“No,” objected Covington, though there wasn’t as much conviction in his voice this time. “They’ll want her dead, just like I do.”

Slowly spinning, Sam ran her gaze along everyone as she loudly called out, “Any one of you that has a problem with me, step forward and we’ll deal with it right here, right now.” Nothing. “Come on, if any of you have something to say, spit it the f**k out now or swallow it down forever.”

I curled an arm around her shoulders, smiling. “My little breath of fresh blunt air doesn’t hold back.” My voice held both pride and adoration.

When nobody responded to Sam’s dare, she shrugged at Covington. “I guess you were wrong.”

“You’re something that shouldn’t exist!” he insisted.

She inclined her head. “Maybe. But it won’t be me who dies tonight.”

“I beg to differ.” And then his knife was flying out of his hand and slicing through the air toward Sam. I expected her to pop her shield up. But she didn’t. She didn’t need to, because the knife froze mid-air.

“Thanks, Harv,” she called out.

“No problem.” His smug smile was obvious in his voice. Clearly his gift was back.

Whistling, Sam grabbed the knife by the handle and then passed it to Antonio. The next move was nothing but a blur: her whip was suddenly in her hand and it quickly snapped tightly around Covington’s body until he wheezed. He struggled to free himself, but it was useless.

“Just thought it would be a good idea to keep your arms pinned to your sides,” explained Sam. “We can’t have you throwing anything else, can we?”

“Harvey,” I called.

He stepped forward. “Yup?”

“Does this mean your gift is back and in full working order?”

His smirk was wide and excited. “Yup.”

“Good. Hold this bastard up for me. I want everyone to watch.” I wanted everyone to see what would happen if they considered betraying us ever again. I needed to make a point to all vampirekind that betrayal wouldn’t be tolerated – that an attempt on my mate’s life wouldn’t be tolerated. I couldn’t risk others coming for Sam. It had to be this way. There had to be a display that the people here would never forget; a story that would spread like wildfire.

Covington’s eyes widened as Harvey elevated him high in the air using his gift. He struggled once more against the grip of Sam’s whip, but still he couldn’t get free. Eyes bulging with both fear and fury, he glowered down at me. “You won’t duel with me because you know you’ll lose!”

“I won’t duel with you because you don’t deserve the honour of one.” I smiled grimly at him. “And this is the part where you’ll pay for what you did – for hurting my mate, for hurting Antonio, and for bringing death and destruction to The Hollow.”

Driven by a combination of fury, grief, and a need for vengeance, I held up my palm and sent a charge of electricity crashing into his brain…but not a charge high enough to kill him. No, that would be for later. What I intended to do was deliver a charge of electricity to every single vulnerable spot of his body, one by one. And I did. He screamed and repeatedly begged for me to stop, but I ignored those pleas. Then, finally, when I knew he was close to death, I delivered one last high voltage bolt to his chest. That was all it took – screaming, he exploded into ashes.

The looks on everybody’s faces told me that the message I’d sent had been received, loud and clear. It was a message that would spread. And only a f**king idiot would ignore it. Sam slipped her hand into mine, and everyone bowed slightly. I had to smile when Sam groaned – she hated bowing. If there hadn’t been so many deaths, the vampires here would have undoubtedly cheered at Covington’s demise, but most of them were still raw with anger and pain at how many lives had been lost.

Antonio came forward, sighing at Sam. “You should not have offered your life for ours,” he admonished.

No she damn well shouldn’t have.

Her voice was low as she asked, “Aren’t you at least a little pissed off that I would have risked so many lives to protect Jared?”

“No. I would not have expected any other response. And neither would the vampires around you have done.” Murmurs of agreement spread through the crowd. He placed his hand on her shoulder. “But I do appreciate the sacrifice that you were willing to make for us all. Still, do not do it again.”

“She won’t.” I flashed her a reprimanding look. She just rolled her eyes. That hot little ass was definitely getting spanked later. Using our bond, I sent her an image of her naked and bent over my knee with my hand raised above her ass. She gasped in outrage, turning to face me fully. “Oh it’s going to happen,” I assured her, my tone dark. And what did she do? She sent an image back to me…an image of Dexter biting my ear while she laughed in delight. Damn crazy bitch.

Chapter Eighteen

(Sam)

It wasn’t often that I had nightmares. Or if I did, I simply didn’t remember them when I woke. But dreaming that your mate was burning alive while you were restrained and forced to watch was enough to make a girl abruptly snap awake and bolt upright in the bed.

Attuned to me, Jared was instantly awake and sitting up beside me, brushing my hair away from my face. “Bad dream?” His voice was croaky with sleep.

Still feeling choked by the agony of watching him die, I couldn’t speak. Making soothing noises, he gently coaxed me to lie beside him and pulled me tight against him. The strange bed wasn’t as comfortable as our bed, but as our apartment building was in a pretty bad state after the battle yesterday evening, we had taken one of the spare rooms in Antonio’s mansion.

In fact, most of the people within The Hollow were sleeping in the mansion as it was the building that had suffered the least amount of damage – Covington had obviously hoped to keep it for himself. The Command Centre, the Guest House, and the Residence Halls were still standing, but other buildings had collapsed. Almost all of them had suffered from fire and smoke damage to some degree. The once beautiful place looked like a warzone.

Worse than the damage to The Hollow itself was the damage to the population within it. Six of the ten squads from the legion had been wiped out, including their commanders. Most of Antonio’s many guards were dead, as were Luther’s and Sebastian’s consorts. Only thirty-eight humans remained, and ten of those were badly injured. There had originally been forty-three surviving humans, but seven of them had been on the verge of death and chosen to be Turned into vampires rather than die.