The walls felt like they were closing in as I stared into the murderous face of my stepfather. He’d caught us red-handed, breaking into the Pinnacle’s vault.
How did he even know?
My knees nearly melted into jelly as fear threatened to make me freeze like a deer in headlights.
Fuck no.
I took a deep breath and shoved away any emotion that might get in the way of our mission. It didn’t matter how Claude knew we were here. The more important question was—what was he going to do about it?
Nothing good, that was certain.
His maniacal expression made my blood grow cold and my stomach churn with dread. He stood in front of me, grey hair disheveled, breathing raggedly, still in his tux, looking—and feeling, no doubt—like he was motherfucking James Bond.
Only … Claude was the Russian spy, the bad guy, the asshole. I was Bond.
We faced off across a dark corridor, my crew behind me and Claude just three feet away, glaring at me. To my right, the vault door composed of steel and magic gleamed—but only because I held my hand aloft, using my natural-born Darklight power to light the space with magical sunshine, since there were no light fixtures down here.
Attack first, think later.
I lifted my hand and shot shadows at his eyes to blind him, but the asshole ducked and threw a magical flame at me. I dove for the ground, scraping my palms on the cement as the flames whooshed by above me. The pain shoved away my fear and let fury override everything else.
That dick was helping hide a magical serum that could save hundreds of thousands of lives. Hiding it because doing so made him money; apparently vampire blood had immortal qualities that helped increase a spell’s longevity. Everyone with a seat at the Pinnacle Council table had vampire blood on their hands, because they’d traded in morality for cold hard cash. Those bastards had hidden the cure for vampiric insanity because they didn’t want to lose their free and easy immortal blood source. As it stood, vamps were the forgotten, the ignored, the hush-hush, swept-under-the-rug, black sheep of magical society. No one had to bother looking the other way at what the Pinnacle was doing, because no one bothered to take a second look at the magicals who failed the Unnatural Spell and transformed into vampires. Regular magicals were too busy locking vamps up in mental institutions and forgetting they existed, which created the perfect situation for Pinnacle bigwigs to exploit them.
No more. My fingers curled into fists and I shoved myself off the floor to face my stepfather and his arrogant smile.
I wasn’t gonna let my brother be a blood bag for the Pinnacle. If I could help it, no vamp would suffer that fate again.
“Hayley, I’m disappointed.”
His tone made me want to lash out and bite him like some wild animal. Claude’s disdain had a way of chipping away my logic like cheap-ass nail polish. I forced myself to take a breath and remember why I was here. I forced my hand to stay at my side; I refused to let myself reach up and touch the serum—the cure—which lay in a pouch zipped securely inside my fireproof shirt. We’d gotten what we’d come for—a cure for Matthew. Now we had to make it out.
But my stepfather stood in our way.
My gut tightened because I knew that the only thing we could do to escape was kill Claude. On a soul-deep level, I knew that if we just knocked him out and made a break for it, he’d hunt me down for the rest of my days. I’d never sleep.
We were one-hundred-fifty feet below the earth’s surface and we’d stolen one of the magical government’s top secrets. Getting out had already been a challenge before he’d shown up.
Now … it was going to be him or us. He’d make sure of it.
I felt woozy at the thought.
I stared into Claude’s cold blue eyes and magically youthful face and tried to harden my resolve for what needed to happen. Had to happen.
My stomach still frothed with guilt and apprehension.
“You okay?” Z whispered, checking on me. My sweet, seductive, brown-eyed boy showed no hint of his normal humor. His voice was tight, and taut as a wire.
I didn’t answer him; I was too busy trying to decide my next move as I watched my stepfather create a burning lasso in the air, harnessing his power as an Icefire to create a weapon.