so she couldn’t scream, but her eyes did the screaming instead. He was making her suffer deliberately.
Zane jumped toward him, when the rogue vampire suddenly whirled around and glared at him, his fangs dripping with blood, his eyes red. The stranger pounced instantly and with such ferocity that Zane was thrown back against a wall, shattering the mirrored surface.
He caught himself quickly, but the vampire was wilder than he’d ever seen anyone. Like an animal he attacked again, growling; saliva and blood dripped from his mouth as his claws veered toward Zane’s neck. Zane sidestepped him.
The girl’s screams, which the rogue vampire had muffled before, now came from his victim’s throat. From the corner of his eye, Zane verified that Amaury was taking care of the situation and concentrated on his attacker again.
Zane was no stranger to bloody fights, but this vampire was different—stronger and more dangerous—even though he was only of average size. Bloodlust, he figured. There was no other explanation for it.
Had this been any other fight, Zane would have simply reached for his stake and driven it into the jerk’s heart, but he needed him alive. This was the first time they’d actually come face-to-face with one of the crazies that the mayor had asked them to watch out for. And if they wanted to know what was really going on and what was causing them to go berserk, he needed to catch one alive.
As he dodged another blow by his attacker, Zane swiveled and jumped behind him, then kicked him in the back of his knees. But instead of falling to his knees as Zane would have expected, the vampire jerked his elbows back and slammed them into Zane’s ribcage, knocking the wind out of him.
“Fuck!” Zane ground out as he absorbed the violent jab.
“Chain!” Amaury yelled behind him.
Zane turned his head and saw how Amaury pulled on his gloves in vampire speed, then reached into this pocket. When he pulled the silver chain from it, Zane jumped aside, giving Amaury a straight line-of-sight to the attacker, who’d already turned and was ready to land more kicks and blows.
The hostile vampire’s high leg kicks prevented Amaury from coming close enough to throw the chain around his neck. Flashing his fangs, the rogue snarled like a beast, then jumped toward Amaury. Zane, standing off to the side, saw his opportunity and kicked his leg up, hitting the vampire in the groin in mid-jump. He buckled.
Amaury didn’t lose any time and wrapped the silver chain around his neck. The stench of singed hair and flesh immediately permeated the air.
“Fucking asshole!” Amaury cursed as he held the chain tight behind his neck and brought him down on the ground. The vampire was struggling, bringing his hands to the chain to remove it from his neck, but burned his fingers as he touched the only metal that was toxic to a vampire.
Zane kicked his boot against the rogue’s hip, then helped Amaury tie him up with a second chain. Behind him, the girl was still crying. Zane stood and looked at her.
Her neck was bleeding profusely, her body was covered with bruises from the vampire’s claws. He’d brutalized her.
“Shit!” Zane hissed.
A gaze to the entrance of the booth confirmed that none of the clubbers had noticed what was going on: the music was too loud for anybody to hear any of the fighting or the girl’s screams, and the mirrored partition that partially covered the entrance to the booth hid the carnage behind.
Zane looked into the girl’s eyes, focused on her mind and worked his magic, wiping every memory of this horrific event from her mind. But to stop the bleeding and heal her, he needed help. As a blood-bonded vampire he couldn’t drink blood other than that of his hybrid mate, and if he were to lick the girl’s wounds to close them, he would inadvertently consume some of her blood. It would make him violently ill. He needed a vampire who was either not blood-bonded or blood-bonded to another vampire—they were able to digest blood not coming from their mates.
Besides, the girl’s injuries were severe. She needed vampire blood to heal, simply licking her wounds and allowing the vampire saliva to close them wouldn’t be sufficient.
“We need Cain,” he said to Amaury. “And where the fuck is Thomas?”
***
Cain refrained from holding his hand over his nose and mouth, but it was hard not to puke at the sight of gore that presented itself. The girl on the dirty