“Let go of her, Lucien,” Ronan said. “She has no part in this.”
Kadence gawked at him. Was Ronan, the vampire, trying to protect her? Even Nathan looked confused by his words.
“From what I can tell, they have Joseph and we have her, so I think she has a big part in this,” Lucien replied. “Not to mention, no one has seen a born, female hunter. She may be something we can use to our advantage against these do-gooder, idiotic pricks.”
Ronan spun toward them. The fury emanating from his body caused her to step back. Lucien squeezed her arm, eliciting an involuntary wince from her. Adrenaline spiked through her as Ronan stalked toward them with menace exuding from every inch of him. She’d been wrong about him; he was going to drain her dry before tossing her lifeless body aside.
Kadence refused to cower from his approach as she defiantly lifted her chin. She’d put up one hell of a fight against him, though she was certain he could crush her skull with only one of his hands. Her fingers twitched toward the stake at her side while she awaited her opportunity to inflict as much damage as possible. Ronan would remember her years after he’d killed her, she’d make sure of it.
“Stay away from her!” Nathan’s bellow rent the air.
Shoving Joseph at Jayce, her brother rushed forward. Killen stepped forward to block his attack. Kadence screamed and lurched forward to help her brother as he barreled into Killean. The two of them tumbled to the ground in a frenzied heap.
Lucien jerked her back before she made it two steps toward them. Ronan’s hand lashed out to grasp Lucien’s forearm.
“I said let her go!” Ronan ordered.
Kadence’s jaw dropped.
“What is the matter with you?” Lucien demanded.
“Let her go.” His hand squeezed Lucien’s arm to the point where Kadence was certain the bone would break.
Lucien released her, and his brows furrowed as he studied Ronan. “I’d rather fight anyway,” he muttered before stalking away from the two of them.
It was then that Kadence realized the battle had commenced again. The only one hanging back now was Jayce, but he’d been saddled with Joseph.
“No!” Kadence stepped forward, determined to stop this, or at least try to help as her brother and Killean circled each other like wolves.
“No.” Ronan stepped in front of her, his solid body blocking her way.
He became all she could see as his chest alone was three times the size of hers. He was not as tall as the others, but there was no doubt he was the strongest one here. She didn’t have to see him in action to know that. Every strand of her DNA was aware of what stood before her: an old vampire with more power than she could begin to comprehend.
Her lips parted on a breath as her eyes fell on his shaded ones. She had no idea what it was about him, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care that he was a vampire—not when her skin felt electrified by his nearness and her nerve endings tingled with her need to touch him.
She craved more of him.
Thousands upon thousands of hunters were turning over in their graves right now. Self-hate skittered through her, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull out her stake and attack him.
Ronan shifted as the scent of her arousal on the air caused him to harden. She wanted him too. Her forehead furrowed in confusion over her reaction to him. He completely understood her confusion as he felt it too.
He didn’t know what drove him, but he had to know if her skin was as supple as it looked. Without thinking, he reached out to touch her cheek. Beneath the pads of his fingers, her skin was like fine spun silk. She didn’t recoil from him, didn’t look repulsed. Instead, to his amazement, she turned her cheek into his hand so that her lips brushed against his palm.
A loud crash from behind him jerked them both apart and brought the world rushing back in around him.
“Shit!” he hissed.
How could he have forgotten about the fight behind him? How could he have left his friends to fend for themselves against the hunters and Joseph?
“Go!” he gruffly commanded her. “Get to safety.”
He turned away from her, knowing he would never see her again.
“Wait!” Her pale hand on his arm seared into his flesh, causing his teeth to scrape together when his cock jumped in response. He was not some horny teen, yet this woman had somehow managed to reduce him to that when his men needed him. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Please, don’t do this.”
“We don’t want this,” he replied coldly, pulling his arm away from her before she distracted him further from his duties.
“I… I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“No, your kind never has.”
The anger in his voice would have deterred anyone else; it didn’t deter her though.
“Please, I can’t lose him,” she whispered. Anger surged through Ronan; she was lusting over him, but still pleading for her lover’s life. He contemplated killing Nathan, simply so the man couldn’t continue to have what he so desperately craved for himself. “Not my brother.”
“Your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Your brother will be safe.” If he wasn’t already dead. “Now go!”
“Thank you.”
His chest constricted at those words. “Go.”
Ronan didn’t look back at her as he ran toward the others. A good fight and death were what he needed to purge himself of his reaction to her.
CHAPTER 7
Kadence rounded the corner, but went no further. She couldn’t leave. Her brother was fighting for his life, and that man, that vampire, was there. The warmth of Ronan’s fingers still lingered on her cheek. He hadn’t acted like her enemy. She supposed his strange behavior could be some sort of sick, vampire trick, but she doubted it. He’d had the perfect opportunity to kill her. He could have easily struck her down, or had his friend do so. Instead, he’d told her to run.
The monsters she’d always been taught vampires were would have killed her without a second’s hesitation. Those monsters wouldn’t have told her that her brother would be safe. What had just happened between them was not normal and she needed answers.
She also hadn’t come all this way not to watch Joseph die.
Kadence crept back to the corner of the alley and poked her head out to watch the battle. She pulled her crossbow free and loaded it. Her hand squeezed on her weapon while she watched them all fight in a flurry of fists and blood, but the vampires still didn’t go in for the killing blow. Now that she was watching more closely, she realized they spent most of their time deflecting the hunters’ attacks. The hunters were outnumbered; this fight should be over. It wasn’t.
The more she examined the vampires in action, the more she began to question if Ronan and his friends were the murderous, mindless creatures she’d been taught to hate her whole life. They seemed to be something different, something she’d never known existed when it came to vampires. Something she didn’t think any hunter had ever known existed.
Ronan cut his way through the thick of the fight. Seizing Logan and Nathan by their necks, he lifted them and threw them toward where Jayce and Asher stood with Joseph. Kadence couldn’t help but marvel over the amount of strength Ronan possessed. He’d tossed them both aside as if they weighed no more than a feather. The other vampires fell into line behind him as the hunters grouped together. Blood tricked from the injuries the hunters had sustained, but none of them were mortal wounds.