Passion Ignited (35 page)

“Jesus,” Draven said, looking around. All four
walls looked like they’d been crushed like aluminum cans. “Come
on,” he said, gesturing with his chin toward the doors. He took one
while Ethan took the other, and they pulled them apart.

“I don’t think there’s enough room in the
shaft,” Draven said.

Ethan’s eyes automatically shot up to the
ceiling, which was dented in. He jumped up, gripping a bar that ran
along the burned out light and punched the roof. It banged like a
loud drum, only giving a little. He punched again, resulting in the
same movement.

“Let me try,” Draven said.

Ethan looked over his shoulder, and cocked an
eyebrow at his older brother. “You think you can do
better?”

“I know I can,” he replied with a smirk. “I’ve
had Ally.”

“Ugh.” He dropped to the floor. “Don’t need to
go there.”

“Not what I meant brother. I just meant… Well,
do you know any other vampires with a goddess’s blood running
through his veins?”

Ethan chuckled under his breath as Draven
heaved himself up. He picked up the duffel and inspected it as his
older brother thrust his hand upward. The hatch flew off the top of
the elevator and crashed against the shaft walls.

Draven said nothing, merely gave him that
cocky half-assed smile he’d seen so often growing up. He pulled
himself out of the hatch then reached a hand down in.

“We lost some,” Ethan said, handing the blood
duffel to his brother. He then jumped up, pulling himself on top of
the elevator roof. “How far down are we?”

“About twelve feet. The first floor doors are
right up there,” he said pointing above.

Ethan looked at the other option, which was
the basement access. He couldn’t even see the doorway from the
elevator’s carnage and looked upward instead, gauging the doors at
about the same height as Draven had. “Guess we better get
climbing.”

****

As if it had even been possible, the chaos
outside the hospital had gotten a whole lot worse. None of the
humans knew what had happened inside, and that meant officials were
going to do everything they could to figure it out ASAP. Raine
hadn’t wasted any time getting into the hospital at that point,
knowing that if any of her boys survived the blast, their minutes
were numbered.

She ran through the darkened hallways. The
power was off, which hopefully also meant there wasn’t a camera
feed. Her boots clapped against the white tile, silence greeting
her as she tried to find the location where the battle was taking
place.

There. A sound. Raine’s heels screeched to a
halt as she turned a corner, taking another long hallway. She could
hear something. Pulling out her blades, she ran forward, knowing
that it was either a friend or an enemy. The banging sound
increased. She was getting close. The bodies of dead Dracs littered
the floor leading to the elevator, which is exactly where the sound
was coming from.

Her heart pounded as she neared the scene. It
had been too long since she’d been in the heat of battle. Too long
since she’d felt the thrill of the fight, the excitement that built
with every punch and every kick, with each slice of the
blade.

She shoved her dagger into the narrow slit
between the two doors, and after she repeated the process with
another blade, she pried on them both. The two doors opened
slightly, revealing a pair of eyes she knew better than the back of
her hand. “Draven.”

“Hi, Mom.” He smiled.

Prying harder, the doors slid farther apart,
allowing his hands to slip between the heavy doors. Another pair of
hands reached through as well, as all three tugged on the steel
sliding doors. They opened just enough before a large bag was
thrown onto the floor, and then both of her boys squeezed through
the opening.

“
Are you hurt?” she asked
immediately, looking over her sons.

“We’re fine,” Ethan said, rolling his
eyes.

“Nothing a little blood won’t fix,” Draven
agreed.

Raine stepped back, giving her boys some room.
Picking up the duffel bag, she removed two blood bags and shoved
them at them. “Drink.”

“No,” they both said.

“We need to get those to Raider,” Ethan
added.

The ceiling above them creaked, drawing their
eyes upward.

“The building’s falling,” Raine said, her eyes
meeting theirs. “We need to find the others now.”

The stairwell door crashed open, and Raine,
Draven, and Ethan each gripped their weapons, facing the sound. Ash
ran into the hallway, followed by Thrash and Blaze, who were
carrying Raider. Nitro followed up the rear.

“Thank the gods,” Raine said, rushing over to
them. “How is he?”

Nitro looked at Raider. “He needs
blood.”

“Got it,” Ethan said. He ripped open a bag
with his teeth and placed it to his uncle’s mouth.

“We can’t do this now,” Raine said. “We’ve got
problems. The building is going to collapse.”

“Okay,” Draven said. “The front is completely
blocked by humans. We might be able to get out on the side, as long
as everyone has been pushed back.”

“They have been,” Raine said. “As soon as the
building started to sway, they extended the restricted
area.”

Draven nodded. “We’ll just need a little cloak
then to make sure no one sees. Let’s move out.”

****

Ash took up the rear of the convoy as he,
Nitro, Raine, and the Guardians took the back way around to the
side entrance so that no one would see them through the glass front
door.

“See anyone?” Blaze asked. He and Thrash still
held Raider between them.

“So far so good,” Ethan replied, keeping his
eyes focused on the hospital grounds.

“Oh my gods,” Raine whispered.

All of the warriors turned, seeing more Dracs
headed their way. Had it not been for their glowing red eyes, they
might not have seen them until it was too late. Nitro and Ash
looked at each other, giving the sibling nod.

Nitro turned and handed the bag to Ethan. “Get
out of here, and as far away from the building as you
can.”

“As fast as you can,” Ash added.

“We clear?” Blaze asked, turning toward
Draven.

“We’re good.”

They forced the doors open and started moving
outside. Nitro made eye contact with each of them. “Go.”

The Guardians ran out the door into the dark
night. Ash remained where he’d been standing, facing the creatures
as they closed in on them. “Are they far enough yet?” he
asked.

Nitro remained at the glass door. “Yeah,” she
said, joining him. “How many do we have?”

“Too many.”

Sure enough, as the first Dracs came into
complete view, others’ eyes started glowing from behind
them.

“Another rupture?” she asked.

He eyed his sister. “It won’t work, we’re
standing together.”

“Not for long.” She smiled. “Give me five
seconds to get to the other side of the building.” Taking a few
steps away from him, she looked over her shoulder. “Give it all
you’ve got, and then get the hell out of here.”

She disappeared into the darkness while Ash
looked after her. “What about you?” he yelled. He mentally started
counting down, knowing that Nitro would stop wherever she was once
she reached that five second mark. If he didn’t want to be too
close to the blast, he needed to time it just right.
But…

Dread spread throughout his body. There wasn’t
an exit on the other side of the building. How would Nitro make it
out alive? He was brought out of his reverie as he heard the
telltale sign that Nitro had already started her side of the
rupture. He focused as hard as he could and slammed his hand
against the tile, forcing as much power as he could into the hit.
Turning, he ran for the door. He made it out and halfway across the
parking lot before the building exploded in a wild fury. After the
initial bang, the whole hospital exploded. First, the walls buckled
and started crumbling to the ground. Next, each floor collapsed
into the one below, until there was nothing but a bunch of rubble.
His eyes widened at the sight. They’d never caused that much damage
before—never a full demolition of a six-story building. But it
wasn’t that that made him sick to his stomach. It was what he
feared most in life. The dread spread through his entire body, and
he knew without a doubt…

Nitro hadn’t made it out alive.

“Ash,” Raine said from behind him. She ran up
to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Where’s Nitro?”

His jaw clenched and he looked away, not
wanting to say it out loud. Raine gripped his arm. “Where is
she?”

“You saw what happened to the hospital,” he
said. “Nitro ran to the other side so we could finish them off for
good. I barely made it out before it blew.”

The others were silent as they stared at him,
every one of them seemingly coming to the same
conclusion.

“Come on,” she said. “We can’t lose both of
them.”

Ash watched the building for a few seconds
more, or maybe it was minutes, hoping that he’d see his sister.
She’d survived a lot, especially the last few days, but there were
few immortals who could survive an entire building crashing down on
them.

The others started to walk away, so Ash
followed behind them. Reaching the Navigator, Draven and Ethan
jogged forward, opening the doors. Blaze and Thrash passed Raider
to them, sliding him onto the middle seat.

The ride home was mostly silent. It seemed
everyone was lost in thought. Worry for their brother-in-arms,
worry for Nitro, worry about the new demon threat that had the
ability to spread like wildfire. His own pain was directed at
Nitro, the others—at Raider.

Raine remained with Raider, his head in her
lap. She’d already forced six bags of blood down his throat, but
his warmth hadn’t yet returned. As he’d recently learned, vampires
could only lose so much. If their bodies dried up, then that meant
the end of the vampire. Or worse, they could turn into a monster
similar to the Dracs they’d been fighting.

Raider’s features were pale. He had black rims
around his closed eyes. He looked sickly, and his body temperature
matched that theory.

Raine opened another blood bag and placed it
to his mouth. Blaze swerved in and out of traffic, hauling ass back
to the mansion as each of them stared silently at the darkness
outside.

“Did Ferox know what was happening?” Raine
whispered, breaking the silence.

The car somehow grew even quieter. Draven and
Ethan looked at each other before Draven turned and faced her.
Clearing his throat, he seemed to pause before trying to reply. His
face grew deadly serious as he looked down at his uncle and then
back up at her. “He knew. He left Raider for dead.”

****

Nitro walked forward, surrounded by nothing
but blackness. Her hands reached outward as she felt around,
fearing she’d run into something. Where was she? One minute she’d
been in the hospital, deploying a rupture. The next, she’d been
caught in the blast. Now here she was, lost in…nothing. Or would it
be considered nowhere? Either way, she didn’t like it. She kept
walking, hoping that she would find an exit sooner or later, when a
small light caught her attention. Starting out small at first, it
grew in both size and intensity. Before she knew it, it had grown
to an enormous size, the brightness blinding her. She threw her
hands over her eyes, shielding them from the unbearable
light.

She suddenly felt heat on her skin and dropped
her hands. From behind her eyelids she could tell that the light
wasn’t as overwhelming as it had just been, but there was still
brightness around her. Opening her eyes, she looked around in awe
as she saw a bright blue sky, green trees and flowers all around.
She had to squint from the onslaught of sunlight as she walked
through a green meadow of tall grass and flowers. Surrounding the
meadow was a line of trees, like a security fence around a secret
wonderland. It took a few minutes of walking through the tall
grasses before her eyes finally adjusted. She didn’t know how she
got here, and honestly, she didn’t care. It was wonderful, feeling
the heat of the sun on her skin again, a sensation she’d recently
thought she’d never feel again.

Hearing a man’s laughter just on the other
side of the tree line had her moving forward, her pace faster than
the leisurely stroll she’d just taken. Peeking from the safety of
the trees, she looked down at the pond that was just down the hill.
A male figure dove below the waterline, just out of her vision.
When he came up again, her eyes riveted to the strong male form,
packed with muscle and golden tan skin. He was faced away from her,
but he raised his head toward the sky, as if he worshipped the sun
as much as Nitro wanted to herself. Taking a step forward, she left
the comfort of the trees to get a better look at him.

A twig snapped below her feet and he spun
around, facing her for the first time. Their gazes locked on each
other as they had since the first time they’d met. She
did
know this male. He was hers, just as much as she was
his.