Page 90 of Skin Trade

“No. No …” As Aamon launched Payton at Alexander, she snatched the blade from his belt, brought it up and slashed out, slicing right across Aamon’s throat and spilling his blood down his chest.

His head lolled back, a shocked expression on his face as he slowly realised his head had been severed from his neck.

He grabbed for her, but Alexander pulled her away, slammed her into his body. She dropped, trying to get out of Alexander’s way, but he snagged his hand in her hair.

Across the room, the sound of glass echoed around them. Shards of it flew as Seth put his unburnt hands through the glass panel of the chamber, his vampire strength no match for it.

“Get out of the way,” he yelled at Payton as he reached up to the ceiling and yanked the strips of light down to his body. Rays of sun filled the room, beams of it going everywhere, lighting up every single space there was.

It strobed across the guards, took them out as each ray sliced through their skin like Seth was aiming a laser at them. Two of them tried to run, another screamed, but in the end, all five of them become nothing but charred marks on the floor with a pile of ash to claim as their own.

Something hard and sharp hit the back of Payton and she spun on herself, wheeling around to get out of the way. The sun beam went over her, slamming into the side of Alexander’s face. He used her as cover.

“I’ll kill her,” he said, ducking behind her as Seth stepped out of the chamber. “Turn it off or I’ll kill her.”

“Show yourself,” Seth called. “Stop being a coward and hiding behind a human.”

“Turn off the lights.”

A momentary pause. Alexander brought Payton to where her father had been tied up. His body was nothing more than bones. Seth’s light had sliced through his middle and melted half of him, leaving him in a pool of foul-smelling goo like she’d seen in the basement of Seth’s place.

“How did you do that?” Alexander said, as Seth came back out of the chamber, his entire body free from anything the sun would have done to him. Not a single mark marred his body.

“Her blood,” he said. “I tasted her blood.” His eyes were lit up, the same way they did when he’d drunk from her in his room. He held his hands out, looked at them as if he’d never seen them before and turned them over. “I feel it flowing through my veins. Like light. So much light …”

“Her blood?” Alexander rose, his arm locked on Payton, holding her across her chest. “Why, Seth, I think you might have actually cracked it.”

“Don’t.” Seth lunged as Alexander tore the side of Payton’s top and pulled it free from her shoulder. Then he leant in, pushed out his fangs and bit.

The screaming, gargling sound that came later didn’t come from Payton as Seth grabbed her, tore her away from Alexander’s grasp. No.

Alexander clutched at his throat, eyes bulging, nose bleeding. Blood poured from his eyes, from his ears, the same way it had done with Seth when he had woken too early. “What did you do?” he choked out as bubbling blood came out of his mouth, covering his teeth. “It’s like … I think …”

“Garlic,” Payton said. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the cylinder she’d had to test in the office. Garlic ran through her veins now from that one simple demonstration.

Seth took the cylinder from her. “Allium Sativum,” he said. “Garlic in its purest form.”

Wide eyes stared at them, a part melted face, blood leaking from every place in his body, Alexander reached out and fell. Dead.

Seth held out his hand. “I promised you, I’d never leave you.”

Chapter Fifty

The place looked so different in the dark, so closed in. Instead of the sun baking each building in fierce heat, the moon bathed the buildings with a soft white glow that seemed almost eerie.

They could have been anywhere, though. Anywhere at all and it wouldn’t matter to Payton. The way Seth held onto her hand; she sensed it was the same for him too. She watched him awhile, those blue eyes of his watching out into the darkened deserted lands, his mind ticking away with something. She’d watched him that way as a child too. Not that she remembered it much, not the moments or the context of it, but him. Always him.

When she was in Creven’s care, she realised that was where her mind had taken her to. To safe places and safe memories when she’d felt she could do anything in the world, and nothing would have hurt her.

Seth, the larger than life man who she’d loved for all this time, deep inside he had been there, been part of her. Now she would do the same for him, whatever he faced, whoever he faced.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked as the city lights came into view. The sight made her insides clench. What would happen now? What would happen to Seth? It was one thing for him to have been part of Alexander’s death, but now another thing entirely for him to have to step into his shoes.

A different world perhaps. Something different so blood slaves like her could finally have their peace. She hoped. By his side, he’d promised her.

They’d made it out of the laboratory, out of the building. It’d still shocked Payton when Seth had used his own handprint to open the doors and let them out. Doctor … she supposed when you’d had as much time on the earth as he had, it was possible to learn any skill you wanted, develop it and become the best in the field.

When he brought her hand to his mouth, pressed his lips to her knuckles, a self-assured smile went across those kissable lips. “I’m sure.” He had two choices with Alexander’s death. Walk away from it, let the chain of command pick it up, or take his seat and become the master.

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