She heard his low growl, the first sound he'd uttered during the entire length of his punishing struggle. When he turned back to the semiconscious assassin who lay pinned beneath him on the ground, Hunter's movements were precise and unflinching. He took the gun from the slackened hand of his attacker and rose to his feet. Straddling the large, black-clad body, Hunter aimed the nose of the weapon at the hairless, glyph-covered head. No, that wasn't quite right, Corinne noticed now.
He wasn't aiming at the assassin's head exactly, but rather at the peculiar ring of hard black material that circled his neck like some kind of collar.
Even from the top of the stairs, she could see the assassin's eyes go wide with understanding as Hunter leveled the gun on that ring of thick, dull black. Now she saw fear in the other male. Now, finally, she saw his acknowledgment of defeat.
Hunter fired.
A flash of light answered the crack of gunfire, so piercingly bright Corinne had to shield her eyes from its sudden blast. When it cleared an instant later, thin smoke rose up from the place where the assassin lay, his large body lifeless on the concrete, his head cleanly severed.
"Oh, my God," she whispered, unsure what she'd just witnessed.
Hunter came out from behind the lowered staircase as she reached the bottom step. "Are you all right?"
She nodded her head, then shook it weakly, trying to understand what had happened here.
"How did you ... What did you do to him?"
Stoic once more, except for the amber sparks that glittered darkly as his gaze dropped to her split lip, Hunter steered her away from the carnage on the ground. He walked over and retrieved the thick black ring from the charred neck of the assassin. "The pilots were dead before we arrived. Dragos must have eyes all over the city now. He may send more like this one after us. We have to go now."
She stole an incredulous glance over her shoulder as he guided her away from the body.
"Are you just going to leave him there?"
Hunter gave a grim nod. "The hangar doors are open. Come morning, the sun will destroy what's left of him."
"And if it doesn't?" she pressed. "What if Dragos or his men get here first and they realize what you've done? What if they come after you?"
"Then they will know what awaits them if they try." He put his hand out to her, palm up, waiting for her to take it. "Let's get out of here, Corinne."
She hesitated, uncertainty gnawing at the edges of her conscience. But then she slipped her hand into his and let him lead her away from the carnage.
Chapter Seventeen
The human female screamed when she saw Chase emerge from behind the cover of the large oak. Her face bathed in the amber light of his transformed gaze, she sent up another bloodcurdling shriek and veered sharply in an attempt to avoid him. He could have felled her easily. He might have, but in that next instant the woods erupted with the oncoming rush of the blood club in pursuit of their fleeing game. From out of the darkness at the humans' heels, a vampire descended from a great, airborne leap to tackle one of the running men. As he sank his fangs into his prey's throat, three more Breed males emerged from the shadows at great speed, all of them converging on the terrified humans like a pack of slavering wolves. That's when Chase spotted a face he recognized.
Murdock.
The son of a bitch.
Chase had heard rumors of the male's perverse interests during his time in the Enforcement Agency, so he supposed it should come as no surprise to see Murdock bounding out of the gloom to grab hold of the little boy in the bloodied shirt.
But it did surprise Chase. It diverted his attention from his own blood thirst more effectively than a good hard dose of midday sun. It enraged him to see Murdock after the altercation a couple of nights ago in Chinatown - time that seemed a hundred years past to him now.
And it repulsed him to watch Murdock seize a hank of the child's hair in his fist as he threw him to the ground, prepared to wrench the delicate neck into a better angle for him to feed. Chase flew at the vampire with a savage roar.
He knocked Murdock off the struggling, weeping boy. As the young human made a frantic escape, Chase tumbled with Murdock into the snow and bramble. He drove his fist into the vampire's jaw, reveling in the vicious crack of shattering bone beneath his knuckles. One of Murdock's blood club pals noticed the intrusion. He dropped the human he had caught and leapt onto Chase's back. Chase bucked him off. The vampire crashed hard into a nearby tree.
Murdock started struggling, about to get away. Before he could get the chance, Chase grabbed a fallen branch of jagged oak and smashed it into Murdock's kneecap. He howled in agony, rolling away to cradle the shattered limb while Chase turned his attention to the other vampire, who was coming right back at him, hissing through bared, bloodied fangs. Chase pivoted up from the ground with the hard length of oak gripped tightly in his hand just as Murdock's companion was charging up on him. Chase thrust the jagged branch out in one swift, furious motion - staking the bastard through flesh and sternum, right into the heart. The remaining two blood club participants seemed to lose interest in their sport when they saw one of their own fall deadweight to the ground, blood gushing from the gaping wound in his chest, and another writhing in anguish in the frozen bracken nearby. They froze where they were, slackened grasps letting their horrified prey loose to escape.
Chase swung toward them, his eyes shooting feral amber beams into the dark woods, his gore-slickened weapon clutched in his hand, ready to do more damage. Without a single word, the pair of law-breaking Agents bolted in opposite directions, disappearing into the night.
The woods fell silent once again, except for Murdock's pained groans. Chase drew in a cleansing breath. Intellect and reason slowly filtered in through the dark fog of his fury and the nagging thirst that still rode him. The situation he now found himself in was hardly ideal. One dead Agent bled out on the ground. Two more on the loose, certain to identify him as having attacked them unprovoked. Given his reputation lately, there would be few who'd believe him if he said he'd stumbled upon an illegal blood hunt and only did what he had to in order to break it up.