Page 40 of Dark Reign of Forever

He turned his head to meet her eyes, deep blue pools of stubborn strength. His lioness in battle mode.

The others waited, brows folded with worry.

“It appears I will need to meet this Adilla for myself,” Dominique said.

“He will destroy you,” Natalia burst out, then caught herself and lowered her eyes. “My lord.”

Jackson and Garrett should come, too, Cassidy said, and Dominique agreed.

Serge’s hands fidgeted in front of him. “You must make him an ally. Destroying one so old…no good will come of that.” He shook his head. “No good at all.”

16

Strange New Worlds

CassidywatchedsullenlyasDominique pulled the plunger, and the soft pink suppressant filled the syringe. When he was done preparing the shot, he held it out to her. She didn’t react for several seconds, then reluctantly took the instrument of demonic possession into her hand. At thirty-thousand feet, her options were limited.

“I don’t like this.”

He took off his jacket and shirt and lay back on the double bed in their jet’s private compartment. Though they had taken off well before dawn, they wouldn’t make it across the entire continent before the sun caught up with them. “Neither do I, but it is necessary. So you will do it,non?”

“You don’t know that. Maybe I’ll stuff you in the lavatory. Maybe I’d rather spend the day guarding the door on this plane than dealing with…withhim.”

“Give him whatever he wants,” Dominique said, closing his eyes. His face tensed as he fought the mounting urge to take shelter. “Make him remember.”

Cassidy glanced out the window. Red light strobed from the tip of the wing in the predawn gray, above a solid blanket of clouds. The flashes only underscored the warning bells going off in the back of her head.

Taking his hand in hers, she reached for what remained of their telepathic connection. Not only had events derailed their plans to renew the link tonight, now Dominique was convinced she’d be safer without it. Taking the suppressant made him vulnerable the next night. A deep link with him, he said, would compromise her if anyone got their teeth into him. In fact, he wanted her to stay safe at home, but given his decision to travel fast and without regard for the sun, her presence was essential.

Someone had to push that damn plunger.

She would have preferred to send in the Strikers as an advance team, but thanks to a vampire named Abdul, the hunters weren’t leaving Germany any time soon. Even bound in silver shackles, the jihadi vampire had surprised Garrett with a violent head-butt that landed the man in a hospital. Garrett spent eight hours in surgery, getting his insides put back together. Jackson spent eight seconds turning Abdul into ash. Now, not even a thousand-year-old target was tempting enough to budge him from his uncle’s bedside.

The Strikers were going nowhere.

None of this stopped the Lord of Night. Not with a magic daylight shot in his pocket.

Cassidy looked at the syringe in her hand, at the large-bore needle, remembered how he had ended up the last time, and felt ill. His fingers twitched against hers. “Embrasse-moi,” he whispered.

She tucked her hair behind one ear and leaned forward to deliver the requested kiss. It lingered as the sun gained on the plane. Over their faltering connection, past the drone of the engines, she thought she could hear its crackling roar the way he did, could feel the fear skittering along his nerves.

The kiss was a distraction, and an effective one at that. When he had gone corpse-still, eyes closed, lips parted, Cassidy sat up beside him. “Damn you for making me do this, Dominique.”

But do it she did, if only because she could never drag him into the lavatory on her own. She aimed the needle toward the heart the way she had seen Jackson do it and shuddered when she felt the powerful beat against her hand.

The plunger descended. The suppressant disappeared. The syringe disappeared into its case.

She waited.

The sun bathed the cloud blanket below in rosy pink, but there was no sign of its scorching touch on Dominique’s bare skin. A minute later, he inhaled and opened his eyes like a man waking up from a nap.

“Good morning,” she said.

He sat up. “Where am I?”

“On a plane.”

His hands moved over the bed to either side of him. His eyes found the large, round windows. “We are going to—”

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