Page 64 of Sinner's Secret

Nika looked at Yvgeny. He wasn’t a small man, but Baz wasn’t even out of breath. That didn’t mean he could just throw his cousin up through the hole. She took another look at both men. “You two have wide shoulders. I think it’s going to take some juggling to get him through that hole.”

“Yeah, and if we get his suit dirty, he’ll complain about it for years.”

“I think we’re past that stage already.” She walked closer to the unconscious man, bent over to take a closer look at his clothing, and began counting holes. “Jesus, he was shot more than a dozen times. I hope he’s wearing some really, really good body armor.” She looked to see where he might be bleeding from, but realized, there wasn’t any evidence of fresh blood on the ground. When had he stopped bleeding?

The sound of metal grinding against metal and concrete drew her attention upward. Baz had his shoulders braced against the manhole cover, and was using his core body strength to move it to one side a little at a time. Smart.

A moan had her attention back on the man laying on the ground at her feet. “Yvgeny?” She reached down to reassure him that he wasn’t alone. That he was safe, at least for the moment.

“Stop,” Baz ordered, sliding down the metal rungs as if he’d spent time in a firehouse. “Step back.”

“What?” she asked. “Why?”

Baz abandoned the last few rungs to jump to the ground and sprint toward her.

What the hell?

He was going to tackle her like a linebacker going after another team’s quarterback. She backed up a step and brought her arms up to shield her body. Only he didn’t hit her, he brushed past her to hit his cousin.

Yvgeny had been standing up?

The force of Baz’s tackle knocked both men into the wall of the storm drain with an audible crunch.

That had to have broken bones.

It should have left both men half-concussed and all the way stunned, but it didn’t seem to slow either of them down. They grappled with each other, Yvgeny growling words in Russian, his gaze firmly locked on...her.

His eyes were wide, pupils blown, and he looked at her like he wanted to tear her apart, limb from limb.

What. The. Hell?

Baz said something in Russian to his cousin, and when he didn’t get a response, punched Yvgeny a few times in the face.

He blinked and said, “Ow.”

“Has reason returned to you?” Baz asked, as he pulled his cousin’s arms behind his back in a classic police hold.

“She smells so good,” Yvgeny said, completely focused on her.

“What is wrong with him?” she asked, forcing herself to stay still and not run away from the obvious threat he posed. “Does he have a head wound?”

“No, he bled quite a bit though.”

Yvgeny closed his eyes and breathed in deep through his nose. “I can smell her blood,” he snarled. Then he smiled and it was both hungry and filled with a mindless lust. “She could be one of us.”

What the fuck did that mean?

“I want her.” Yvgeny said, then he stopped trying to get away from Baz. Instead, he twisted around and buried his open mouth against Baz’s neck. No, he buried his teeth in Baz’s neck. Tiny runnels of blood ran down to Baz’s collar bone, soaking into his shirt. Was Yvgeny trying to rip out Baz’s throat? Kill his own cousin?

Was he high on something? No, he’d seemed fine until he’d been shot, now...none of this made sense.

Baz’s gaze met hers over Yvgeny’s head, and for a long moment, he looked sad. Regretful. “Go up through the manhole,” he ordered. “You don’t want to see this.”

Before she could respond, or move, or figure out what was happening, Yvgeny pulled his mouth away from Baz’s neck with a screech. Then he bent over and vomited blood all over the tunnel floor. Again and again.

Her gaze went from Yvgeny to Baz. Yvgeny had torn a ragged hole in the flesh of his neck, and he was still bleeding. She expected to see a river of blood running down from his neck, but as she watched, the flow of blood slowed, then stopped. The torn skin closed and regenerated so fast she felt like she was watching a sci-fi movie about people with paranormal abilities.

An icy frost rolled over her. What she’d just seen wasn’t possible.

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