Page 84 of A Vampire Bewitched
When the dust settled, Luukas stood in the opening, feet spread wide, one hand clenched into a fist at his side.
The other hand was wrapped around the wrist of a curvy, dark-haired female.
Eyes on his brother, Nik stepped out from the doorway, and Emma stumbled out from behind him. Pushing him out of the way, she ran toward the stairs before he could stop her. “Keira!” Her voice caught on a sob.
“Emma,” her sister breathed. Her hazel eyes, so similar to Emma’s, were wide with disbelief.
Luukas’s dark head whipped around at the sound of Emma’s voice, his eyes wild as they focused in on the tiny human running toward them. Nik watched as he pulled his lips back in a snarl, and hissed at her in warning.
But Emma couldn’t know the danger she was in, and so she ran, ignoring the warning.
Nik’s heart stopped, and he was suddenly on the step below her. Grabbing her up mid-air, he forcibly held her against his hard chest.
“Let me go!” She struggled hard against him, kicking his shins and pounding his shoulders with her small fists. Tears ran unchecked down her face.
But Nik held her tight, keeping his back to his brother, not wanting to entice him further by staring directly at him. He took the pounding she gave him, repeating softly in her ear, “Sweetheart, just wait. Something isn’t right with him. Emma, something isn’t right with him.”
Nik halfway turned with Emma still struggling in his arms and studied his older brother. His dark hair was long and lank, his T-shirt so riddled with blood and dirt, you couldn’t tell its original color. His jeans were also stiff with dirt. And he was barefoot. The girl he held onto wasn’t in much better shape.
But the thing that stood out the most to him were his eyes. Luukas’s grey eyes had gone completely black. They skittered about the room, not focusing on anyone or anything in particular. He bared his fangs at all of them.
Even Nikulas.
Nik set Emma down. “Emma, look at me. Look at me!” He gave her a little shake until she looked at him. “You can’t go down there. I honestly don’t know what he’ll do.” He shook his head when she started to protest. “Give me a minute to talk to him, Em.”
She wasn’t happy, but with a longing look at her sister, she finally agreed. Once he made sure she was going to stay put, he glanced over uneasily at the wolves before he slowly eased down another step. “Luukas? Hey, big brother. It’s just me. It’s Nik.”
He eased down another step.
A snarl ripped from Luukas’s throat as his eyes swung from the pacing wolves to his brother. Cocking his head, he watched Nik ease toward him, recognition finally flickering across his face. Sheathing his fangs a bit, he yanked Keira partly behind him with the death grip he maintained on her wrist.
Nikulas noticed she wasn’t fighting him. Interesting.
“The witch ismine.” His deep voice was raspy and broken. From lack of use? From screaming?
Nik tampered down his rising anger at the sound of it. Right now, he just needed to get his brother calm.
“Okay, man, you can have her.” Ignoring Emma’s sound of protest, he eased down a few more steps. “No one is going to take your witch. I just want to say hello to my brother.”
He’d reached the bottom of the steps, and was now less than twenty feet from the hole in the wall where his brother stood. Checking the urge to run over and grab him up in a bear hug, he left Luukas some space and waited to see what he would do.
Luukas took a halting step into the room, scanning the area in that twitchy way he now had.
“Where is she?” he ground out between gritted teeth.
Nik knew whom he was referring to without having to ask. “She’s gone. She took Aiden.” His voice broke slightly as he briefly filled Luukas in on what had happened after they’d arrived.
Luukas growled low in his throat as his lips twitched back off his fangs in anger. “I’m going to rip her apart. Slowly.Painfully.”
Keira’s mouth twisted in pain as her arm was twisted. “Luukas. You’re hurting me!”
He immediately loosened his hold, releasing her wrist but pinning her where she was with his eyes. He stared at her for a long moment as Nik watched the exchange with interest.
Never taking his gaze from Keira, Luukas told his brother, “Leave us.”
The wolves took full advantage of his distraction to slink past them, quickly disappearing through the edges of the hole to go find the rest of their pack.
Emma ran down the remaining steps to Nik. Grabbing his hand, she silently begged him to do something.
