Kara turned the corner but stopped short of continuing. She couldn't leave. That man was there to aid her brother, who was fighting for his life. On her cheek, Lucian's fingers were still warm. He hadn't played the part of her enemy. She was doubtful, but she had a sneaking suspicion that his odd conduct was a terrible vampire ruse. He had the perfect opportunity to kill her. He might have easily struck her or had a friend strike her. He had instead recommended her leave.
She had been raised to dread vampires, and they would have immediately killed her. The bad guys would not have told her that her brother was secure. She questioned what had just happened between them since it was unusual.
She hadn't come all this way to see Joseph's passing.
Kara crept back to the alley's corner and peered outside to see the altercation. She drew and loaded her crossbow. The vampires still didn't initiate the first blow as she watched them all fight in a swirl of fists and blood. She realized, after paying closer attention, that they spent most of their time deflecting the hunters' blows. Given the hunters' numerical disadvantage, the battle ought to be over by now. The opposite was true.
She began to question whether Lucian and his comrades were the savage, mindless creatures she had been taught to loathe her whole life as she saw the vampires in action. She had no idea that vampires existed, yet they seemed to be something different. She was certain that no hunter had ever heard of this.
Lucian wiggled his way through the commotion. Jayce and Asher were standing with Joseph when he grabbed Logan and Nathan by the necks and threw them in their direction. The power Ronan had left Kara speechless. Both of them had been thrown aside as if they were mere feathers. The other vampires formed a line behind him as the hunters gathered. Blood trickled from the hunters' wounds, but none of them was life-threatening.
"Give us Joseph," Lucian commanded. "We'll look after him,"
Nathan slipped his crossbow from his hip and replied, "You mean to set him loose to kill more?"
He won't ever experience freedom again, Lucian stated. Give him to me, please. He's ours to destroy.
Nathan's crossbow dipped a little before striking Lucian's huge chest squarely in the middle. Kara's breath stopped in her throat as Lucian advanced, seemingly unaware of the weapon. She recognized the determined expression on Nathan's face. It took less than a split second to fire the bolt.
He didn't even flinch as Lucian drew the bolt from thin air and threw it away like a pesky fly. Kara gave him a wide-eyed stare. Before, she had never seen someone move that swiftly, and she had never thought anyone could.
Before anybody could answer or Lucian could get in touch with Nathan, Joseph gave an order. Attack immediately! "Now!" His windpipe had recovered enough for him to talk, albeit the words were muddled.
To determine who he was yelling at, Kara blinked. The people in the alley looked at each other in confusion. With his fingers around Joseph's neck, Lucian sped up. When a second vampire sprang up onto the brick wall, he was just about to take Joseph out of Jayce's clutches. The feral-looking vampire with blood-red eyes was followed by a dozen more vampires.
While holding Joseph's neck in place and staring at the Savages seated on the wall like gargoyles ready to take flight, Lucian stopped moving. Their smell hardly penetrated the squalor of the lane. He realized that the amount of trash and the fact that his colleagues could hide on the other side of the wall until he was ready to bring them out were the reasons Joseph had lured them into this area of the alley. He shouldn't have broken Joseph's windpipe since the Savages would have arrived sooner.
Declan mumbled, "Well, that's a heap of shit right there," and reached behind him to get two swords from inside his coat.
Kara tried to scream as the vampires sprang from the wall but bit herself. She may be the covert weapon they want, but only provided she didn't expose her whereabouts right now because no one knew she was there. When one of the vampires slammed into Lucian, he lost control of Joseph. Nathan was hit by another, crashing into Jayce and Joseph.
Jayce's grasp on Joseph twisted as his hand was jerked to the side. The young hunter's wrist cracked like a bone as he howled. As Kara hoisted her crossbow and aimed it at Joseph's heart, her stomach dropped to her toes. Joseph held Jayce's head when he fired the bolt.
The bolt that struck Jayce before striking Joseph's chest millimeters from his heart left Jayce's ear dripping with blood. Joseph's blood-red eyes briefly met Jayce's before he pulled her neck to the side. Down the alley, one could hear the cracking of his spine. She cried out "No!" as it burned its way up her throat, strangling her. Joseph's lips were twisted in a savage grin.
She was filled with despair as Jayce's dead body fell to the ground. Her childhood companion was Jayce. They played tag and had ice cream cones on hot summer days. He had previously expressed to her his desire to become an astronaut and go to another planet, but instead, he had mastered the skills of a hunter's pilot and murder. He had since disappeared.
Nothing made Kara more sad than to sit down and grieve over her friend's passing. She reloaded the crossbow instead after pulling another bolt from her pocket. She raised it to terminate the ferocious beast that had slain her father and her traveling companion.
Just as she was about to fire again, Lucian crept through the chaos and grabbed Joseph by the neck with one hand. Joseph was easily crushed into the pavement after being lifted into the air. The asphalt cracked and crumbled under Joseph's body. Two more vampires sprang onto the top of the wall, then leaped off and onto Lucian's back as he pulled his other hand back to strike Joseph.
Kara's fingers on her crossbow trembled as Lucian ducked beneath their bodies. She searched the vampires for Nathan and the other hunters, but she couldn't find them. Two of the vampires on Joseph's side were killed by more bolts that she fired at them.
Over the years, she had received extensive training in self-defense, but she had never been allowed to go vampire hunting. Now that her body was alive in a manner it had never been before, her blood was buzzing with excitement, and she was unable to deny how fantastic it felt.
When Lucian emerged from the throng, the vampires who had been attached to him were gone. He seized one of them and threw the vamp forward, shattering a number of the wall's bricks in the process. The vamp's mark was left behind when he fell to the ground. Kara was certain the wall would come crashing down as it rocked on its foundation.
As she searched for her brother, terror tore at her from the inside as she saw Asher and Declan fending against a horde of vampires. They didn't seem to think it odd that they were collaborating. They were almost standing back to back, and she saw that they were my adversary's opponent. The person with the scar, Killean, was being fought off by Logan. Lucien and Saxon were facing each other as they engaged in combat.
When she, at last, saw Nathan beside one of the trash, she felt relieved. He had a deep cut above his right eye that was dripping with blood, yet it didn't stop him from putting a stake into a vampire's heart.
Behind Declan, a second vampire rose, and Kara reloaded her weapon. The vampire was about to grab Declan when Kara fired a shot that went straight through his heart. Declan glanced back at her, his silver eyes meeting hers and glimmering with delight. He gave her a nod before slashing open the stomach of another vampire and throwing him against the wall.
The hit caused the already broken wall to bounce back, making an unpleasant creaking sound.
"Take care!" Asher shouted.
Asher stumbled away from the unstable wall. Bricks that were breaking clattered on the pavement and ricocheted against the trash cans. The wall shook once more before falling with a loud thud and the crash of bricks. Gray dust began to fly in her direction from where she was standing.
Kara moved closer as her view of the battle was obscured by airborne debris. When the fog cleared, she could see the vampires who had joined Joseph in the fight as they fled down the street. She saw Nathan turning a bend in front of them while Asher and Logan followed them.
Joseph was nowhere to be seen. She thought he had been the first to turn around and run away like a coward.
The dead vamps' corpses, Jayce, and the surviving vampires all remained in the alley. Before she started crying and continued to do so, Kara diverted her attention away from her friend's body. She retreated into the shadows while Lucian brushed some of the dust from his hair. He was covered in a rain of dust and broken bricks.
He regarded the arrow protruding from his shoulder with indifference. Without even flinching, he ripped it free and threw it into the distance. For him, Kara shook.
If the hunters manage to capture Joseph—, Lucien said.
"They won't," Lucian said. And if we pursue them, we'll simply find ourselves battling them once again.
And eventually, Saxon said, "We'll kill one of them."
Killean added, "I don't see any issue with it.
The hunters are not our adversaries, remarked Lucian.
Why did he keep saying the same thing? Kara was confused. What made him believe that?
Killean said, "Perhaps not, but they think we are, and as a consequence, they fouled up the entire night. "Joseph would be dead right now, and everyone on this planet would be a lot safer if it weren't for their stupidity," said the speaker.
"Enough, Killean," Lucian said. The dead should be collected by you and Saxon and taken outside, where they may be burned, or anywhere where the sun can reach them in the morning.
"I'll get the van," Saxon promised. He sprinted along the street after jumping over the bricks.
At the end of the lane, she could see a gathering crowd of people. The vampires were standing where the wall had formerly been while the humans spoke behind their hands, pointing down the alley to them.
Declan, handle the crowd, Lucian commanded.
"With pleasure," Declan said. He climbed the masonry and moved closer to the crowd. He turned to one of them and said, "Hello, sweetie. The girl's worried face disappeared. She blushed and laughed as he ran his finger under her chin.
Declan's interactions with the crowd were seen by Kara. She was unable to comprehend what he was saying, but as soon as he was through, they all left. She was aware of a vampire's ability to change someone else's memories, but she had never seen it in action. It was both gorgeous and disturbing, she had to admit.
She was grateful that as a hunter, she was immune to the vamp's ability to influence.
"What about the dead hunter's body?" Lucien was interested.
The moment Lucian remarked, "The hunters will come back for him," Kara was prepared to yell at them to leave it alone.
And what if someone finds out about it earlier?
"That is the hunters' issue, not ours," the hunter said. No signs of a vampire attack on him exist, and it will be difficult for the authorities to figure out what occurred, but that is not our problem. What happened to the woman Joseph attacked at the club? Saxon questioned.
"I couldn't save her," Saxon said. "I covered up both her body and the neck wound. By dawn, they should be able to find her.
Looking down the road, where the hunters had fled in pursuit of Joseph, Lucian clenched his teeth. He relied on the human population for food, but tonight he had failed to achieve his goal and an innocent person had died as a consequence. Even worse, more of them would die now that Joseph had gone.
They ought to have killed the hunters and Joseph, then left. Although they would have all had to deal with the repercussions of the hunters' demise in the long run, they would have ultimately saved many more lives. He could be forced to kill the hunters if they got involved once again.
Until she was certain that the vampires would not steal Jayce's body, Kara stayed in the shadows. Even if her brother didn't show there right away, they would find a way to steal Jayce's body.
If the vampires didn't leave right away, she'd come back and treat Jayce badly. She would find a way to take him home even if he weighed 70 pounds more than she did.
A battered gray car pulled up at the end of the alley and backed down close to the wall that was still standing. Killean unlocked the back doors and began throwing the vampires' bodies into the vehicle, but it didn't completely stop.
She should remain still until they had all left since they would do so quickly. She should have long since departed this region. She was alone herself in a vampire-filled alley after her brother disappeared.