Page 59 of Feral

He glances at me, but he barely looks recognizable now as blue veins spread across his cheeks and forehead. He’s very pale now, except for the glowing brown eyes tinged with red. He launches himself into the air, reaching the second floor of the warehouse easily, and I’m left totally fucking speechless.

Vito resumes crawling for the door, so I go after him, catching up easily. I kick him in the ribs with all my force, like he did to me hours earlier, only he had Pippo hold me down. Coward.

Vito rolls over, and when he sees it’s me, he grabs my calf, trying to pull me down, but I’m able to fight back this time. I straddle his waist, punching him in the face repeatedly as rage flows through me.

A bloodied body lands with a loud thud beside me, the man’s neck torn out and a gun shoved halfway down his throat. Hale is next to me seconds later, carefully pulling me off Vito. I’m shaking with adrenaline, but as Hale wraps his arms around me, my breathing slows and I come back down from the high I was on.

Hale steps back, searching my face. He looks normal again, sort of. His fangs are still out, but his eyes aren’t glowing anymore.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Me? You were shot.”

He chuckles. “Oh, this?” He shrugs. “Child’s play. Look what you did.”

I turn and look down at Vito, who’s moaning. Blood pours from his face, and I become aware of my throbbing fists.

“I was mad.”

Hale smiles. “Rightfully. Let me finish up.”

I nod, turning to see what else has been happening. The others are standing defensively around a pile of bodies while Thorn douses them in some kind of liquid. The smell of gasoline reaches me seconds later. Is this how vampires hide their victims?

Hale roughly grabs Vito around the neck, hauling him to his feet. “You gonna tell us or join the bonfire while you’re still alive?”

Vito glares at Hale through swollen eyes, but he lets out a long sigh. “Ricco Bianchi. He runs a drug cartel out of New York.” Vito coughs, spitting blood. “I don’t know where he is right now, but he’s supposed to come here at midnight to collect.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“What the fuck are you guys?”

“Vampires, obviously,” Hale says before snapping Vito’s neck like a chicken bone.

He digs Vito’s phone out of his jacket pocket then drags his body to the fire Thorn started and tosses him on it. I watch the bodies burn for a second. Shouldn’t I feel something right now? Disgust? Danger? Something besides relief and an intense desire to climb all over my boyfriend?

Hale chuckles, scrolling through Vito’s phone. “It’s not even password protected. Some criminal he was.” He taps out a text message, hits Send, then tosses the phone into the fire.

“Ricco Bianchi just received an urgent text from our friend Vito telling him that some guys who hang out at Lair robbed them,” Hale says.

“Can they get into Lair?” Syn asks.

“If they can’t, they’ll at least get close, and that’s all I need.”

Thorn rubs his hands together. “This is gonna be good.”

“I imagine he won’t come alone, so we should get back and warn everyone.”

As we walk to the car, Hale rubs my back. “How are you processing all of this?”

“Surprisingly fine. By the way, you’re hot in vampire mode.”

Hale grins, bumping my arm with his. “I’m just getting started.”

Chapter 18

Hale

Syn is talking to Yves and updating him on what happened at the warehouse as it burns in the rearview mirror. I hold Yannis’s hand as he leans his head on my shoulder. He’s handling all of this remarkably well, which only affirms my belief that he’s the man for me.

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