The bartender uttered a harsh curse. “If that human dies in my bar, I’m holding both you and the Order personally responsible, asshole.”
Rafe shook his head. “He’s not going to die.”
Fisting his hands at his sides, he headed across the bar.
CHAPTER 2
Her stomach seized up as if she’d been punched.
Bloody hell. Devony Winters wheeled away from the rest of the group on a groan. She was barely able to resist the urge to run from the sight of the gushing bullet wound in Fish’s skinny gut.
Not because she was squeamish around blood.
Far from it.
The reaction she strove to conceal was something much different, and a lot more damning than fear or sickness. Her fangs surged behind her tightly closed lips. Her vision sharpened, everything tinged with an amber glow.
She was Breed—a daywalker, rarest of her kind. It was a truth she’d been hiding from Cruz and his gang since she first joined up with them five weeks ago.
Far as she could tell, the group of law-breakers were more interested in thievery and partying like kings off the proceeds than wholesale hatred of the Breed. That didn’t mean she wanted to test the theory, or lose the trust she’d been cultivating since they took her on as one of them. Now, all her meticulous caution was on the verge of being undone by an errant bullet and a pointless bar brawl.
All of it caused by the arrogant, tawny-haired behemoth across the room.
Fucking brilliant.
Too bad the pair of warriors from the Order hadn’t bounced him from Asylum at the same time they’d ejected the trigger-happy Darkhaven idiots who’d been so eager to goad him into a fight.
Devony struggled to tamp down her body’s automatic response to the sound of Fish’s drumming heartbeat and the scent of the lifeblood pooling beneath him on the floor. Daring a quick glance over her shoulder she saw that the source of all her problems tonight was now heading across the tavern. Not leaving at all, but striding toward Cruz and Fish and the others in a long-legged swagger, his large hands fisted at his sides.
Shit.
The Breed male—Rafe, his comrades from the Order had called him—was no less affected by Fish’s rapidly spilling blood than she was. But he made no effort to hide it.
His transformed irises threw off fiery heat, his pupils narrowed from their normal state to catlike slits. The tips of his fangs glinted diamond-bright behind the generous cut of his parted lips. And his dermaglyphs, the Breed skin markings that wrapped his forearms and tracked up onto his throat from below the collar of his black T-shirt, were now pulsing and alive with dark colors.
Devony’s own glyphs itched beneath her long-sleeved turtleneck. In public, she always took care to keep them covered, particularly in front of Cruz and the others. Right now, it was her fangs and glowing eyes that were going to out her to the gang if she didn’t pull herself together.
Of course, there was a chance they might not pay any attention to her. Especially if the Breed male stalking over with such purpose meant to end Fish’s misery by opening his carotid right in front of them now.
Devony moved farther away from Cruz and the others as they huddled around Fish, who howled and writhed on the scuffed plank-wood floor. She sat down at an empty table, holding her head in her hands if only to shield her face from view. Better if they judged her weak-stomached than learn the truth. She willed herself into a state of forced calm, but it wasn’t easy. The blood was still pumping fresh and warm behind her, a siren’s call to her Breed senses.
“Move away from him.” Rafe’s command was a deep, otherworldly growl.
Devony lifted her gaze in time to see him stepping between a couple of the guys. Ocho and Axel weren’t the kind of men to be pushed around by anyone, but neither of them seemed willing to stand up to this scowling Breed male and his bared fangs. Not even Cruz made a move to defy him, though his hand rested on the pistol concealed beneath his leather jacket.
Fish erupted in a sputtering panic. “Oh, shit! Get me outta here, guys. This bloodsucker’s gonna kill me!”
“He doesn’t have long.” In a toneless, dispassionate voice, the Breed male addressed Cruz alone as if he understood everyone in the gang answered to him. “I can help him.”
Cruz said nothing, but he took a measured step back, making room for the male in front of Fish.
“S-stay away from me!” Fish wailed. He tried to sit up, but only slipped in the puddle of slick red cells beneath him. “Don’t drain me, man. I’m begging you!”
Rafe sank to his haunches on the floor and placed his hands on Fish’s abdomen. “Calm down. Your panic is only making you bleed out faster.”
Devony held her breath and watched, confused and curious. She tried to crane for a better view, but all she could make out was the big Breed male leaning over Fish, his hands holding steady over the wound.
After a moment, she heard the soft rattle of a spent round clatter onto the floor. Then the pungent scent of fresh, flowing blood began to fade. Fish’s panting slowed, his pain and fear dissipating into a muted moan.
“Holy shit.” It was Cruz who spoke first, amazement in his eyes as he stared down at the two men. “You healed him.”
Now that the flow of red cells had dried up, Devony’s thirst abated. Her fangs no longer filled her mouth. Her vision, still inhumanly sharp, no longer burned like embers. She got up from the table and drifted over to the rest of the group.
“I’m okay,” Fish gasped. He ran his hands over his sticky, stained midsection, searching for the wound. It was gone. Not a trace of it on his pale white skin. He let out a whoop. “Son of a bitch, I’m really okay!”
The Breed male rose from his crouch beside him while Ocho and Axel helped Fish up from the floor, all of them marveling at what they’d just witnessed.
Cruz nodded, clearly awed by what he’d seen. “That was . . . impressive.”
“I can’t believe it,” Fish murmured, still shell-shocked. He stared at the Breed male as if he were looking into the face of a saint. “I was dying, I know I was. Another minute or so, and I—” He shook his head on a quiet curse. “What you did is a miracle. You fucking saved my life. Why?”
“Because I could, I guess.”
Fish blew out a sigh. “Well, I don’t care why you did it, man. I owe you. And I make good on my debts. I’m gonna repay this somehow, you have my word.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Rafe shrugged off the promise like pulling someone out of the clutches of death was something he did every day.
With Fish recovered, Ocho and Axel called for a fresh round of drinks for their resurrected comrade. While the men carried on with one another, the Breed male’s gaze swung away from them to settle on Devony.
Shrewd aquamarine eyes studied her beneath the tousled waves of his dark honey-blond hair. She had never been inspired to call a man beautiful before. Especially not a dangerous looking Breed male who stood six-and-a-half feet tall and whose immense body was wrapped in heavy muscle and a low-simmering menace.
But this male was beautiful. His handsome face carved in lean angles, his squared jaw bristled with the thick shadow of a beard. His lips were decadently lush, almost too tender-looking on a man. But that was where the softness of his face ended.