Heart of the Warrior (29 page)

With his own problems suddenly pushed aside, he scooped her
up, rushed her to the Suburban, and tossed her in as carefully as possible even
though he needed to hurry. But there was no way he was leaving those assholes
and their stash behind. If
Candy
died, they would pay. He ran back into
the alley.

Gina didn’t care that Sev had just beaten the shit out of
two drecks. She was of a single-minded purpose that had ruled her every minute
for the past year: Kill Severin. Nothing else at this point registered. She was
locked into bloodlust, ready to take the opportunity and end the hunt. She had
found him, and now she would kill him. Her mind was completely obsessed with
the task at hand.

When Sev rushed back into the alley, she had her chance. It
was now or never. She only hoped his iron skin wasn’t engaged.

Pht!
She fired off a round, and the rifle's silencer
whispered the shot.

Sev flew back against the wall as the bullet pierced his
shoulder.

Pht! Pht!
Two more rapid shots. The first tore into
his chest and the other bounced off his skin. Shit! She knew she shouldn’t have
fired a test shot. Still, the two that had hit could do the job. She would have
to wait and see.

She was about to swoop down to the alley and wait for him to
lose consciousness so she could finish the job if the bullet wounds didn't when
a tingling sensation prickled her skin. She looked over her shoulder then froze
in place. Literally froze. She couldn’t move.

A dark-skinned, bald vampire loomed over her, his hand
outstretched and fingers splayed.

"I’d love to kill you right here, bitch, but I need to
know why you just tried to kill my buddy. So, get ready to take a little ride.
You're coming with me." He picked her up and flung her over his shoulder.
"I’ll kill you later, and trust me, it will be very unpleasant."

Trace felt his power stretching and trying to consume him,
and he knew he would need to pay his domme a visit later to help bring him back
down, but right now he had more important matters to attend to. Such as Severin
and that new hole Queen Sniper had blasted into his chest.

With the bitch tossed over his shoulder, he jumped off the
top of the building, glided down eight stories, and landed in a crouch on the
pavement.

Severin groaned and gasped a few feet away.

"Hang on, Sev. Don’t you die on me."

Shit, the injury looked bad. Trace needed to hurry.

He half-released the female from compulsion so he could
gruffly bind her wrists and ankles. Her squeak of pain made him grin. He hauled
her to the SUV and shoved her in then rushed back for Sev. Fuck the drecks.
These two just got a free pass. Sev needed medical attention STAT.

"I’ve got you, buddy. Come on." Trace picked Sev
up. Damn, but he was losing a lot of blood. "Don't you die, Sev. Ari is
waiting for you."

Sev groaned and dropped his head back as he passed out.

"Fuck!"

Trace got Sev in the passenger seat then rushed around to
the driver’s side and jumped behind the wheel.

Keys! Keys! Where were the keys?

Fuck it.

He started the damn thing with a touch of his finger.
Presto-start-o!
Without hesitation, he stomped on the gas and rocket launched out of the alley
before hitting the transmitter. "Dispatch, this is Trace!" He didn't
wait for them to acknowledge and started rattling off the details. "Get
medical ready. Now! Sev's been hit. I repeat, Severin is down."

"What happened?" Adam's voice shot back.

"Took two bullets to the chest."

"Shit. Condition?"

Trace glanced at Sev. "Bad. Losing a lot of blood and
unconscious."

"Hurry him home. Medical’s been alerted."

"Get security to meet me at the back door. I've got his
would-be assassin, too." Trace shot a glance at the female in his rearview
mirror.

She glared back.

"Copy."

Trace remembered his third passenger. "And I've got an
overdose, too. Female."

"Fuck, Trace. What
don't
you have?" Adam
said.

"The kitchen sink."

Trace ended the transmission and looked in the rearview mirror
at the dark-haired female as he flew through an intersection. "You’d
better hope Sev doesn’t die, bitch." He shot the words at the female like
bullets of his own.

"Fuck you."

"No, you’ll be the one who’s
fucked.
" He
barely slowed down at a red light then gunned it.

"He’s a sympathizer!" She sneered at Sev.
"He’s half dreck. He’s one of them. I've done you all a favor. You should
be thanking me instead of hauling me in like a criminal."

"Bullshit! Just shut the fuck up." Trace scowled
at her, but he quickly darted a questioning glance toward Severin. Was she
saying Severin was half a goddamn dreck? No way.

She chuffed. "You'll see soon enough." She looked
and sounded self-assured. "He helped killed my brother and ten other
enforcers in Atlanta."

The Suburban practically went airborne as he shot through
another intersection.

Trace glanced quickly at Sev again. Sev had come to them
from Atlanta, but Trace couldn't see him being capable of the shit this bitch
was accusing him of.

"I’m not buying it, sweetheart." Trace lurched the
Suburban around a corner and gunned it again.

"Don't believe me? Look inside his mind. Go ahead. See
for yourself."

Damn, but Trace wanted to wipe that smug look off her face.
With his fist.

Undaunted by his scowls in the mirror, she continued.
"He claimed to work for the VDA, but they said they never heard of him. He
was working with a band of cobalt dealers the night my brother raided the
factory. Sev was there. He helped kill –"

Trace held up his hand and growled at her. "Just shut
up. I'm done with your goddamn voice."

She sat back and glowered at him

Trace didn’t buy her line of shit for a second, but he poked
inside Sev’s unconscious mind, anyway. If he died, Sev’s memories would be lost
forever and Trace would be the only one to provide witness to the truth so they
could convict this female and sentence her to death by beheading. Which he
would happily see to personally.

As he dug through Sev's thoughts, he pushed past a lot of
things he didn’t need to see – personal things about Ari and a male named
Gabriel – Gabe as Sev called him. A quick shuffle through the memories of Gabe
showed he was this bitch's brother. Her name was Gina.

Okay, so Trace got that.

Next he saw Sev’s mother. Well, fuck him sideways. Bitch
Gina was right. Sev’s mother
was
a dreck. That didn’t mean he was a
sympathizer, though.

Trace kept sorting and sifting then found the memory he was
looking for. Sev in the middle of a firefight in a factory. Drecks and
enforcers were unloading a lot of hard ammo on each other, bullets bouncing off
Sev's skin – iron skin, huh? Nice mixed-blood power there – as he raced for
Gabe. Sev's panic in the memory took Trace's breath away as he watched bullets
tear through Gabe's body armor and his blood splatter the air.

Fast-forward. Sev returned to the factory. Gina was there.
Gabe had just died and Trace could feel Sev's pain even through the mind link.

Damn. Shit. That brought back memories of his own that he
didn't want to think about.

He refocused on Sev's memories. Sev used to be a deep cover
op. No one knew of his assignment, not even Gabe. Then Trace saw confusion and
anger. Sev's boss at VDA had disavowed him.
Why?
Oooohhh, jealousy.
Sev's boss had been jealous. Trace raced through all the memories. He saw
Jonas, how Gabe and Jonas used to be lovers, and how Jonas blamed Sev for their
breakup even though Sev had nothing to do with it. Shit, Sev had been royally
fucked over, and this bitch in the back seat had performed a leap before she'd
looked.

Tears bloomed in Trace’s eyes. Sev had endured so much pain
and suffering over Gabe’s death. The agony was overwhelming and Trace forced
himself to disconnect from Sev's mind before the sorrow overtook him and tilted
his power balance, especially when Sev's pain reminded him of his own past.

"Are all Atlanta enforcers as careless as you
are?" Trace glared at Gina in the rearview mirror.

"Fuck you. I'm not careless." She lanced him with
an icy glare.

"Like fuck. You’ve got it all wrong about Sev.
Gina.
"
He emphasized her name to ensure she got the clue that he had taken a trip
through Sev's mind.

"Like hell I do." She frowned as doubt crept over
her face.

"You didn’t bother looking at the whole memory, did
you? You only saw a piece of what really happened."

"Gabe died before I saw it all, but I saw enough. Sev
killed him." She didn't sound as confident as she had a few minutes ago,
though.

"Look again. This time, look inside
Sev's
memories." Trace felt his impatience and anger coiling like a deadly
python.

"I don’t need to. I know what I know." But her
voice wavered.

"LOOK AGAIN!" Trace's power nearly broke free to
crush her skull, but he deflected it in time to crack the windshield. He was
unbelievably angry. He needed to be careful.

Gina cowered and trembled, obviously feeling the waves of
darkness emanating from his body, but her eyes darted to Sev.

"That's right," he said. "Look. Again. Take a
good long look, sweetheart. You just shot an innocent male who's already
endured enough pain over Gabe's death. And so help me God, if he dies, I will
enjoy hurting you."

He would break every bone in her body, crushing them
one-by-one, starting with her fingers, then her toes. Then her hands and feet.
He would work his way from her extremities and save her skull for last so she
felt every painful blow. The thought made his hand twitch eagerly.

Oh yeah, he really needed to be careful. His power was
eating its way into his body. If he unleashed himself now, he could very well
find himself tipping the scale into full-blown transformation to the land of
the mutants.

Chill, Trace. Just a bit longer and you can have your
release.

He glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Gina staring at
Sev. She was looking inside his mind. He knew she would. Curiosity had a way of
pushing people to do things even when they wanted to resist. Horror stretched
over her face and tears welled in her eyes as she clapped her bound hands over
her mouth. And then she broke down.

Trace felt nothing of compassion for her. "Now you see.
And now you have to live with what you’ve done." Fucking reckless bitch.
"What kind of an assassin are you that you go into a job without all the
facts. Do us all a favor and find a new line of work if Sev makes it through
this."

And that was a very big if at the moment. Sev’s breathing
had grown shallow and his face had lost all color. Vampires may be immortal,
but they could die just as easily as humans under the right circumstances. And
these were the right ones.

He reached AKM and sped around to the back entrance. The
medics rushed out and unloaded Sev onto a gurney then grabbed the overdose
victim from the back. A sextet of enforcers yanked out Gina, whose face was
locked in numb shock. She didn't even attempt to resist as they shoved her
through the doors.

Yeah, you fucked up, bitch.
Trace glared after her as
he followed everyone in, his stride long, purposeful, and measured.

The mass of bodies pushed hurriedly down the hall toward the
medical wing then disappeared through a set of swinging doors. The overdosed
girl was swept into another room, and personnel ran back and forth in what
looked like chaos. But Trace knew they were like bees in a hive. To his eye,
the buzz of activity looked haphazard, but to the doctors and nurses rushing
around, they knew exactly what needed to be done and where to go.

A herd of footsteps charged up behind him and Trace turned
in time to catch Ari before he ran into the fray of doctors attempting to save
Severin’s life.

"No, Ari! Stop!"

"Let me go. I need to see him."

The entire team was there, including some tall fucker Trace
didn’t know but who looked a lot like Sev. The guy looked as anxious as Ari to
push his way through, and Micah and Tristan were trying to wrangle him back.

"What happened? What happened to him?" Ari twisted
and tried to get out of Trace’s grip.

"He was shot."

For a split second, Ari thought he had heard wrong. No! Not
Sev! No! He had iron skin. He couldn’t be shot. Not unless he…Oh God! He hadn't
had his iron skin engaged.

"How?" Ari continued to struggle to get free.

Trace's pale eyes narrowed as he frowned. "An assassin.
Some dark-haired bitch named Gina."

Severin’s father perked up behind him. "Gina? Are you
sure? Dark hair? Petite?"

Trace turned and nodded, not looking like the nicest
welcoming committee for Sev's father right now. "That's right. Who the
fuck are you? And how do you know her?"

"Lakota. I’m Sev’s father. And she was my date at the
party tonight."

Trace had been out of the loop, so all this was news to him.

"No shit," Trace said.

"Yeah, no shit. Where is she?" Lakota sounded
primed to kill.

"In a holding room," Tristan said. "We detain
prisoners in the holding rooms."

"Where are those?" Lakota sounded even more
menacing.

Obviously Tristan caught on to the bloodlust Lakota was rocking
because he said, "You stay away from her until we’ve had a chance to get
to the bottom of this."

"She’s mine," Trace said, his voice deep and
filled with lethal warning.

Ari got the impression Trace had plans for Gina if shit went
badly. But if that happened, it would mean Sev…. No, Ari couldn't think like
that. He couldn't think Sev wouldn't pull through this.