Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3)(74)

And Vincent had just wished for Lena to end them.

A blue smoke drifted from her fingers and it came right at Aidan. He opened his mouth but…

Aidan started to choke.

“No!” Jane screamed.

“I’m sorry,” Lena whispered as she slipped by Jane and Vincent.

Aidan couldn’t breathe. Annette was coughing next to him. Choking. She hit the floor first and Paris tried to grab her to pull her into his arms. Paris lifted her up and tried to run, but the strange blue smoke just tightened around them.

“A death cloud,” Vincent called. “One of my favorite tricks…”

Each breath just brought more of that blue cloud into Aidan’s lungs. So…

He stopped breathing. He rose to his full height. He could hold his breath a long f*cking time.

He’d always been able to do so.

And he’d do it now, for as long as it took.

Vincent was staring at him, his expression becoming bemused, and behind the bastard…

A new enemy waits.

Because Aidan had just spotted Drew Hart. The bastard’s lips were clamped tightly shut and he had blood covering him. He was creeping forward, a human completely outmatched but Vincent wasn’t looking back to see that new threat. He was too busy holding tight to a fighting Jane. He didn’t see…

Aidan smiled at Vincent. The vampire bellowed his rage. “You should be f*cking choking to death, wolf!”

Screw you.

And Drew Hart attacked. He jumped on Vincent’s back, clawing at him with his fingers, going for his eyes. Vincent let go of Jane.

She snatched the stake from his fingers and shattered it in her grip.

Vincent sank his teeth into Drew’s throat. He ripped, he tore, and blood flew—

Aidan grabbed Jane’s hand. They needed to get away. His blood was throbbing in his veins. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Paris and Annette were on the floor.

“It’s her!” Jane yelled, pointing at Lena. “We have to stop her!”

Drew’s body fell to the ground. He twitched as blood pumped from his throat. Vincent was still crouched over Drew’s body, as if he’d attack again. “Worthless,” Vincent snarled at him. “Just a human…one in the way. You shouldn’t have taken Jane out of that basement so long ago. You should have left her so that Thane and I could finish what we’d started…you were always f*cking in the way!”

Aidan grabbed the bastard by his shoulder. He swung Vincent around to face him. “Guess who’s in your way now?” He drove his claws into Vincent’s chest, sinking them in as deep as they would go. “I am.” The blue smoke drifted into his lungs. Burned.

Vincent screamed, a cry of rage and pain. But then…he looked down at Aidan’s claws in his chest and he started to laugh. “You can’t kill the unkillable. You’re going to fall, and I’ll be alone with Jane. Soon enough, I’ll get her to see things my way. Soon enough—”

“Hey, *!” Jane called.

Vincent’s head whipped toward her. Jane had grabbed Lena and she had one hand locked around the nape of the woman’s neck. “Let’s level the playing field, shall we?” Jane glanced at Lena. “Sorry, this will hurt…” And then she rammed Lena’s head into the nearest wall. Lena sank to the floor, sprawling, unconscious.

The blue smoke immediately vanished.

Aidan sucked in a deep breath. Game the f*ck on.

He yanked his claws from Vincent and attacked again. Faster. Harder. The blood flew, the vamp stumbled back, but he didn’t go down.

How in the hell did Vincent keep standing? Keep living?

“I don’t think he can die!” Jane shouted. “I drove my stake right into his heart—and the bastard just yanked it back out!”

Vincent stood in the middle of that room, blood soaking him. Aidan was in front of him, Jane had just circled behind him, and Paris was to his left. Annette stood to Vincent’s right, staring at him with eyes gone even darker with the swirl of her power.

Never count out a voodoo queen.

“Can’t be killed,” Annette said, her voice weak but her spine straight. “His djinn must have given him that power, the darkest of all gifts.”

And, once more, Vincent laughed. “She did! You fools, did you really think I’d come at the wolves and not have stacked the deck in my favor? You can stake me, and I won’t stop. You can take my head, and I’ll still come back. I’ll always rise…again and again. I’m immortal. Eternal. There is no end for me.”

“Annette,” Jane suddenly snapped. “Step to the side. The freaking side, now!”

Annette looked down at the floor. Understanding flashed on her face a second before she jerked to the side.

And Jane shoved Vincent—she shoved him hard to the spot that Annette had been in just moments before.

Then Annette and Jane were both on the floor, on their hands and knees, scrambling to push the line of dirt closed so that it circled around Vincent.

Vincent’s face tightened with his fury and his hand flew toward them. Aidan surged forward but—

“The dead can’t cross my line.” Annette leaned back on her haunches and glared up at Vincent. “So take that, you bastard.”

Vincent roared his rage. He threw his body forward, but he seemed to slam straight into an invisible wall.