Fuck. That.
I stared into his muddy brown eyes as I reached out for the sickly grayish-green miasma of lust he was still emitting... and pulled. His eyes darkened, pupils blowing wide as he leered down at me. I could see his pitiful excuse for a cock twitch and harden in his tight pants as I dragged more and more energy from him, not stopping or letting up for even an instant.
The sound of blows landing on flesh as Len fought the other goon faded into the background. Nothing existed except me, and this man who wanted to rape and stab me until I was dead. My lips pulled back in a feral grin as fresh strength coursed into me, flowing from the well of his twisted sexual desires.
The man stumbled, confusion clouding his face as his knees wobbled and failed to hold him up. He crashed to the floor, and still I continued to draw on his animus. I pulled and yanked and tore at him until his body convulsed and started seizing like a palsy victim’s. Choking noises erupted from his throat.
“You can stop now, luv,” Rans said hoarsely. “You’ll only castigate yourself later if you end up killing him.”
Something snapped back into place inside my mind, and I gasped like someone surfacing from drowning.
“What?” I said faintly, staring in disbelief as my attacker... my victim?... twitched feebly on the floor a couple of feet away from us.
I cast my eyes around the dungeon, my heart slamming against my chest in double-time. The female demon stood near the door, looking down at Tristan curiously as he slumped on the floor, his arm pressed across a growing patch of dark wetness blooming on his stomach. His opponent overcome, Len ran and slid to a halt next to his boyfriend, crashing to his knees.
“Shit, no...” he whispered. His lip was split, and a livid bruise was already blooming across his cheekbone. “Shit! Let me see, Tris—”
I remembered the gunshots. “Rans?” I rasped in horror, trying to remind myself that I’d seen the vampire shake off a shotgun blast through the heart.
Rans was still bracing himself on one hand and one knee, but at least he hadn’t gone down the rest of the way.
“Your shoulder,” he grated.
I was confused for a moment before I remembered the burning brand of pain I’d felt after the first explosion from the gun.
“Fuck my shoulder!” I said, grabbing him by the upper arm and trying to haul him upright. “Help Tristan!”
He made it to his feet, hissing in pain, and staggered over to the others. Len had eased Tristan back to lie flat on the concrete floor. The poor guy was writhing in pain as Len put pressure on the wound. I blanched at the amount of blood seeping through his fingers, trying not to let the sight drag me into a full-blown PTSD flashback.
Rans’ eyes flashed icy blue fire at Len, but his voice was low and calm. “Back away from him, there’s a good chap. Be quiet, and let me work.”
I saw confusion and resistance chase themselves across Len’s features for only an instant before his expression went slack and he sat back on the floor, his red-stained hands sliding away from Tristan’s stomach.
Next, Rans met Tristan’s glazed eyes. “Take a nap for a few minutes, mate. And I’m sorry, because this is still going to hurt like a raging bitch.”
With that, Rans ripped open Tristan’s blood-soaked shirt, revealing the bullet wound. My vision went hazy at the sight. I swallowed hard, still fighting not to let my mind be dragged back to that awful summer twenty years ago when Mom was shot. Tristan’s eyes slid closed, his face smoothing into a similar dazed expression to Len’s. At the same time, his body relaxed, no longer trying to curl in on itself and protect the damage.
I didn’t know what I expected Rans to do, but when he slid the dagger blade into the bullet wound and sliced it wider, I cried out. Len’s gray eyes bugged. A choked noise escaped his throat, and his muscles jerked helplessly against the mental hold Rans had on him.
“Rans, what are you doing?” I demanded, about half a second away from lunging forward and trying to drag him away from Tristan.
“Trust me or don’t, damn it.” The words sounded like rocks grinding together. “But either way, stop distracting me unless you want this lad to die right here on the floor of a sex dungeon.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth, not sure if I was trying to keep more words from escaping, or my stomach contents. Rans set the dagger aside and pushed his fingers into the gaping wound. The world tilted in my vision and I turned away, unable to watch. That was a mistake, since my balance deserted me the instant I moved. I managed a marginally controlled collapse onto my knees, and the sharp pain as they made contact with the concrete went some way toward keeping me tethered to consciousness.
The sharp clink of something small and metal hitting the floor a few feet away reached my ears as if through a tunnel. Some part of my brain that hadn’t been reduced to gibbering uselessness put everything together. Rans had been removing the bullet—albeit in a way that would give any medical professional an aneurysm with its blatant disregard for both safety and cleanliness.
“Fucking silver,” Rans muttered. “Where the fuck do humans find shit like this? I mean, even in America, who the blazes sells silver bullets?”
I blinked, the words bringing me back to myself. Swallowing hard, I turned to look cautiously over my shoulder, bracing for the sight of gore. Rans had stopped bitching about
