Tess was inside. Dante knew it with a dread so deep it made his step falter.
Behind him, in the split second before he could reach the shed and tear the thing down with his bare hands, a Rogue came out of the shadows and pounced. Dante twisted as he fell, withdrawing one of his blades and slicing it across the suckhead's face. The Rogue gave an unearthly shriek, flying off him in agony as his corrupted blood system got a good taste of lethal titanium. Dante rolled out of his crouch and shot to his feet as the Rogue spasmed into swift death and decomposition.
On the street now, the black Range Rover roared up and lurched to a sharp halt. Tegan and Chase jumped out, weapons in hand. Another Rogue came out of the dark, but he took one look at Tegan's icy stare and decided to run the opposite way. The warrior sprang like a great cat, leaping into pursuit.
Chase must have seen more trouble at Ben Sullivan's apartment, because he held his pistol in ready position and started off across the street at a stealth jog.
As for Dante, he was hardly aware of the peripheral action. His boots were already chewing up earth, moving toward the shed and the terrible noises that were emanating from it. The wet, slick sounds of vampires feeding was nothing new to him, but the idea that they were harming Tess threw his rage into the nuclear zone. He stalked to the flapping shed door and yanked it loose with one hand. It sailed across the empty back lot, instantly forgotten.
Two Rogues held Tess down on the floor of the out-building, one sucking at her wrist, the other latched on to her throat. She lay motionless beneath them, so still that Dante's heart froze in terror as his eyes took in the scene. But he could sense that she lived. He could hear her thin pulse echoing weakly in his own veins. Another few seconds and they might have drained her.
Dante let out a bellow that shook the place, his fury boiling up and out of him like a black gale. The Rogue feeding from Tess's wrist leaped back with a hiss, her blood circling the peeled-back lips and staining the long fangs scarlet. The suckhead twisted in midair, flying up to the corner of the shed's ceiling and clinging there like a spider.
Dante tracked the flash of movement, releasing one of his malebranche blades and sending it airborne. The spinning wheel of titanium made lethal contact with the Rogue's neck. It dropped to the floor with a shriek, and Dante turned his hatred on the bigger one, which had moved around to challenge him to its prey.
The Rogue crouched low in front of Tess's limp body, facing off against Dante with fangs bared and eyes aglow with feral amber light. The suckhead appeared young behind the Bloodlust that had transformed it into a beast, probably one of the missing Darkhaven civilians. Didn't matter; the only good Rogue was a dead one--especially this one, which had its hands and mouth all over Tess, sucking precious life out of her.
Might have killed her already, if Dante didn't get her out of there quick.
Blood screaming into his muscles, Tess's pain and one that was wholly his own galvanizing him for the fight, Dante bared his own fangs and flew at the Rogue with a roar. He wanted to deliver brutal, hellish vengeance, tear the bastard apart piece by piece before gutting it with one of his blades. But expedience was paramount. Saving Tess was all that mattered.
Latching on to the Rogue's snapping jaw, Dante levered his arm and shoved down hard, cracking bones and severing tendons. As the suckhead screamed, Dante flipped a blade into his free hand and buried the titanium-edged steel into the vampire's chest. He shoved the corpse off him and went to Tess' s side.
"Ah, God." Kneeling down, he heard her soft, rasping breath. It was shallow, so thin. The wound on her wrist was nasty, but the one on her neck was savage. Her skin was pale as snow, cool to the touch when he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her slack fingers. "Tess... hang on, baby. I've got you now. I'm taking you out of here."
Easing her into his arms, Dante gathered her close and carried her outside.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chase stepped over the body of a dead human male that lay just outside the first-floor apartment door, the television blaring from inside the living room. The old man had been mauled by Rogues, at least one of which still remained in the building. Chase climbed the stairs to Ben Sullivan's apartment in utter silence, his thighs pumping, senses tuned to his surroundings. He held the Beretta in both hands up near his right shoulder, the safety off, barrel tipped up toward the ceiling. He could have the weapon leveled and firing off titanium rounds in a fraction of a second. For the Rogue moving carelessly around in the apartment at the top of the stairs, death was imminent.
Reaching the last step, Chase paused in the hallway adjacent to the open unit door. Through the crack beside the jamb, he saw that the place had been sacked. The Rogues who'd come there were looking for something--definitely not Ben Sullivan himself, unless they expected to find him hiding in one of the dozens of drawers and file boxes that had been upended inside the apartment. He saw a flash of movement from within and drew back just as a Rogue came out of the kitchen with a butcher knife and began slicing into the cushions of the recliner, tearing the thing apart.
With the toe of his boot, Chase eased the door open wide enough for him to slip through, then he cautiously entered the unit, his 9mm trained on the Rogue from behind. The vampire's frenzied search made him oblivious to the threat creeping up on him until Chase stood not two feet away, the barrel of the gun dropped level with the center of the Rogue's head.
Chase could have fired in that instant, probably should have. All of his training and logic told him to pull the trigger and release one of those custom-made titanium rounds into the back of the Rogue's skull, but instinct made him hesitate.