Page 6 of The Vampire’s Hunter (Rogue Brotherhood #2)

6

T he hour grew late, and for once in his very long life, Corbin was starting to become nervous. “Where are they?” he hissed, pulling Kharis to the side whilst Dani had ducked into the ladies’ room.

“There here now. Just arrived,” Kharis confirmed.

A weight lifted from Corbin’s chest. “Good.” He nodded. “Good.”

They needed more than a little finesse, if this was to go smoothly.

“And Lucien?” Kharis asked, quirking a brow. The Greek’s dark eyes combed the room, as if in search for the vampire in question.

“Intrigued,” Corbin said, his gaze narrowing to where Dani now crossed the room toward them. “And none the wiser. He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off her all evening.”

“Good,” Kharis said. He made a show of clapping Corbin on the shoulder. “We may just pull this off, old boy.”

“Don’t get too confident,” Corbin warned, as Dani approached. “Not yet.”

“Too confident about what?” she asked, those large doe-eyes staring up at him.

Fuck, she made him wish he were an honest man. A good man.

It really did kill him that he had to use her this way, to treat her as if she and her goals didn’t mean anything to him, but it was par for the course, he supposed. He was a vampire, and she was a human, and everything good in his life had already been taken from him.

Dani was simply one thing more.

Another of his men walked past them then, nodding to Kharis, who returned the gesture. Kharis faced Corbin, lowering his voice to a whisper. “They’re in position now.”

Dani’s brow furrowed. “Who’s in position?”

If Corbin didn’t know better, he would have said she was growing suspicious of him. Well, within the past moments, at least.

“Nothing, darling,” Corbin said, lying through his teeth, as he pulled her to him, into another intimate embrace. The way she melted against him either showed her adoration for him was genuine, or else, Dani was a far better actress than he gave her credit for.

Over top her head, he shot Kharis a harsh look, before he laid a kiss within the soft span between her throat and her cheek. She smelled of the sun, and summer rain, of honeysuckle and every daytime delight he’d once held dear. The woman was temptation incarnate.

Goddamn, he was a right bastard, betraying her trust like this.

But he’d worked too long, too hard not to see this through.

His own revenge took precedence.

“Now’s your cue, darling,” he whispered. “Godspeed.”

To Dani’s credit, she played her role well, meeting his kiss with a tender peck of her own, her soft, red lips brushing against the barely there stubble of his jaw. Her hand trailed over the curve of his bicep, down the arm of his suit coat, and to his fingers, where she lingered there, holding onto him briefly, as if she were inviting him to a private rendezvous. As if she couldn’t bring herself to part with him, for even a moment.

Corbin grumbled his approval, his fangs aching at the sight, his cock growing hard.

Fuck, she was making this difficult.

Everything with Dani had always been difficult.

She slipped into the ballroom’s ether, as at home among the beauty and the harsh cruelty which lay beneath the facade as any one of them. She was a part of this world, and yet, not.

Not in the ways that truly mattered.

“Are you certain you want to do this?” Kharis asked from beside him.

Corbin nodded. “We’ve been through this. We stick to the plan.”

Kharis lifted a brow. “And if the plan means you no longer get to enjoy your little human? If she hates you for it?”

Corbin swallowed, hard. Some sacrifices were worth making, and already he’d sacrificed more than a century. What was one thing more?

“Tell Orpheus to stick to the plan,” he said, “And if Dani gets in the way, then so be it.”

Better she be dead than continue to make him feel.

To remember everything he’d tried so hard to forget.

Riding a high from the thrills of the evening, Dani snaked her way across the dance floor, making her way toward the stairs without fear. All she had to do was slip quietly upstairs, undetected, and then she was home free. She was in the home stretch, almost there now, so close she could taste it, when suddenly, a sharp hand tugged at her wrist.

She rolled her eyes. This was getting old quickly.

She turned, expecting to find Zane again like she had in the club the night before, but instead, it was Lucien who held her in his grip.

Instantly, Dani’s blood ran cold.

“He doesn’t know I’ve already had you before, does he?” Lucien hissed, the hate in his words sharp enough to pierce. “He doesn’t know that I’ve already had my way with you?”

Dani twisted toward him, spitting into his face. “Fuck you!” she shouted.

She wouldn’t be manhandled anymore.

She was no longer anyone’s plaything.

Every pair of eyes in the room fell toward them then, the attention of every partygoer coming to a halt. Whether it was because someone had dared spit in Lucien’s face, or because it’d been her who’d been the offender that wasn’t clear.

She was known to be docile. Meek.

A glittering prize to be won.

Not a queen like Corbin painted her to be, though she was behaving as one now.

What was happening to her?

Her eyes combed the crowd then, already knowing the answer she’d find there. She may not have been certain she could trust him, at least not completely, but Corbin’s belief in her had been unfaltering, his actions tonight and the previous evening backed up by all the times he’d saved her before. Trusting him hadn’t been without president.

Her eyes settled on him then, the look in his gaze stopping her breath instantly.

Fury was what she expected to find there, a protective instinct as he played the king at her side once more. She’d expected him to shield her, to protect like he always did.

Instead, the look he gave her was one of apology.

As if to say, I didn’t want to betray you.

And yet he had, hadn’t he?

But how?

Her eyes shot toward Lucien then, to where he gripped her in an unbreakable hold, and then to Corbin’s men about the room, the almost choreographed way they moved, as if they were all gears of a turning clock, sliding into place at Corbin’s will, causing the hour chime to sound, and she was his Cinderella, forced to go home. Her slippers suddenly ill fit.

The clock chimed. All the pieces falling into place.

But Dani didn’t hear it.

She was too busy feeling the way in which her heart shattered, her eyes falling to the nine-millimeter at Corbin’s side as, at his behest, the first rounds of gunshots shattered the windows.

As he claimed her revenge, as if it were his own.

Fucking hell! She was supposed to have made it to the safety of the upstairs, damn it, and now, he wasn’t supposed to move.

Corbin had been instructed to stay where he was. To be the first to drop to the ground, signaling to all his men in the room to do the same, shielding themselves from the crucifix laden bullets that would no doubt leave them all bleeding upon the marble floor whilst true death lingered near. But in the mixture of careful planning and the evening’s chaotic fray, he’d failed to account for his own feelings.

Feelings for the human woman, who’d already gotten too near.

The fear he felt the moment he’d looked in Dani’s eyes overtook him in an instant, though he no longer saw a cowering, innocent woman there. Instead, she was furious, a breathtaking harpy out for vengeance.

Vengeance against him. For betraying her. For lying to her.

For stealing her revenge.

Her hatred for him was clear. And if Corbin didn’t act now, he was certain to regret it.

Though the hit had already been cleared.

He was running toward Dani then, before he even realized he was moving, tackling her to the ground to protect her from the onslaught.

And giving Lucien the split second of warning that he needed.

At supernatural speed, Lucien spun, grabbing the human woman he’d forced to trail him and falling to his knees behind her. He used her body as if it were shield. As if she were cannon fodder. No better or worse than he’d nearly done to Dani.

Corbin felt instantly sick.

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 simply Dani’s tears.

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.

Corbin swayed a little.

At his feet, Dani whimpered. “How could you? How could you?”

Coming to Corbin’s side, Luciano lifted her, gripping hold of Dani to subdue her, but she thrashed against him, struggling and screaming.

“Let ‘er go, Lu,” Corbin ordered. “Let ‘er go,” he said, a hint of Birmingham slipping into his tone for the first time in several decades, though he’d worked to hide it for centuries, to sound like a British gentleman.

Not a boy from the Birmingham slums.

The moment Luciano released her, Dani charged toward him like she’d claw off his face if she got a chance. But Corbin caught her wrists in his, loosening his hold only enough to allow her to settle for a right hook. The blow she landed was quick and efficient, like her brother had no doubt taught her. His nose was even bleeding a little.

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said, swiping away the blood at his nose. “I’m a bad man, Dani. I’m a bad man and you best get yourself out of ‘ere.”

“Corbin,” Kharis said.

Corbin lifted a hand. “Not now, Kharis. Can’t you see I’m—”

“Corbin,” Kharis shouted once more.

But Corbin wasn’t looking toward his friend. Instead, his eyes fell to Dani, to how she’d lost all the fight she had in her eyes only a moment ago.

Instead, she was staring down at her own dress, the golden silk covered in blood, her gaze wild and frantic, as she searched for wounds and found none. Mouth gaping, those wild eyes darted from her chest to his own.

Corbin glanced down then, realizing it was his blood dripping onto the floor, coating Dani’s dress from where he’d been peppered in bullets. All in a foolish attempt to shield her.

Though the damage had already been done.

That one unplanned move had cost him everything.

He blinked, swaying a little as he looked up once more. The world spun, tilting as Fox and Kharis moved toward him, and Corbin passed out with little more than a grimly muttered,

“Fuck.”