Page 5 of Taken By Raider Kings
Lucy’s neck bubbled, torn wide open, red and terrible.
Sophie stared.Oh, God.What… what on earth…
Then the thing in the stained, fluttering white shirt turned from the back of the alley and lunged for her, snarling.
four
It shouldn’t have happened.
They’d huntedupirbefore, of course, while Dad was alive.But the farm had burned, their sleeping shaman and alpha dead in the flames, and now they were on their own, scrabbling to survive.They had cut both Tribe andupira wide berth ever since.
And Zach shouldn’t have followed her, but she smelled too good to be true.Brunette, yes.Human, a bleeder.Which was all right, even mildly appetizing when he was in the right mood.
But young, warm, female musk—and with an unbelievable, wonderful edge of moonlight and snow, cold and crystalline.Zach hadn’t smelled that inforever,and certainly not overlaid with the tantalizing aroma of somethingbelongingto him, something he knew even if he’d never been near it before.
He’d leaned close, gotten a good lungful to confirm, and she had to be what he thought she was, which made it incredibly lucky, and just as incredibly?—
But she’d flinched away, almost cowering as if she knew what he was, and headed off to search the inside of the nightclub as if she’d lost her purse.She hadn’t; he’d kept his fingers well away from the tiny bag, despite fleecing at least four people at the bar while watching her.
Pale skin and pale eyes.Nice hips, a glory of curling sandalwood hair, a pair of cute little steel-rimmed librarian glasses, and that ridiculous purse she kept elbow-clutched to her side.She’d walked right out the front door while he was still cutting across the dance floor, harvesting another few wallets and emptying them by touch—almost too easy when you had the training and quicker-than-human reflexes.
The rest of them had been working the crowd, Julia concentrating on businessmen and Brenn sliding through knots of college boys with fat rolls to spend on killing their livers.
That cash would keep the Family fed and moving.But here, in an alley between bass-quivering nightclubs, the smell of blood drenched the air, plucking at the beast in his bones.
Zach yanked her back as theupirsnarled.The emergency door flew open, smacking against brickwork so hard dust puffed free.His family arrived to aid one of their own, and also to hunt their most ancient enemy.
Kyle was first through, head up and nostrils flaring, the Change rippling under his skin.And he leaped for theupirwithout pausing.
Ohshit, don’t!Kyle shouldn’t be doing that, even if he was the alpha; he could get not just hurt but unzipped.
Little brother simply hesitated too much.
The woman fell as he let go of her arm.He promptly shelved her as safe for the moment, a problem to solve soon enough—and leapt, a fraction of a second slower than Kyle.
Who met theupirwith a bone-shattering crunch, driving it sideways and down as it snarled.It had a loose white shirt on, skintight pants, a pair of well-polished Tony Lamas, and was probably rabid if the just-spilled blood painting its front was any indication.
Not that the bloodsuckers needed much inducement to get really savage.But if anupirwas hunting here, going after healthy young prey under bright lights and in the middle of crowds, it was either a baby—which was all right—or too burnsick for Kyle to handle.
Snapping, growling, making a hell of a lot of noise, Kyle feinted and closed too swiftly, locking and rolling with the flexible, dangerous leech-thing.
Zach’s bones made crackling sounds as the Change hit, running lava-hot through his body.The animal in him lifted its head, snarled, and flung itself forward to strike at the blindly rooting thing, the enemy who twisted like a snake and spat, slashing with blood-spattered hands turned to shovel-shaped claws.
If little brother could just hold it long enough, it would make a mistake and the rest of them could get it safely put down before it hurt anyone else.
And before it made any more noise to attract witnesses.
But Julia was suddenly there too, crowding her brothers aside as she let out a chilling glass-throated howl.The fight tipped and shifted, theupirkicking, slashing again.Kyle backhanded his sister, throwing her out of the way…
…and catching the claws meant for her, full across his temporarily unprotected belly.
A fresh hot gout of blood splashed high and wide.The smell of it, loaded with the terrible reek of a bad gutshot, smacked Zach across the face.He descended into the red welter of combat, the animal in him roaring, and didn’t fucking care that there would be witnesses.
Theupirdied, shredded and shrieking, the rot of its last exhale throttling the alleyway.Zach rose from its ruin, foul brackish liquid staining his fingers, and his bones crackled again as he looked for more to kill.
They pressed against him, those of his kind, and a thread of sweet soothing scent sought to cut through the reek of death and decay.A reminder—something he had to attend to, some problem his human side had to solve.
The animal didn’t care.It smelled food, blood, and suffering; it wanted revenge and hot meat, bones cracking sweet and marrow-full between its fangs.
