Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 129268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
I’m not sure if this is going to be a bloodbath, or if Alec has a plan to capture the vampires and force them to face a trial. With every silent step, my heart races faster, prepared for what may come. It’s slow and steady, and every second tense and wound tight. We’re only about halfway there when a loud bang shocks the quiet night. It came from the warehouse a mile or two in front of us.
The vampires take off almost too fast to register, forming a blur in front of us. I push my limbs as fast as they can go, but it doesn’t even come close in comparison. Veronica’s form rushes past me and the gust of wind from her speed comes a second later.
“Stop.” Vince forces the word out as he gains momentum and nearly passes me. Veronica halts just outside the stairs to the warehouse. She’s fuming with rage and her chest is frantically heaving in air as her fists shake at her sides. Her dark eyes follow us as we get closer to her.
“Stay behind me.” Veronica doesn’t respond aloud to Vince’s command, but she doesn’t go in without him either.
The tension between those two is thick. It’s an unwanted distraction at this moment. If they can’t do this, if my attention is spent on the two of them being safe, this could all go to shit.
“I’ve got her,” he reassures me and I keep moving, passing her, following Alec as he sprints toward the double doors. All I can do is trust that he’s right, that she’ll catch on and that she’ll listen to him.
As I rush to come up behind Alec, keeping to his left, he lifts his hands and gestures in the air. The doors are torn off their hinges and crash hard on the cement as he nears them. It’s eerily quiet. Not at all what I expected. There’s a noticeable lack of gunshots or screaming. Nothing. I don’t trust it. My heart hammers in my chest. I slow my pace, planting one foot in front of the other and stand to the right of the opening as Vince and Veronica come up from behind me.
“I’ll go in first, follow behind. Don’t get blocked in, Vince. If I go down, run. Don’t look back.”
“Fuck off, Dev. That shit’s not happening.” I growl at his response, but quietly make my way through the doors. I sweep the room, aiming my gun to the right and left, quickly taking in my surroundings.
There are too many people in this space for me to feel anything close to comfortable. On the left half of the room are two witches, both female and both with pissed-off expressions and clearly irritated. I don’t recognize either of them, but their green eyes and wild red hair suggest they’re related.
In the center of the room are three humans bound and gagged, tied to chairs with silver rope. The acrid smell of their urine makes me cringe as they audibly struggle, their eyes wide with fear.
I walk in a slow line across the room, keeping my left shoulder pointed at the witches and my gun trained on the center of the room. Alec stands before the humans, but his eyes are on the eleven vampires off to the right. Behind them are two more sorcerers and a shifter, that fucker, Remy. Carol is also among them. If my math’s right, that makes eleven vampires and one shifter against three sorcerers, three witches, and the three of us. The numbers aren’t in our favor. But with our strength and the magic on our side, we should come out the victors, with little to no casualties. If they’re smart, they’ll surrender. But then again, if they were smart, they wouldn’t have crossed Alec.
Natalia stands in front of Alec, waiting for him to speak. She appears confident and strong before him, but the miasma of fear surrounds her. “We got here just before you. Luckily they were easy to round up.”
“Humans?” His question is laced with disbelief.
“We found two dead vampires in a silver cage in the back.” She gestures at them, then faces Alec and stares into his eyes as she faintly laughs. “These humans tried to outrun us.”
Heat engulfs me as the tension swells.
“Humans!” The room shakes with his anger as he roars the word. The witches to my left spread their arms wide as thunder explodes above us; the doors and windows of the warehouse suddenly close in on themselves, crumpling the steel and brick in an unnatural way, caging all of us in and cutting out all light save for the three large dome lights above us.
Fuck. My pulse hammers and I stay steady, prepared but on edge. Waiting and praying I don’t react too slowly.
Natalia shudders at the witches’ display of power. The vampires behind her shift slightly on their feet. Marcus and Theo slip their pointer fingers onto the trigger of the guns Alec gave them. They may be fast, but with nowhere to run, their speed will be irrelevant. Adrenaline spikes through me. A sweat breaks out along my skin and I welcome it. I crave to let my beast out, but I wait. Alec will give me a sign when it’s time. My body begs to shift, I remember the gun and fight the need to shift even harder.