Lilo and Hannah rushed to him. Lilo wrapped her arms around him, and he pressed her to him for a brief moment. “You’re alive.” He pressed a kiss into her hair, then reached for Hannah’s shoulder and squeezed it.

“We don’t have much time,” he murmured.

Lilo raised her eyes to the window. “How’re we gonna get up there?”

“We’re not,” he said. He snatched his backpack and opened it. He pulled two guns from it and handed one to Lilo and one to Hannah. “Have you fired a gun before?”

Lilo nodded. She’d attended the writer’s police academy several times to help her write realistic crime fiction.

Hannah shook her head, so he quickly showed her how to handle the gun.

Satisfied, Blake reached into the backpack again and pulled out a heavy silver chain. Even through the thick, double-layered leather gloves he could feel the silver, though it didn’t burn him. He laid it on the floor and pulled out his cell phone, sent a pre-typed text message to John, and put the phone back.

Then he looked at Lilo and Hannah. “Listen carefully. In a few minutes Norwood and his people will storm in here and try to use you as shields. I want you to go to that corner of the room.” He pointed to the corner, which, once the door was thrown open, would be in the entering person’s blind spot. “Keep your guns ready. Only shoot if one of them comes at you and I can’t take him out. Understand?”

Both nodded. Then he took the chain from the floor and walked toward the door. Next to it, he saw steel beams criss-crossing the wall. Perfect.

He climbed halfway up the wall, chain in his hands, ready to pounce.

Suddenly, his vampire hearing picked up the sounds of commotion from downstairs. Scanguards had just kicked in the door. Norwood and his men were finally aware that they were being ambushed.

Moments later, he heard approaching footsteps, then a key turned in the lock and the door flew open. A vampire rushed in.

Blake jumped, looping the silver chain around the hostile’s neck on his descent. The vampire released a choked cry, loud enough to alert his associates, and tried to pry the chain away from his neck. But Blake was already knotting the chain and wrapping it around the asshole’s neck a second time, before kicking him in the back to push him to the ground and hogtie him with the silver chain. The vampire struggled, kicking and screaming. He turned his head to flash his fangs, thus giving Blake a good view. It wasn’t Norwood, but one of his associates. Ronny had been able to give Scanguards most of the names of Norwood’s men and several of them had been in the database. The vampire currently hogtied on the floor was one of them.

Blake heard the commotion downstairs. Yelling. Grunting. Loud thuds. His colleagues were hard at work. He glanced at Lilo and Hannah. Both had come out of the corner.

“Stay here,” he ordered the women and motioned to the vampire on the ground. “He can’t get free.”

Lilo’s eyes suddenly widened and she raised her weapon, pointing it in Blake’s direction. “Nooooo!” she screamed and pulled the trigger.

Blake dove away and rolled, jumping up a second later, but Lilo kept shooting—not at the spot where he was now, but where he had been. Blake looked over his shoulder.

“Oh shit!”

Lilo was emptying her clip into a vampire that had tumbled to the floor, a stake rolling out of his hand. Norwood. Blood was oozing from multiple wounds. Finally, one shot hit him in the head, and within seconds, Norwood had disintegrated into dust, the silver bullet in his brain eating him alive.

Blake jumped up and rushed to Lilo, taking the empty gun from her shaking hands and pulling her into his embrace. She’d saved his life a second time.

But he had no time to thank her, because another sound coming from the door made him whirl around, push Lilo behind him, and rip the gun from Hannah’s hands, aiming at the vampire entering.

“Hold your horses,” John said.

Blake blew out a breath and lowered his weapon.

“We got four. You?”

Blake pointed to the hogtied vampire, who was whimpering with pain. “Two. This one and Norwood.” He tilted his head to where the dust had settled.

“Then we’ve got them all.”

“Anybody hurt?” Blake asked.

John smiled and shook his head. “Those amateurs were no match for us. Piece of cake.”

Blake turned to Lilo and Hannah. “It’s over. Let’s go home.”

Lilo flew into his arms, and he reached out one arm to pull Hannah into the hug.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Hannah murmured.

“Don’t thank me. Thank Lilo. She did all the hard work.”

Lilo lifted her head from his chest. “I was scared.”

“But you did it anyway. That’s what being brave means.”

And he’d never met a braver woman than Lilo.

41

Blake tossed a look over his shoulder to glance at where Lilo was standing talking to Hannah and Delilah. Samson’s house was packed to the rafters with Scanguards employees and their families, all celebrating the successful rescue of Lilo and Hannah, and the elimination of Norwood’s crew.

“And I got sent on patrol while all this was happening?” Grayson groused when John had finished recounting the events.

Blake turned to his charge, though considering Grayson’s age, he really should relinquish his duties where they concerned Samson’s hotheaded second-born. “You wanted your own patrol. You got it.”

“Yeah, a patrol where nothing happened. Tell me the truth: my father had you assign me to the safest neighborhood, didn’t he?”

Blake lifted his hands. “I had nothing to do with your assignment.” And he wasn’t going to throw either Samson or Quinn, who handled the patrol schedule, under the bus.

Grayson huffed. “You’re a big help.” He turned and marched away.

Blake exchanged a look with John, who simply shrugged. “He’s still got a lot to learn.”

“He’s crazy if he thinks I’d let him join a mission to save my w... uh Lilo’s life.”

John nodded, the smirk on his face suddenly gone. “You were lucky this time. Not everybody has that kind of luck.”

Blake dropped his head, nodding. “I know that. I wish you’d had better luck.” He didn’t have to ask whether John still thought of his blood-bonded mate every day.