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Whatever Jem was doing up there, Nick could feel it winding down.

Whether that meant the seer had hit all the targets he’d wanted to hit, or if Jem sensed his own opening coming to an end, Nick didn’t know. It amounted to the same in the end. If Nick was going to stop this without his boyfriend ending up dead, he had to act now.

A whisper of unease reached him that he was stalking his own mate.

Fuck that. Fuck any moralistic bullshit around using force.

Jem would do it for him. Jem would knock the shit out of him if their positions were reversed, if that was the only way he could bring Nick in alive. Nick would do the same for Jem. Hell, he’d bite him and venomize him into unconsciousness if he got half a chance.

Better that than waiting for Black to catch up with him, much less Cowboy.

A fuck of a lotbetter that than letting Brick and his coven take him.

Nick’s resolution strengthened.

He listened up at the closed door a last time.

It was darker up here. The lightbulbs had burned out on this landing and the next––or, more likely, they’d been smashed by Jem––but Nick’s vampire eyes would have seen any movement in those spaces, and heard the slightest breath in a human or a seer’s lungs.

Satisfied it wasn’t a trap, at least not yet, Nick leapt forward and to his left, in the direction of the wooden railing. He planned to balance up there, light as a cat, then run the rest of the wayup to the door. He should be inside that room in less than five seconds.

He launched his whole body into the air––

––and something slammed into him, hard.

He had a vague awareness that, whatever it was, it had swung down from the shadows and the rafters above the last segment of stairs. It felt like it had come from nowhere, too quickly for Nick to compensate, but his vampire eyes caught the edge of that darkness.

The blow was precise.

Booted feet hit into his back, right between his shoulder blades.

Nick missed his footing on the narrow wooden railing. He flipped head-forward, and over the railing entirely, instead. He managed to catch himself on a segment of railing below, but before he could throw himself over it and onto the stairs, something big, heavy, and strong leapt directly onto his back.

“Fuck!” he snarled.

His fangs extended, his vision turning dark red.

Before he could turn his head––

––he felt the sharp, unmistakeable pain of fangs sinking into his skin.

“Sorry, dearest one,” a familiar, silky voice whispered in his ear.

The bannister Nick was gripping in both hands cracked, then gave way.

He fell, snarling, unable to stop himself.

The being on his back clamped a strong arm around his throat, then another pinning his arms to his sides.

Nick couldn’t catch onto the next glimpse of railing… or the next.

He fell like a steel girder.

Nick had long known that the age of a vampire determined its strength and speed far more than any visible musculature. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with that knowledge in a real, hands-on way, however. He thrashed and kicked against the other vampire’s hold on him, trying to get free, but he didn’t make any headway before he slammed into the floor at the base of the stairs.

He barely managed to get his knees and shins under him to keep his head from landing first. The vampire gripping him quickly remedied that.

He held Nick upright, then kicked his legs out from under him.