Marked By The Vampire (Purgatory #2)(34)
Author: Cynthia Eden

The white wolf—David—howled in agony, and rolled, trying to put out the flames that spread on his fur.

“Stop!” Olivia’s cry. “Stay back!”

Shane whirled. She had a broken chair leg in her hand and she was shoving it against the gray wolf. But the beast wasn’t stopping.

Above Shane, the ceiling gave a low, long groan. He looked up and saw the flames rolling overhead. Shane knew the ceiling was going to collapse. Shit, Pate had said something about djinn and fire. Blood and fire?

He used his strength and raced toward Olivia. He caught her, shoved her back, but a force field seemed to rip her right out of his hands.

The markings on the floor… the f**king bottle cage that Pate had set! It was still trapping her. “Olivia!”

She was on her hands and knees.

He shoved away the markings, smearing them in a frantic fury.

The gray wolf locked its mouth around her leg and hauled her back toward him, just as the ceiling gave way and fire rushed down on them.

“Olivia!”

***

Eric Pate heard the guttural cry and he leapt into the flames. He hated fire. Such a pain in his ass.

Shane was burning. Flames were on the vamp’s clothes. Rippling along his skin, and the fool was trying to go deeper into the fire.

Eric grabbed him and tried to drag the guy out of the cabin.

Fire could kill a vamp. Damn easy. Too—

Shane tossed him aside. When Eric crashed onto the floor, he was pretty sure that he broke his left wrist and dislocated his shoulder. He coughed as the smoke thickened around him. He was near the cabin’s door. Shane had almost thrown him through that door.

But then he was being jerked to his feet. Duncan McGuire was in front of him, and the flames were everywhere.

“Pate, are you all right?” Duncan demanded.

Eric fumbled for his weapon. He hated to do this, but there wasn’t a choice for him. “We have to…get Shane out.” There were only a few people he considered to be his friends in this world. Shane was one of those precious few.

He and Duncan headed into the thick of the fire. Shane was clawing at part of the ceiling—the ceiling that had fallen down on the bed and now covered half of the floor.

The vampire was so frantic. Eric knew there was only one reason he’d react that way.

Olivia was under that collapsed, burning ceiling.

The fire was blazing in hot, angry bursts, and the flames were eating everything in their path. If they didn’t get the vamp out, in the next five seconds, Shane would be dead.

Duncan grabbed Shane. The vamp whirled, snarling, “I have to get her, I have to get—”

Eric shot Shane. A wooden bullet straight to the heart. A guaranteed way to stop a vamp in his tracks. Shane’s body shuddered as he collapsed, and Duncan dragged the vamp out of there.

They all barely made it outside before the cabin seemed to implode. Fire shot toward the sky in big, wild streaks of orange and gold.

Duncan dropped Shane to the ground. The vamp wasn’t moving. Stiff, hard—dead. For the moment. He’d stay that way until Eric dug the wooden bullet out of the guy’s heart.

Eric turned his head and saw that a big, white wolf was pacing a few feet away. The other wolves had assembled behind the beast. They weren’t attacking, not yet.

What are they waiting for?

Then Connor jumped in front of Eric. Connor was bloody, battered, and in human form, but claws sprouted from his fingertips. “Who wants to try and go through me?”

The white wolf snarled.

Then the wolf whirled and ran into the woods. All of the other shifted werewolves followed him. They left their dead behind.

The cabin kept burning.

Connor rushed forward, as if he’d go after them.

“No!” Eric shouted. “That’s what they want.” He shook his head. “It’s a set-up. Hell, it always has been.” No one should have been able to access this safe house. No one.

I thought the traitor was in the FBI. Because that had been the Intel he’d received. Intel that hadn’t revealed the full truth about the traitor. I didn’t realize he was the one running the whole damn show. He’d made the connection with Senator Quick too late. With his resources, the senator would be able to discover all of the secrets that the Para Unit possessed.

“We need to get out of here.” Eric ignored his throbbing wrist and shoulder. “Now.”

Because those wolves weren’t done.

Neither am I.

Holly’s soft gasp reached him and he turned to see her falling to her knees beside Shane. Burns covered Shane’s arms and chest. The side of his face was lined with blisters. The burns wouldn’t heal until the bullet was out of him.

Holly cast a glare at Eric. “Do you always have to shoot us?”

Because he’d once put a wooden bullet in his sister, too. I didn’t have a choice. Jaw locking, he glanced away from her. “I saved his life.”

Connor paced back to him. “Where’s Dr. Maddox?”

Black smoke drifted in the air above the flames.

“Aw, f**k,” Connor muttered. “He’ll go insane.”

“That’s why you didn’t need to hunt the werewolves.” He looked back down at his old friend. Holly was digging the bullet out of Shane’s chest. “He’ll destroy them all.” Because Eric had realized what was happening between Shane and Olivia Maddox.

Something that could have been great.

Something that had been dangerous.

Something that was…gone.

“Almost got it,” Holly whispered. “Almost…”

The wind seemed to moan around them. A sound of pain. Suffering.

The black smoke thickened above the fire.

“Got it!”

He looked at her hands. Saw the blood-stained fingers, the small, wooden bullet and—

Shane sucked in a deep gulp of breath. His eyes flew open. The burns on his face began to heal as he yelled, “Olivia!” Shane tried to leap to his feet, but Duncan and Eric held him down. The last thing they needed was for him to burn again, especially since they’d just saved his life.

But there was no holding Shane, not for long. With a strength that Eric hadn’t seen before, Shane broke free of their grip. He staggered to his feet. Stared at the fire. Eric knew exactly what the vamp was planning.

“I will shoot you again,” Eric swore. “You’re not going back into those flames. You know the fire will kill you.”

“Olivia!” Her name was a tormented cry.

And the fool started to run to the fire. Hell, another bullet to the heart? Was that what it would take? Was he going to have to shoot his friend again?