Page 102 of Sinner's Secret

In years past, this didn’t result in the end of all vampires, just those in a specific area of the world. News traveled too slowly, and without evidence, because it was always gone before it could be seen by others. There were no security cameras or satellites watching everyone and everywhere in the world. Like now.

If the Ruiz family had decided to take the violent road to power, their actions wouldn’t just affect them, it would reveal the existence of humans who weren’t the same as other humans. It would cause a panic, and militaries and police would hunt them all down for extermination or for use as weapons. Either way, their freedom would end.

The Ruiz vampires had to be stopped.

Yvgeny roared loud enough to wake the dead, reminding Baz that he had more than one person to save. Hell, it was practically the whole world.

Baz embraced the burning poison consuming him.

He would not allow these assholes to hurt Nika or jeopardize the lives of every vampire or prospective vampire in the world. He’d happily die to keep her safe and human.

Hopefully, surprise and determination would be enough to knock Antonio and his men out of commission long enough to get Nika out and kill them so they stayed dead.

They thought he was dead and had turned their backs on him. Big mistake.

He pushed to his feet, grabbed the uninjured Ruiz guard standing behind Antonio by wrapping one arm over his shoulders and the other around his head. He twisted the man’s body in opposite directions in one quick movement.

The crack of the guard’s neck shattering into nothing more than splinters was nearly drowned out by the roars of more than one man from near the elevator. The vampire wasn’t dead, he’d heal given enough time, but it would take him out of play long enough to destroy his boss.

Antonio turned and stared at Baz, eyes wide, for one long second.

He sprang at Nika, pulling her in front of him and holding her so he had access to her neck. “Come any closer and I’ll rip out her throat.” He licked at her skin and she struggled, hitting him and kicking to get away.

“Stop moving!” he ordered in a tone harsh enough to commuNikate how close to the edge of sanity he truly was.

Nika stopped moving and met Baz’s gaze, a question in her eyes.

He nodded, and she relaxed, her only movement was her uneven breathing.

Baz stepped over the vampire on the floor, but stopped when Antonio licked her neck again. “What are you doing Tony?” he asked in a casual voice he’d learned to use with cab fares that were high or drunk, and looking for a fight. “Aren’t you afraid the regular humans will see?”

“It doesn’t matter what they know, we are above them.” Antonio sneered at him. “Well, some of us are. You obviously aren’t.” He narrowed his eyes, then looked at the floor where Baz was supposed to have died. “How are you still alive? That much alcohol should have eaten you from the inside out.”

“Is that what usually happens?”

“Yes,” Antonio smiled with all the warmth of a piranha. “I’ve killed more than a dozen of us that way. It is a horribly painful way to die.”

Baz smiled. “You forget, Tony. I’ve been drinking alcohol for five centuries.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe all those years of pain and suffering have changed me again.” He leaned forward, just a little, and said softly. “Maybe it’s burned all the evil out of me. Maybe God hasn’t been punishing me but transforming me into a holy weapon. An instrument of justice. Something you’re obviously not.”

The Ruiz family had been trying to reconcile their change into something other than human since they’d been infected with the Sweating Sickness about one hundred years after Baz’s family had been. They had always looked for ways to be better Christians than anyone else, especially since they decided that they were the instrument of God’s justice about two hundred years after that.

He'd just thrown hundreds of years of belief into Antonio’s face.

The other vampire called Baz a disgusting piece of shit in Portuguese. He tossed Nika on the bed and ran full-tilt into Baz, wrapping both hands around his neck.

But Baz was covered in blood, which made him slippery. He jerked back out of Antonio’s hold, kneed him in the nuts, then kicked him hard enough to send him airborne. He landed in a heap fifteen feet away.

“Nika?” Baz wanted to look at her, see how badly she was hurt, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off Antonio.

“Behind you.” Her voice was rough enough to indicate a worrying level of injury, but he couldn’t take his attention off the very dangerous creature in front of him.

“Got a weapon?”

“Working on it,” she said, and he heard her move into the bathroom.

There was a roar of pain from the other side of the suite, near the entrance, and it sounded like Yvgeny. His cousin was a good fighter, but even he couldn’t fight off three or four well trained vampire fighters without any weapons.

Baz didn’t have much time before he was going to have to deal with more assholes.

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