stayed where she was, ready to use her potions on anything that moved.

Throwing herself on top of Luca, Tess did her best to shield him from the light, and somehow managed to pul , push, and heave him back into the house. Chloe slammed the door closed behind them. The stench of scorched, blackened flesh made her stomach turn.

Tess’s eyes were wide, blank with utter shock as she watched her lover’s fangs protrude from his gums.

“Luca? Luca! ”

He choked, his eyes little more than slits in his swol en, distorted face. “Mia diletta.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I’m here. Tel me what to do. Tel me what you need.”

“Leave me.” He closed his eyes and turned his face away, but not before Chloe saw his hungry gaze lock on her friend’s throat.

“What?” A short sob racked the Normal woman, disbelief coloring her words. “No, Luca. You’re hurt. You need help.”

Chloe put her hand on her friend’s shoulder, her heart breaking as she saw the ugly truth. One of these two was going to die, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “He needs to feed, Tess. He’d need a lot of blood to heal from this, and if you stay close, he’l attack you and drain you. He won’t mean to, but he won’t be able to help it. Come away, honey. You need to leave him.”

A bril iant explosion that sounded like fireworks brought her head around, and she saw Merek and Alex locked in a deadly showdown with four other Magickals. Gods, there were just so many of them. They took out two and three more seemed to be ready to take their place. An exhausted sob caught in her throat when Merek’s bloodshot gray eyes met hers.

Chloe looked as drained as he felt. Every muscle and tendon in Merek’s body ached. His very bones ached. He’d burned through more magic in the last hour than he’d known he possessed. He was spent.

Shoving that thought away, he made himself keep moving and blocked a punch by a beefy elf. He rol ed his shoulder, brought his knuckles up in a quick jab to the big man’s kidneys, adding as much magic as he could to the blow. It wasn’t much, but it made the other man grunt and stagger backward into a werewolf terrorist, giving Merek precious seconds to breathe.

He saw when things went south the moment before they did. Alex was holding his own against a warlock who was as drained as the rest of them. It was the female vampire who fucked things. Time stretched into slow motion as he watched her slam a fresh magazine into a Beretta and swing it around to point at Alex.

Merek didn’t hesitate, didn’t think, just launched himself forward and prayed he made it in time. One step, two, and he was airborne, catching the wolf around waist and sending the boy crashing to the carpet.

Merek’s body jerked as searing heat and power slammed into his back, his side, his chest, spinning him around like a puppet with broken strings. Another strike to his chest, and one to his injured leg that drove him into the floor.

Some part of his mind knew they were bul ets, that he’d been shot. More than once. But a haze swam through his consciousness, and he couldn’t seem to piece everything together. They were stil in danger. He should do something, but what that was drifted just beyond his grasp.

There was screaming, and golden flames danced in front of him, driving away the enemies. That was good. Alex stood over him, fangs bared, a roar of anguish and rage rending the air. Merek blinked in confusion as the world revolved around him. Someone was rol ing him onto his back.

“No! Please, no.” Chloe swirled before his eyes, her precious face tear-streaked. Her hands were frantic as they ripped open his shirt, but he knew she didn’t have enough magic left to stop al the bleeding. He could feel blood pumping out of him with every beat of his heart. “Don’t leave me, Merek. I need you. I love you! Please don’t leave me alone. Please! ”

He wanted to reach for her, wanted to touch her so badly, but he couldn’t make his arms move. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t warn her to run before they came for her, could only stare up into her hazel eyes. Her broken pleading trailed off into ragged weeping as she used al of her energy to try to pul bul ets from his body. A body he felt disconnected from. There was no pain, no panic . . . nothing.

It was funny. Al this time, he’d worried about failing her, about failing Alex, about not being able to protect them because he couldn’t see their future. About someone else he cared for dying on him. Now, he was going to fucking die on them, and who would protect them then?

Blackness edged into his vision, and he coughed, his mouth flooding with his own blood.

It tasted bitter.