The room erupted in screams and shouts. Time seemed to slow down around me.
“Buggering hell,” I heard Rans mutter, followed an instant later by the sound of splintering wood as he wrenched all four heavy rings free of the sawhorse, freeing himself and swinging to his feet in a single lithe movement.
He pressed one of his hidden daggers into my grip hilt-first, and I stared at it stupidly for a moment. “Stay back, and don’t let any of them cut you off from the exit,” he growled. “This is going to get messy.”
He shot a glare at the woman who’d intruded on us as he delivered the final words. Connections clicked into place inside my head, completely separate from the panic that was trying its best to strangle me.
The strange woman was a demon. She had to be. But what the hell was she doing here?
Rans was already gone, flinging himself toward the group of creeps approaching us. In mere seconds, the room had nearly emptied. After seeing one of their number brutally murdered without warning, it looked like the rest of the security staff had decided that the safest course of action was to retreat, presumably to call the police.
A horrible feeling of déjà vu settled over me. These days, the police were questionable allies at best. Everything inside me wanted to collapse into human hysteria, but my freshly engorged magical core coiled warm and restless, keeping my spine straight and my weight balanced lightly over the balls of my feet in the impractical boots I was wearing.
I had to fight the urge to round on the demon and demand to know what the fuck she was playing at, bringing this shitstorm down on us in a place filled with innocent people. I knew I couldn’t afford to let my attention wander, but from the corner of my eye, I could see her watching the group of bikers with what looked like utter boredom.
Rans slammed into the lead goon and knocked his knife-hand to one side. His eyes blazed with inner light. “Drop your weapon,” he snapped.
The goon didn’t drop his weapon. His face didn’t take on that dazed look I’d seen other people exhibit beneath Rans’ vampiric gaze. If anything, Rans looked even more surprised than I felt, but an instant later he forgot about mesmerizing his opponent in favor of dropping him with a vicious roundhouse to the jaw.
“Zorah!”
I jumped in surprise at the sound of Len’s voice calling my name. In the next moment, he was beside me—his hand wrapping around my upper arm. “C’mon, girl, we need to get you out of here.”
His expression was grim; his face pale beneath his tanned skin.
I balked. “I’m not leaving Rans!” I insisted. “Go—get Tristan and get the hell out of here! We’ll catch up!”
A flash of red hair showed that Tristan was attempting to hustle the female demon toward the exit, even as Rans threw a second man over his shoulder and sent a third flying backward with a kick to the stomach. He was trying not to kill them, I realized. His other dagger was still in his hand, but he hadn’t used it yet.
“I’m serious, Zorah,” Len said. “It looks from here like your boy can take care of himself.”
There was a faint aura of disbelief in his tone, probably because Rans was fighting with speed and strength bordering dangerously close to inhuman. I might be used to it, but anyone who didn’t know about the existence of other worlds and nonhuman species would find it hard to believe what they were seeing. Len was still tugging at me, and mindful of what Rans had said about not allowing our retreat to be cut off, I let him pull me toward the door.
Only two of the goons were still on their feet. One of them reached around his back. He came up with a snub-nosed revolver, but some jolt of instinct intertwined with my succubus magic had already reacted. I shoved Len away from me as hard as I could, even as the gun barrel lifted, pointing toward me. I dove in the other direction just as a loud noise thundered through the dungeon and a burning line of pain branded itself across my shoulder.
The endless sparring sessions with Rans had me tucking and rolling instinctively. I sprang into a crouch, trying to see where the shooter was now. Something warm and wet dribbled down my arm, but I couldn’t spare the attention for it. My eyes landed on the shooter again, only to find him once again steadying his aim at me. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Mist swirled around me, solidifying into a familiar form. Rans curled his body around mine just as three more loud noises echoed around the room. Blam! Blam! Blam! The hard form sheltering me jerked with each explosion of sound. Rans grunted and went down under the third impact, dragging me with him.
“No!” I screamed, trying to grab his shoulders and somehow keep him upright.
“Get the other one! I’ll take care of this bitch,” snarled Mr. Tall, Dark, and Violent—the only goon still standing other than the shooter.
“Jesus!” I heard Tristan yell. “No—stay behind me, lady!”
Another loud blast, and someone cried out in pain.
“Tris!” Len shouted.
No, no, no, I mentally chanted, feeling everything spiral out of control. Rans tried to push himself upright, only to stagger back to one knee. Tall, Dark, and Violent was striding toward us, while the goon with the gun fumbled in his pocket, presumably for fresh ammo.
Len slammed into the gunman with a snarl, sending the revolver skittering off to one side. Something powerful and frightening rose inside me with a burning heat of anger that I’d never felt before. Suddenly, my magic was no longer some strange and unknown thing hidden deep inside me, largely out of reach. Now, it was a tool. A weapon, straining and begging to be used.
I
