“Let’s get this started.I’ll give you first shot because I’ve got what, one bullet, two if you thought he was a poor shot?”Nix said.
There went not killing anyone and the deal he’d had with the Reids.They weren’t getting out of this.
“Ma’am, if we don’t go now?—"
“Kill them both and let the cops deal with the mess.”Then she turned and walked away.
Nix had the gun trained on her back.Lance knew he should tackle him or do something to prove he was still an Orlan in more than name, but they thought he was little more than a used paper cup.He wasn’t sitting in prison for the rest of his life for a crime he hadn’t done.
Bullets punched through the air, and Nix dragged him to the ground as they sliced past where he’d been a moment before.
Nix fired one shot up into a window, and glass rained down on fleeing vampires.There was no second shot.He swore.Lance pulled the knife from his boot.Nix’s knife.
Something hit Lance in the arm.Nix grunted, doubling over.
Smoke filled the room, and men shouted, “Get on the floor!”
Nix crawled toward the smoke instead of away, moving slowly as though being dragged through mud, and Lance followed, his arm heavy, blood staining his shirt.Something struck his leg.It was bullets hitting him, he realized, and while they stung, he’d expected them to hurt more.
They were caught between the cops and the Orlans.
Heavily armed men in black moved through the smoke.Nix lay down, hands on the back of his head before they even reached him.It was only then Lance saw the puddle pooling beneath Nix, staining the concrete floor.Spreading with every heartbeat.
Lance tried to move toward him but couldn’t.He’d been shot with silver.
He was vampire enough that the silver in the bullets made him immobile.All he could do was watch the blood spread as Nix died for the second time.
ChapterThirty-Three
There was onlyone thing worse than being shot, and that was being aware of someone digging around for the bullet and not being able to tell them they were off by about two centimeters to the right.Nix managed a groan.
He had no idea where he was, only that he was cold, it was dark, and he wasn’t in the boot of a car, which was a win as far as he was concerned.
“Got it,” an unfamiliar male voice said.
The relief when the hand and the bullet were pulled out of Nix’s gut made him gasp, and he was able to draw in a full breath of air.He was still cold, and hot blood was sluicing over his skin.His fangs were down, and he was shaking.
Shock.Now the silver was out, his body could process the damage.
He was going to bleed out if his body didn’t start healing.He blinked as the room got lighter.It wasn’t dark; his eyes had been shut.He tried to talk again.This time, it was less of a moan and more of a strangled cry that he imagined roadkill might make in its final moments.
These were not his final moments.Vampires didn’t die easy.
He turned his head as his vision sharpened, trying to work out if he was getting helped or if Lance’s mother was coming at him with the gardening shears.He twitched his fingers making sure they were still all there, then did the same with his toes.
All attached.
Where was Lance?He lifted his hand to try and stem the bleeding in his gut.
“Lie still,” the strange man said.
Nix sniffed.He didn’t know him.Didn’t trust him.Didn’t know where he was or where Lance was.“Nuhhh.”
“The bullets are out, and you’re getting IV blood.I’m stitching the ruptured blood vessel to slow the bleeding, and I don’t want your grubby hands getting in the way.You’ll feel better faster if you eat.”
Despite his fangs being down, Nix wasn’t sure he could eat anything.How much stomach did he have left?He turned his head away.There was tugging in his gut, which he assumed was the man stitching up something that was leaking pretty badly.
“On the menu is a delicious unblooded vampire who needs to lose six pints to be turned.”The man leaned over and shone a light in Nix’s eyes.“You were further gone than I thought.Can you see?”
