Page 75 of Lover Forbidden
“Oh, fuck. You’re injured, too. I’m calling for backup—”
“I can dematerialize. Take Shuli—”
Shuli’s voice was nothing but a weak mumble: “Take L.W.—”
“Shut up—”
“Shut up—”
As he and Rhamp barked the same two syllables at the aristocrat, he was reminded why he loved Lyric’s twin. Only a male with balls as big as church bells would steal a bike, and penetrate an active shooter situation in a blind alley when there were more CPD bots around than human gawkers at this point.
Plus the fucker moved fast. With a lithe surge, Rhamp dismounted, grabbed Shuli, and somehow managed to get them both back on the Harley. Which clearly had been “borrowed.”
“You good?” the guy demanded at L.W.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“So dematerialize.”
“Go!”
When Rhamp just shook his head, L.W. started cursing, and then realized that was not going to calm his ass down. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and ordered his heart rate to slow—
Someone was talking on a bullhorn. A cop-bot, for certain.
Even more sirens now. Some shouting—
He tried to focus himself inward. But instead, the sweet smell of the gas-powered engine on the bike got louder in his nose. And so did the scent oflesserblood—and the vampire variety, too.
He took another deep breath. His ass was cold, his leg thumping, and there was a bad-news sense of wetness under his thigh.
Come on, he ordered himself. After all the tattooing he’d had done on his skin, he was good with pain. He liked it, actually. So that wasn’t the problem. Something else was—
His eyes popped open. “Goddamn you, Shuli.”
The guy, who was at half-mast over the bike’s gas tank, lifted his head enough so they could meet eyes. “What…?”
L.W. glared at Rhamp. “Until that aristocratic fuckboy is out of here, I’m not going to be able to go ghost.”
“Jesus Christ, you two,” Rhamp muttered. “Will youpleasedecide whether you hate each other or not—”
“You want to save us both? Then get him the hell out of this alley.”
There was a moment of indecision on the other fighter’s part. Except then, on the far side of the dumpster and the Toyota, a patrol car stopped. Reversed a little. And turned into the alley, its headlights streaming all the way down the chute.
To the point where if it hadn’t been for the dumpster’s bulk, they would have been spotlit like a bunch of criminals.
“Go,”he spat.
Rhamp cursed and hit the gas, kicking up a shower of ice that sparkled in the beams of the patrol car. In the aftermath of the departure, L.W. slumped against the wedge of dirty, bloody snow under him. Turning his head, he looked down at where the cop-bot was advancing through the alley toward the busted-out Toyota.
He glanced in the other direction and saw the slayer in the doorway was still moving. Fuck. The bastards could be pumped full of lead, but unless you stabbed them in the heart, they stuck around in whatever shape you left them in. They could literally be on the verge of a leaked-out “death” for a century.
L.W. knew what had to be done. But he didn’t have the energy.
He’d lost a lot of blood himself—
Summoning the very last dregs of his strength, he dragged his body up off the icy ground—and as he lurched toward thelesser, he made sure he stuck to the center shadow cut by that hulking trash bin. Just as the cop-bots swarmed over the Toyota, he came to that doorway.
