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Except Dani was on the floor beneath him now, her fragile body hidden beneath his as a continuous spray of bullets rained down upon them, her mouth hanging open as if she were screaming, though the sounds of more than one semi-automatic made it impossible to hear.

But that didn’t matter now. She was safe. Alive, even if she hated him.

And Corbin still wasn’t ready to give up his revenge just yet.

With Dani still pinned beneath him, he slung his other arm over his head like a buffer. His gaze darted toward Lucien, where the ancient vampire now attempted to worm his way out beneath the continuous spray of bullets, army crawling amongst the blood and bodies that littered the floor. Bodies Corbin held little concern for.

“Kharis!” he bellowed, his voice barely audible above the spray of gunfire.

Gunfire that he’d ordered. That he’d planned for from the beginning. Long before Dani had become a part of it.

Kharis was already moving, striding forward with a semi-automatic, prepared to take the shot for him. The Greek shifted the metal of his magazine, slipping it into gear.

From beneath him, Dani screamed. “No!”

She saw what was coming, even before Corbin did.

The moment Kharis pulled the trigger, barely breathing, the leashed human woman leaped in front of Lucien once more, eyes glazed from where she’d been glamoured, manipulated into taking one final bullet for him.

Lucien had known. He’d fucking known.

Corbin roared his fury.

The bullet pierced straight between the woman’s eyes, killing her in an instant. As Dani would have been forced to do for Cillian once before.

Dani shrieked from beneath him, bucking wildly, like an injured beast wishing to be put out of her misery. Or wishing to kill him. He wasn’t certain, which of her priorities came first.

For a moment, Corbin’s eyes were drawn to her, but then Kharis was shouting at him, the sound ringing in his ears.

“Corbin!”

He had a shot. Lucien’s back was wide open. This was his chance.

Corbin staggered to his feet, lifting his gun and taking his aim.

This was it. Everything he’d waited a century for.

But he hadn’t accounted for the woman at his side. The one who, now free, lunged at him, clawing at his face.

“How could you? How could you?” Dani shrieked, as she knocked his aim askew.

His gun fired too far to the right, decimating his aim.

Still, the bullet caught Lucien in his lower back.

But one bullet wasn’t enough to keep down an ancient vampire as powerful and old as Lucien. He would manage to get away, past Corbin’s other men, running like the coward he was then.

Corbin swayed where he stood, covered in blood, his hair littered in glass shards, shaking from head to toe. Dani lay on the ground at his feet then, though he wasn’t quite certain how she’d gotten there. She was screaming still, guttural, heart wrenching cries where she lay on his Armani shoes. Corbin didn’t glance toward her, vaguely realizing he’d never smelled the scent of human tears before.

They tasted like sorrow and melancholy, and every ounce of grief he’d ever tried to forget. Or maybe, it was simplyDani’stears.

One more way in which she was destroying him.

Kharis moved toward him. “Corbin, he—”

“Find him,” Corbin hissed, his eyes crazed. “Find him! Did you hear me?” he roared.

Those of his men who were still standing, which was thankfully, all but a few, moved into action, whilst Kharis and Fox began to stake any vampire still alive in the room, any among them who wasn’t their own. It took more than a few bullets to end them.