“Your blood is damn near as good as mine, Vash.” Adrian’s wings flexed, a sign Lindsay recognized as agitation. “If you want to save him, do it yourself.”
“I’ve given him what I can.”
“If that wasn’t enough, he’s dead already.”
Lindsay’s stomach knotted. “Take me. I’l be your blood bag. I’m easier to transport and no spil age.”
“Lindsay, no.” To the casual observer, Adrian appeared unmoved by her statement. But the compulsory resonance in his words hit her like a Mack truck, sending a racking jolt through her body.
Vash’s grip loosened a fraction. “When’s the last time you fed from him?”
It took her a moment to squeeze an answer past Adrian’s compulsion. “Three hours ago.”
“Vashti.” Adrian’s voice rumbled through the room like thunder.
The world exploded in a shower of glass. Lindsay was thrown outside the house and into the street…or so it seemed. When the world shuddered back into place, she realized Vash had leaped with her through the glass door and over the wal …into a waiting convertible. They tore off like a bul et with Adrian directly behind them.
Lightning split the sky and hit the asphalt in front of the car.
Cursing, Vash jerked the wheel to the left and punched it around a corner, tires squealing as they nearly careened up the side of the curb and into a streetlamp.
“Better grab the wheel when the time comes,” the vampress hissed. “You’l be the only one who dies if you don’t.”
Lindsay, feeling il from the lingering effects of the silver, clung to the door handle and tried to kick her rattled brain into gear.
Adrian landed on the trunk with a violent thud, his feet sinking deep prints into the metal.
“Now!” Vash yel ed, deflecting Adrian’s grasping arm and lunging at him between the two front seats.
Throwing herself across the center console, Lindsay snatched at the wheel. Her sudden grab jerked the car right, then left as she tried to steer a straight line while lying on her side. Adrian was thrown free.
Vash tumbled into the backseat with a curse. “Drive straight, damn it! Get to the Strip. He’l have to back off.”
A massive shadow darkened the sky over the car as Adrian swooped in again.
It didn’t escape Lindsay’s mind that she was fleeing her very reason for living, the one individual she couldn’t live without. But that’s why she was doing it. Adrian’s blood was too precious—and the ramifications too great—to risk what Vash demanded.
“Red light!” Lindsay shouted.
“A little busy!” Vash shot back, straightening to fight off Adrian’s dive bomb. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself, Sentinel!”
Lightning struck the vampress square in the chest, knocking her unconscious. She slumped into the corner of the backseat like a broken dol .
“Move, Lindsay,” Adrian ordered, dropping wingless into the driver’s seat and taking over the wheel. He turned into a strip mal and parked with a squeal of rubber over pavement. Twisting in the seat, he faced her with burning irises. “What the hel are you doing?”
“It’s best this way.”
“Fuck if it is.”
“You know it is,” she argued, looking at Vash to make sure the vampress was stil out cold. “We can’t risk you.”
“You’re doing this for Elijah.”
“Partly,” she admitted. “But that benefits you, too. You and I both want to figure out what happened with him.”
“I don’t give a shit what happened with him. I give a shit about you. Maybe you haven’t been paying attention—I can’t live without you. Damned if I’l risk you.”
“Elijah won’t let anything happen to me. You know that, or you would never have made him my guard.”