Blood Possession (39 page)

Don reloaded his gun and nodded.

Roger looked down at the raven-haired beauty—the one the second woman had called Ciopori—and a slow, vindictive smile curved the corner of his mouth. “No worries, sir. This one is as good as dead.”

Nathaniel Silivasi heard a woman scream in the basement of the clinic, but it wasn’t Jocelyn or Ciopori. “What the hell—”

Before he could finish his sentence, there was a loud explosion. The sound of bone splintered off a wall, footsteps reverberated on the basement
ceiling,
and an utter explosion of gunfire erupted down below. His heart skipped a beat. “Marquis!”

The Ancient Master Warrior was already gone, dematerializing out of the room.

Nathaniel, Kagen, and Marquis materialized at the same time, each appearing at the bottom of the basement staircase. Although it felt like an eternity, in truth, it only took the males a fraction of a second to analyze the situation with all five of their senses—and take in all the details…

And what they saw stole the air from their lungs.

Ciopori was slumped over at the far end of the hall. She was lying on her side like a broken rag doll in a shallow pool of blood, and there was a thick wooden stake protruding out of her chest. The stake had penetrated all the way through the cavity to her back, and it stuck out from the rear like a macabre pole on a carousel. She appeared dead, yet less than six inches away, a human male stood over her with a garish, curved machete held tightly in his hand, preparing to do her further damage.

A second gunman stood in the middle of the corridor—his feet spaced evenly apart, a nine-millimeter semiautomatic in his right hand—like some sort of Johnny-come-lately prison guard patrolling the hall. He had a tight black skull-trim, and his weapon had been recently fired. With sweat trickling down his anxious brow, he stood at an even distance between Ciopori and—

Jocelyn.

Oh dear, goddess, no!

Nathaniel felt a cold surge of rage sweep over his body, and he had to force his mind to focus: Jocelyn was also lying in an unnatural heap in the middle of the hall. Her body was riddled with bullets, there was a red tranquilizer dart sticking out of her left shoulder, and a tall human male with a Mohawk was looming over her, his face distorted with hatred. The machete in the man’s hand was raised high, held taut, and ready to swing. He also possessed a nine-millimeter that was tucked into the back of his waistband, and Nathaniel could still smell the gunpowder from its recent use. Nathaniel’s body practically hummed with the need to spill the human’s blood.

Both women were about to be beheaded.

Unwilling to risk the heartbeat it might take to get to his mate’s side, Nathaniel waved his hand through the air and froze Jocelyn’s assailant in place. Glaring at the flesh-and-bone statue, he threw back his head and roared his rage. His fangs punched out of his mouth with such force that his gums began to bleed as he stalked down the hall toward the breathing corpse about to behead his
destiny
in front of him.

Marquis moved just as swiftly.

In a series of movements so sudden they could hardly be seen, he materialized beside Ciopori, plunged an iron fist straight through her attacker’s solar plexus, clutched his spine with his fist, and pulled. In one harsh, angry tug, he tore the man’s spinal column free from his body and tossed it aside, away from Ciopori. In a final moment of irony, the body remained upright—still standing, machete in hand—as if it had not yet recognized it was no longer living, and then it slumped to the ground in a lifeless pile. And Marquis kicked it aside.

Kagen approached the guard in the middle of the hall calmly.

Too calmly.

His fangs remained retracted, his eyes a solid, deep brown. He didn’t growl or snarl or make any threats; he simply strolled down the hall in a leisurely manner, smiling and licking his lips, until he stood like a lifelong friend in front of the alarmed human. “Good afternoon,” he drawled pleasantly, as if welcoming the intruder into his home.

The human freaked out.

He shoved his gun into Kagen’s ribs and began to unload a fresh magazine.

Kagen jerked in surprise…and then he laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned; you’ve got diamond dust in those bullets.” He waited until the magazine was empty, and then he reached down, palmed the hot piece of iron in his fist, and crumpled it like a piece of paper, tossing it to the side. He ran his fingers along the fresh wounds in his side. “How rude,” he growled, leaning forward to speak directly in the man’s ear. And then he held out his hand as if to make a formal introduction. “And you are?”

Petrified—and completely off balance—the human took his hand. “Uh…Donald.”

Kagen gripped Donald’s hand, smiling as he crushed the bones into dust.

The man’s face grew pale, and he cried out in agony.

Kagen clucked his tongue three times and shook his head. “Shh, Donald—no need for all that drama.” He lifted him by the neck, crushed his vocal cords, and then held him high in the air in front of him, dangling by the strength of one hand. “You see, this is my clinic—my home.” He glanced at Ciopori and Jocelyn. “And these are my sisters.” His fangs elongated, dripping with lethal venom. “And you, sir, are not welcome.” He drew back his arm and slammed the man’s face into the side of the wall, flattening his head like a pancake. As he dropped the twitching body, he booted it to the ceiling, where it actually stuck for a couple of seconds before falling down.

Nathaniel thought very little about what he had just seen: His mind was too consumed in its own red haze of rage. He had reached the man with the Mohawk, unconsciously releasing him from his paralysis, and the human had dropped his machete, screamed like a girl, and started to run. Nathaniel had side-stepped in front of him to block his path.

Now, as they continued to do a back-and-forth dance, Nathaniel remained acutely—and only—aware that the fool was blocking his path to Jocelyn. As he stared absently at the
destiny
he loved more than his own life, lying injured and still on the floor just beyond the ridiculous human, his vision went blurry—a deep, hazy black—and then it slowly dialed back into focus.

He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “I have neither the time nor the inclination to play with you, human.” His voice sounded distant, even to his own ears. “I have never met anyone so eager to be killed, to suffer a slow, endless torment, yet I haven’t the time to accommodate you.” He smiled a hate-filled grin. “I tell you what; ask me for your death, and I will give it to you swiftly.” Each word was punctuated on a feral hiss.

The human trembled in his boots, unable to reply. A quick glance into his mind told Nathaniel that the man was beyond coherent thought. He was in shock. And utterly desperate to live.

As if…

Shoving his way so hard into the human’s brain that it instantly caused a migraine, Nathaniel implanted a powerful compulsion: “Beg me for your death
now
, and let us get on with it.”

Clasping his ears with both hands, the man fell to his knees. “P…p…please…kill me, sir. I beg you.”

Nathaniel bent over, picked up the man’s dropped machete, placed it in his right hand, and shoved him face-down on the floor. Pitching his voice in a deep lilt of persuasion, he whispered: “Do it yourself.” When the human looked confused, he gestured at the machete. “Remove one body part at a time. Start with your feet and work your way up…but save the vital organs for last, lest you die too soon.” He spat on the back of his neck. “Oh, and stack the pieces neatly in a pile…since you won’t be around to clean up the mess.” He shrugged. “I guess I changed my mind about killing you…
swiftly
.”

As he stepped over the horrified human on his way to Jocelyn, he caught a glimpse of Marquis and Ciopori: His brother had just lifted his
destiny
into his arms and was about to examine her piercing, when they all heard the soft scrape of a chair coming from the supply room at the end of the hall.

“There are more of them?” Kagen asked, incredulous.

Nathaniel turned and snarled. “By the gods, we don’t have time for these fools.”

Marquis was shaking with the need to kill, but he stayed exactly where he was: Clearly, he wasn’t about to leave Ciopori’s side. “Kagen, find them—and bring them out alive.” The tone of Marquis’s voice brooked no argument as he glanced down at his mate and swiftly pulled the stake free from her chest. “The man I killed was not the one who did this.” He placed his hand firmly over the wound and applied pressure to staunch the bleeding. “Whoever did this is mine.”

Kagen nodded, turned on his heel, and started down the hall toward the supply room.

“Wait,” Nathaniel called, his voice thick with anguish. “Let me go after them.” He removed the tranquilizer from Jocelyn’s shoulder and gathered her tight against his body, wrapping his warmth around her in a gentle embrace. “I don’t trust myself to heal her right now.” He realized how absurd that sounded. After all, how many battles had they been through? How many life-threatening wounds had they healed? But he just didn’t care. This was not a hardened warrior from the house of Jadon. This was not even one of his beloved siblings.

This was his
destiny
.

“Jocelyn needs you now, healer…right now,” Nathaniel implored.

Kagen stopped abruptly and rushed to Jocelyn’s side.

“Gods…there are so many bullet wounds,” Nathaniel murmured, slowly lowering her back to the floor so Kagen could take over. He looked up at his twin and frowned. “She’s losing so much blood. Too much blood. You have to stop the bleeding, Kagen—I want you to remove the bullets—
now
.”

Kagen placed a firm, reassuring hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder and nodded. “Then let me take her to surgery, Nathaniel. I can work far more efficiently upstairs.” He inclined his head toward the supply room. “Tie up the captives; secure the clinic; and meet us up there.”

For the first time, Nathaniel noticed Kagen’s injuries as well. His twin’s torso was littered with bullet wounds, diamond-encrusted bullet wounds, which had to burn like hell, not to mention sap his strength. Kagen had also lost a great deal of blood—and was still losing it—yet he acted as if nothing had happened. How was he still standing? “Can you work like this?” Nathaniel asked, ashamed that he hadn’t considered his twin’s health sooner.

Kagen nodded. “I am in no danger of passing out…at least not for a while. And the pain is tolerable.”

Nathaniel knew that his twin was lying. He knew that it was only a deep, abiding love for his family that kept Kagen upright, and he also knew that Kagen would never accept assistance until the women were out of danger…and any further threat was eliminated: Kagen may have been a healer, but like all the Vampyr, the warrior’s code was bred into their DNA.

Nathaniel met Kagen’s eyes and held his gaze. And then he bowed his head, however indistinctly, and averted his eyes in a show of profound respect. “You honor me, brother.” He reached down and took Jocelyn’s hand in his own, gripping it with a fierce protectiveness. “Do not let her—”

“Don’t even speak it,” Kagen cut him off, his voice clear and insistent. “Nathaniel Jozef Silivasi, her head is intact. Her heart is intact. You are in my clinic, and I have plenty of stored blood and venom—Marquis’s venom,
Napolean’s
venom.
She will live.”

Nathaniel nodded, but he didn’t let go. “I know. It’s just…”

Kagen’s voice brushed gently against the warrior’s mind in a private, intimate communication:
Nathaniel, there is no contingency in which your
destiny
leaves us this day. On the honor of the house of Jadon, I pledge this to you: She will live. I will heal her.

Nathaniel swallowed hard and rocked back on his heels, releasing Jocelyn into Kagen’s care. “Okay,” he mumbled, “do not let her suffer, Kagen…block her pain.”

Kagen smiled faintly. “I will care for her as you would.”

Nathaniel nodded and looked down the hall toward Marquis and Ciopori. Marquis was bent low over Ciopori’s chest, holding her in his massive arms like a boneless doll—her back sharply arched, his fangs full extended—as he furiously injected venom directly into her heart.

“Marquis?” Nathaniel called quietly.

She hasn’t lost as much blood as Jocelyn,
Marquis answered telepathically so that both brothers could hear.
The stake acted as a cork, blocking the flow. But the injury was to her heart, and that is very serious.

Kagen stood up, hefting Jocelyn as if she weighed no more than a feather. “Was it punctured or was it severed?” he asked Marquis.

What do you mean?
Marquis answered.

“Her heart: Was it severed from the chest cavity by the stake, or was it merely punctured?”

Merely?
Marquis growled in anger.

Nathaniel sighed. “Marquis, please, answer the question: Kagen needs to know.”

The heart is still attached,
Marquis said.

“Good,” Kagen said. “Then as awful as it looks, she is not critical. Continue to infuse her with venom until the opening repairs itself and all the wounds close. Then bring her upstairs to exam room three. I will have Katia attend to her, but odds are she will heal completely on her own.”