“Take her,” Destiny invited, thrusting Savannah toward the lesser vampire. “I’ll kill the healer.” She did a back-flip, raced up the wall toward the creature overhead, trusting Savannah to make the kill.
Savannah had never hunted the undead. Gregori had been adamant that she not ever place her life in danger, but she had been in his head enough to know what to do. She acted at once, without hesitation, stumbling forward as if unable to control her momentum. The vampire’s fetid breath scorched her face. She felt his hands on her shoulders, reaching to yank her to him. And she went, the dagger concealed along her wrist. At the last possible second she plunged the razor-sharp instrument deep into his chest, straight into his heart.
Blackened blood poured over her hand, burning abominably. The vampire screamed, stumbling backward, his hands going to the dagger. Savannah leapt away from him, careful to keep her body between her lifemate and the undead.
Destiny reached the other vampire as he paused to witness the capture of such a prize as the Prince’s daughter. He saw her coming too late to move, or shape-shift, relying on attack instead. They came together in a furious assault, bodies slamming together.
They fell to the cavern floor, only inches from the wounded vampire, both scrambling to regain their footing. Destiny threw herself into a scissors lock, weaving her legs through the vampire’s and twisting as they both came down again, dropping him to the ground and pinning him there. She drove her fist deep, needing victory fast. She could see the wounded vampire pulling the knife from his chest. Worse, she felt the presence of another one, the ancient one. Pater had arrived.
“Get out, Savannah,” Destiny instructed harshly.
Savannah leapt over the writhing vampire, trying to avoid the spewing blood, kicking him hard in the head so that he dropped backward like a stone. Her tactic gave Destiny the precious time she needed to extract the heart from the chest of the undead she had pinned. She threw the withered organ a distance from her and was already on the wounded one, straddling him, holding him down to take his heart.
Savannah built the necessary energy to incinerate the first heart, successfully completing the kill. As she turned back, she saw a black shadow loom above Destiny, one hand drawn back, the discarded and bloody dagger in his hand.
“Look out!” She had been about to direct the orange ball of flame at the body of the vampire, but turned it toward the shadow instead.
Destiny had managed to close her fingers around the heart of the wounded vampire, jerking hard as he thrashed and raked and battered her, fighting tooth and nail for his life. At Savannah’s warning, she flinched sideways, still drawing the heart toward her, recognizing the danger but needing to finish off the vampire before he could regenerate or get away.
Pater plunged the dagger downward just as Destiny shifted, and the ball of energy, flaming red and white-hot, seared his shoulder, ruining his aim. The blade missed her back completely, slicing through her arm up high so that the heart fell from her suddenly nerveless fingers. It rolled away from her almost to the feet of the ancient undead.
Pater stared at the obscene organ; then his eyes went to Destiny’s pale face. He hissed, a deadly promise of retribution, and instantly was gone.
Destiny clamped her hand over the gushing wound and looked at Savannah. “Destroy the heart and the vampire. I’m going after him. Vikirnoff will be here any minute or Pater probably wouldn’t have left. Be certain to cleanse your hands or you’ll blister and burn. You don’t want to take the chance of getting any of that blood into your system.”
Before Savannah could reply, Destiny had shifted shape, streaking through the network of caves to follow Pater. She knew where he would go. She knew what he had in mind. Nothing could stop her, not even the echo of Nicolae’s cry of protest in her mind. Destiny had weaknesses the vampire could exploit, and every one of them was in the city. He would go after the people she had befriended.