“Milly, go.” He barely managed the words over the fighting.

“Liam, I can’t. I can’t leave you.” She was battling too many, he knew it, knew he couldn’t help her. Not the condition he was in. Couldn’t even open his eyes past the swelling.

But she would lose. And no point in them both dying. He forced himself to his knees, swayed and slumped forward, his face smashing into the unforgiving concrete.

Power surged and then Milly lay on the ground beside him. She pressed a hand over him, and the healing flooded him was almost as bad as the pain the coven inflicted on him.

“Run, Liam. Run,” she whispered and he heard the pain in her voice. She was hurt. He opened his eyes, saw blood running down the side of her face as she passed out. No way he could leave her behind.

They were so screwed.

Chapter 19

The shamans turned to us as a unit, their eyes widening as they saw me and Alex.

“You’re shitting me. You’ve never seen a werewolf before?”

Al rushed to me. “You must leave, now. This is a place only for vampires and the shamans who oversee the ceremony. We are protected from the old ones’ hunger. You are not.”

He shoved me backward, but Alex was behind me and I flipped over his back, hitting the ground hard. My right arm hit a serrated rock and my ighhrnotskin split.

“Fuck, I’m going.” I rolled to my side, arm dripping bright red droplets to the ground.

Al let out a groan. “Too late, too late.”

A rumble in the ground and the rock bent and flexed around us, like a giant hand. Spikes of rock shot up through the ground, and down from the ceiling, blocking the doorway.

I pulled my swords free. “Al, tell me this is for show.”

The old shaman closed his eyes as he sank back into the circle and raised his hands above his head. “We cannot protect you, Rylee. I am sorry.”

Berget moved to stand in front of me. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

Faris gave a slow nod. “Neither will I.”

Alex gave a shiver and a low rumble, deeper than anything I’d ever heard from him rolled through the cavern. “No hurts Rylee.”

A soft laugh escaped Doran. “Nor will I allow them to harm you.”

Jack snorted. “Do you even have to fucking well ask?”

A solidarity I never expected filled the room. Four vampires, who all at one point had been my enemy, now stood between me and a sure death. I gave a slow nod, accepting this for what it was. I could not survive on my own; there was no way, even if I wasn’t dealing with a massive blood loss.

That didn’t mean I was lowering my blades, not for a second.

The far wall cracked, a jagged line ripping through the hard rock, through the symbols etched thousands of years ago.

Dust rolled ahead of the crack, filling the room, dimming the light. The fire sputtered and spit, flickered and then grew in intensity as the particles settled. Blinking to clear the grit from my eyes, I stared hard at the four figures emerging from their stone coffins.

Skeletally thin, their clothing—what was left of it—barely hung in tatters from their frames. Their eye sockets were deep and black, no apparent eyes to poke out if they got too close. They stepped forward, fanning out to face us along the wall.

They spoke as a unit. “Fresh blood has come to waken our sleep, no longer to be feasted upon by those who wish power seek us out, but to seek out our rightful place in this world.”

I braced myself, but it wasn’t me they came for.

The four of them launched at the circle of shamans. Despite what Al said, he was wrong. They were no more protected than I was.

I didn’t stop to think if I was being smart; there was no way I could let the shamans die. My fanged tag team jumped in, pulling shamans out of the way and pretty much throwing them behind our “line” of defense.

“Al!” I ran to him as an old one snaked an arm out. Fast, but not the freaky scary fast of vampires I was used to. We had a chance. “They’re still weak, kill them!”

Easier said then done. And of course, me and my big fat mouth got their attention. I drove my sword through the heart region of the one holding Al and twisted hard. Bones broke and shattered under the force. The old one dropped Al—who scuttled backward—but it didn’t die. The other old ones drained shaman after shaman, faster than I could have imagined; we couldn’t save them all.

I pulled Al and another shaman with me, back to the blocked entranceway. Half the shamans had been drained in a matter of seconds.

Faris, Doran, Berget, and Jack didn’t stop them once they got the shamans away. “What the fuck, are you four just taking i juonds.n the performance?”

“Doran needs their blood, all four of them, if he is to be our leader. We can’t kill them, we have to subdue them,” Faris said.

Oh fan-fucking-tastic. How do you subdue vampires who were full of blood lust, and enraged they’d been imprisoned for who the fuck knows how long? Yeah, I didn’t know either.

Four vampires on our side, four very old and very angry vampires on the other. Like some sadistic version of red rover, red rover, let’s call the weak one over and eat her.

I didn’t take my eyes from the old ones who in turn were eyeing up the younger vampires in front of them. “Al, tell me you can put them back to sleep.”

He leaned heavily on the wall. “Yes, there is a way, but they must be drained of all their blood once more.” He let out a moan and under his breath I heard him whisper. “I cannot believe our spells did not protect us.”

More than likely, they had the spell wrong. Shit, I could only guess how long it had been since the last time the ancients had been brought forth. Thousands of years, maybe.

With everything I had, I fought the groan that tried to escape me. Nothing, nothing could be easy or go the way we planned.

“One at a time, boys and girls, let’s keep this orderly.” I swung my swords in loose circles beside me, my confidence wavering under the steely-eyed gaze of the old ones. They weren’t really looking at anyone else.

Just me.

Awesome, just what I wanted for Christmas, whole new sets of bite marks.

Alex moved in front of me, teeth snapping, and suddenly he looked the part, no longer the cowering wolf that hid behind me. For the first time, he looked like the scary, vicious werewolf he could be.

We were in a deadly standoff, tension rising as the old ones seemed to debate how best to take us out. It was pretty apparent we were on their dessert list.