Page 54 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

Or, at least, he tried to.

He didn’t get very far. After making it only a few steps, Michael swayed dangerously, then face-planted into the floor, sprawled out unceremoniously beside Danny’s unconscious body.

Definitely a concussion, then. Apparently, being a ruthless monster hunter doesn’t make you immune to head wounds. Go figure.

If not for the fire, we could have just left them there.

After all, the wraith was gone now.

But leaving them behind wasn’t an option. I swore under my breath, then turned to Tobias. “We have to get them out of here! They’re defenseless!”

He scowled at that but didn’t seem willing to argue with me. He gestured at Danny. “I’ll grab him. You take the other guy.”

I nodded back at him and rushed forward to pick up Michael. Though vampire strength makes me way stronger than a regular person, it didn’t make it any less awkward to carry a full-grown man who was way bigger than me. But I managed to half-carry, half-drag Michael to the front door.

Tobias threw Danny’s unconscious body over his shoulder in a practiced fireman’s carry. He got to the door before me and wrenched it open.

“You first,” he told me.

I didn’t argue with him. There was no time for that. With the blessed iron in one hand and Michael’s unconscious body in my other, I rushed forward and dropped the hunter onto the ground.

He was still breathing, at least. And none of his bones appeared to be broken.

I turned to Tobias. He had followed me out of the house with Danny still slung over his shoulder. He deposited Danny next to Michael.

The movement must have woken him up because Danny groaned, struggling to sit upright. He blinked up at me, dazed. “Oh. It’s you guys.”

“You’re welcome,” I shot back, scowling down at him. “We just saved your bacon. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

Danny groaned at that and then passed out again.

When I turned back to Tobias, we grinned at each other foolishly. I was about to say something along the lines of ‘you know, we actually make a pretty good team.’

But I never got the chance.

Because that was the moment when the house exploded.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN || BRYAN

The blast knocked me off my feet and I smelled singed hair.

I turned and looked at the house, staring at it stupidly. Somehow, I had expected it to be a smoking pile of rubble, but it looked more or less intact. The glass had just blown out of all the windows in the living room. Not so bad, after all.

But we needed to get the hell away from here, before the authorities showed up and asked us a bunch of questions nobody would be able to answer.

But when I tried to shove myself back to my feet, I belatedly realized that a shard of glass the size of my fist had buried itself into my shoulder.

I yanked it out barehanded, a hiss of pain escaping my lips.

I dropped the glass, then froze.

Tobias.

He was lying on his back, ten feet away. He had been closer to the house when the windows had exploded.

No longer caring if the neighbors or the hunters saw me, I used vamp-speed to move to his side.

One glance told me that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Tobias was entirely the wrong color.

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