The thought no sooner registered before the first shot hit him. He heard more rounds being fired, heard the screams of his family as the Darkhaven awoke to terror.
But then another bullet slammed into his skull, and his world and everything in it went silent and black.
Chapter Twenty-five
Nikolai sat inside the shade of the vine shelter and watched a single nimbus of sunlight shine through the leaves and into Renata's dark hair while she slept. Ultraviolet light was toxic to his kind - lethal after about half an hour's sustained exposure - but he couldn't work up the desire to patch the small hole in the vegetation and snuff out the errant ray. Instead, for the past several minutes, he'd been sitting next to Renata and watching, admittedly, much too intrigued, as the light soaked into her ebony hair, infusing the silky strands with a dozen different shades of copper, bronze, and burgundy.
What the hell was wrong with him?
He was sitting there staring at her hair, for crissake. Not just staring, but staring with total rapt fascination. To Niko, that seemed to indicate one of two equally disturbing facts: Either he should seriously consider looking into night courses with Vidal Sassoon, or he was a complete goner when it came to this female.
Goner as in gone for good, ruined for any other.
Somewhere, somehow, he had let himself fall in love with her.
Which explained why he couldn't keep his hands - and other parts - off her. It also explained why he'd spent the entire night, with the exception of his quick trip into the lodge before daybreak - lying beside Renata, holding her in his arms.
And if he'd needed any explanation for why his chest had felt so constricted and heavy when she broke down crying last night, or why he'd felt compelled to share with her his guilt over the loss of Dmitri all those years ago, he supposed that being in love with her would do it.
As much as he had wanted to convince her that she was safe with him, Nikolai felt safe with her too. He trusted her wholeheartedly. Would kill to protect her, would die for her without a second's doubt if it came down to it. She may not have been a part of his life for very long now, but he was hard-pressed to imagine not having her in it.
Ah, fuck.
He really had fallen in love with Renata.
"Just fucking brilliant," he muttered, then winced when she stirred at the sound of his voice.
She opened her eyes, smiled when she saw him sitting there. "Hi."
"Morning," he said, casually reaching above her head to knit the vines closed and seal out the last of the sunlight.
He found her slow, catlike stretch even more fascinating than her hair. She was wearing the cotton oxford he'd ruined last night, half the buttons scattered on the ground of the shelter. The big shirt was split open down the front, barely covering her nakedness. No complaints from him.
"How are you feeling?"
She seemed to consider it for a second, then glanced over at him with a frown. "I feel really good. I mean, last night was..."
She actually blushed, a sweet pink color filling her cheeks. "Last night was incredible, but I thought for sure I'd be laid out flat with reverb by now. I don't understand...it never hit me at all. I mean, I had a little bit of pain, but based on what happened during the attack at Jack's place, I should have been in agony most of the night."
"Has that ever happened before?"
She shook her head. "Never. Every time I use my ability, the reverb follows."
"But not last night."
"Not last night," she said. "I've never felt better."
Niko might have made a lame joke about the miraculous effects of his sexual prowess, but he knew it was a different kind of magic that had pulled Renata through her reverb. "You drank my blood yesterday. That's what's different."
"You think your blood not only helped my shoulder but also helped with this? Is that even possible?"
"It's definitely a possibility. A Breedmate who regularly drinks a vampire's blood becomes much stronger than she would be without it. Aging slows to a snail's pace. Her body's cells, muscles, and entire metabolism reach peak fitness and health. And yeah, a lot of times a Breed male's blood will impact her psychic ability too."
"That's why Sergei never had me drink from him," Renata said, her mind already speeding ahead toward the same conclusion Niko had reached. "He made no secret that he liked the fact that my power was limited to small bursts. The couple of times I tried to hit him with it, I could never hold it on him long enough to take him down, and in the end the effort always cost me dearly once the reverb set in."
"Sergei Yakut was Gen One," Niko reminded her. "His blood in your system might have made you practically unstoppable."
Renata scoffed quietly. "Just one more shackle he kept on me. He must have known I would have killed him if I had even the smallest hope that I might succeed." She fell silent for a minute, idly plucked at a blade of grass on the floor of the makeshift shelter. "I did try to kill him...the day Mira and I fled the lodge together. That was the day he put the hot andiron to my back. He did other things to me that day too."