Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(154)

Louis turned the prettiest shade of red. “He’s a complete imbecile. I don’t see how anyone thinks he’ll ever be fit to rule a kingdom. He wants me to promise I won’t feed off you for the next eight months. I will never agree to do such a thing.”

Wow, that had probably been some kind of argument. I was sure Dev had enjoyed watching Louis flip out at the very thought of having a companion he wasn’t allowed to feed from. The process wouldn’t hurt the babies because the normal amount of blood a vampire needs on a daily basis was very little. It was even easier with Daniel because he fed from Dev as well, but Marini was a greedy bastard. It was a valid point with him. “Do you have to meet with them again tonight?”

He ran a hand across his face and looked like a man who needed a vacation. I was hoping to give him a permanent one. “Yes, the Queen will be here soon. If I didn’t need this alliance so badly I would kick them all out and take care of this little problem myself. The thought of you…giving birth makes me ill. Don’t get attached to those brats because the minute they leave your womb I’m letting the Queen have them. You won’t be raising another man’s children in my home.”

“I won’t fight you on that point, Louis,” I shot back at him, really sick at the thought of him having any say over my children’s lives. “I would much rather Miria raised them than they had anything whatsoever to do with you.”

I heard Louis grunt and knew I’d made a mistake. His hand raised and just when I braced myself for impact, I felt a brush of wind. Daniel had moved faster than the eye could track and caught Louis’s hand before it met my cheek. Marini’s eyes widened as he realized who was standing in front of him. Slowly, but with power, Daniel crushed the hand that would have hit me.

“You don’t touch her ever again,” Daniel growled.

He shoved Marini back with one hand and the vampire hit the wall. His crushed hand was already healing, and he pulled out his little black box and quickly pushed that button that should have ended Daniel’s life. He looked confused for a moment but then tried again.

“Sorry, Marini,” Daniel said, taking my hand. “I decided the old ticker needed an upgrade. You won’t be able to kill me that way. I’ll make this easy on you. I’ll take my wife and my babies and get the hell out of your house.”

Then we were running down the hall even as Louis shouted for help.

Danny ran through the hallways with unerring accuracy. Though he hadn’t been here in the last couple of years, he still knew the place like the back of his hand. “I told you it would be okay, baby.”

“Okay?” I heard myself asking even as I started to breathe hard. I wasn’t used to running quite so fast. I struggled to keep up, but I knew why Danny wasn’t carrying me. He wanted to act as a shield in case the bullets started flying. “Are you insane? Now they know you’re here.”

“Precisely,” he said maddeningly. “Quite the plan, huh?”

He pulled me around the corner and glanced back. Sure enough, we had a tail.

I could barely breathe, I was so afraid. “I swear if we get out of this alive I’m going to kill you. This is the stupidest, most irrational, idiotic plan you’ve ever come up with.”

He smiled down at me and then swept me into his arms. “I learned from the best, Z. I think they’re all behind us now and they’re herding us.”

From behind, I could hear various languages being shouted about, and over it all I heard Marini’s yell.

“Get that bastard into the arena,” Marini ordered.

“That doesn’t sound good.” I intertwined my hands around Daniel’s neck.

“When did you become such a pessimist?” He turned sharply down another corridor and I heard the first shots firing from behind us. “Aren’t you the girl who jumped off the top of a building once on the off chance that I could fly?”

It had been years before, right after I’d met Dev, right before Danny and I got back together. I had nowhere to go. Stewart had been chasing us and I had one crazy idea, one last attempt to save the man I loved. I’d jumped off the building and Danny had come after me.

Sometimes I think that single leap was the real beginning of my life.

We were in a long, narrow corridor, and I could hear the slap of feet against the floors like a herd of predators chasing after us. There was nowhere to go but through the huge, ornate ceiling-to-floor doors at the end of the hallway.

“You could fly so I was right to jump.” I wondered if those doors might be the last things either of us saw.

Daniel’s eyes were sheened with tears as he stared down at me. “I only flew a couple of times before that day. It seemed wrong, like it was the final proof that I was a complete freak. Then it saved your life and it seemed like a wonderful thing to do. I fly for you, baby.” He kissed me and started toward those doors. “They’re coming. This is it. You stay close and when all hell breaks loose, go with Marcus. He’ll take you to Neil and the three of you just hunker down and survive. I’ll come for you when it’s finished.”

“Marcus is in there?”

Daniel grinned. “He will be.”

With one foot, Daniel made the enormous wooden doors swing open, and I found myself on the sandy floor of the arena. Daniel walked straight to the center of the large space. It looked like the set of a gladiator film, but then it was probably more accurate than a Hollywood film because some of these men remembered the time.