Page 49 of Twisted Desire

She sneers at me. “The fae are monsters.”

I slam my elbow into her face, knocking her out. She’s fucking lucky that’s all I do.

Allison is cradling Oliver in her arms, smoothing a hand over his hair. “Keep going,” she tells us. “I’m going to get him out of here.”

None of us say anything about how this is pretty much exactly what we were worried about with Oliver tagging along for the fight. We don’t want the wrath of Allison unleashed on our asses right now, so we stay silent.

I help her get him up and nod toward an exit that looks clear. “Go. Take him back to Rockdale. We’ll meet you there after this is over.”

Her eyes widen, and she frowns. “Are you sure? I’ll come back.”

“Yes, Allison. You need to be with him right now.”

“Okay,” she says in a small voice. The two of them limp to the exit, and the rest of us gather at the top of the stairwell.

“Let’s do this,” Marni says, reaching for her gun.

“Wait,” Nikolai says holding up an arm to stop us from moving. He’s silent for a moment, listening to his earpiece. “The director is heading our way.”

I shoot him a frown. “The who?”

He shrugs. “The woman who runs The Experiment.”

“Huh,” I say.

At the bottom of the stairwell is another door, and the moment we open it, we’re thrust into loud, unending chaos. Guards are everywhere. It’s going to take everything we have to get through the swarm of them. A group of fae from the other teams charges down the stairs and into the room behind us, but it’s still going to be a fight. We won’t make it out of unscathed.

The whole thing happens in a nightmarish blur. Guns start firing, and we dive into action, dodging death by mere inches and taking out humans as if we’ve been preparing for months to do just that because, duh, that’sallwe’ve been doing.

“Watch the face.” I hear Nikolai’s arrogant voice from across the room and turn in time to watch him take out a guard whose knife is swiping through the air around Nik’s face.

I laugh in between ripping the gun out of one guard’s hand and clocking another one in the back of the head with it. Spinning back around, I slam the butt of the gun into the first guard’s face and kick his feet out from under him. He lands hard, smacking his head off the ground. Another one out cold.

The dangerous dance continues, slowing as everyone grows exhausted in battle—both fae and human. We weren’t the only ones training for this.

A scream rips through the air, and my eyes widen as I watch one of ours fall, then another and another.Son of a bitch. I jump back into battle with a renewed level of rage and take out a handful of humans in under a minute. I become the lethal monster they’re all terrified of with just enough restraint not to kill every one of them.

My eye catches the exact moment guards sneak up behind Derek and Marni and three other fae and restrain them. Panic washes through me as I search for Nikolai.

“Enough,” a sharp voice calls through the room, and everyone freezes.

Before I have a chance to turn toward the sound, an arm comes around me, and a syringe is stabbed into my neck. Everything blurs as the poison shoots through my veins, and it takes every ounce of strength I have to stay upright.

A blurry version of Nikolai comes into view, his face sharp with anger and fear.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I barely feel the woman’s laugh rumble through her chest. “Move,” she says in a mild tone, lifting an iron blade to my throat, “and she dies.”

“Oh,” Nikolai says in a cruel voice, “you’re going to regret that.”

“Why’s that?” she croons. “The way I see it, I’ve got the upper hand here.”

“You realize this place is falling down around you, right?” I grumble.

She laughs, pressing the blade in harder, and I growl.

“Stop,” Nikolai demands, panic lacing his tone. “Let her go.”

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