Page 23

Garth locked gazes with Auberi, who currently had Nicolette shoved against a wall, his body protecting hers. An unspoken understanding passed between the men. She was to be protected, no matter the cost.

“Get down!”

yelled Nicolette again. This time she reached for Garth.

He bent just as a hole exploded in the door behind him, right where his chest would have been. He came up fast and struck a man trying to enter the room. He hit the man with such a force that he felt the man’s jaw shattering upon impact. Garth wasted no time. He let his claws emerge and he spun, slashing the man’s throat open wide. He kicked him back through the door, making the blood spray away from him.

Another man charged in, this one partially shifted. The smell of cat-shifter filled the room. Garth made a move to go at the man, only to find Boomer rushing the guy. It gave new meaning to the term cat fight, since Boomer was also a cat-shifter.

Auberi withdrew his sidearm and pointed at Garth. Prior to their come-to-Odin moment on the plane, Garth would have assumed the vampire was going to shoot him. He knew better now. He stepped to the right and Auberi took the shot, taking out another of the bad guys.

There was no shortage of them. Two dove through the front window and Garth bent before stiff-arming them at the same time. They went down hard. Shots rang out and the men’s bodies jerked. Garth knew without being told that Auberi had fired the kill shots.

Never did Garth think he’d see the day when he and the stiff got along on anything. Then again, he never imagined Auberi as his father-in-law either.

There was no way he could wrap his mind around that at the moment. No. That would take several bottles of vodka and therapy.

Nicolette screamed, and Garth twisted to find hybrids rushing in through a side window. The men stunk of decay. That meant they weren’t the cream-of-the-crop experiments Grid and The Corporation were so fond of. Garth had to wonder if that meant his brother was running an off-the-books mission.

Garth attacked one of the hybrids while Auberi went at another, keeping Nicolette pushed behind him.

Suddenly, there seemed to be far more bad guys than should be swarming around them. Garth did a partial shift, allowing his arms and upper body to increase in size and mass. His shirt pulled hard at his biceps, threatening to tear from the added girth.

He cut through three of the enemy and saw Boomer partially shifted as well, making short work of some others. As Garth spun around and delivered a wicked kick to a hybrid, he caught sight of Auberi being piled on by hybrids. There were too many for the vampire to handle alone. Garth fought faster, trying to get to the man and Nicolette.

A huge hybrid male who had skin rotting off one cheek made a play for Nicolette. Garth’s breath caught as he watched his mate bend, grab the very phone she’d nailed Striker with, and then proceed to beat the living hell out of the rotting hybrid before her.

“Take that!”

she yelled, giving the hybrid a stern look that really belonged more in her preschool classroom than in a battle for their lives. The look was that nonthreatening. “I will spoon you in the eye with this phone!”

Garth lifted a brow at her words and kept fighting against the enemy. He tripped over two dead bodies, and a hybrid used the moment to his advantage. He caught Garth’s upper arm with his clawed hand, slashing it open.

Nicolette screamed again, and Garth’s head filled with the sound of buzzing.

As the hybrid who had cut him went airborne, and then smashed against the wall like a bug on a windshield, Garth realized the buzzing was Nicolette’s doing. It was her power.

His eyes widened, and he made a mental note to avoid pissing her off.

Garth used his good arm to yank a hybrid off Auberi, who was now pinned to one of the beds by bad guys. Auberi hissed and bit the neck of the hybrid on him. When Auberi yanked his head back, the bad guy’s throat came with him, drenching Auberi in blood.

Nicolette hit another of the men on Auberi with the same phone she’d clearly mastered the art of weaponizing. The impact was hard enough for Garth to hear.

The hybrid fell away and stopped moving.

Nicolette looked up at Garth, her green eyes wide.

It took him a second to realize he was still partially shifted. He put his furred arms up. “I won’t hurt you!”

She pointed at something behind him.

He spun and found his brother there, holding Boomer off the ground by the throat. Garth knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his brother would snap Boomer’s neck without a second thought.

“Enough!”

said Garth, watching his brother closely. “I’m here. Let’s do this.”

Grid sneered, and Boomer slashed at him, catching Grid’s cheek in the process. Grid released the cat-shifter, and Boomer made a move to charge him.

“No!”

shouted Garth. “See to Auberi and Nicolette. I’ll deal with him.”

Boomer cast him a questioning look but nodded and went for Auberi, who was in the process of killing the last of the men near him. He also looked like someone had dumped buckets of blood on him. While that was normally a vampire’s idea of a kick-ass time, from the expression on Auberi’s face, he wasn’t happy.

“Brother, you didn’t tell me you claimed her,”

said Grid, holding Garth’s attention. “When we spoke last week, you never brought that up. Then again, you were having issues talking with your wolf riding high. So weak now.”

“Grid, I won’t pull punches. I won’t step in to protect you. We’re past all of that,”

warned Garth. “The time has come for you to pay for your crimes.”

“And you think you’re the one to make me pay?”

Grid asked, laughing and glancing past Garth at Nicolette. “Tell me something, brother, how are you going to hand out this justice when your mate and unborn babe are in danger?”

“Viking,”

said Auberi, his tone alarming. “Stand down.”

Confused, Garth glanced behind him to find the rotting-face hybrid was up and had Nicolette held off the ground, a clawed hand to the side of her head. Her eyes were moist, and she was even paler than normal. Fear radiated from her.

Grid’s words echoed in Garth’s head.

Mate and unborn babe?

Gasping, he stared at Nicolette’s stomach. She was expecting?

Auberi inclined his head as if reading Garth’s thoughts.

Garth’s hands trembled. “Step away from my mate or you won’t have to worry about botched science experiments being your downfall.”

“I shall assist,”

said Auberi, wiping a hand over his face and flicking blood to the floor. “Harm her in any way and you will beg us for death.”

Grid laughed more. “Take her out the side to the truck. If either of them blinks, tear her throat out.”

Garth’s breath caught. “Grid, no.”

“Beg all you want, brother. She is coming with me one way or another. The people I work with can learn from her dead body nearly as much as they can from her alive. Maybe even more.”

Garth looked at his brother. “This is not what Mother would have wanted. Brother against brother. One of our mates threatened. Or to see one of her sons become the same monster Father had been.”

Grid’s gaze narrowed. “Do you think Mother would have liked knowing one of our mates was drained of her blood and turned into a night feeder—a vampire?”

Confused, Garth lifted a brow. “Nicolette has vampire in her but she’s not a vampire.”

Grid snorted. “I know what she is and what she’s made of. After all, I’m the one who was there when she was born. I’m the one who sensed something was different with her. That she had a connection to me somehow. I fully understand she is no vampire.”

“Then what in the hell are you talking about?”

demanded Garth.

Grid’s hard gaze slid to Auberi. “He knows.”

Auberi shrugged. “I have no idea what the lunatic is going on about.”

“You made no move to stop your maker when he attacked my mate! When he drained her dry and then gave her his blood, bringing her back as something dark, twisted, without a soul!”

said Grid, venom dripping from his every word. “She was like you—unfit to breathe the same air as the rest of us. Blood drinkers are beneath us in the hierarchy of supernaturals. You stood there, watching as your master drained the Fae girl of her life, and brought her back as one of you!”

Auberi gasped. “No. She was your mate?”

“Yes. I know you fucked her,”

snapped Garth.

“I did not touch her in such a manner. My heart wept for her. She was caught up in a world she did not understand and had an innocence about her that was infectious.”

“Who are we talking about here?”

demanded Garth.

Auberi sighed. “Garth, he speaks of the woman he defiled and slaughtered a century ago. The woman I tried to kill him over.”

Grid laughed, sounding even more insane than Garth knew him to be. “Woman? Hardly. Once her heart stopped beating and your fucking maker fed her his blood, she stopped being my woman! She became something else. And I was expected to claim her then? To accept her for what she’d become? No. I would never sink so low.”

Garth realized what Grid was saying. His brother had turned on his own true mate. He’d tortured and killed her, all because of his hate of vampires.

It was in that moment Garth saw their father in Grid. Their father’s hate, his prejudices, his savagery. “Grid, to harm a woman at all is unthinkable. To harm your mate?”

“I granted her freedom from the demon in her!”

shouted Grid. “I ended her suffering.”

Auberi shook his head. “She was not suffering. She’d fallen ill. While she was Fae, it was a small, small amount, not enough to stop the sickness that had ravished her system. My maker did as she requested. He made it so she would have forever with her mate. I was not aware you were the mate.”

Grid tensed. “You lie. She did not ask to be a monster.”

“She most certainly did ask to be sired. She came to him, desperate, knowing she was too far gone for a claiming to save her. She wanted a life with her mate—with you—and because of that, you murdered her,”

said Auberi, inching closer to Nicolette.

Garth knew the vampire needed a distraction, so he gave it to him. He faced his brother fully. “You know, I once heard our aunt tell our mother she should have drowned you at birth. She said she sensed a great darkness in you. That it was best for the future of all mankind if Mother took matters into her own hands. I wonder if she considered it.”

Anger flashed in his brother’s eyes a second before he lunged at Garth.

Garth was prepared and caught Grid around the waist, tackling him through the already broken front window. They tumbled out and onto the parking lot. They rolled, and each pushed up and to their feet at the same time. They began to walk in a circle, as Garth and Auberi had done in the training room.

Bullets whizzed by them but neither man flinched. They were past the point of worrying about anything else. The confrontation had been coming for the past twelve hundred years. The time for it to end was now. Only one man was going to walk away, and Garth knew damn well it was going to be him.

There was no way he was leaving his mate and unborn child alone. He would kill his brother a thousand times over before he dared to permit his child to grow up not knowing him.

He went hard at his brother, and Grid gave back as good as he got. The men were matched not only in looks but strength as well, making it hard for one or the other to gain the advantage.

Vaguely, Garth was aware of the fighting taking place around him. He knew his fellow operatives had the matter under control or would very soon. And he knew with every fiber of his being that Auberi would protect Nicolette.

Garth kicked Grid in the chest and followed as his brother fell backwards. Yanking Grid up by his shirt, Garth glared down at him before proceeding to punch the man in the face repeatedly. Every aggression he had poured out of him, and he pummeled his brother. All the wrongs that Grid had committed, all the lives he’d forever damaged, all the people he’d killed, it all came pouring out of Garth in one giant wave of rage.

Grid smiled through the blood in his mouth, wicked glee showing in his green gaze. “Do it, brother. Become what I am.”

That made Garth hesitate. He released his hold on Grid, and his brother used that lapse in judgment to his advantage, sweeping Garth’s legs out from under him. The tables were quickly turned as Grid stared down at Garth, letting his claws free from his fingertips. He drew his hand back to strike.

“No! Stop!”

shouted Nicolette.

Grid did—and looked confused in the process before snarling as he glared in Nicolette’s direction. “You can still influence others with your voice.”

Garth kicked Grid back and then sprang to his feet.

Grid laughed as he stared past Garth. “Look who joined the party. Miss me, sweetheart?”

Garth stumbled back to see Edee holding Nicolette to her with a battered but upright Auberi next to them. Striker and Boomer were close to them as well.

Striker moved quickly in Grid’s direction, but Edee reached out and caught his wrist. “No.”

Striker snarled. “Lass, he’ll nae be permitted to live. He harmed you. For that, he dies.”

Edee met Garth’s gaze, and there was something in her expression that told Garth he should get the hell out of the way. He did—just as a massive ball of fire seemed to spring forth from her. It had to be at least six feet in diameter.

Garth turned just in time to see his brother smiling at the sight.

“There’s my girl,”

said Grid, making no move to get out of the path of the fireball.

Edee’s long red hair lifted in the air on its own and Nicolette took her hand, causing Nicolette’s hair to lift as well. The fireball doubled in size as it flew past Garth, slamming into his brother and exploding.

Flames rolled back at Garth and he hit the ground fast as heat licked by him. For a few tense seconds, it seemed as if everything around him was engulfed in flames. The sounds of something exploding came to him. He stayed down, knowing better than to think he was fireproof.

He wasn’t.

Slowly, the fire and the heat dissipated, and he found himself being yanked up and off the ground by Auberi.

The vampire sighed. “Oh goodie, you lived.”

Garth grunted and dusted himself off, his gaze going to where he’d last seen his brother. Nothing was there. Whatever Edee had done left no traces behind.

No scorch marks.

No burn patterns.

Nothing.

It hit Garth then that there were no signs of any of the hybrids. Not one body. Confused, he stared at Edee, who was clinging to Nicolette. Clara burst free from the SUV and joined the women, bear-hugging them.

Boomer grinned from ear to ear. “See. Told ya our women aren’t damsels in distress. Also, who knew Edee could light it up like that?”

Auberi raised his hand, covered in blood, and then glanced around, shrugging. “What? She came to me last week, asking for my assistance in figuring out what all was done to her and Brooke when they were held captive. The subject of fire came up.”

Striker’s jaw was hanging open as if he were in the process of catching flies. He looked at Edee, and then took a huge sidestep away from her and covered his groin. “Do nae be thinking of setting anything of mine on fire, she-devil.”

Edee looked up, and it was then Garth saw the tears on her face. All of the women were crying as they held each other. Clara leaned and whispered something to Nicolette. Garth watched his mate glance at him before breathing a large sigh of relief.

“You’re not hurt!”

she exclaimed.

Garth touched his front, checking to be sure he wasn’t. He seemed to be all there.

Auberi snorted. “He is fine. The same cannot be said of his brother.”

Garth stiffened. “It had to be.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier on you,”

returned Auberi. “Go to your mate. She wishes to hug you, but girl power is winning out.”