9. CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
Nikola
E ach night, they didn’t stop moving until the sky promised certain death with the hues of a pink dawn. It remained bitterly cold, but, thankfully, the weather was consistently clear. Winter winds did nothing to slow down stressed vampires.
The cover of the night had served vampirickind since the first whispers of history, and it continued to serve them now. “I wonder,” Nikola reflected to Asher as they curled up in an underground storm shelter they’d broken into, “if the God and Goddess cursed us with a deadly repulsion to sunlight in order to force us to stay hidden by the cloak of darkness.”
“Sounds like some fucked shit they’d do,” came Asher’s groggy response.
They did not encounter any more agents or patrols, though they made a point to bypass the major Midwestern cities. From afar, they could make out congested traffic, the borders of each city proper flashing with blue and red as police did checks of any suspicious vehicle coming or going.
Nikola couldn’t help but mutter to Asher that maybe they got lucky, having been forced off the road. Asher grunted in agreement. In his peripheral, Nikola noticed Moss looking over with pinched brows but otherwise did not share their thoughts. For the most part, they were quiet, keeping close to Liam and only chiming in with occasional news reports.
From what Nikola could gather, the twenty-first century Purging had already begun.
Were they too late?
“Even if only a single member of our children survives, it is never too late,” came the Goddess’s whisper each time that fear clenched Nikola’s stomach.
When Nikola expressed his worry out loud, Katsuki would remark, “It would’ve been impossible to cover up the existence of vampires after the collapse of Grander’s catacombs. But our kind has survived Purgings before, and we will again. That is our objective.”
Nikola wanted to ask Moss if the patrons spoke to them as well—why else would the two choose to share yet another vampire, seemingly at random?—but he didn’t want to jar the newborn more than they already were.
Just feeding from the open vein of Nikola’s wrist had taken some convincing despite Moss’s quiet heart and cold skin, as if the pain of thirst had little effect on them despite their newborn status. Of course, once they’d started feeding, they didn’t want to stop, and Nikola didn’t force them to, despite Asher’s protests about Nikola needing his strength as well.
Nikola would live. He was used to existing on the brink of malnourishment and yet had always kept up with Morrigan’s coven. He was far more concerned with the vampire he had created, who had no choice in the matter.
Once they hit the New York state border, Nikola phoned Morrigan, chastising himself for not having done so sooner. But in his defense, they’d barely given themselves time to chit-chat, let alone stop and make calls.
“I’d come to think you lot got yourselves killed,” came Morrigan’s reply.
Oh, so she’d so far managed to survive. Nikola tried convincing himself that was a good thing with minimal success. “We will be there early tomorrow night,” he informed her, straight to the point. He leaned against the trunk of a tree, his companions laying low in the woods outside of a cul-de-sac. “I’m calling to know exactly what it is we’re walking into.”
“Many of Malkolm’s coven have fled the city entirely to only the Horned One knows where. I, myself, lost a quarter of my ranks, and a great deal of Moon Children have been executed on sight.”
Nikola’s response was instinctual, as if his mind was slotting itself back into the role of Morrigan’s soldier. “I am surprised those loyal to the lord have not tried taking advantage of the situation by storming your headquarters.”
Morrigan gave a haughty laugh full of disdain. “That is exactly why those cowardly rats have not tried anything foolish. They lost three of their highest-ranking leaders just before the fall. Those who have managed to survive were wise enough to come crawling to me.”
The greatest danger had shifted from Blood to man. What other creature than a human better encapsulated both violence and love? “What would be the best route to take to avoid traffic stops and, hm, other pitfalls?”
“My advice? The north side of the dead mall. It collapsed during the tremors, and it was the first location to be swept for any hideaways. But my patrols have reported that it’s since been quiet. From there, head straight to my headquarters, avoiding the streets as much as you can. Most of those being hit are those mistaken for humans out past curfew.”
Nikola locked eyes with Asher before they both scanned Trish and Katsuki. Invisibility wouldn’t be an issue. “Soon, Queen Morrigan.”
When Nikola and Asher had first fled Grander, it had been a circus of sirens, screams, fires, and disaster. But eerie silence blanketed the city as heavily as the six inches of snow on the ground, a haze of lingering smoke blocking out any hint of moonlight.
Trish’s breathing was audible as she followed from the rear, Katsuki leading the pack. Nikola willed the units of passing police in black uniforms to look the other way, while the other Moon Children forced the drivers of discreet patrol cars to round the next corner. Asher shuddered, slinking close to Nikola as they navigated the streets.
Nikola pecked Asher’s forehead as Asher clung to his arm. Asher trembled, but not so much nerves as it was restraint. Evidently, the young hybrid would rather be fighting than sneaking around.
Queen Morrigan’s headquarters was equally unmoving as the rest of the city. Asher halted everyone with a hiss, a finger to his pressed lips. He needn’t explain his reaction. This was suspicious.
Nikola cocked his head to the side as he listened closely. He could pick up the circulatory systems of multiple bodies, the shuffling of feet and hushed voices. The building was too far away for him to pick up exact words, but he could detect the vindictive rage and underlying fear laced throughout the headquarters.
It was clear that Nikola and the others had been spotted. But Morrigan surely would’ve notified her people of their impending guests.
Either Queen Morrigan was expecting greater danger, or she’d been infiltrated by the very vampires she’d given shelter to. Nikola considered her lack of mercy before—when she’d been dead set on executing Asher. Was she that desperate for numbers now that she was offering mercy?
“So,” Liam whispered, hearing what everyone else was hearing but not quite grasping the gravity of the situation. “Do we split up?”
Asher frowned. “Maybe if you got a death wish. Nah, we stick together. The newborns especially stay close.” He shot Nikola a knowing glance between him and Moss, for which Nikola was grateful. Nikola didn’t have the intense bond he surely would have had with someone he’d personally sought out to Change, but his protective obligation blazed inside of him like a great fire. Asher addressed Kat. “If shit hits the fan, you think you can hold your own?”
Katsuki arched an eyebrow. “I’m no match physically, but the Moon doesn’t fight with fists.”
Asher’s chuckle rolled over Nikola, one of his favorite sounds on the planet. It struck a chord of lust and protectiveness in Nikola’s heart, half of him wanting to yank Asher into a fiery kiss and the other half begging to drag him the hell away from this place. Oh, how he’d foolishly believed they’d escaped Grander.
This is my final fight for you, Nikola prayed toward his patrons. They gave no response.
“We have ourselves an invisibility cloak that got us through the city,” Asher said, his spine straightening and his voice hardening as he took on the role of a commander. Nikola had to admit, despite the gruesome history of such role, he found it sexy as fuck. “Think it’ll get us through one measly building?”
Katsuki hummed with doubt. “For a moment, long enough to break in, but other immortals are not so easily tricked by such illusions, given that they know of the Moon’s tricks. Keener eyesight, sense of smell—there are a great deal of factors to influence. Doubly so since they knew we were coming. We will have the element of surprise and not much more.”
Asher pointedly cracked a knuckle, rolling his neck. “We still have surprise on our side? Shit, count me in. Nikki?”
“Either we enter the building, or we turn around,” Nikola rumbled. “I fear we do not have much choice.”
“One last hurrah before we start our boring lives in the wilderness,” Asher said, his eyes twinkling with humor, telling Nikola that his lover was jesting. “Moss, Liam, you two stand in the middle of us. Trish, stand close to me, and help Katsuki out with their freaky deeky Moon shit. Whatever you do, don’t run past us, and sure as fuck don’t engage with someone unless they’re so close they’re spitting in your face. Keeping your own asses safe is the best way to help us help protect you. Do we understand?”
He spoke with such authority that no one had the nerve to argue. Even Nikola bowed his head in obedience. Master Asher Black indeed.
“Alright then,” Asher said, already starting toward the gate, an exaggerated swagger to his walk. “Let’s blow this joint.”
Nikola couldn’t help the faint trickle of excitement. True, he’d always been proud of his claim to unusual strength as a Moon lost in a sea of Blood, but now that he truly did retain some of the Horned One’s gifts, he was grateful for it. More than grateful. He was ready to flex it yet again—which struck him as odd.
Perhaps it was more than just his body that’d been touched by Blood.
Something he’d have to reckon with during a quieter night. Tonight, it’d be put to use .
When they entered the building, they went through the front entrance into the lobby. He sensed the pull of Katsuki’s illusion cover up the noise of the door opening and closing. The first thing that Nikola observed about the alarmingly empty lobby was the scent of blood—both human and vampire.
Asher was practically bouncing on his knees next to Nikola, Liam and Moss shivering and cowering together behind them. Nikola raged a war inside himself, one side wanting to rip apart every intruder in the building and the other side wanting to grab everyone and flee far away.
But they needed to be here—at least according to the whims of the patrons—so they couldn’t run. The side of him bathed in Blood won out.
“Should we try her office first?” Nikola whispered.
It was his voice that broke the spell. Though they had anticipated it breaking immediately anyway, Nikola still grimaced in guilt as he felt their stealth fall away, leaving them exposed in the middle of the lobby.
Blood Followers Nikola didn’t recognize leaped from the top of the escalators, landing with the grace of felines between the secretary desk and Nikola’s company. Nikola posed to strike, doing a sweeping headcount. Only about a dozen. Child’s play, really, especially with both him and Asher.
But he wasn’t na?ve enough to think the building wasn’t crawling with more. This was just the first wave. Where the hell was Morrigan and the remainder of her units?
“Bunch o’ traitors, eh?” Asher hissed, stalling, giving the Moon Children time to work their magic.
The Blood Follower in front of the pack, a scruffy burly man with a large forehead and thick eyebrows, snarled a laugh. “Oh, the irony, coming from you, Master Asher. ”
The Blood Followers surged forward. With a feral screech, Asher lunged to meet them, Nikola close behind him. It was a dance of Nikola and Asher truly fighting side-by-side in its purest form. Asher bared his teeth in a snarl, but Nikola could see the lifted corners of his mouth, a wild smile that reflected the spirit singing in his veins.
It was the same song that singed Nikola’s blood vessels with the welcomed heat of combat. A song that sounded a lot like drumbeats.
Nikola’s brute force, his methods of bulldozing and throwing down his opponents with the impact of a speeding truck, complimented Asher’s agility and lithe style that could very well be described as Master Asher Black-inspired martial arts. Asher expertly danced around Nikola, avoiding the crossfires of Nikola’s devastating blows as Asher picked off would-be attackers with swift kicks and even quicker knuckles.
Nikola wouldn’t have been surprised if the intruders knew his face. But on the off chance he had encountered them before, they were lost to the decades, a blur of glistening fangs and shining red eyes. None of these vampires were newborns; only those who had survived Grander’s worst could have survived recent developments.
Which meant it wasn’t as easy razing through them like it was with a mob of poorly trained newborns, most of whom had been picked off on the winter solstice.
Asher and Nikola did not strike to kill, though the drive to do so hummed ever louder beneath Nikola’s skin. But that didn’t mean they were fully holding back.
Bones broke beneath fist and heel, teeth cracked free from jaws. Fabric tore as Asher evaded attacks and Nikola threw off those gunning for him. It was all made possible because of the Moon Children’ s support.
Alarm and uncertainty flashed across the features of the Blood as they heard screams and calls that weren’t truly there, offering Asher and Nikola the window to shatter a knee or snap a neck. Most of the illusions fell deaf on Nikola’s ears, but the eerie whispers in the air slipped through. Distracting, yes, but unlike their opponents, he knew the origins and could ignore it.
With the intruders confused, frightened, and no match for the likes of Asher Black and Nikola Kingston teamed up, the room quickly filled with the prone forms of Blood Followers. Asher walked around the fallen bodies, kicking the heads of any still groaning and attempting to stand up.
He theatrically slapped his hands clean of imaginary dirt. “All in a day’s work. But if those bozos know anything, they didn’t send down their best all at once. We gotta be prepared for the worst the further we go in and the closer we get to Morrigan... if she’s even still here,” he added in a mutter.
“Liam?” Trish spoke over Asher. Her brother’s breath sawed between clenched teeth, exploded pupils fixed on the splashes of red marring Morrigan’s shiny floors.
Asher and Nikola had agreed without needing to speak it out loud that they would spill as little blood as possible for the sake of the newborns’ unwitting presence. But the effort was not without error. Bone fragments breached flesh, stray claws had nicked Asher and Nikola’s neck each.
Asher crept closer, palms out, as if handling a wild animal. Perhaps that wasn’t far off. “Yo, you good?”
Liam blinked several times, shaking his head like a wet dog. Forcing himself to look directly at Asher, he croaked out, “Y-yeah. All good.” Well, the kid was still lucid enough to process what was being said to him and answer back, so that was promising.
Remarkably, Moss was holding themselves together, more shell-shocked over the violence than anything else. Nikola wished he could reassure them that it would soon be over, but wouldn’t that be a lie? Part of the curse of immortality was ceaseless bloodshed. And it was Nikola who had dragged Moss into the endless night.
The best he could hope to achieve tonight was to get everyone somewhere relatively safe.
“Right,” Asher responded to Liam, dripping with doubt. Liam straightened his back out of spite, steadying his uneven breaths. “Let’s go. We takin’ the elevator. Lead the way, Nikki.”
Nikola Kingston had ridden in this elevator hundreds of times but never crowded with those sparking with so much feverish energy, equal parts fright and exhilaration. And, oh, was Nikola exhilarated . Did he miss it, the thrill of a fight he knew he would win? The Blood side of him, the side he was still in the process of unearthing, was certainly drawn to the battlefield... but no. He did not miss the stroke of death—or the uncertainty of what waited for them on the other side of the elevator door.
Asher fidgeted with unkept excitement. When he brushed his fingers across the back of Nikola’s hand, Nikola could taste the adrenaline oozing from Asher’s pores.
Did he miss it?
Nikola did not have long to ponder it. The elevator jolted to its stop. He heard Kat’s faint whisper, “Make them see double. Make them look upon their own reflections.” Trish acknowledged Katsuki with a gulp that audibly clicked.
Ding .
The doors split apart, opening a portal to an antagonistic reality. Nikola inhaled, and before he could release it in an exhale, a figure rushed toward them. Asher stopped her in her tracks, a female Blood Follower with a mane of tangled blonde waves. He caught her by her arm, which wielded a black police baton.
“Oh, so the fun begins,” Asher quipped before striking the Blood Follower at the elbow. She howled as her arm caved in the opposite direction of its natural angle. Asher kicked her out of the way, catching the baton as it fell from her spasming hand.
He gave it a twirl and Nikola a wicked grin. Despite the settings, the dark expression sent hot pleasure down Nikola’s spine. What could he say? The bad-guy act suited his lover quite well.
Many of the couple dozens of Blood Followers rushing for them were armed with serrated knives and batons... as if picked up off the bodies of human authority. There was a notable absence of body armor or firearms.
Whoever oversaw these Followers did not wish to see them fully equipped.
Asher bounded ahead, the walls echoing his high-strung cackle. The sound was chilling to Nikola, even now as they fought on the same side. It occurred to him that must be the intention of Asher’s wild laughter. Or at least part of it. There was genuine, unhinged glee in that sound.
And Nikola found it contagious.
Downstairs, Asher had fought circles around Nikola as they cleared out the opened space. But up here Nikola barreled through those leaping at Asher. The hallway was narrow, and Nikola and Asher advanced through the storm of Followers, tearing down any enemy standing in their way. Asher swung and twirled his stolen weapon as if he’d been born to use it, collapsing skulls, and rendering limbs useless.
It certainly helped that the Blood Followers were cowering at seemingly nothing, or frantically looking around before attacking the Followers closest to them in a fit of confusion. Nikola could feel the hum of the Moon Children’s magic deep in the pit of his stomach.
In no time, they were rounding the corner, Morrigan’s office within their sights. Neither Asher nor Nikola bore much more than shallow cuts and bruises.
There was no one around, though Nikola sensed presence in the floors overhead. He harkened back to Asher’s comment earlier. “If she’s still here.”
It might not be a total loss if Morrigan had escaped her headquarters. There could still be a scent—
A gunshot went off behind them.
“Move and a bullet goes through your throat. If I sense anything out of the realm of reality, it’s going through your heart,” a gruff female voice said behind them. Asher and Nikola had been so focused on mowing down the threat immediately in front of them that they’d both gotten too many steps ahead of the others.
Asher and Nikola side-eyed each other, mutually raising their hands and slowly turning around. Everyone else did the same. Katsuki shook their head once at Trish. As the Moon’s magic faded from the building, it felt as if an entire crowd of people had left, leaving behind a yawning absence.
The Blood Follower had ink black hair, cut short with straight across bangs. She was skinny and deathly pale, even for an undead, her blue veins visible where they were exposed in her floral summer dress. But despite her slight appearance, she pointed her handgun at them with confidence.
Specifically at Asher.
Nikola resisted the urge to step in between him and the barrel. He ogled the firearm, thinking of Veronica. But to see a Blood Follower holding a gun was not a common sight. For the longest time, Nikola had assumed it was because creatures whose bodies were built to be the world’s most dangerous predator didn’t need manmade tools to kill.
Now he himself was half-Blood. Though it chilled him to think about it, he all too easily recalled the satisfaction of the High King and his minions dying beneath his hands. The split-second kill of a gunshot across the room wouldn’t have hit quite the same.
“Ah, I recognize you,” Asher dared to speak. She arched a sharp eyebrow. “You always kept close to Riccardo, assisting with newbie training or some shit?”
“Oh, that’s where you recognize me?” she deadpanned. “Nowhere else? You almost had it last time you acknowledged my existence.”
Asher scrunched his face, as if trying to remember, and ended up shrugging in defeat. The woman bared her teeth, causing Nikola to fear she was about to pull that trigger.
“Vanessa,” Liam gasped. “Right? Is that you? Shit, you don’t look a day over...”
“Over nineteen, that’s correct,” she hissed. “I barely had the chance to enjoy being free of high school before the night took me.”
Nikola sensed Asher’s bristling and could practically hear his biting retort pointing out that he hadn’t even had the chance to graduate. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re offended I don’t remember every single face from a goddamn city high school,” Asher sparred. “There were, like, what? Three hundred of us in our class? Didn’t you do nothing but hide in the drama room or something?”
Vanessa scoffed, flashing a look at Liam. “How did you get roped into the Horned One’s snare, huh? Asher got scared after he betrayed his creator, so he decided to track down his high school sweetheart instead?”
“Creator?” Asher grumbled. Rolling his eyes, he said louder, “Whatever, doesn’t matter. Why are we here talking anyway? You got a gun, why ain’t you using it?”
Asher , Nikola wanted to scold. He refrained, betting that his lover was up to something.
Vanessa gave a haughty laugh, giving the impression of someone who wanted to be a villain but could only act the part. Still, she was the one with a gun. She couldn’t shoot them all at once, but Nikola would be damned if she took any of them out. “And pass up the opportunity to tell the infamous Master Asher Black what we have thought of him all these years?”
“Oh, boy!” Asher interrupted with mock enthusiasm. Then, his voice colder and lower, “Do you really think I care?”
Vanessa pretended that she didn’t hear him. “You turned your back on Lord Malkolm, and here we are, trapped in a burning city with Morrigan claiming the throne. And for what? Why did you think, out of everyone, that you could get a free pass? You were a monster just like Lord Malkolm, I hope you know that. We all despised you just as much as we feared you. You were cruel, unpredictable, demonic . Yet here you are, parading the mark of the Moon, as if the last decade doesn’t matter.”
Nikola glanced over at Trish, sensing her steely gaze fixed on Asher, as if the woman pointing a weapon at them had a point. Asher grew still as the faintest trickle of disgrace rippled through him. But then he laughed it off, a quiet chuckle at first, before building toward his mad cackle.
“Drastic measures for drastic monsters,” he said lowly, sobering so abruptly it was jarring. “Y’all were let loose for a few days, and you went and destroyed the damn city. If you think I was cruel, imagine if it had been Malkolm’s personal hand. I did what I had to do to keep a brood of stir-crazy Blood Followers from eating a city alive from the inside out.”
Nikola picked up a pulse of shame coming from Liam’s direction. He couldn’t help but sympathize with the kid, knowing that Liam understood what kind of monster he would be without his sister’s leash.
“Oh, so we should be grateful, is that what I’m hearing?” Vanessa spat.
Asher gave a high-pitched laugh. “Oh, yes.” Nikola watched warily as Asher’s claws came out. “You should be.”
Vanessa was no stranger to Asher’s skills, if she’d been around for as long as she was implying. She wasn’t going to take that chance. Liam saw it, too. Nikola could boast of his half-Blood traits all he wanted, but the fact remained that Liam was full Blood, and nothing was keener than instincts blessed by the Horned God.
When Vanessa pulled the trigger, Liam and Nikola both moved, Nikola shoving Asher aside to stand in his place and Liam jumping in front of where Asher had been standing.
The bullet punched into Liam’s heart, lodging itself in his chest cavity, failing to emerge through his back.
The world froze, time standing still. The pause stretched out as slowly as a lonely century. But when it did pass, everything happened all at once.
Liam’s breath hitched, his lungs rattling. He coughed once, body seizing up before his legs gave out, a limp corpse folding beneath the weight of gravity.
Before Nikola could move, Asher was already dancing around him, catching Liam. His head lolled, opened eyes seeing nothing, blood dribbling down his lip. “Nah,” Asher growled. “You do not get to sacrifice yourself for me like some sort of rushed redemption arc. ”
Asher laid Liam out on his back. He ripped open the front of his black shirt, growing sodden with fresh blood and appearing wet with mere water. Because it was near impossible to fully recover with a foreign object still in the wound, Asher started clawing into Liam’s chest, muttering something about “not being a damn heart surgeon.”
It was visceral, Asher tearing through flesh and muscle, blood soaking his clothes, flooding Liam’s form and the pale carpet in a river of crimson. But it was not senseless violence. Asher’s face was sharply focused as he carefully poked and felt around Liam’s chest cavity, trying his best to not damage it beyond repair.
So gratuitous was the carnage that Nikola looked around for Trish, ready to stop the overprotective sister if need be.
The Moon Child’s attention was fully fixed on Vanessa. It only just struck Nikola that the Blood Follower had yet to take a second shot. Trish had her hand outstretched toward Vanessa, the Blood Follower visibly shaking with effort, the barrel pointed at the floor.
“Ha!” Asher gasped in triumph. Nikola heard the clink of the bullet dropping.
He heard Katsuki say, “Trish, consider what you’re about to do.”
He heard Asher growling beneath his breath, “You two saw what we saw, eh? When Moss died? You know Liam has it in him to carry both Moon and Blood.”
Nikola glanced down right as Asher started splitting open his own veins. His attention snapped back up to Trish as she let out an ear-splitting scream, reminiscent of a Blood Follower’s feral howl.
Vanessa cried out in an agonized effort, the gun clicking as it shook in her quaking hands. She gripped it as if she was fighting to hold it in place. Next to Trish, Moss lifted a hand, assisting the Moon Child as she...? What were the pair trying to do?
It fell into place as Vanessa’s shoulders slumped, losing the psychic battle. As if of her own choice, she turned the barrel on herself, angled at the same point in her chest she’d just shot Liam.
“Wait—!” Nikola cried too late, lost to the crack of the gunshot.
Vanessa’s body jerked. She crumpled to the floor, the gun falling with a clatter. Moss rushed in to snatch it with a trembling hand, but unlike Liam, no one caught Vanessa. She was left to bleed out on the floor of the building she’d failed to take over.
Katsuki drew in a deep breath before turning away from the scene. If to watch a death was enough to lose the Moon Goddess’s grace, no one here would still have it. That couldn’t be said of Trish.
When she whirled around, crying her brother’s name, Nikola saw a flash of red and assumed she’d fully Converted. A brief vision of the Blood siblings surviving the next Purging flashed through his mind. But only her left eye was red.
“Trish?” Liam croaked out. So captured by the scene of Vanessa’s defeat that Nikola hadn’t noticed the young Blood Follower’s recovery.
Wait.
No, not a Blood Follower.
Excluding Katsuki, the room was suddenly full of hybrids.
The God and Goddess had answered Asher’s prayers.
Moss and Trish sprinted to Liam. Asher stood up and jumped away as the two crowded Liam, hugging him, and showering him with tear-flooded kisses. Liam laughed weakly, barely able to keep his head up.
“A generation anew,” breathed the Moon Goddess’s voice. The trio of newly realized hybrids froze, glancing between each other as they all heard her voice. “Brought back to its city of origins by you. ”
Asher’s jaw pulsed, sharing a hard scowl with Nikola without needing to say a word. Was he also wondering if the patrons had this planned all along? Or had the divine twins recently turned their eyes on the newborns?
“The world needs Balance,” came the Horned One’s rumble. Trish whimpered in fright while Moss grimaced with familiarity. “But my Followers will rise again once equilibrium is found.”
Nikola was unsure if he should take that as a threat or a beacon of hope. Asher shrugged, shaking his head in frustrated confusion. Nikola could sympathize.
“Dear God,” Trish said, perhaps too literally, before slumping over Liam, her Conversion taking root. Liam struggled to keep awake, Moss hovering helplessly over the two of them.
Ding.
Nikola and Asher spun around, facing the elevator, claws out. Moss jumped up, clumsily holding the gun, signaling to the entire world that they had no clue how to use it. With Trish unconscious, this was going to be one hell of a fight.
It was Queen Morrigan who stepped through, four lackeys behind her. Her red eyes swept the room filled with unconscious Blood Followers. Casually, she said, “Oh, splendid. I was hoping that you two were going to handle that little problem of mine.”