Page 95 of Marked By Moonlight

The cold seeped through Claire’s clothes, numbing her skin and penetrating her bones as she knelt on the floor beside Nina. She carefully set the steel pipe beside her—gently, softly, so Nina wouldn’t hear the steel clank against the concrete floor. No need for an audible reminder of what was to come.

Despite Nina’s brave front, she was tense as a board, staring up at Claire with wide eyes.

You can do this. You promised Nina.

“Relax.” She smoothed a hand over Nina’s brow. “We have a little time.”

Some of the tension eased from Nina’s rigid shoulders. “You’ll let me know when it’s coming?” she asked.

“Of course,” Claire lied, easing the worry lines from Nina’s forehead with her fingers, determined to make her relax and drop her guard. Her skin was soft. Like a newborn’s.

Claire watched the gentle rise and fall of Nina’s chest. When Nina’s eyes drifted shut, Claire knew the time had arrived. Her hand closed around the pipe. Ever so slowly she lifted it, her fist tightening around the pipe until her fingers ached. She raised the pipe high above her head. Sucking in a silent breath, she jammed her eyes shut and prepared to swing.

God forgive me.

The door at the top of the stairs flung open the second before she brought the pipe crashing down. Claire froze and watched Cyril descend.

“There’s been a change in plans.” The wood steps creaked beneath his weight. Two other lycans followed behind him. “We’ve decided to join you.”

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, his gaze landing on the pipe in her hand. “Claire,” he said, tsking, shaking his head in reproof. “What are you doing? Depriving yourself of a warm meal? We can’t have that. I know you must be starving. Perhaps we should show you how it’s done.”

Nina clutched her wrist in a bruising grip. Claire looked down, translating the silent plea in Nina’s gaze.Kill me.

A plea she couldn’t refuse.

With an agonized cry, Claire swung.

Damn.Gideon couldn’t get a clear shot through the haze of soot, and he couldn’t afford to miss. Not with a gun loaded with silver bullets. If he so much as clipped Darius in the shoulder, he’d be dead.

He watched, eyes stinging from the polluted air, waiting for his chance as Darius and the other lycan crashed through the glass coffee table. Glass rained down on the carpet, crunching beneath them as they rolled in the shards. Finally, Gideon got his chance. Praying he didn’t move at the last second, he squeezed the trigger.

“About time!” With a grunt, Darius threw the body off him. Standing, he dug a jagged piece of glass out of his arm and flicked it to the carpet like it was a piece of lint.

“Come on.” Gideon strode out of the living room, Darius fast on his heels.

A sound reached his ears. He paused, angling his head to the side. There it was again. A thudding noise. Like someone banging on a wall. Or door.

“What’s that?” Darius looked at Gideon.

Hope, desperate and burning, swelled to life in Gideon’s chest.

Claire.

They ran in the direction of the sound, following it through a swinging door that opened to a large, airy kitchen outfitted with an industrial-size stove and stainless steel fridge. An old medieval-style trestle table with a battered and scarred surface stood in the center of the room, at odds with the rest of the very modern, utilitarian kitchen.

The back door hung open, swinging lightly in the still air, as if someone had just rushed past it. The slow creak of its hinges raised the hair on his arms. Gideon rotated on the balls of his feet, thebarrel of his gun sweeping the kitchen. He took careful note of that open door, half expecting a lycan to charge through it.

The pounding grew louder, accompanied by shouts. The racket came from a bolted pantry door. Gideon flung back the bolt. The breath rushed from him in disappointment.

Darius stepped beside him to eye the pantry’s occupants. Amid several twenty-pound bags of dog food, two teenagers stared up at him with mixed expressions of fear and hope. The other three were still unconscious on the pantry floor.

“Help us!” A girl with badly smeared black eyeliner glared up at him.

“We’ll get you out of here,” Gideon promised.

Her face softened in relief, and she hugged the weeping girl beside her.

“But you need to wait here a little longer.”

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