Page 27

Dominic

I nstinctively, I threw myself in front of Keiko, but the force of the blast knocked me off my feet. I shielded my face and landed hard on my shoulder before rolling backward. Years of training helped me avoid any further injuries. Dust and debris rained down all around me.

When the explosion finally settled, I coughed and waved the dust away from my face. The ringing in my ears hadn’t died down yet, but the lack of flying debris meant the worst was over. Unless the entire building collapsed. Fuck. We needed to get out of here.

Of all the potential setups, I never expected Ichiro to bomb a building.

Just like the poison at The Morning Grind, this hands-off method wasn’t his style, even if there was no doubt he was trying to kill me.

While the fire itself wouldn’t do much to harm me, a well-placed, well-timed bomb would have ended me for sure.

I ground my teeth together. He’d have to try harder.

The dust was so thick, I couldn’t see more than a couple of feet around me. "Keiko, Frankie, are you both okay?" I called out.

The fae woman groaned somewhere to my left. "I’m alive. Unfortunately."

More groans and grunts came from the other side of the gym, but none of the voices were Keiko’s.

I scrambled to my feet. We had been standing close together, so she couldn’t have ended up far from me. "Keiko, answer me."

I squinted through the dust, my pulse thumping erratically. Keiko was the toughest badass I knew, with magic and abilities no one else in the world had. She could survive anything.

So why wasn’t she answering me?

The dust was slowly settling, allowing me to see farther. Beams from the ceiling had fallen across the gym and created a maze just to get to the street. The rest of the gym was a crumbling, burning mess.

"Nic." The rasp in Keiko’s voice whipped me around fast. She lay on the ground taking ragged breaths. A piece of splintered wood longer than my arm speared through her chest.

Oh, gods.

I fell to my knees beside her and grabbed the end of the wood, ready to pull it free. Frankie’s hand stopped me. When I met her gaze, she shook her head. "Won’t matter. Wood to the heart’s lethal to her kind, like an allergy. Removin’ it will just speed it up."

I stared at the fae woman, stunned. Her knowing the truth about Keiko’s nature wasn’t altogether surprising given her connections and fae senses, but what she said meant Keiko was dying.

"Nic…" her rattling breath snagged my attention. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth and down her cheek to the floor. "Stop him… Save Rin."

Cold steel wrapped around my heart. If she died, then I was going to lose the closest thing I had to family. She was my family, the little sister I’d always wanted. There was no way I could let that sadistic asshole take her or Rin away from me.

As soon as Keiko had entered my life, I knew I would do anything to protect her.

Through every scraped knee, every hurt feeling, I had been there to dry her tears and pick her back up again.

We had even dealt with an injury involving wood before.

We’d both been so young then. So young and so foolish.

I drew my eyebrows together as the memory strengthened. Taking risks I shuddered to think about now, I’d accidentally shot her in the leg with an arrow during a training session. It had gone clean through her thigh and thunked into the wall behind her.

Yes, I’d been aiming at her, but her reflexes were faster than lightning. The arrow should have missed her completely, but she’d been distracted.

While the hit to her leg wouldn’t have been fatal like a strike to her heart was, I’ll never forget the look on Keiko’s face as she crumbled to the ground. Her screams of agony still haunted my nightmares.

But it was what came next that widened my eyes now.

I’d inspected the injury, which should have healed by then. Instead, it was inflamed, streaks of red spreading outward from the wound like a severe infection. I’d never seen anything like it, but I knew she needed more help than I knew how to give.

I’d slipped an arm under her legs to pick her up, but she’d panicked in pain-induced delirium and bit me— hard .

She’d realized her mistake and let go, licking my blood from her lips.

We’d both stared in confusion, then awe as the angry red streaks faded away and the hole stitched itself back together before disappearing completely.

Kenzo and his idiotic friends had burst into the training room then and in the usual brawl that followed, I’d completely forgotten about the incident until now.

From the little research I had on vampires, I knew that blood could heal most of their wounds, just not from wood. As Frankie had said, it was like an allergy to their kind, the way iron was to fae or silver to shifters.

For whatever reason, my blood had worked against wood then.

I prayed it would be enough now.

The other gym members caught in the blast had already made their way outside or were focused on getting there. We were alone in the back with plenty of debris to hide what I was about to do.

My fangs elongated as I brought my wrist to my mouth. I punctured through to the artery, then held my wrist to her mouth, encouraging her to drink.

As soon as the first drop of blood hit her tongue, her eyes flew open. She gripped my arm tight as she sucked fervently from my wrist.

With my other arm, I pulled the wood free from her chest. She grunted against my wrist but made no other sound to express pain. She was a tough little thing. Ichiro had made sure of that.

My jaw clicked as I clenched it. If the old man thought he could take my chosen family away from me, he was sorely mistaken. The gaping wound on Keiko’s stomach stitched itself together as she drank. It worked.

"Well, I’ll be damned," Frankie’s gravelly voice came out half-whispered.

When the wound was fully closed, I tried to pull my arm away. "That’s enough, K."

She growled and glared up at me, her irises tinged red.

Fuck.

The bloodlust had kicked in. She would not let go without a fight, which meant one or both of us ending up in severe pain. Most likely me.

"Keiko, let go," I said more forcefully, tugging at my arm.

Her nails dug into my arm as she held tight.

Jou roared in my mind, rising to the surface and ready to fight her off. I knew she could see him flashing in my eyes, yet she still held tight, growling against my wrist. She was lost to instinct.

A purple spark streaked from Frankie’s fingertip to Keiko, whose whole body seized for a moment.

As soon as the jolt subsided, Keiko let my arm go, and I fell backward. Her eyes, dark once again, widened as she wiped at the blood around her lips. "Shit. Sorry, Nic."

Frankie blew across her fingertip like it was a smoking gun. "Still got it."

"Thank you,” I said to the fae woman. “Can I trust you to keep this between us?”

She raised an eyebrow. "You’re askin’ me, of all people? I can keep a secret. You have my word. This stays between us."

I nodded, relieved. A fae’s word was absolute.

"But like you said earlier, we need to get outta here in case another bomb goes off."

After helping Keiko to her feet and making sure she wouldn’t immediately collapse, we climbed through the wreckage and out the remains of the front door, now a mere memory.

Across the street, a familiar face caught my attention—Kenzo.

He was speaking into his phone and flipped me off as soon as he noticed me watching him. Then he disappeared around a corner.

Frowning, I considered his presence. There was no way he could pull off something of this magnitude. Not without fucking it up somehow. Although some might consider the fact I was walking out alive as a pretty big fuck up.

My phone dinged and I pulled it from my pocket.

He’s in the same lab , read Aaron’s text message. Meet me there ASAP.

I stilled, a deadly calm washing over me. Nearly killing Keiko to get to me was the last straw. Once we freed Rin, I would accept the old man’s challenge and destroy him.

No more waiting.