He stared at her as if she were insane.
“How can you, of all people, ask me to show him mercy?” he asked. “Especially after what he tried to do to you? How can you possibly pity him? There is no vestige of humanity left in him.”
“That might be true of David,” Meena said. “But I refuse to believe it about you. How can I, after what we’ve been through together? But if that’s what you really believe,” she went on, reaching into her pocket, “fine.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, looking astonished as she pulled out her cell phone.
“My job,” she said. She didn’t know any other way to make him understand. “You’re a vicious, evil fiend. So is he. I’m calling the Palatine to report having spotted you both.”
Their gazes met as she brought the phone to her ear.
And for a moment, it all seemed to disappear … the dark, deserted street; the whimpering vampire; the shattered windshield; the broken car. Everything. It was just the two of them, the way it had been before—before she’d discovered he was a vampire, before he had discovered she was cursed with her horrible gift—when they had been so in love, and filled with so much hope for the future.
A future that had been dashed when Alaric Wulf had arrived at Meena’s door with the news of Lucien’s true identity.
It was at that exact moment—when she and Lucien were distracted, lost in each other’s dark-eyed gaze—that David proved he really was without any vestige of humanity, and the demon inside him had completely taken over. He lashed out at Lucien, striking him so forcefully that Lucien staggered back a few steps in surprise, releasing his hold on him entirely.
Which gave David just enough time … not to get away, as any other demon might have, but to lunge directly toward Meena, his face contorted in a mask of rage and hate, his mouth spread wide open, razor-sharp fangs ready to sink into her throat.
Lucien sprang after him, but it was too late. Unfortunately for David.
Because Meena was more than ready for him this time. She merely held out the jagged piece of chair leg Lucien had given to her. It was David’s own momentum—and her steady hold—that drove it into the center of his chest.
He looked down at it in wonder.
“Meena,” he said, in a slightly wounded voice.
A second later, he was gone, in a cloud of exploding bone and dust.
Meena stared at the space where, a second before, David had stood.
Then she looked down at the wooden stake she held in one hand, and the cell phone she held in the other. She hadn’t actually pressed send.
She glanced at Lucien. He was standing just a few feet away from her, an expression she didn’t recognize on his face … or at least wasn’t sure she remembered ever having seen him wear before, anyway. What was it? Alarm, certainly. Concern for her, yes.
But there was something else there, too. What was it? Was it … pain?
But it couldn’t possibly be. Because he was the prince of darkness. He wasn’t capable of feeling pain.
That’s what everyone back at the Palatine, especially Alaric Wulf, kept telling her, anyway.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. “I’m sorry, he surprised me. I’m not … I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen.”
She opened her mouth to reply …
But before she had a chance, she became aware of sounds—footsteps, approaching rapidly—behind them.
People were coming. But who? She hadn’t dialed.
And David hadn’t made a sound as he’d imploded.
She squinted into the darkness, trying to see. But some of the bulbs in the streetlights overhead were burned out, leaving large sections of the block in darkness. She hadn’t known this when she’d chosen this address as a meeting spot, or noticed it when she arrived.
Now she wondered if someone—or something—had broken the bulbs on purpose, knowing she was coming.
“Meena,” Lucien said, his tone anxious. He’d heard the footsteps, too.
Meena wasn’t normally called upon to make lightning-fast decisions in her new position at the Palatine. This was her first time in the field, since she was considered too valuable an asset to be allowed anywhere near actual demon activity. She’d always been confined to Palatine headquarters during working hours, where she stuck to determining who among her colleagues was most likely to run into fatal danger while on assignment.
And when demon activity was slow in North America, Meena spent her days Skyping with units overseas … or researching the online sections of the incredibly large Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, to which she had unlimited access as an employee of the Palatine, the military branch of the Vatican. This meant she was allowed to enter the Vatican Library’s secret archives, as well, which were restricted to members of the public. She was supposed to be looking for anything that might help in the Palatine’s battle against paranormal beings.
But of course what she was actually looking for was much more personal. Recently, she thought she’d found it.
Now, her heart hammering against the back of her ribs, she realized she had to act fast, or everything for which she’d been working so hard these past six months—especially the last two—would be ruined.
So she dropped her cell phone back into the pocket of her cardigan, where earlier, she’d slipped David’s car keys. Then instinctively, she dropped the stake …
But before it could strike the pavement, Lucien snatched it in midair. He slipped it into the pocket of his suit jacket.
“Let’s go,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders and spinning her toward the closest busy street.
“Why—” Then comprehension dawned. “Oh, of course,” she said. She’d killed vampires before, but never quite like that. “Evidence. My fingerprints are all over it.” But there was no body. She would never get used to any of this.
She kept walking, panic mounting as the footsteps behind them seemed to increase in speed. Who could it be? Surely not the Palatine, since she hadn’t called them … although her cell phone had a built-in GPS tracker. But who could have alerted them? Surely not the police, or there’d be sirens …
“It’s all right,” Lucien was saying. He, too, seemed concerned about the footsteps. She saw him glance behind them several times.
He possessed strength and powers considered by the Palatine to be superior to those of any other paranormal entity. She herself had witnessed him do things that no living being ought to have been able to do, including transform himself into a creature twelve times the size of a normal man. That breathed fire. Just a quarter of an hour earlier, he’d ripped the locked door off a Volvo station wagon and hurled a man so far into the air, he hadn’t fallen back to earth until many seconds later.
But maybe these things, coupled with David’s sucker punch, had taken more out of him than he’d realized, since for some reason Lucien didn’t snatch her up and fly off, or dissipate into thin air, both of which she knew he was perfectly capable of doing. He didn’t even pick up the pace, really, though she could tell he was as anxious as she was to get out of there.
What was wrong with him? she wondered He almost seemed …
“Are you all right?” she asked, putting an arm around him. “Here, lean on me.”
“Meena,”