Chapter 29 #2
“I admit, you almost had—” The old assassin had lifted his wrist and begun to jingle the restraint when he made a yelp of pain and lifted his leg. Boris hung by his mouth, fangs buried deep in Noir’s calf. The honey badger growled and moved his head back and forth to worsen the wound.
I took a proper breath with him distracted.
Relief flooded straight to my head, replaced by a pinch of pain as I hit him with another null while he pried Boris off of him.
Instead of being aggravated by being cut off from his magic, Noir laughed.
He might’ve said something else strange, but Finn tackled his legs while he was off balance, sending the assassin to the floor.
One of his daggers went skittering across the carpet. I bent and snatched it up while Zane harnessed the shadows once more. Living darkness curled around Noir’s legs, holding him down. It crept up to his hips, reaching for his torso and arms next.
I grabbed the back of the assassin’s overly long hair, hauling up his head and putting his own dagger to his neck. Strain closed in around my temples from maintaining my null, but we had him now. All we had to do was secure the other manacle around his free wrist.
“The restraints,” I said.
“Finn’s got it,” Zane replied. His brow knit with concentration as he worked his magic.
Noir’s red gaze held an unusual glow as he inspected my expression. The fight had caused a necklace to come loose from where it hid under his shirt. The cord was unremarkable, plain leather, but a gold disk hung from it that glinted with a massive ruby at its center. It, too, glowed.
He spoke softly with the blade to his throat. “Don’t worry. Part of you will live on. I’ll put your power to good use.”
A sudden mental force sheered away my null, piercing into my temples. A shrieking tone filled my hearing. My lips parted in a cry of agony.
Noir’s voice infiltrated my mind. He held my gaze with magnetic intensity. Despite the pain and panic inside of me, I couldn’t do anything but what he told me. “Stab. Stab. Stab!”
My fingers moved of their own accord. He’d willed me to turn the blade on myself, and that’s what I did. Smoothly I flipped the dagger around and buried it in my belly. And again. And a third time, twisting deep in my guts. Hot blood gushed around my fingers as I delivered my own mortal wound.
As Noir lifted his compulsion, the world slowed to a pour of chilled syrup. There was screaming. Zane, I realized. “Sidney! No!”
I stared down at the hilt protruding from my midsection.
My body tipped over. My limbs flopped around me as I didn’t react in time. I stared up at the ceiling as delayed agony shrilled through my body. Blood gushed from my gut wound. Even more burned my tongue with the taste of iron.
Manic giggling. And a silvery blur as Finn smashed the assassin over the head with a teapot. Thud. Noir was stunned just long enough for the redhead to secure his wrists behind him. The spelled restraints activated with a hum and a flash of white magic.
Zane roughly hauled him away from me. He threw our nemesis toward a patch of darkness, which engulfed him. “You bastard!” he snarled. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t fucking kill you in the slowest, most painful—”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” the old assassin mumbled.
“Stop. She needs us,” Finn said aloud, his voice thick with emotion.
I blinked. Once, twice. It hurt so much to even breathe. Zane and Finn loomed over me, faces pale with shock.
“My…” I coughed, leaking a single trail of crimson from my mouth. “My…serum. Quick.”
“The serum,” Zane repeated, louder, shouting at Finn, who wouldn’t hear it no matter what volume he used. The Deaf vampire’s champagne eyes were darkened and darting around in panic. Zane grabbed his shoulder, shaking him thoroughly, before signing, The healing serum. Now!
Finn jolted and went out of my line of sight. I counted two agonized breaths before he returned with a syringe in his hands. A precious vial of my catalyst, blue as a piece of the noon sky.
Zane took it from him and injected it cleanly in my arm. The moment the plunger went down, magma crawled through my veins. It raced straight for my heart and flooded outward in a scorching wave that stole my breath.
For a moment that stretched too long, nothing else happened. The tingle of my dhampir regeneration fought a losing battle waiting for the serum to join in.
“You’re all right, sunshine.” Zane stroked the side of my face, repeating the words over and over. Trying to reassure us both.
Minutes later, my limbs convulsed as the serum woke, pushing my healing into motion. The acceleration helped but not nearly fast enough for the desperation clawing through me.
My mates held my hands, and I gripped them like lifelines, my knuckles white with strain. I fought for air, each gasp a jagged rasp that burned my throat. Sweat poured from my skin as the heat intensified, settling in my gut.
“Take. Out. The. Dagger.” I bit off every word with clenched teeth. My mending flesh ripped anew around the buried blade.
This time, Zane hesitated. Leaving a foreign object buried was Triage 101 for slayers. It was Finn who pulled the weapon ever so carefully from my body and set it aside. Zane tore a piece of cloth from the cart’s cover and pressed it to the wound.
It was only then that our quiet observer spoke up from where he was restrained. “Do I get to lick that at least?” Noir asked. “It’s the least you could do for me, after barging in here and bruising my banana delivery.”