Page 21 of Veiled Yearning

Please. Let her have escaped. I promised to keep her safe.

“Gavril!”

Then there’s a terrible shriek. Chiara. Terrified. In pain.

Dammit. NO.

Fury rushes through me, an inferno of it, and I leap at the beady-eyed Custodian, slashing my blade through his neck.

“Ah, Chiara… ” A low voice snakes toward me; slimy, malicious. “Finally.”

And on the opposite side of the car, about thirty feet away, there’s a fourth man. This one has Chiara. One hand squeezes her throat, the other holds the handle of a knife. A knife that’s been plunged into her stomach.

NO.

She looks over at me; her face twisted in fear and pain, and mouths, I’m sorry.

He’s hurting her.

This rage. I’m a dervish, slashing out at the other two vampires, kicking and punching.

I’ve just decapitated the redhead when I’m stunned again. Knocked off my feet. All the air driven from my lungs. My limbs twitching.

Chiara screams again, a terrible, panicked sound.

That slimy voice croons, “Because of you, Chiara, we lost valuable members. Friends.” He barks a sharp laugh. “Nicolas says you need to be brought to him alive. But he didn’t say what condition you have to be in when we do it.”

They can’t take her captive again. I can’t let them.

I’m forcing myself back to my feet, my vision is still cloudy, and the bite of sharp metal slices across my chest.

Chiara shouts, “No!”

I look over at her; horrified to see another Custodian joining the one holding her.

The one twisting the knife into her stomach. Hurting her. Making her bleed.

Those two must be the ones with abilities. The other ones—the ones that came after me—those were only diversions.

Forget the last Custodian fighting me. I need to get to her. Somehow incapacitate the one who can stun.

I’m sprinting across the snow when something unbelievable happens.

All four Custodians collapse, crashing to the ground. Twitching. Moaning. Gasping.

Just as they’re starting to move, it happens again.

Chiara calls over to me, her voice not sounding like her own. “Take them out. I’ll keep this up as long as I can.”

What? How? She never—

It doesn’t matter. Not now.

Chiara gave us the opening. Now it’s my turn.

So I turn to the closest Custodian, who’s still lying helpless on the ground, and begin to finish the job.

8

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