I was a ruler of the most ruthless beasts to walk the earth. And they were hunting me down with vengeance in their hearts and bloodlust in their souls. So help anyone who tried to keep me from them.
I t had taken me a little longer than it should have to get back out of the parking lot and make my way around to the emergency exit where the others were waiting by the door. Saint had laid into me the moment I arrived about my unused gas mask hanging from my belt, his face scrunching up with fury at the idea of someone defying him. Luckily for me, I'd still been mostly deaf from the explosion at that point, so I hadn't caught much of his tirade aside from the angry look in his eyes.
I hadn't wasted much time standing about there for him to go off on one though and we were all in agreement that there was no time for that shit, so we'd taken off into the building via the handily unlocked emergency exit. The door opened into a dark corridor and the sounds of people racing our way in a bid to escape reached our ears. Monroe ran across the space to another door and shoved it open as we hurried to follow, my heart beating hard as adrenaline surged in my veins.
The moment we stepped out into the reception, shots were fired in our direction and it was only through luck or chance that we all managed to dive into the relative safety behind the reception desk before any of us were gunned down.
Blake released a shaky laugh as our gazes met, but I was already in attack mode, needing to remove these assholes as they blocked my way to my girl. That was all they were, an obstacle in my path which I would gladly mow down.
I yanked a pistol from the holster at my hip and started firing without so much as blinking. This was where the beast in me thrived, deep in the heart of the fight. Where life and death hung in the balance and the only clear-cut payment for making it out was blood.
Saint ignored me totally, reaching up and yanking the monitor off of the desk as he booted up the computer and began typing. I'd never paid a whole hell of a lot of attention to his nerd habits when he set to work preparing to take over the world on his laptop every evening, but it was becoming more than clear that he could pretty much hack his way into anything when he set his mind to it.
"Keep them busy while I figure out where they're holding her," he commanded as Monroe leaned around the side of the desk to take a shot and almost got his head blown off, a chunk of desk shattering beside him instead.
“Holy fuck,” he breathed, half laughing as a wild look filled his eyes from the rush of coming so close to death. This feeling right here was damn addictive, but I slapped a hand down on his shoulder for a moment to let him know I was glad he hadn’t died.
I drew in a breath and leapt up, taking four shots in a row, hitting two assholes square between the eyes, one in the chest and missing the fourth. I wasted an additional second taking count of our opponents and was rewarded with a flash of burning pain scoring across my bicep half a second before I dropped down out of sight again. But at least now I knew there were only three of them left. At least until their backup arrived - no way I believed there were only a handful of guards working in a place like this. Not while our girl was here. I might fucking hate it, but Tatum Rivers was currently the most valuable commodity in the world. People would sell their souls to get their hands on a vaccine for the Hades Virus and she was the only key to it. They’d be guarding her heavily and would do anything it took to make sure they kept hold of her.
But that was okay. It just meant I had to be willing to sacrifice even more than them to get her back, which I wholeheartedly was.
I cursed and Blake turned to look at me, his green eyes widening as he took in the blood on my arm, but I just shook my head, dismissing it.
"It's nothing," I growled. "It only skimmed me." But I was willing to bet that had just fucked up some of my ink. Assholes.
Blake jerked his head, accepting my words as he pulled a smoke grenade from his pocket, pulled the pin and tossed it over the desk. Niall had really come through for us with all of this shit and I made a mental note to send him a gift basket when we all got out of here alive.
Cries of alarm met the sound of it hitting the floor and I listened to it tinkling across the tiles and hissing as it rolled away, a huge cloud of pink smoke swirling up to engulf the far side of the room.
"Pink?" Saint growled, sounding like he'd just seen someone dick slap his grandma or something.
"What can I say, my uncle is a flashy asshole." I shrugged, not caring if Niall had given me pink smoke, glitter smoke or even smoke that stank of shit, so long as it worked.
No doubt he was laughing his ass off somewhere over this as we spoke though and I just hoped I'd live long enough to tell him the story.
He'd offered to come help us with this rescue mission, but in the end, we'd agreed that he was best occupied keeping my grandpa out of the loop until it was done. The last thing I needed was Liam O'Brien weighing in and fucking everything up for us. He would have agreed to help get Tatum back, I was fairly certain of that. His attachment to the idea of family being the most important thing in the world would have driven him to do that much. But the O’Briens were about as subtle as a porn shoot taking place at a kids’ party. And that just wouldn’t have worked against Troy Memphis. He was a sneaky bastard and we’d needed to play him at his own game if we wanted to get the jump on him and rescue our girl.
Besides, it was only right that this fight remained our own. The Night Keepers didn’t need help from anyone else. We’d made an oath to protect Tatum and we’d keep our damn word on that.
I gave the smoke a couple of seconds to thicken up, yanking the gas mask from where it hung at my belt and pulling it on for the first time as I admitted, in this instance, I actually needed the damn thing.
The moment it was secure, I vaulted over the reception desk and took a pot shot straight at a figure I could just make out moving within the pink smoke. The satisfying sound of a body hitting the ground followed, letting me know we were down to two guards now.
The only light in here was from the streetlamp beyond the glass front of the building, but that was plenty for me. I knew how to move in the dark.
I slipped over to the wall, straining my ears to listen over the lingering ringing in them from the explosion and the sound of a scuffle had me whipping around and shooting another guard straight in the face.
The pink smoke swirled all around me as I dove into it, my grip on my gun tight as I hunted for my prey. I only had two bullets left before I needed to reload, but that was going to be enough.
My heart beat to a solid rhythm, my breaths coming slow and deep as I fell into that primal, base piece of my being. I was nothing more than a beast hunting out enemies in the dark. Just a creature bound to protect its mate beyond all other desires.
I rounded the elevator bank, its doors firmly closed as the fire alarm continued to blare out.
"I need back-up on the ground floor," a voice came from somewhere deeper into the smoke. "Armed assailants. Secure the asset."
A growl spilled from my lips and I ran forward, not caring if I was giving myself away as the crackled response from another voice came over the radio, confirming that there were more guards heading our way.
I fired a shot based on the sound of where I'd heard that voice, but my hearing was still off from the explosion and a moment later the guard returned fire.