Page 126 of Winterfall Destiny

Stood. Because he's gone.

Realisation about what's happening doesn't take long to hit, and Tobias darts a look around for Andrei before his brow furrows. He turns back to Art, locking eyes with him and squeezing one of his shoulders. The braver of the curious recruits now fill the tunnel entrance, although others haven't looked up from their activities in the room, as if infighting regularly occurs amongst the recruits.

As Tobias guides Art back into his makeshift office away from the oncoming chaos, Maeve's hand breaks free of mine, and she pushes her way through the spectators. One or two edge backwards into me as I follow, swearing under their breath.

Andrei stands in the centre of the tunnel, the hemia vamp at his feet. Magic doesn't surround him, but something does—the aura around Andrei that freaks me out whenever I'm close enough for it to touch me. He hasn't torn the vamp's throat or ripped out his heart in a typical hemia attack, but the guy's immobile. Blood spills from his ears and open mouth, and the lantern on the wall flickers across his dead features.

The vamp's eyes match those on the body we found in the London house when we arrived—scorched holes instead of eyes.

"What the fuck, asshole?" snarls one of the vamps beside me. "Dumb move unless you want to take us all on."

Oh, fuck, no. Can the guy not sense how dangerous Andrei is?

"Mate, see what he did to Stefan," mutters another one.

But the vamp who spoke doesn't hear his friend because he's gone. Did Andrei move forward to grab him and return to the same spot in a split second, or did he magically pull the guy to him? The vamp screams out and his legs collapse, holding hands on either side of his skull as his knees hit the bricks. The blood from the vamp's mouth and nose runs scarlet across his ashen skin before his head jerks back and eyes flare like shooting stars before burning out.

I gag at the growing smell of burned flesh as the vamp slumps completely to the tunnel floor, hitting his head on loose rubble. Not that he'd feel anything. Not anymore.

Andrei's eyes absorbed the light, his void-like energy intensified by the deaths, but he doesn't move or speak. The world lurches out of reach, everything distant and unreal. How the hell did Andrei do that? I can't speak as others beside me turn, jostling as they rush away from Andrei.

Chaos rushes through the room with the sound of chairs upending and screams.

"This is because of her," says a vamp next to me, and the dumb bastard seizes Maeve's arm.

The yell of pain from the magic Maeve surrounded herself with fades in comparison to the noise the vamp makes as he joins Andrei's kill count, the guy bloodied and burned out on the ground beside his friends in seconds.

"Andrei, stop!" Maeve shouts, but Andrei doesn't register her, merely smiling, revealing the hemia teeth he no longer needs to kill these people.

Andrei doesn't even need to fucking touch his victims.

"Stop this!" she repeats, but even Maeve's hesitant to move forward to the creature we barely recognise.

"Why stop? They're all prepared to die for the Dominion," Andrei says softly.

"Killing wasn't the plan, Andrei," I say.

There's no point using false names now or any need because with three bodies down, recruits no longer risk standing in the tunnel entrance. Nobody hears us.

As if I didn't speak, Andrei takes a step towards the room, and Maeve side-steps to meet him face to face. "I said, stop, Andrei," she snaps. "We'll fucking struggle to get the five of us out of the catacombs now that you've done this."

Andrei takes Maeve's chin in his hand, and I make to move, but he flashes me a look. Self-preservation prevents me from moving closer because I've no clue what this Andrei might do next.

"The vamp wanted to hurt you," he says to Maeve.

"He barely touched me!" Maeve wrenches her chin away and stares at the bodies at Andrei's feet. "I can protect myself."

Andrei laughs harshly. "Every single person in that room will eventually work for Gabriella. They're a danger."

"They're part of our answer," I protest.

"I don't fucking care!" he yells. "We take the kids out before Gabriella uses them."

"That is not the plan," half-shouts Maeve.

"Most ran into the catacombs once you started killing people from the inside out," I say. Andrei snarls at my challenge, and my nerves churn into fear.

"What do you intend to do? Hunt the recruits one by one?" asks Maeve.

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