the next century at a minimum. Wouldn’t that amuse Damien?
While I’d become obsessed with bedding her, we’d also been productive during our alone time together and had spent ample hours testing her new speed and agility. She still had work to do as a baby immortal, but her aptitude for fighting showed in her ability to pick up new skills quickly and efficiently. She made a fine protégé indeed.
I removed my palm from her thigh and wrapped it around the back of her neck instead, pulling her in for a long, sensuous kiss. It’d become my indulgence. She ran her tongue along my bottom lip, smiling at the slight bump in my skin.
“No biting,” I whispered. It’d become her favorite thing to do, but I couldn’t afford to show the weakness today.
“That just makes me want to bite you more,” she admitted.
“I’m still healing from the last one,” I reminded her. It seemed to take about twelve to fourteen hours for her bite marks to fully disappear. The one on my lip now had been created during sex before we went to sleep. After receiving Damien’s message upon awaking, I’d told her not—
“Sire,” Rick said in Polish, drawing my attention to him. “We have company.”
“Where?” I asked him, also in Polish. He spoke English but preferred his native tongue. My Polish wasn’t great, but I understood it well enough.
He gestured with his chin to his mirror. “Behind us.”
“How far are we from the tower?” I asked as I reached around Willow to grab her seat belt and buckle her in.
“A mile and a half,” he said while checking his mirrors again.
I grabbed my belt just as he jerked the car to the side. “There’s another!” he shouted, still in Polish.
Clicking myself in, I said, “Floor it.”
His foot hit the gas, causing us to soar down the street as I pulled my phone from the pocket of my suit jacket. I selected Damien’s name, hitting Dial.
Ring, ring.
“Ryder!” Willow shrieked.
I looked left just as a vehicle crashed into my side of the car. Fuck! The world spun around me, my equilibrium shifting violently. Another hit came from behind, the impact causing the belt to bite into my neck.
Another jolt sent us careening in the opposite direction, stirring a brutal wave of nausea inside me. Willow yelped, her soft cry lost to the echo of shattering glass and general chaos.
Blood rushed to my head, the metal buckle digging into my hip as the belt fought to keep me in my seat.
It took me a minute to realize we were upside down, my bag on the ceiling of the car. We’d finally stopped spinning, but the sound of nearby doors slamming told me we were about to experience a lot more than a car wreck.
I didn’t think; I acted, unbuckling myself to reach my bag and yanking open the zipper. Damien’s message today had arrived with a hint of urgency, making me wonder what chaos awaited me. So I’d packed appropriately.
“Rick,” I said, voice low.
No reply.
He must have been knocked out by the impact, his air bags taking up most of the front two seats. Willow whimpered beside me, her fingers fumbling for the buckle.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered, reaching up to help her down.
Settling her beside me, I pulled out two guns from the bag—I already had a third strapped in a holster at my side—and handed one to her. Then I went to my stomach to take in our situation outside.
Willow followed my lead, her dress doing nothing to save her from the glass. I at least had a suit on, but there was no time to try to shield her. We’d already used precious seconds just to get ourselves into this position and properly armed. The only item in our favor was the slow approach from our assailants. They weren’t sure what sort of condition I was in, and they were being smart about not rushing over to check.
I glanced backward at my feet, noting the other side of the car. We were pinned up against metal siding, suggesting a building had stopped our roll.
Right. That left only one way to go.
“Stay here and shoot anyone who comes near you that isn’t me,” I instructed her in a hushed tone. Her lycan ears would allow her to hear just fine. The vampires outside, not so much.
I cracked my neck to the side, loosening my stiff muscles from the original impact, and mentally calculated the angles of each approaching assailant. I could