Page 47

Even that contact was too much, too intimate. “Back off,” she commanded through gritted teeth.

He canted his head, saying in a slow drawl, “Make me.”

For half a second, she debated using the self-defense moves Liam taught her. Only, she imagined this guy got off on pain. If she kneed him in the balls, he’d consider it foreplay.

Thenithappened.

He touched her.

His disgusting fingers trailed up her thigh, her hip, her waist. Higher.

Sharp breaths rattled her chest. Having Victor violate her mind was bad enough. She sure as hell wasn’t letting this asshat violate her body.

When he grazed the side of her breast, something dark stirred at her core.

From the moment Liam’s assassin fired that first shot, she’d been nothing but a pawn. Helpless, injured, subject to Jericho’s and Victor’s demands. She was sick of it.

“Release me,”whispered the voice from the well.

She grabbed the man’s wrist, snarling, “I said, don’t touch me.” Rage boiled, and she nursed the flames, gave it fuel, pushed it to the surface. It rose up, scrabbling from the darkest depths of her soul.He resists me? Not for long.She let the searing energy build, then punched through his mental blocks. Once inside, she took the fear he’d instilled in her and shoved it right back at him—tenfold.

All the fear she’d experienced from the moment two vampires broke down her door and snapped her father’s neck. Fear as their fangs tore her flesh. Fear when a bullet nailed her shoulder. Fear as Liam blocked shot after shot in her defense.

The bastard’s sneer pulled into an expression of terror. He paled and dropped to his knees.

“Feel it. Feel all of it, you sick bastard.” Fire licked up her spine, darkness rising. She crammed the emotion down his throat, gave him every shred of her misery. “Tell me again how you like them feisty,” she demanded in a voice she didn’t recognize.

He shook in her grasp, his expression agonized. “Stop,” he groaned. “Let me go. I swear, this wasn’t my idea.”

The door swung open. “Slade? What are you doing in here?”

Alex released him, and he stumbled in his haste to escape, the over-confident male now pale and shivering.

His savior, a vampire with a blond buzz-cut and immaculate fatigues, caught him, bracing an arm around his back and flicking Alex a wide-eyed expression of alarm. “By the gods. Do you know who she belongs to? Good thing I found you instead of Jericho.”

Alex sagged against the bookshelf, her legs two gelatinous pillars of Jell-O.

“What in hell-fire happened in here?” Buzz-cut asked, supporting his rattled friend with an awkward one-arm embrace. “You look like you just stared death in the face.”

Slade straightened and shook him off, color flooding his cheeks. “Fuck you, Adam. Get the hell off me.” He smacked the vampire’s hands from his arm.

While Slade smoothed his leather duster, Adam turned to her, concern creasing his brow. “Are you all right, miss?” Unlike his partner, he had kind eyes and respectful mannerisms. He struck her as the kind of guy who’d pick your books up after the school bully stole your lunch money.

She heaved a breath and nodded. As she took in Slade’s haunted expression, reality washed over her.

What did I just do?

Boots pounded down the hallway. Moving fast.

“Alex?” Jericho called out.

He sped into the library, golden eyes surveying the scene, and leveled Slade with a dark glare. “I told you you’d only get one warning.” He cranked back his fist.

Adam thrust himself between the two warriors, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Jericho, wait. I’m sure Slade didn’t—”

“Jericho?” Alex called out as her Jell-O legs liquefied, and she slid to the floor.

Before his name had barely parted her lips, he was at her side.