Page 94 of Claimed By Blood

“Bakari,” I snap, dragging his attention from the lycans surrounding him. “To the door. Go.”

“We’re running away?” he hisses, outraged.

“Do as she says,” Samuel snaps, though he makes no secret of his own resentment.

I slap a blade into my brother’s hand, and together, we join Bakari in the fight to get back to the rest of my thralls. We take three steps in the direction of the door when Armin finds us.

“So the great Evelyn has turned traitor, as I suspected,” he booms. “Once a backstabbing bitch… always a backstabbing bitch.”

“Ignore him,” I hiss at Bakari, who’s stopped to listen to the drivel.

“And to side with a bunch of cave dwelling rats… my, how you’ve fallen. Cain would’ve made you a queen.”

But Samuel’s son is too proud to take such an insult lying down. Combined with the adrenaline rushing through his veins from what I’m assuming is his first immortal battle, it’s no wonder he stops moving to listen.

“Bakari!” Samuel barks.

But the press of bodies is too strong for either of us to reach out and grab him.

I turn to block an incoming blow just as Bakari yells, “Put down your fucking gun and face me!” He pauses. “Or are you too cowardly to fight a cave dwelling rat?”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

EVELYN

“Idiot boy,”Samuel hisses, his words tinged with pain. “Bakari, come. Now.”

But his son isn’t listening.

Oh well, fuck him. We came here to get him out, if he wants to stay and get killed, he made that choice.

“Eve, get Samuel out.”Frost’s voice rings in my ear.

But the press of fighting is too close. A lycan barrels past us, forcing us to dive even closer to the centre. I take out his Achilles tendon as he passes us, then duck under Samuel’s arm to take out another in front of us.

“We’re not going anywhere,” I growl.

“Stay there, Princess.”Vane’s voice has been morphed by his lycan form, replacing his normally smooth words with a guttural, snarling speech that’s hard to understand.

“Kinda hard to do anything else,” I retort.

It’s stupid, given that we’re in the middle of a battle, but I can’t help but look back at where Bakari went.

Things are worse than I feared. Armin is playing with the younger vampire, slicing him open in a thousand controlled cuts while Bakari tries futilely to land a single mark. Armin must have been trained by Bella. He uses her favourite tricks far too often for it to be coincidence.

Bakari goes down as Armin takes out a tendon in the back of his knee with lethal precision. A second blow renders his dominant arm useless.

He’s going to die. Samuel’s pained groan confirms he knows it too.

“Sister,” Samuel growls. “I beg you, save my idiot son.”

I roll my eyes. “He chose this. He’s more than old enough to know what a stupid move—”

Samuel cuts me off. “I’ll tell you what you want to know if he lives. If he dies, my lips are sealed forever.”

The litany of curses that spill from my mouth actually make some of our attackers back up for a second.

“Evelyn,”Gideon begins in my ear.“Don’t even—”

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