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…a new variable.

Something that hadn’t been in the painting. Something that had been out of frame, just like Nick, and Morley, and Forrest Keanu Walker and his harem of sexy vampires.

A jet fighter screamed overhead.

A line of fire ripped up the ground in front of the portal, slamming into the doppelganger where he stood, less than ten feet from the writhing, glowing opening.

Wynter jumped back, and somehow not a single bullet touched her.

The doppelganger fell to his back…

…and immediately began to scream.

Smoke rose from his exposed face and neck.

He writhed on the ground like a flipped turtle, screaming and screaming, and Nick didn’t understand why he didn’t get up…

…until he looked at his shoulder and saw his wife’s boot there.

She held him down, hatred in her eyes as she kept him in the sun, as its heat and light seared and ripped into his already disappearing flesh, turning it rapidly, dramatically red, then purple, then brown, then black…

Nick didn’t wait.

He’d already begun to fight.

CHAPTER34

NEWBORN

Nick foughtthe vampire’s holding him with every ounce of strength he had. He wrenched free of their chalk white hands. He punched two of them in the mouth, using both fists in a chopping down, sideways blow, which was all he could manage with his wrists cuffed.

When the smaller of the two broke and ran, Nick took the opening.

Turning to the other vamp, he wrenched the black, sun-blocking umbrella free of his fingers, then immediately turned and punched him in the face with the handle.

The vamp’s nose broke, gushing blood.

He let out a squeal of pain.

Then he was running too, receding back into the shadowed jungle.

Nick didn’t wait.

He turned, looking for his wife.

Then he began to run.

He grew dimly aware of commotion around him. Some part of him even knew it was a lot of commotion. More bullets hammered down, going after vampires in the trees. Newborns screamed and scattered, heading for vehicles down the opposite side of the hill.

Just about every vampire who had come up here with the doppelganger was running, disappearing into the woods, wrenched free of the control of their sire’s mind when he fell to the ground and began to burn.

Nick barely looked at his doppelganger.

He looked only at his wife.

He ran for her, frantic with worry, still scared out of his mind, even though she was also running to him. He heard another jet thunder by above, and more gunfire ripping through the bushes and trees, but he didn’t slow his steps. Some of the forms behind him were firing back at the passing plane, probably the uniformed soldiers, but most of those were running now, too, bolting after the newborns, heading into the trees and ducking when a third jet swooped past and lit the ground up with small-arms fire.

Nick heard all of it because he was a vampire.