Page 2 of The Rogue's Curse

They’d done their best to reconstruct the layout of Chez Shea based on Sasha and Kristina’s recollections. Unfortunately, two cursed amnesiacs who’d been kept in cages weren’t the best source of information, so they’d had to guess at a lot of it.

Given that Shea wasn’t in his penthouse, he was either in his ‘club’ or his throne room. Paris didn’t know whether to be disgusted or begrudgingly impressed at the idea of a throne room. It was the twenty-first century, for fuck’s sake.

The club was their next stop, and Paris hoped to God, Blessed Mary, and all the saints that Shea was there so he could kill the bastard in front of his people.

Down they went, leaping the concrete stairs a flight at a time.

Floor eight.

Floor seven. Someone bellowed, Get out, get out, someone’s here! Two vampires burst into the stairwell and went flying back when he and Dominic opened fire.

Floor six, where music blared over the sounds of shouts and screams. Paris kicked through the door and burst into a huge, open hall. With toppled tables and broken glass everywhere, this was Shea’s club.

A figure blurred toward him. Lowering his head, Paris caught them by the shirt and slammed them into the floor hard enough to splinter the hardwood floor. He left the writhing vampire and plowed ahead.

The scent of his prey hooked him, drawing him through the crowd. That smell had been all over Kristina Arensberg when she escaped. It had been in her blood, in her hair, in every cell of her. Even a month later, with her bond broken, he swore he could smell it and wondered how it didn’t drive Sasha mad.

“Protect the king!” a woman screamed.

Three vampires stepped into his path. Cocktail dresses and suits meant they were probably Shea’s followers, rather than his armed security.

Too bad.

He squeezed off three shots, dropping two while the third dodged and lunged for Paris. Dominic intercepted the runner and hurled him over the railing on the upper level. That area was where Shea kept prisoners, where Sasha and Kristina had been held. He knew there were probably humans there waiting to be served up for dinner. Guilt tugged at him, but he’d given orders for Kristina to check on them. And God help him, he had to trust Kristina to do her job.

Two impacts slammed into the back of his thigh. Ducking behind an overturned table, he dug his fingers through shredded fabric and into the bloody wounds to pry out the bullets. Acidic burning radiated through his veins, but he pressed on, cutting a swath through the crowd.

Toward the back of the club, a human woman lay prone across a long banquet table. The scent of human blood perfumed the air, tempting him even in the midst of all the chaos. Past the living buffet, vampires clustered like a phalanx around a raised dais.

“Down,” Dominic ordered in Italian.

Paris ducked, and Dominic opened fire, exploding another wood smoke grenade in their midst. Pained cries rang out as Shea’s protectors peeled away like unfurling rose petals, trying to escape the acrid smoke.

And there he sat. The so-called king rose up from the mass of whimpering vampires. Dark hair mussed, eyes burning red and furious. His scent cut through the smoke and overwhelmed Paris with its intensity. Shea was old, powerful. “Get out of my way,” he snarled.

Paris raised his gun, pulled the trigger, and fired into empty air.

Where the—

A fist slammed into his back, sending lightning up his spine. The pain was fleeting, but the sheer terror was not. Shea was far stronger than Paris had anticipated. An iron vise of a grip closed on his elbowand squeezed, forcing him to drop his gun just as the joint cracked.

He whipped around in time to catch a fist that shattered the visor of his helmet. With a growl, he yanked it off and swung it like a bludgeon, clipping Shea across the brow. The man reeled, and Paris got in another solid hit to the back of his head before Shea scrambled away. Paris tossed the useless helmet and grinned. He liked it better this way, no modern gear or weapons, just brute force.

Glaring at him with burning red eyes, Shea shrugged off an expensive jacket and tossed it aside. He was bigger than Paris had expected, with a broad chest and thick arms that would have been well-suited to wielding a broadsword.

“This is my fucking house,” Shea snarled, swiping at his bloody cheek before lunging. Paris batted away vicious swipes, keeping the other man on the move. He stole a glance over his shoulder and saw Dominic fending off Shea’s bodyguards. In the back of the club he caught the glint of Kristina’s golden hair streaming from under her helmet.

This was the plan. They kept everyone off his back while he took down Shea. He was three hundred years old, and he wasn’t going to tuck tail and run because of a cocky shitweasel like Carrigan Shea, even if he was realizing he was on the wrong side of the David and Goliath equation.

With a growl, he grabbed an injector from the holster on his thigh and snarled, “Fuck your house. This is my city.”

Shea feinted toward him, and Paris leaped straight up in the air, caught the railing of the upper level, then hurtled downward again as Shea looked up. He slammed an injector full of Shieldsmen wood toxin into Shea’s neck.

Suck on that, asshole!

The older vampire roared in pain, then caught Paris by the arm and slung him overhead like a sack of gain. His back cracked against the hard stone floor, and he felt as if his entire body had been crushed to powder. Even worse, the plastic injector rattled to the floor. And still, Shea remained on his feet.

Impossible.That was a concentrate of Shieldsmen poison, which should have knocked him flat.

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