The screech of tires. The slam of doors.
Holly didn't need to look over her shoulder to know that the cops had arrived. The siren shrieking full-on in her ears told her that time had run out.
CHAPTER 14
Fury was a red haze that colored his vision. Niol tasted the ashes of rage on his tongue and knew that his control was razor thin.
Holly could have been killed.
If the ass**les had attacked while he hadn't been around-
I knew she'd be dangerous to me. Fuck me, I knew.
He couldn't afford this kind of weakness.
Not now. Not ever.
A slim black casket, gleaming in the afternoon light. Nina had been inside. Her laughter gone, her spirit stolen.
Niol swallowed.
Gillian. His half sister. He hadn't even known about her, not until just a few months before her death. Seemed his mother had started a whole new life after she'd ditched his ass.
But, Gillian had come looking for him. Wanted him.
Then he'd found her that cold dawn…
In her red dress. The dress I'd bought for her. Blood soaking the dress and pooling all around her slender body.
He hadn't been able to keep her safe, either.
All his so-called power and two women he'd cared for were dead.
His gaze locked on Holly.
Not three. Not f**king three.
"You'll destroy everything, every damn body! I don't want you near me, got it? I don't want you near me!" His mother's last words to him. Screamed in her fury.
"Niol, pull it back." The clipped man's voice caught him off guard. He flinched. He knew that voice.
Detective Colin Gyth.
The shifter. He'd killed the murdering bastard who'd attacked his Gillian. For all their differences, and there were a hell of a lot of 'em, Niol owed the wolf a debt.
"Pull. It. Back."
It took Niol a moment to understand. He tore his eyes away from Holly and glanced up at the sky. Toward the swirling clouds of red and black. The howl of the wind reached him and lightning crackled across the sky.
Too much power. His curse.
He inhaled slowly. She's alive. Not like the others.
But she could have been dead, because she'd been with me.
So damn arrogant. He'd thought he could keep her safe from everything out there.
He should have known. He hadn't saved the others, and now, he was causing the threat to her.
A cool hand against his. Soft. Feminine. "They didn't get us." Holly's voice. Strong.
But she wasn't strong.
A demon, but as weak as a human.
Gillian had been a low-level demon, too. Fragile.
So easy to destroy.
Not her blood. I won't have Holly's blood on my hands, too. The stains on his hands had already soaked through the skin.
Another deep breath.
She stroked the flesh on his arm.
His eyes stayed locked on those clouds. Control. He wouldn't lose it now. Not in front of the cops who'd fire at him if his power went wild.
Fire and maybe hit Holly.
A long, thick arc of lightning, a blast of thunder, followed by a heavy stench in the air-fire and fury.
Can't. Love. Her.
Deep breath.
Won't.
Her fingers on him.
Niol squeezed his eyes shut. "Get the bastards away from me if you want them to keep livin'."
"We need to get the Jaws of Life out here!" Brooks. The one Cara mistakenly had taken to mate.
Cara. So like her sister Nina.
A succubus who loved.
Dangerous, that.
Niol grunted and metal screeched.
"Not anymore we don't," Gyth muttered and there was a clatter as the broken side door hit the ground.
He could hear someone babbling, pleading. The ass**le kid.
His eyes opened. Narrowed on his victim. "I see you again, you're dead."
"Ah, Niol, you can't threaten someone in front of cops-"
Slowly, he turned his attention to the human. What did Cara see in him?
"These jerks just tried to kill us!" Holly's fierce voice. She stepped in front of him.
In front of him.
Niol blinked.
"They made molotov cocktails and threw 'em into the bar. Their van crashed when they were hightailing it out of-"
"Lucky coincidence," Gyth said, face straight.
"-here, but this guy-" Holly charged right on, pointing her finger at Mr. Sobbing, "Confessed and right before you came up with sirens blazing-"
Niol finally glanced around at the scene. Fury was settling, for now, and he could think past the immediate need to destroy.
For the moment .
Two patrol cars had braked nearby. Their lights still blazed, doors hung open, and uniformed cops stood on alert, guns drawn.
Then there was Gyth's black Jeep. Right in front of them.
"-he was going to tell us about the woman who hired him to torch the bar."
"Was he?" Gyth, who'd had his own gun drawn, holstered the weapon and jerked the kid to his feet. "Then he can tell us all."
The kid stared at him, at the hint of fang Gyth had let slip loose. Then he looked back at Niol.
His eyes widened and then rolled back into his head.
He sagged in the wolf shifter's arms, out cold.
Lucky bastard.
Niol started walking away from the cops, fast.
Because he couldn't be around the fools in that van a minute longer.
And he had new prey to hunt because he'd slipped into that punk's mind in that one precious instant, gone in hard and fast and deep. His probe had been so brutal he'd made the jerk pass out.
Lucky . It would have been nice if the kid had suffered more from his psychic push, but he'd get that blood punishment later.
For now, Niol had gotten exactly what he wanted.
He'd seen the woman. A perfect image.
Tall and slender. Hair bundled under a long black scarf. Golden skin. Dark sunglasses perched on high cheekbones. Rounded jaw. Thin lips. A small black mole on the side of her neck.
New prey.
I'm coming.
He'd find out just why the bitch had targeted him.
The cops got out of Niol's way. No one moved to stop him. Hell, no one seemed to move at all until Niol was gone.
Holly crossed her arms over her chest, feeling chilled, and, well, abandoned.
Niol hadn't even glanced back at her when he'd marched across the street.
"Storm, you just keep turning up in bad places." Gyth stepped closer to her as he shook his head.
Behind him, Brooks and the uniforms checked out the wounded pyros.
One of the cops had his radio out as he called for an ambulance.
Oh, yeah, they'd need that ambulance.
"I was in the bar, minding my own business." Just finishing up some great sex. "Then these jerkoffs decided to get fire crazy."
He crept even closer. So close that when he spoke again, she knew the others couldn't hear his faint words. "Real stupid to go after Niol with fire."