I’ll Be Slaying You (Night Watch #2)(56)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Weakness.

“Dee? What’s wrong?”

She licked her lips. “Zane. For a minute there, I thought—” She’d thought he called her name.

“You should try to get some sleep,” Simon told her. “Save your strength.”

What strength? She could already feel the pull of the sun. The tiredness, the weakness. “You should sleep.” He’d been driving all night. Even outrun two troopers. Impressive. “Let me take the wheel for a while.”

He glanced her way. “I’m all right.”

She wasn’t gonna get into a pissing match with him. “Slow down and let me take the wheel.” The guy was sexy as hell, but bossy.

Good thing she liked him. Okay, more than liked him.

Don’t go there, not now.

Later there would be plenty of time to sort out the sick, tangled mess of her emotions. To see if there was anything between her and the vampire other than the thick, hot need.

A need she felt even now. Had felt since his fingers pressed against the top of her thigh hours before.

She knew he had to smell her arousal. Just as she’d caught his thickening scent.

And the big bulge in his jeans—yeah, another dead giveaway. But he’d ignored it. She was trying to do the same. Trying.

The car slowed. Finally. The speedometer eased back down, down…eighty, seventy…

They’d turned off the Interstate an hour ago. The SUV snaked down some lonely, twisting road that seemed to head nowhere.

But to death.

To Hueco.

The flash of headlights filled the SUV’s interior. Ah, after all this time on empty roads, they had company.

A motor roared and Dee tensed.

The lights behind them burned brighter, filling the SUV’s interior with a hot glow. The motor roared louder—coming for us. Not the friendly kind of company. “What the hell?” Dee jerked around. Someone was coming, all right, bearing down on them fast. Too fast. “Simon!”

The SUV raced forward, but, too late—

Never noticed the other car. Should have looked back sooner. Too worried about what waited ahead.

The car hit them. A jarring, brutal hit. Once. Twice.

The SUV flipped. Metal screamed. Glass shattered. The vehicle rolled across the road.

The air bags exploded. The world in front of Dee became a cloudy white.

Her claws ripped into the bags, cut them out of her way. She shoved the broken glass aside, managed to peer out the window—

And saw that another car had come from the waning darkness. No, not a car this time. A truck—coming right at them. At her.

Ambush. Fucking ambush.

Dee shoved against the metal, but the sun had already weakened her. Trapped. Pinned by the twisted door. “Simon!”

No answer. She turned to look at him. Not moving, slumped over the seat. “Simon?” A whisper now, not a scream.

No, no, this couldn’t happen to him.

Blood loss, the easiest way to kill a vamp.

The car slammed into them again. Then the truck hit.

Metal tore into her flesh, cutting past the skin, driving into the muscle and all the way down to the bone.

Simon.

This time, before the darkness came, this time, he was her last thought.

And her regret.

Chapter 14

It was the pain that woke him. The sharp stabs of agony and the nauseating throbs that shuddered through his body. Simon forced his eyelids to lift.

Bright.

Too f**king bright.

His eyes closed. What the hell had happened? He and Dee had been driving down one long, lonely ass stretch of road. They’d long since abandoned the Interstate. He’d had her sweet scent in his nose. He’d wondered when he’d have her again, then—

Lights.

The crunch of metal.

A scream.

Silence.

His eyes flew open. “Dee!” Should have been a roar, but it came out more like a weak growl.

The SUV twisted around him. Bent, broken. Metal dug into his side, cut into his legs and held him pinned in the seat. The steering wheel—shit, it felt like the thing was trying to go through his chest.

He couldn’t see Dee. The way he was trapped, Simon couldn’t even turn enough to see her.

And he couldn’t hear her. Not the rasp of her breath. Not the thud of her heart.

But he could smell—gasoline, rubber, and blood.

So much blood.

His. Hers.

Not Dee. No, not her.

The rays from the sun poured through the shattered windshield. He could feel the sun’s powerful drain on his strength. Human. That’s what he was right then.

And a human couldn’t get out of this metal trap.

“Dee!” His cry was louder now, but there was still no sound from her side of the car.

A long sliver of glass had shot through his right arm and embedded in the seat. Gritting his teeth, tasting blood, Simon wrenched his arm up.

Fire.

“Dee? Babe?” He barely glanced at the mess he’d made of his arm. He grabbed what looked like part of the hood and heaved it back toward the broken windshield. He managed to shove it about four inches. I hate the damn sun. But those inches were enough for him to see. “Dee?”

Blood matted her blond hair. Her head hung limply from her neck, and blood dripped slowly, slowly, down her face and onto her lap.

“Babe?”

He should be able to hear her heartbeat. Yeah, damn it, his strength was low, but he should be able to hear—

Thud.

Weak. So very weak. His breath caught, and he waited for another beat. Waited. Waited.

Nothing.

“Look at me!” A scream. Fury, fear.

Thud.

But her eyes didn’t open and he could see why. There was so much blood around her. So many wounds. So much pain. Shit—it looked like someone had ran right into her. But they’d been hit from behind, not from the side, hadn’t they?

He shoved the broken metal again, freeing up more desperate inches. He could reach her now. Simon slid his fingers through that precious space and managed to brush her cheek.

Ice cold.

No throb from her heart.

Dying.

Dead?

The easiest way to kill a vampire…Everyone knew—make ’em bleed.

The bastard that had come after them, no doubt one of Grim’s Taken, had known just what he was doing.

He’d struck at dawn, when the sun would keep them weak. He’d left them trapped. Bleeding.

Not an easy death.

Slow.

Painful.

Grim would want them to die like this.

Sick f**k.

“Not the way for you,” Simon whispered and his fingers trembled as they feathered over Dee’s bloodstained cheek. He took a breath, tried to catch her sweet scent, just once more.