Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(80)

Dev gave Daniel a thumbs-up as he held my hand and led me around the bodies of the soldiers on the ground. The humans hadn’t been prepared for Daniel’s play. They were alive, but some were unconscious and the ones closest to the impact had their eardrums completely shattered. Dev had his SIG Sauer out ready to shoot anything that started to move toward us. He wasn’t in a good mood, and I got the feeling he was more than willing to use that gun in his hand at the first sign of a threat. I felt Lee at my back and his gun was out as well.

There was shattered glass all over the place, and I could see that one of the buildings had slightly caved in on itself. The soldiers who had previously been targeting me from the roof were lying in the grass.

Daniel walked through the wreckage, seeking his target. He used the toe of his boot to turn over the soldiers on the ground, but didn’t see the face he was looking for. Some of the soldiers were starting to stumble to their feet, but they were still disoriented and not at all ready to fight it out.

Daniel finally located Ronald, who was struggling to get to his feet. The thud of a helicopter filled the world. The helicopter moved quickly and it didn’t wait to land. The men began to come off the chopper, dropping to the ground from ropes secured to the aircraft. They hit the ground and ignored the devastation around them. They were professionals and immediately locked onto us.

“Drop your weapons!” they yelled, walking aggressively toward us.

Daniel hauled Ronald up by the nape of his flak jacket. He’d been far enough from the epicenter that his eardrums seemed intact, but he was dazed as the vampire pulled him to his feet.

“Get back,” Daniel warned in a growl as he used the Order’s leader as a human shield. He moved toward us and shoved Ronald’s body at Dev. “Take off his head if they shoot at us.”

“With pleasure,” Dev replied, his voice sounding more normal. The vampire blood in his system was already working to heal the wounded tissue in his ears. He held Ronald close to his body, an arm under his neck, and pressed that SIG Sauer into his temple with a certain amount of malicious glee. “How do you like being used as a human shield, Ronald? Did you think for a minute we would let you get away with pointing a f*cking gun at our wife’s head?”

“Dev, we’ll gut him later, man. For now, we need him alive.” Daniel turned out to be the unlikely voice of reason.

I was stuck between Lee and Neil as we watched the soldiers from the helicopter advance on us. Daniel moved to the front of the party and I got nauseous at the thought of what could happen. He was making himself an enormous target, and they really did have silver bullets.

“You can’t win,” Ronald said. “They’ve already sent for more reinforcements. We’ll have you surrounded and this time we’ll have air support. The minute the vampire takes off, we’ll see if he can handle a surface-to-air missile. There’s nowhere to run, Mr. Donovan.”

“We’ll come up with something,” Dev swore.

Daniel didn’t look so sure. Ronald was taking advantage of his obvious discomfort.

“You’ll probably survive, vampire, but your companion will likely not,” Ronald said reasonably. “I can assure you that Mr. Quinn won’t survive. He’ll go down in a hail of bullets. Do you want to be responsible for the deaths of the two people you supposedly love, Mr. Donovan?”

The whole time he was talking, more and more guns were trained on us. More and more soldiers surrounded us.

“Shut up, Ronald,” Dev said, his voice a harsh grind. He pushed the gun in tight against the man’s skull. “Daniel will get us out of this and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I will get us out of this, Devinshea,” Danny promised. He looked over at me, his face grave. He stared for a moment and then turned his blue eyes back to Ronald. “You will allow Devinshea to leave with my companion and there will be no reprisals. He’ll take her to a sithein.”

“Daniel.” Dev shook his head.

“No,” I shouted. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going with us, and I wasn’t leaving him behind.

Daniel didn’t look at me. He focused every ounce of his will on Dev. “Dev, you promised me. You promised me you would take her kicking and screaming if you had to. Ronald is right. I might be able to get away, but I could never live with the cost. Fighting Marini was dependent on getting what we needed from Merlin. That’s not going to happen. The time has come to cut and run.”

Dev cursed but his shoulders slumped in defeat.

I stepped forward even as we were completely surrounded. They formed a circle around us. “Do I get a say in any of this?”

“No, baby,” Daniel said sadly. “None of us gets a say. Will you think about it, please? If you stay and fight, Dev and I will die to protect you and so will Lee and Neil and Zack. If you go to the sithein, then they live.”

I squeezed my eyes shut at the unfairness of it all. Daniel knew where to stick the knife in.

“You’ll allow my companion and partner to go? I’ll submit to the chains and the coffin and I’ll submit to whatever punishment the Order has for them, but I will be the only one punished,” Daniel offered.

“Mr. Quinn isn’t allowed to come back to this plane.” Ronald gave his own amendment. “If we get the slightest hint that he’s returned, all of our bets are off and we will hunt your companion down.”