A woman screamed. Loud, high. Terrified.
The scent hit Simon then. Thick and cloying. Smoke.
Fire.
“Fuck!” Zane spun around and ran for the door. Dee and Simon raced after him.
Not another damn fire. Not again. Grim’s pack, they just weren’t going to stop, not until they killed Dee.
Not on his watch.
Zane shoved open the door at the bottom of the stairs and they walked into—
An inferno.
It should have been impossible. Fire couldn’t spread this fast. With their senses, they would have known but—
But Delaney’s burned. The flames crackled and licked at the ceiling, growing bigger, hungrier, and giving them a glimpse of sweet hell.
“Catalina!” Dee’s scream.
The witch stood behind the bar, seemingly frozen. Her eyes were on the flames that surrounded her. Bright, dancing flames.
The demon swore and charged for her. He waved his hand and the flames dimmed around the witch.
He flew over the fire and grabbed her.
“Burn,” she whispered, but Simon could hear her over the flames. “Burn so fast.” She closed her eyes and turned her head against Zane’s shoulder.
The flames shot higher. The smoke thickened, but the fire didn’t race back toward the witch. Instead, it headed right for Dee.
“Wynter!” Simon yelled. The demon could control fire. He didn’t know what kind of power scale the guy had, but right then, as long as the guy could stop the fire, he didn’t care.
Zane hoisted the witch over his shoulder, then made a fast movement with his hand.
The flames flickered, faded.
Only to start rising once again.
“Magic!”
Yeah, he’d figured that out. Dee had a tablecloth in her hands and she was fighting the flames.
“No, forget it, Dee! Get out of here!” Zane ordered.
Good plan. Simon grabbed her arm.
The demon led the way, using his power to push back the fire that just kept rising, rising…
“Her!” The demon’s snarl. He froze before the door. Simon barreled into him. So not the time for this—
But then Zane ran forward. The glass doors exploded around them. Smoke billowed up into the night. Simon sucked in sharp, clean air, choking as his lungs began to clear.
“Stop her!” He glanced up at the yell. He saw Zane struggling with the witch, and Simon glimpsed a woman with curly red hair running down the street.
He blinked and Dee took off. Fast, so fast, his little vampire. She caught the woman in two seconds and tackled her, sending her prey slamming into the pavement.
“No!” The woman’s cry. Afraid. Furious. “Why can’t you die?”
Oh, so not what she needed to be saying to Dee.
He bounded after them.
Dee flipped the woman over and pinned her wrists to the ground.
Simon saw the tears on the woman’s cheeks. Long, thin trickles that slipped over her skin, fell into her hair.
“Do it, Nina.” The whisper was on the wind. He froze. “Kill her or they die.”
Dee’s head snapped up. “What the hell? Hey, jerkoff—come out and face me!”
Another vamp. One of Grim’s men. Had to be. But he was telling the woman to kill Dee? How was she supposed to do—
“Ignitor!” Zane’s scream of fear.
No, no. Simon’s gaze snapped back to the woman’s, and he finally saw her eyes, the bleed of red.
Grim wasn’t screwing around anymore. He’d pulled out the big guns.
“Dee!”
Ignitor—a human. A very, very rare human gifted with the power of fire. She’d burn Dee, burn her with just a thought and kill her in an instant. She’d—
“Hell, no,” Dee growled when her T-shirt began to smoke. Then she slammed the woman’s head back against the cement. Hard.
The Ignitor’s eyes fell closed, hiding that deadly red, and she lay, limp, beneath Dee.
He could love that vampire.
Already did.
“I’ve got her,” Dee called. “You get that other bastard!”
Done. Simon took off, legs pumping fast. He flew down the dark street, snaked into the alley. His nose twitched as he caught the scent of blood. A woman stood, weaving slightly, her hand on the grimy wall. Alcohol fumed off her but she’d been prey, too.
Close.
“Come out!”
The woman flinched. She looked over at him with bleary eyes. “Run,” he told her quietly, flashing fangs.
She did.
That left him all alone in the alley with his prey. A Dumpster squeaked. A shoe scraped over the asphalt. Simon licked his lips. “Hiding with the garbage?”
The vamp came out, claws ready, a bit of blood still dripping down his mouth. “You picked the wrong side in this fight.”
Simon lifted his brows. He caught the whisper of footsteps behind him. His backup. No way would he ever mistake Dee’s rich scent. “I don’t think so.”
The vamp’s eyes darted behind Simon, and for an instant, fear flashed on his thin face. Then he spun around, and leapt up, clearing the brick wall behind him in one bound.
Simon lunged after him. No way was this scum getting away from him.
The man knew how to leap over a wall. Really kinda sexy the way he could move so fast.
Dee exhaled, watched a bit longer, admiring her view, then she eyed the wall. Um, yeah, she could take that. She hoped.
Dee ran—a running start never hurt anything—then leapt. She cleared the wall, but slammed into the ground below. The impact jarred every bone in her body, but Dee rolled, and came back up on her feet and took off.
A park. A big, dark, yeah, things-could-be-hiding-here park. Overgrown grass. Too tall trees. Too thick brush. Great.
The vamp with the ferret face was fast; she’d give him that. Her heart raced in her ears and her legs kicked beneath her as she charged after him and Simon. No way was this guy getting away, not after he’d set a freaking Ignitor on her.
An Ignitor. A vampire’s nightmare. A being that could raise and control fire.
Not a good way for a vampire to die.
She’d watched vamps burn before. Dee just hadn’t thought that would ever be the way she’d go out.
Of course, she hadn’t thought she’d be a vamp, either.
Simon lunged forward and launched his body at the vampire. Even from the distance that separated them, she could hear the thud when their bodies crashed into the earth.
She pushed forward with a burst of speed.
Simon flipped the vampire over—and the ferret bastard started laughing.
That’s when the hair rose on Dee’s nape. When she realized that the shadows were too dark.