Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

I’ll just bet you would, Heather thought. You and the SB both .

A covert glance at the syringe cupped in her palm revealed that it was completely filled. That alone told her that it hadn’t been intended for humans—too much, even for a fatal dose.

But for nightkind?

It won’t do nothing but ease him into sleep, doll .

Desperation tightened around her throat. She hoped that was true for any drug.

Rising to her feet, Heather stepped beside Dante, slipping the syringe between her fingers. Wells couldn’t command him if he was unconscious. Wouldn’t be able to force him to do anything. She jabbed the needle into Dante’s throat.

“No!” Wells shouted.

Just as Heather’s thumb touched the plunger, a static-electricity jolt zapped her hand. The syringe twitched free of her grasp, jerked from Dante’s throat, and zipped across the room.

Heather spun around.

Lyons met her gaze, his own a pale green sea of bitter hate and grief. “Can’t let you do that,” he said, easing his twin’s limp body onto the carpet. “I still need the bloodsucking bastard to heal Athena.”

Then he rose to his feet in one smooth, athletic motion, lifted his gun, and fired.

Heather twisted around, heart pounding, and saw a widening circle of blood in the center of Wells’s shirt.

THE BULLET HIT THE side of Von’s shades, shattering them. El Diablo styled shrapnel thistled his face. “ Mother fucker!”

Von whirled, dropping into a crouch as he spun, and opened up with both barrels. Muzzle flash from the Brownings lit up the shadowed yard and dazzled his vision as he emptied both clips. He dove behind a stack of cordwood smelling of sawdust, mold, and oak. Wood splinters flew into the air when the next bullet slammed into the stack.

On his back, his gaze on a night sky gone pale with rain clouds, Von ejected the clips, pulled two more from his jacket pockets, and slapped them home—one, two.

He wiped his stinging face with the back of one hand. His hand came back blood-smeared. “ Mother fucker,” he repeated. Blinking the retinal flash ghosts from his eyes, Von rolled up to his knees.

He caught the glow of muzzle fire across the yard and up an evergreen and oak-sheltered hill. A split second later a bullet thwipp ed into the wood stack.

Von grinned. Gotcha, Mr. SUV Sniper Man . Squeezing off a couple of rounds to keep the asshole busy, he jumped to his feet and ran .

WELLS STARED, STUNNED BY his son’s display of telekinesis. A natural talent, not one he’d implanted or manipulated, one Alexander had kept secret. Then the bullet hit Wells in the chest, staggering him back a step like a hard-knuckled punch. He looked down at the hole in his shirt and the blood soaking into its fabric. The pocketknife slipped from his fingers.

Annie jerked away from him. He heard a dull thud and looked down to see Gloria’s head rolling on the floor.

“No!” Wells dropped to his knees and seized the head by the wispy gray hair. He gathered it into his arms. Gunfire cracked through the night outside, a series of shots, then silence. His thundering heart leapt into his throat. Had the SB sent more assassins?

“Shit!” Wallace said. “Annie, get on the floor! Stay there!”

S was wincing, his sensitive ears no doubt hurting from the explosive sound of the round Alexander had fired.

Alexander lowered the gun and strode to the door. Flipped the dead bolt.

“S, protect me. Kill Alexander!” Pain ripped through Wells’s chest.

“Listen to me, Baptiste,” Wallace said. “You’re not the killer he’s tried to shape you into since birth. You’re the man your mother wished you to be, wished aloud and from the heart.”

A muscle jumped in S’s jaw. His eyes squeezed shut, his lashes trembling as though he fought to keep them closed. His taut muscles quivered.

“Protect me, S!”

“Shut him out, Dante. You deserve a life of your own, shaped however you want. Shaped from the heart. We’re in this together, all the way.”

Sweat beaded S’s forehead. “T’es sûr de sa?” he whispered, voice strained.

“Yeah, Baptiste, I’m sure,” Wallace answered softly.

Wells stared at S. “Hush,” he commanded, his voice a breathless wheeze. “Open your eyes, S, and look at me. Rip Van Winkle .”

“Snow White,” S replied. Blood trickled from his nose, spattered on the sofa, the carpet. A dark smile tilted his lips. The tension uncoiled from his body. “Sleeping fucking Beauty.”

Fear iced Wells’s blood. He struggled for breath. S was somehow circumventing his programming. Maybe it’d been short-circuited when the twins had tried to force his past down his throat. Or maybe it was Wallace. Maybe it was both. Or neither.

Should’ve made him kill Wallace, like Chloe .

Wells scooted back against the wall. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.

More shots popped outside.

S opened his eyes.

Wells caught peripheral flashes of movement around him—Wallace’s sister crawling to the sofa, Wallace reaching for S, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from S’s beautiful, blood-streaked face, from his golden gleaming eyes.

Gold, just like when he’d been born. Just like when he’d un-made Johanna.

Blue flames flickered out from behind S, from his cuffed hands.

S’s smile deepened at whatever he glimpsed in the depths of Wells’s eyes.

“This’ll make it easier to kill him,” Alexander said. “But after you bring my sister back from the Underworld.”

Wells watched, cold and slicked in sweat, as a small key floated across the room and disappeared behind S. He heard a sharp click, then a thud as S shook off the unlocked cuffs. S worked his shoulders, swinging his hands forward.

Hands haloed in blue flames.

He’s the one, Dante-angel .

I know, princess .

Dante’s song swelled in the dark of his soul, intoxicating and free, a primal aria. Energy crackled along his fingers.

Vaulting the sofa, Dante landed in a crouch beside the man whose face he couldn’t keep in his mind, Lyin’ Lyons’s dad. The pungent smell of fear oozed from every pore of the Faceless Man’s body.

“My beautiful boy, my S,” the man said, his voice bubbling, “it’s time to bid you goodnight for—”

“No!” Heather yelled. “Shut up!”

White light strobed at the edges of Dante’s vision. Pain blurred his thoughts. He slapped a hand over the man’s mouth. His song raged in wild ascending chords, strumming fast and sharp as he sealed the man’s mouth with blue fire. Blue flames blazed across the man’s face, wiping away all features, making it easy for Dante to look at him. The pain throbbing in his head throttled down a notch.

The Faceless Man screamed and screamed and screamed, the muffled sound locked inside his throat.

But inside Dante, the voices whispered.

Wantitneeditkillitburnit…

Is he getting what he deserves, Dante-angel?

Nah, princess, not even close .

“Little fucking psycho,” Dante said, his song resonating from his heart and into the night, aflame and unfettered.

DANTE’S anhrefncathl, DARK AND burning and razor-edged, pulsed into Lucien, drawing him up from restless sleep. His muscles flexed and, instinctively, he tried to unfurl his wings, tried to launch himself into the sky.