Page 10 of Avenger of Sins

“She cannot kill us,” Gray snarls aloud.

“No?” Jo cocks her head. “Maybe not. But you won’t enjoy what Icando.”

She goes up like a torch, entire body wreathed in flame, clothing turning to ash around her. Caleb is stunned into silence, and even Gray feels uncertain as her heat blisters their face and singes the fine hairs. How much of their blood has she drunk?

“I’ve only felt this powerful once before,” Jo muses, her eyes reflecting the flames. “At the Center. When I was possessed. But this is a thousand times better. Surrender now and give me your blood, and I won’t hurt you.”

“What the fuck is happening?”Caleb asks, pointlessly.“Has Ryan driven her crazy?”

Gray scrambles back quickly, and she stalks after him, the bed sheets catching flame as she brushes against them. “Go down,” she snarls at him. “I gave you enough tranquilizer to drop a horse. Why are you still up?”

She, or Ryan, has underestimated them. Good.

He slows his movements, pretending confusion. The dog continues to bark madly, and Night hovers nearby, uncertain what to do.

“Take the creature and leave,” Gray says, slurring the words intentionally.

Night doesn’t question, vanishing with the dog quickly as a shadow flickering across a room. Jo doesn’t seem to care; all of her attention is on him.

On his blood.

She reaches beneath the mattress, setting it alight as she does so, and draws out a wicked knife. “Too bad we can’t bleed you the way we did before. But this will be enough for now.”

He waits until the knife is in its downward arc, toward their throat, before flinging up his arm.

The thick leather of their coat foils the blade; the sweep of his arm knocks it free from her hand. With his other hand, he grabs for her wrist again, bracing for the pain. “Surrender!” he orders, even as skin blisters and peels, and Caleb writhes under their shared skin. They just need to hold on a little longer, push through the pain?—

She brings the hand that had held the knife around, under his guard, and grabs them by the face.

Agony.

Gray roars in fury and pain. Fingers jam into his mouth, bringing fire with them, trying to cook their brain from the inside.

He bites, instinct overriding all else. There are flames in their mouth, melting the fat in their lips, but bone crunches under fangs and Jo screams in an agony of her own.

She wrenches away leaving behind shreds of flesh, the taste of her blood lost to charred tastebuds. With another roar, Gray surges to their feet.

Jo scrambles back, hand cradled to her chest and blood pouring down her arm. Flame spreads with her every movement, further engulfing the room.

They aren’t supposed to bite mortals, if John finds out?—

“This is an exception!”Caleb all but shouts.“She was trying to make drakul flambé, for fuck’s sake!”

Fear shows in Jo’s eyes now, and the flames begin to die from her skin even as they spread everywhere else. Smoke fills the air, excoriating their throat and lungs.

“Surrender,” he snarls again.

With a sob of pain and terror, Jo stumbles away from them—and topples backward out the open window.

He starts after her, but there is fire everywhere now, the heat blistering their exposed skin.“We have to get out!”Caleb insists, his fear and pain thrumming along their nerves.

Growling in frustration, Gray runs out of the bedroom, through a hall filling with smoke, then across the living room and out the front door. Night stands in the yard, still holding the dog.

“Put it down and help me,” Gray tells her.

The rattle of an opening garage door comes from the side of the house. He runs toward it, as a cream-colored SUV pulls out, tires squealing on the concrete. Jo’s face, white with pain, flashes past in the passenger seat.

No. He cannot let them escape, not after what Ryan did to John.

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