Passion Unleashed (45 page)

No doubt these vamps had decades, if not centuries, of experience on Eidolon and Shade, but they weren’t completely helpless. Shade could scramble anyone’s insides with a touch, and Eidolon’s Justice Dealer background had given him a unique perspective on pain and injury.

Wraith’s low, drawn-out moan drifted through the factory like a ghost. Eidolon moved forward. These bastards were going to die.

Four vampires were dust. Two had run, and two were now hog-tied and propped against the factory wall. One of them was the asshole who had threatened them, but sitting there, bloody and missing a few teeth, he didn’t look so threatening anymore. Shade didn’t think so, anyway.

Shade kicked the male, who’d said he was Wraith’s uncle. “Why can’t we kill them?”

“Because Wraith should have that honor,” Eidolon said, and Shade supposed that was a good point.

Dropping their weapons, E and Shade crossed the room to Wraith. Shade pushed his brother’s hair, matted with blood, away from his face.

Oh, Gods. “E… oh, fuck.”

Eidolon’s face went ashen. “Those bastards.” His voice sounded as if it had been dredged up from the pits of hell. “They gouged out his eyes.”

And that was only a small part of what they’d done to him. Among other brutal acts, they’d opened him up from groin to sternum. In several places, broken bone jutted from between shredded muscle and tendon.

Shade bled fury through his pores. “Get him down,” he rasped. “Dear Gods, get him down.”

“Hey, boys.” Roag’s voice drifted through the building.

“Where have you been?” Shade snarled, as Eidolon began lowering Wraith’s shattered body from the ceiling, the chains that held him clanging.

Roag sauntered toward them, kicking through the piles of vampire dust, looking calmly at the two left alive. “You two handled things well enough.” He jerked his chin at Wraith. “Looks like you found our long-lost little brother. Not much left. Leave him. We’ll go find the whore I just balled.”

“Just keep an eye on the vamps,” Eidolon snapped, his patience with Roag nearly as frayed as Shade’s.

They lowered Wraith slowly and carefully. He didn’t move, and the only reason they knew he was alive was because Shade had channeled his gift into his brother and felt his heart beating weakly. His pulse had been too faint to feel with their fingers.

Wraith lay on the floor of the warehouse in a pool of his own blood. Eidolon’s dermoire glowed as he gripped Wraith’s wrist, but after a moment, he looked up and shook his head.

“He’s too far gone.”

Shade knew that, could feel it, could see it in the massive injuries that should have killed Wraith long before this. “We have to try. Maybe we can find a doctor who won’t ask questions.”

Roag shrugged. “We could nab one from a hospital and force him to help. Kill him later so he doesn’t talk. Want me to go get one?”

He made it sound like he was going to stop in at the corner grocer and pick up a loaf of bread.

“No human doctor can do what we can do.” Eidolon’s shoulders slumped. “But it doesn’t matter. He’s not going to make it another five minutes.”

Roag picked up the blowtorch. “Can we kill the vamps now?”

“Hell, yeah,” Shade spat.

He shifted, prepared to rip the assholes apart, but froze when Wraith’s finger touched his knee. Not just his finger, but his whole hand. Somehow, the guy had found the strength to move his shattered arm and grip Shade’s pants. Shade brought his hand down on top of Wraith’s.

Wraith’s skin was icy, his hand shaking, but he managed to squeeze, and in that slight motion, he conveyed his message.

He wanted to live.

Shade’s gaze met Eidolon’s. “We’re going to save him. Damn it all, we’re going to try.”

Eidolon didn’t hesitate. He thumbed Wraith’s swollen upper lip, revealing two fangs. “He really is a vampire.” He turned to their captives. “Does he feed?” When they just stared, he snarled. “Does he feed?”

Uncle Vamp nodded grudgingly.

“Roag,” Shade said, “go fetch that prostitute.”

Roag grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

“Not for sex, you fucking lackbrain. We need her for blood if Wraith needs to feed. And find us a doctor. You can adjust his memories afterward. Go!” Shade expected Roag to argue, and for a heartbeat Shade thought he might have gone too far. Roag was prickly, generally listening only to Eidolon. But maybe the two days of nonstop sex at the pub had taken the piss out of him, and he finally nodded sharply and headed out.

“Shade,” Eidolon said quietly, as though he didn’t want Wraith to hear too much, “can you get inside him and keep his blood moving while I try to mend his bones?”

“Have you done that before?”

“Once, when my sister broke her arm. But this is…”

Eidolon shook his head, and Shade understood. He hated feeling helpless as much as Eidolon did. He’d never done anything like this before. If he screwed up…

“Come on, Shade.” Eidolon lay his palm on Wraith’s thigh, over one extremely nasty burn. “We have to do this.”

Cursing, Shade gripped Wraith’s hand and channeled his gift into him, searching out his organs, probing for injuries and weaknesses. E’s dermoire lit up, and the snapped shin bone jutting through Wraith’s skin began to knit together and ease back into place. Shade knew for a fact that E’s healing gift was extremely painful, but Wraith didn’t even stir. His heart stuttered, but Shade forced it into a strong rhythm, and gradually, it began to beat normally on its own.

When Eidolon was satisfied that he’d healed their brother’s bones, he gently tipped Wraith’s face up, fury darkening E’s expression as he studied the empty eye sockets.

And then, with the coldest smile Shade had ever seen on anyone, he turned to the vampires. “Eeny meeny, miny moe,” he said, one finger going between the two, and ending on the dark-haired one. Smoothly, deliberately, he picked up a shard of wood and crossed to the vamps.

“Looks like today is your lucky day,” he said, and stabbed the dark-haired vamp through the chest. He didn’t even wait for the male to start flaming before he moved to Wraith’s uncle, whose face was etched with terror.

Eidolon crouched and roughly gripped his jaw, tipping it up so Eidolon’s dark eyes locked with the vampire’s blue ones.

And Shade knew exactly what was about to happen.

Consciousness came to Wraith in bits and pieces, which was pretty much what he felt like. He didn’t wonder what had happened, because his nightmares had played the events of his capture and torture over and over. The only question he had was how long he’d been down.

He opened his eyes. Blinked a few times. Eyes. He had some.

“Hey.” A dark-haired male peered into Wraith’s face. “I’m Shade. Your brother. You’re at my place. Well, it’s Eidolon’s place too. He’s right here.”

Another male moved to the side of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

Wraith swallowed. His throat hurt. “Like some vampires strung me up and tortured me,” he rasped. Swallowed again. “Why… why’d you save me?”

Eidolon seemed stumped by the question. “You’re our brother.”

“So?”

Shade swore and cast a glance at Eidolon. “Great. Another Roag.” He turned back to Wraith. “Roag’s our other brother. He’s not here. Wasn’t there while we were putting you back together in the factory, either.”

“Shade…”

“What? Fucker dropped off the doctor and a whore and took off to find another prostitute.”

“Doctor?” Wraith lifted his head, but when pain clanged in his skull, he dropped it back onto the pillow.

Eidolon nodded. “It took some persuasion to get the doctor to help, but once he stopped blubbering and praying, he pitched in. He had to tack your intestines into place and transfer some of Shade’s blood into your body, and that pulled you through. Hate to say it, but if not for the doc, you wouldn’t have made it.” He looked down at his feet. “Shade and I couldn’t have saved you without his help.”

Wraith still didn’t get why they’d saved him, and hell, he wasn’t even sure he was grateful. “What… what happened to the vampires?”

Shade bared his teeth. “They’re dead.”

Good. Wraith hoped their deaths had been slow and painful.

“We’re going to let you get some rest,” Eidolon said, and Wraith felt a slow burn of panic, followed immediately by shame that he was afraid to be alone.

Somehow, Eidolon knew. “We’ll be in the next room. One of us will always be here.” His gaze locked with Wraith’s. “No one will hurt you like that again, brother. You have my word.”

No, no one would. Because once he was on his feet again, he was going to spend every waking moment training. To kill. And then he was going to hunt vampires until their kind was extinct.

“Hey,” Shade said softly. “I recognize that look. Too well. Just concentrate on getting better, and know we have your back.”

Wraith’s brothers left the room, and as he watched them leave, a strange, churning sensation filled his chest. Hatred and bitterness took up the majority of the space, but woven in there was something else… something he’d never felt. Gratitude? Affection?

Maybe not the latter, but he appreciated what his brothers had done. And no matter what, he couldn’t deny that, for the first time in his life, he didn’t feel so alone.