Chapter 17
Seventeen
Panic slammed into Marcus as he picked himself off the ground.
He quickly looked around to see Bel and Rafe rising as well.
Ethan was holding his mother steady on her feet.
Someone had set an explosion off against his fucking front door.
There were deep voices shouting directions.
Their attackers were coming. He needed to get Ethan and Julianna to safety.
Looking at Ethan, he could think of only one thing.
“Run!” he bellowed.
Ethan’s terrified gaze held his for a moment before he gave a sharp nod and started pulling Julianna toward the other door out of the library.
It would lead him to the rear parlor, which had a door onto the hallway farther into the town house.
They could escape through the kitchen and out the back door, assuming they weren’t already surrounded.
A different swell of fear threatened to consume Marcus. These attackers weren’t the only threat to Ethan’s life. If this attack triggered another episode in Julianna, Ethan would be defenseless. He had no way of protecting himself against her.
“Bel, go with them!”
Bel wordlessly ran after Ethan and Julianna as they disappeared into the dark room.
His heart went out to his brother, who was still anxious around their mother following her latest attack.
He wasn’t comfortable being around her alone yet, and it would likely take several more months before that occurred, but Bel knew that of him and his twin, Rafe was the stronger fighter.
Marcus had no idea who was attacking his home, but he had a few guesses.
Unfortunately, he had no weapons tucked away in the library.
Hell, the closest on hand were in his office and bedroom on the third floor.
With Ethan packing up the house, he’d moved all the weapons he kept hidden about his home because he didn’t want his assistant stumbling over them and asking awkward questions.
At the time, he didn’t think Ethan would understand that he was always at risk of being attacked by another vampire.
Now it wouldn’t be quite so hard to explain.
As Rafe and Marcus turned toward the hall, they watched as the first few men entered wearing what looked to be body armor while wielding automatic weapons. These weren’t vampires. They preferred knives for hacking off limbs and heads. Bullets didn’t always slow down vampires.
Marcus glanced over at Rafe, who tossed him a jaunty smile and a little shrug.
“Can you grab the lights, dear brother?” Rafe asked.
Marcus relaxed the little part of him that seemed to hold back the power.
Tension flooded from his body while all the light in the hallway rushed into his body.
Pitch blackness crashed over the area and shouts rose in the darkness.
The intruders floundered a bit, waving the nose of their guns wildly from one side to the next, blind to everything.
Night vision goggles didn’t even work in his version of a magical night.
He’d asked Rafe how he managed to fight in that complete blackness and his brother said that he relied on sound to take down his prey.
Marcus watched his brother easily slide through the room without making a sound, his eyes closed against the darkness.
He’d pause here and there, his head cocked to the side as he listened.
The attackers breathed heavily, their clothing and armor rustling as they shifted. So very easy to find.
A scream pierced the relative silence as Rafe took down one man, his body thudding loudly on the hardwood floor.
The other attackers jumped backward, moving away from the sound while turning toward it.
Marcus launched himself into the thicket of men, grabbing two of them.
He slammed one hard to the ground, attempting to knock the air from his lungs while grabbed the other by the throat.
Fingers dug deep, tearing through flesh and sinew.
Blood spurted hot across his hand and the ever-present hunger pushed back, demanding to be sated.
The second man’s scream was immediately cut off in a wet gurgle.
Marcus pulled his hand free as he tossed the man to the ground and turned his attention to the first man.
Shouts from the rear of the house echoed to the front and Marcus’s heart jumped.
They were surrounded. He heard Ethan shouting instructions and then Bel answered, but he couldn’t quite make out their words.
He could only assume that Ethan was directing them to take the servants’ staircase to the upper floors as a means of escape.
He wanted to go to them, save them, but he couldn’t leave Rafe alone. They were outnumbered.
Before he could grab the intruder at his feet, pain seared through his arm followed by another near his collarbone.
He’d been fucking shot. He lost his hold on the power and light flooded into the room.
People shouted in pain. Marcus dove at the bastard who shot him, ripping the gun from his hands and potentially breaking fingers in the process.
With a snarl, he snapped the man’s neck and dropped his corpse to the floor.
He looked up to do a quick count of attackers, hoping that Rafe might be able to handle them on his own so he could check on Ethan and their mother, but it proved to be wishful thinking.
Behind the men already standing in the open hallway, four vampires strolled into the house, wicked grins on their pale faces.
They wore no body armor and carried no guns.
Each had a long blade in their hands. Marcus recognized only two of the faces of vampires who liked to associate with Meryl.
Fellow members of The Hidden looking to take out the people who would be most likely to cause problems for their master plans.
“Rafe! Watch out!” Marcus cried. The humans were a nuisance. The vampires were the true threat.
Marcus leaned down and pulled a knife from the dead man’s sheath.
The newest intruders hung back, waiting for Marcus and Rafe to finish dealing with the humans before they fell on them in a flurry of steel and fangs.
Marcus fought them as best he could. Fists pummeled him as he sank his blade deep into a gut.
The grip grew slick with blood and he tightened his hold.
He couldn’t risk looking over at Rafe, couldn’t think about Bel alone at the rear of the house against an unknown number of assailants.
He could only keep moving, keep fighting.
One vampire went down, but Marcus was bleeding heavily already from his earlier wounds as well as the new one on his neck.
He didn’t know if they were winning. It certainly didn’t feel like it.
Adrenaline and fear were the only things keeping the pain at bay, but he felt like he was slowing down. Each movement growing more sluggish.
A new roar made his tired heart skip. He glanced up to see Aiden and Winter standing in the open doorway.
They jumped into the fray, taking on the last of their attackers.
Marcus stumbled away from the fight, his feet sliding in the blood and gore that covered the hardwood.
He ran as fast as he could to the kitchen where he saw Bel kick away the corpse of a shredded vampire.
His brother was covered in blood and his breathing was heavy.
There were fresh cuts across his chest and a bullet wound in his thigh.
“Mother? Ethan?” Marcus shouted.
Bel pointed toward the half-hidden staircase as he leaned heavily against the center island. “Two vamps followed. I…I couldn’t stop them all,” Bel panted.
“No!” Aiden gasped from behind Marcus. He hadn’t even realized that his sire had followed him. “Julianna!” he roared, his deep voice echoing through the house a second before he charged up the stairs.
Marcus inwardly cringed. The sound of Aiden’s voice was likely to send her straight into an episode, putting Ethan’s life in even more danger. Or it would do nothing because she was already dead.
Clenching his teeth, Marcus pulled together the last of his strength and rushed after Aiden. He prayed there was a third option he wasn’t thinking of.
Ethan gripped the narrow wooden handrail with sweaty palms and pulled himself up the stairs as fast as he could, following on Julianna’s heels.
The woman had tightly held his hand as she guided him easily through Marcus’s house to the kitchen.
But as they reached it, the back door was kicked open.
Without hesitation, she pivoted and turned them up the back stairs.
Voices shouted and among them, Ethan thought he heard Bel’s strong, angry voice.
Ethan shouted at him to watch out before disappearing up the stairs.
They had just reached the second floor when a new set of feet pounded up the wooden stairs, chasing after them.
He prayed that Bel was okay as he and Julianna rushed hand in hand to the next set of stairs, continuing up to the third and now the final narrow stairs to the attic.
There was nowhere else to go. His only hope was for them to barricade themselves in the attic and call 9-1-1 on his cell phone.
His heart pounded in his chest and his legs burned from climbing so many stairs so quickly.
He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he needed to get back to Marcus.
Ethan didn’t have a weapon, and he was pretty sure he didn’t stand a damn chance against a bunch of assholes with machine guns, but he was not leaving Marcus.
He’d find a way to help him, but first he had to get Julianna somewhere she’d be safe.
At the top of the stairs, Julianna threw open the door and held it back for Ethan to run through. As he stepped into the attic, he turned around in time to see her flash him a sad smile before she stepped out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her.