The humans who’d stopped to stare in dazed confusion now bolted blindly away from the scene. One after another, they streamed past Brynne in the SUV, shrieking as they raced for cover.
It was just what the pair of predators wanted.
They vaulted airborne, leaping over Brynne’s vehicle and several others in one fluid bound. The fleeing humans in their sights didn’t stand a chance.
But that didn’t mean Brynne wasn’t going to try to save at least some of them.
She was Breed too—something even deadlier than that, thanks to the genetic cocktail that had spawned her. Whether armed with weapons or her bare hands, she was a nightmare neither of these two fucks would be expecting.
Jumping out of the SUV, she had her fists full of the first Rogue’s shirt in a split second. She took him down to the asphalt. Her knee planted firmly in the center of his spine, the Bloodlusting male went wild, snarling and struggling in an effort to shake her off. Brynne seized the vampire’s skull and gave it a sharp twist, snapping bone and tendons.
She released the dead Rogue, her eyes already piercing the night to track her next target.
There he was. While she’d paused to deal with his companion, the other Rogue had enough time to pluck one of the stragglers from the herd. Snatching a rangy human male under his arm, the vampire dodged into a side alley to enjoy his spoils.
“Shit.”
Brynne was rounding the corner in a heartbeat, but she was already moments too late.
The Rogue had the human down on the pavement, his fangs sunk deep in the front of the man’s throat, greedily taking his fill while his victim convulsed and sputtered wetly under the assault.
Brynne’s bile rose at the sight.
“Get off him.”
Her voice was an airless growl of sound, nothing like she’d heard before. It was her own hunger clawing at her, making her mouth feel desert dry and her vision burn hot with amber light. Twined with her battle rage, she was something beyond formidable now.
The Rogue grunted, swinging his head around to look for the source of the intrusion.
And although his mind was gone, his senses owned by the Bloodlust that made him Rogue, he apparently still had some small spark of sanity—enough to make his own glowing eyes go a bit wider in his skull as he registered what he was up against.
But the madness in him overruled everything else.
Still in his crouch, the Rogue let go of the dying human and swiveled on his bare heels, ready to face off with Brynne to defend his prey.
Brynne braced for the attack she knew was coming. On a roar, the feral vampire flew at her.
Instead of letting his greater weight and unhinged fury catapult her backward, she took hold of him and spun, using his forward momentum to pivot them together in midair. Then she shoved hard, slamming the Rogue into the wall of the brick building at his back.
The wall shook, old mortar crumbling with the impact. The Rogue was dazed from the crushing strike, but he wasn’t down. He came at her again, another ferocious leap and crash that hurtled them both across the narrow alley to the wall on the other side.
She grunted in sharp pain as her back collided into the bricks. The Rogue dropped her, letting her sag to the ground. He rocked back on his heels as if to ready himself for the killing blow. As if he’d won.
Brynne’s smile was not her own. It belonged to the beast inside her. The one whose power surged inside her now, more lethal than anything this lowly blood addict would ever know.
She rose like a wraith in front of the Rogue. He had no chance to react, no chance to stop the violence that exploded out of her.
She lashed out, lightning-quick. Her fingers ripped through clothing, flesh, and bone. The Rogue roared as she opened his chest with slashing strikes of her hands, his agony only feeding her power.
His chest cavity shredded, the Rogue shrieked and convulsed on his feet. But that wasn’t enough for the monster raging within her now.
Grabbing a fistful of the vampire’s mangy hair, she bellowed with battle fury as she drove the vampire’s head into the bricks at her back. The skull caved in with a sickening crunch.
She smashed it again and again, lost to an unearthly violence that seethed through her veins like poison. She didn’t know what finally made her head clear enough to realize her opponent was dead.
But no, that wasn’t right.
She did know.
The scent of fresh blood lifted her chin from the revolting carnage she’d wrought.
On the ground nearby, the human was shuddering in a growing pool of red. He was dying. Easily only moments from the grave already.
But his blood was still alive.
And it called to her.
It called to the beast who’d been pacing its cage for too long—since the last time she’d finally broken down and fed. She hungered now. So severely she could hardly stand the agony of it.
Brynne drifted over to the man. His gaping, sightless eyes probably didn’t register the inhuman face looking down at him.
But Brynne saw what she looked like now.
In the scant light of the street, she saw her face reflected in the glossy surface of the dying man’s blood.
It made her want to weep, that reflection of who—and what—she truly was.
Instead, she knelt down beside her dying blood Host…and she fed.
CHAPTER 19
Zael sensed the sudden shift of energy in the Order’s headquarters even before he heard the heavy drum of boots on marble floors and the jangle of weapons. Following the sound down to the central artery of the command center, he found all of the warriors suited up and rolling out for patrols.
Or, rather, for battle.
“What’s going on?”
Lucan cut him a stark glance. “Rogues. We’ve got upwards of a dozen of them on the loose right now.”
Zael knew the derogatory term for a blood-addicted member of the Breed. In fact, there probably wasn’t
