Page 83 of Craved

Zaquiel Kral.

His face bloodied, eyes hollow. Silver burns on his wrists and a vampire bite on his neck.

But it couldn’t be.

Rafe?

I blinked and shook my head, trying to see past the pain and humiliation of having my face slapped twice in front of Victorine, Philippe, and a roomful of Paris soldiers and thralls.

Rafe lunged at Étan. There was a flash of silver. Étan grunted and lurched into me, and I instinctively caught him. We stared into each other’s eyes, then I pushed him away.

Time slowed.

Étan’s hand went to the silver handle sticking out of his chest. His face stretched in shock.

My eyes widened, my shock mirroring his.

Étan had been staked. By Rafe.

The blond lieutenant stumbled backward. Reached into a pocket, turned toward his assailant. “You—”

Victorine shrieked, a fierce raptor sound that sent chills up and down my spine.

Étan opened a switchblade and pushed it weakly at the man with Zaquiel’s face, who easily avoided it.

The switchblade fell from Étan’s hand. A bubble of blood formed on his lips. He crumpled to the Persian rug at my feet.

“Zoe.” He stretched out a blackened, smoking hand to me. “Help…me.”

I looked at him, my face still stinging from his blows, then crouched down. The acrid, stomach-turning scent of smoke and burning flesh filled my nostrils. I touched his chest, pretending sorrow for our audience.

Only he heard my muttered words.

“Of course, I helped Rafe. And I fucked him, too. And Étan?” I peeled my lips in a smile only he could see. “It was awesome. The earth freaking moved.”

He opened his mouth, but there was nothing but a smoking black hole clear to the back of his skull. Whatever he wanted to say, he never got it out as the final death consumed him like a fast-moving fire.

His eyes glazed over. He jerked and went still. He’d entered the final transition. His blackened skin flaked off onto the rug. Soon he’d be a pile of ashes.

May he rot in a light-filled hell.

I stood back up.

Time returned to normal. Philippe was on his feet, rapping out orders. The two Paris soldiers leapt for the intruder. More vampires poured into the salon.

Rafe’s glamour sloughed away like a snake’s skin. He dropped into a fighting crouch, lips stretched in a cold grin, a second switchblade in his hand.

My hero. My heart. My destruction.

“Damn it,” I rasped. “You promised not to interfere.”

Two soldiers came at him from either side with long silver stilettos. He leapt back and nearly crashed into a third man. He spun and slashed out with his blade, catching the man a glancing blow.

“Fuck that.” His gaze caught mine for an intense, heart-rending moment. “No one treats you like that. Not when I’m around.”

Then the soldiers surrounded him. He drove them off with the switchblade, but he was outnumbered. A blow to the back of his head sent him to the floor.

The soldiers fell on him, slashing at him with knives and daggers.

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