Page 6 of Eternally Bound
Declan and Killean halted beside him as Joseph glanced over his shoulder at them. The grin that split his face revealed his lethal fangs as he turned to face them. The hazel of Joseph’s eyes briefly flickered through the red encompassing them as he gave a come-and-get-it gesture with his hands.
“Something’s not right here,” Ronan murmured to the others. “He’s trying to set us up for something.”
“What though?” Declan inquired.
“I don’t know, but stay alert.”
Declan and Killean spread out to the sides of him as the three of them prowled down the alley. Ronan didn’t know why Joseph had chosen to stay, but he wasn’t going to rush him until he knew what the Savage vampire had up his sleeves.
They had to approach this cautiously, but in his head, he heard the seconds of a clock ticking away. When they exited the club, the hunters must have gone the other way in the alley, but they would come this way eventually. They had to take Joseph down before the hunters arrived on the scene.
At one time, Ronan’s body would have been alive with the thrill of the impending kill. Now he experienced no excitement as he closed in on the fallen Defender. Joseph’s elongated canines sliced his bottom lip, and the scent of garbage grew stronger as blood trickled down his chin from the gash.
Joseph crouched down before launching himself at Ronan’s chest. It was a move Joseph never would have made before becoming Savage, but the increased strength he’d experienced with his kills made him far more brazen. Despite that increased strength, Ronan had no fear Joseph could take him down. It would take far more than Joseph alone to do so.
Ronan swung out at him, catching him squarely beneath the jaw and flinging him into one of the dumpsters. Metal dented with a loud bang. Garbage spewed onto the ground and rats screeched as they scattered into the gloomy recesses of the alley. Joseph came up spitting blood as he launched off the dumpster.
“So you’re going to kill me now? You’re going to kill one of your own?” Joseph inquired. “So much for loyalty, hey, Ronan?”
Ronan circled him as Joseph moved toward the wall and Declan and Killean closed in on him. “You’re not one of us anymore, Joseph,” Ronan replied.
“You have no right to judge me. You’re closer to the edge than I ever was.”
Ronan didn’t flinch at the assessment; it was true after all.
“Obviously not,” Declan replied, “considering you’re the one we’re hunting.”
Hatred twisted Joseph’s features; Declan grinned at him in return. Joseph snarled, but this time instead of coming for Ronan, he charged straight at Declan whose smile only widened as he braced himself for Joseph’s attack. Joseph lowered his shoulder and crashed into Declan, sending him reeling into the wall.
Declan didn’t go down beneath Joseph. Instead, he clasped his hands together and drove them into Joseph’s back. Joseph grunted as he wrapped his arms around Declan’s waist, lifted him up, and bashed him into the wall again. Declan swung an uppercut that broke Joseph’s hold on him and staggered Joseph back a few feet.
Before he could fully recover, Ronan grabbed Joseph by the collar of his shirt and yanked him back. His hand encircled his throat, crushing Joseph’s windpipe as he pinned him to the wall. Pulling his arm back, Ronan fisted his hand in preparation to drive it through Joseph’s chest and end this.
“Ronan!” Killean’s shout alerted him to the threat he’d missed while focused on the kill.
A whistling reached him in time for him to turn to the side, but not in time to avoid the bolt completely. A piercing pain shot through his shoulder as the weapon impaled him from behind. Stumbling slightly forward, he nearly lost his grip on Joseph as a burning sensation spread through the thick muscle of his shoulder. Turning his head, he spotted three of the hunters at the other end of the alley. The black-haired one had an empty crossbow aimed at him.
Joseph grabbed the end of the bolt and twisted it. Ronan involuntarily released his hold on him when numbness spread through his shoulder. Joseph’s hands flew to his brutalized throat. Broken sounds issued from him as he clawed at his flesh and his eyes rolled in his head. Ronan had no idea what he was trying to say, and he didn’t care.
“Ronan!”
Declan’s shout enabled him to dodge the next arrow one of the other hunters fired at him, an arrow aimed straight at his heart. He plucked the arrow from the air and shattered it in his fingers before leveling the hunters with a murderous stare. Two of them took a step away from him, but the black-haired one held his ground as he focused on Joseph.
Without warning, the black-haired hunter barreled down the alley with his shoulder lowered. He plowed into Joseph, running him backward as he kept his shoulder buried in Joseph’s sternum. Joseph and the hunter tumbled into the dumpsters. Garbage spilled over them, momentarily burying them both beneath a wave of trash.
Ronan didn’t move as Joseph and the hunter thrashed on the ground. He wasn’t the only one startled by the uncharacteristically reckless display from a hunter. Declan and Killean remained unmoving as the hunter punched Joseph with enough force to crack a cheekbone. The next blow he delivered shattered Joseph’s nose. Blood splattered Joseph’s shirt and sprayed onto the concrete within inches of Ronan’s boots.
He’d never seen a hunter behave like this. Whenever he’d encountered them, they’d always been methodical and careful as they worked together. They never let their emotions rule them or broke ranks. Even the hunter’s partners were thrown off as they had yet to attempt moving in for their own kills.
The hunters didn’t remain stunned into immobility for long. While what Ronan assumed was their leader continued to pummel Joseph, the other two inched forward. One held a crossbow at the ready, its arrow aimed straight at Declan’s heart. The other trained a 9mm on Killean. Unless the gun was loaded with wooden bullets, it wouldn’t kill them. However, it would still hurt them enough to slow them down and make it easier for them to be killed.
The one holding the crossbow kept glancing between Ronan and Declan, but the hunter didn’t aim the crossbow at him again. The two remaining hunters must have decided Ronan’s injury didn’t make him much of a threat. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Ronan scanned the alley behind them, but the woman and the other hunter they’d been with were nowhere to be seen.
He turned his attention back to the ugly situation they now faced. The black-haired hunter was dragging Joseph’s beaten form up behind him as he climbed to his feet.
At one time, seeing a fellow Defender so broken and bruised would have enraged him, but Joseph wasn’t one of them anymore. Ronan couldn’t help feeling a grudging admiration for the damage the hunter had inflicted on the Savage. If it had been any other Savage, Ronan would have walked away and allowed the hunters to have them, but he had to make sure Joseph died this night. The fallen Defender knew far too many of their secrets to risk him continuing to live.
