The big body arched, then fell.
Three down.
Marius flew back to stand in front of Shayna. This time, Daniel sent five toward Marius, each maneuvering in levitated flight through the various dripstones, but no one moved against him.
Daniel shouted. “Ten thousand dollars to the one who cuts the woman’s throat.”
Marius contacted Rumy. Need your men here. Now.
They’re on the way. Ten seconds out.
Marius backed up a little more. His reputation as a fighter, and the fact that he’d just killed the first three attackers, made the men wary as they approached him.
Marius counted backward, bloodied blade in one hand. His other outstretched for balance.
Three, two, one …
The next moment the cavalry arrived. Twenty of Rumy’s best men shot into the cavern, shifting from altered flight. Three flew from behind Marius, the rest from various entrance points all over the battlefield.
/> Chaos erupted.
Marius moved to position himself just inches away from Shayna, body hunched as he shifted his blade from hand to hand, waiting for one of Daniel’s men to break free and attack.
Rumy’s security hands fought like maniacs, all of them set against Daniel and his kind. Not a life in their world had gone untouched by Daniel’s tactic of systematically taking over smaller enterprises, forcing the courts to side with him in critical civil disputes. Nor had Daniel limited his sex slavery to just humans. Many innocent female vampires had been ripped from their homes and put to work.
To his left, one of Daniel’s men struck down one of Rumy’s and flew slowly in Marius’s direction. He was a big motherfucker, taller than Marius, and one of Daniel’s finest.
He rounded a stalagmite, whipped a long chain held in his right hand, and caught Marius’s left wrist, trapping him as the chain held tight.
Marius flipped his blade with precision and caught the bastard in the throat. He went down, which pulled Marius with him.
The chain around Marius’s wrist had him trapped since it was locked to a manacle on the attacker, now bleeding profusely from his throat. Marius knew he was trying to self-heal, but a wound like that was almost impossible to repair fast enough. Blood drained quickly.
Daniel skirted the battle, heading in Marius’s direction. If he didn’t figure this out fast, Daniel would kill him—every other guard in the place was battling hard.
He mentally called out to Rumy. Need a few more men.
Sending another dozen, but it’ll be three minutes.
Thanks. It wouldn’t be soon enough, but what else could he say.
When Daniel reached him, Marius was on his knees trying to work the chain off his wrist. “You’re in a bit of a fix, Marius. Looks like your luck finally ran out. Or more to the point, Shayna’s did.”
He saw a blade flash.
“Don’t hurt the woman. Take your vengeance out on me, but leave her alone.”
“Attached already, I see. Well, this should be fun.” He turned and moved slowly in Shayna’s direction.
Typical of Daniel to take his time when he was about to make a kill.
* * *
Shayna hurt in so many places, she could hardly move. She felt as though the two hemispheres of her brain had gone to war and planned to be fighting for a long time. Marius had flown so swiftly out of the Dark Cave system that no amount of his siphoned power had helped. And now, yeah, she was in pain.
Her hearing was screwed up as well. Everything was muffled, maybe because she hurt so badly.
With Marius’s blood-chain still wrapped around her wrist, and vibrating softly, she could also feel that whatever was happening to Marius, the vampire was in a rage. And something else: She felt a kind of fear that went deep and had ugly layers, something Marius had known his whole life.