“Let’s go.”
As fast as they could, they rushed upstairs, heading for the third floor. The window at the top provided no barrier. Quinn pushed it up and stepped through it, landing in a corridor. Behind him, Thomas squeezed through it and joined him.
Quinn’s sensitive hearing picked up sounds from downstairs: music and people talking. Then he concentrated on the sounds on this floor, his ears perking up when he heard a loud thud.
“This way!” he ordered Thomas and ran along the corridor, past the many doors until he reached a double door.
He pressed his ear against it. Taking a deep breath, he recognized Rose’s scent instantly.
“In there,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder.
He watched as Thomas drew his gun and nodded. “Ready when you are.”
Quinn pulled a stake from his pocket and held it tightly in his right palm.
On a nod, he turned the door knob and jerked the door open, bursting into the room. His eyes instantly took in the situation: two vampires were restraining Rose while two others were fighting against a struggling female—an Asian vampire. Quinn could only assume that she was a friend of Rose’s.
Thomas fired his gun, felling one of the vampires fighting the Asian woman as Quinn rushed to help Rose. From the corner of his eye, he saw the bastard combust, then disintegrate into dust as a result of the silver bullet Thomas had planted in him.
At the sound of the gunshot, the heads of the other vampires snapped toward them. One of Rose’s attackers released her and launched himself at Quinn, but he was prepared and struck him with a hard blow to his head, sending him reeling for a short moment before he caught himself.
As his opponent dealt an equally severe punch, Quinn shot back with an uppercut to his chin, then kicked his leg into the jerk’s knees. He toppled over, but before Quinn could deliver the deathblow, he was alerted to activity behind him.
He whirled around quickly, and as it turned out, just in time: two hostile vampires crowded into the room. Behind them he heard footsteps on the stairs. He could only hope those were Scanguards’ men.
As he attacked one of the vampires and Thomas lunged for the other, he saw two women reach the door. They were barefoot and dressed in skimpy outfits.
Their shocked screams added to the fighting noises and curses that now filled the room.
“No!!!!” Rose suddenly screamed.
Momentarily distracted, Quinn turned his head, just as more men stormed the room. He kicked his opponent to the ground and ran for Rose. Keegan—and he had to assume it was he from his determined look—had her in a chokehold and dragged her toward another door. As he pulled it open, Quinn reached him.
When Keegan saw him, he pulled a stake from his jacket and held it at Rose’s chest.
“You come any closer and I’ll kill her.”
Quinn stopped in his tracks.
“Got you, bastard,” he heard Amaury’s voice from the door. Good, his friends were here. But it didn’t solve his immediate problem.
The screams of the human women intensified, and from their direction, Quinn knew they’d entered the room and were now in the middle of the battle.
“Eat that!” came Zane’s triumphant growl.
Rose’s eyes stared at him, silently begging him to help her. But he knew that Keegan would be faster. There had to be another way to free her from his hold.
“Kasper!” Thomas’s stunned voice suddenly drowned out everything else.
Keegan’s head spun toward the sound, then his eyes widened in shock. “Thomas,” he murmured as if he’d seen a ghost.
It was impossible. Thomas flung his opponent against the door with so much force that it left a large crack in the lath-n-plaster, and stared at Kasper. Thomas hadn’t seen his sire in almost ten decades. But the vampire restraining Rose was clearly the man whose blood he carried in his veins. The vampire he’d divorced himself from, because he didn’t want to be part of what he represented.
Thomas stalked closer.
“Let her go!” he commanded, knowing at the same time that Kasper, or Keegan as he called himself now, didn’t believe in orders unless they came from him.
“You’re once again fighting on the wrong side, Thomas.”
His sire’s eyes were mocking him, trying as so many times before to plant doubts in him. But Thomas had long ago stopped doubting his choices.
“You’re wrong, as always. I’ve chosen the right side.”
Keegan intensified the chokehold around Rose’s neck, making her gasp. Instinctively, her hands came up, digging her claws into his skin, but Keegan didn’t even flinch.