Page 122 of You Only Love Twice
He couldn't get a clean shot.
The dart flashed silver in the light as Gemma lifted it high, and Malloryn could see the beginning choreography of Gemma's final move as she lured Byrnes into a combination that would prove fatal.
"Ingrid!" Malloryn yelled as Byrnes took a terminal half step too far to the side, leaving himself open.
Ingrid slammed into Byrnes as Gemma drove the dart in. She screamed in verwulfen rage as the dart drove into her back. The pair of them crashed to the floor, but Malloryn had no time to see if Ingrid would be okay.
They'd never tested Black Vein on verwulfen before.
He took the shot.
Aimed for Gemma's knee.
A blur of movement, and Gemma cried out as his bullet clipped her in the side of the thigh.
Snarling in fury, she turned and threw one of her daggers at him.
It missed.
Her arm drew back again. He of all people knew exactly how many knives she had on her.
He'd given her the entire fucking set.
Malloryn threw himself behind a nearby statue, catching another glint of silver coming at him. It ricocheted off the marble, nearly taking his ear off. Malloryn didn't dare flinch—using the statue as cover, he aimed over the top of it.
"Get out of here!" he yelled at Byrnes and Ingrid. "Protect the queen!"
Byrnes dragged Ingrid to her feet, shoving his limping wife toward safety as he tried to pull the embedded dart from her back.
And Gemma hesitated for that fraction of a moment, torn between following them and moving in to finish him off.
His vision narrowed along the line of the pistol, Gemma's red coat becoming little more than a blurred target behind it.
A split second as she turned....
Malloryn cocked the weapon.
His lungs arrested.
The world vanished.
It would all be over....
Take the shot.
Not her,screamed something in his brain.Not the girl who'd saved his life all those years ago when he'd had nothing but ashes in his life. When she'd been the only thing that gave him hope in the endless black.
Breathing hard, Gemma spun around as if she sensed it, giving him the perfect shot.
Right between her breasts.
It was a mistake.
He knew it was a mistake.
But he lowered the pistol and shot her in the knee.
Her right leg went out from under her, and she nearly fell. Gemma screamed, her eyes bleeding to pure black as the craving arose in her.
