Killean barreled through the remaining Savages in his way and was almost on top of Joseph when Nathan burst out of the woods to the left of him. Killean spotted Ronan charging at them from the right with Kadence and Simone running behind him.
From somewhere within his coat, Joseph produced a crossbow and fired it at Nathan when the hunter was only three feet away from him.
“Nathan!” Kadence screamed when the bolt pierced through her brother’s chest, lifted him off his feet, and knocked him on his ass. She broke away from Simone to rush to her brother.
Killean spotted more Savages gliding through the trees and closing in on Ronan. “Ronan, behind you!” he shouted.
Ronan turned as two of the creatures launched at him. Simone skidded to a halt to avoid running into Ronan when the weight of the Savages knocked him to the ground. Ronan gripped the shoulder of one and threw it away as he rolled to pin the other beneath him. Killean was closing in on Joseph and about to jump on his back when another Savage loomed up behind Simone.
“No!” Killean bellowed and switched course.
He closed the ten feet separating them in less than a second, and swinging his fist forward, he plunged it into the vamp’s chest cavity. His fingers clinched around the creature’s pulsating heart, and he tore it free. Simone gazed at him with wide eyes as he released the heart and the Savage toppled to the ground between them.
“Killean?” Simone whispered.
She barely recognized the blood-drenched man before her as his fangs hung low over his bottom lip and his skin continued to pulse with those colors. Then gold flickered through the ruby color of his eyes and she once again saw the man she loved. Red swallowed the gold again, but she’d seen enough to know that Killean was still there.
He almost touched her, but the blood dripping from his fingers stopped him from doing so. “It’s okay.”
Simone didn’t know if that meant he would be okay or not, but his love for her shimmered across their bond. And then Killean’s attention was drawn away from her and to Nathan, who had regained his feet and was closing in on Joseph.
Lunging forward, Nathan clamped his arms around Joseph’s waist. Joseph twisted in an attempt to throw him off, but Nathan clung tenaciously as Kadence jumped onto Joseph’s back, seized his hair, and ripped his head back. She delivered three, bone-crushing blows to his face before Joseph reeled backward and bashed her against a tree trunk.
Kadence cried out, and when Joseph staggered away from the tree, she released her hold on him and hit the ground. Ronan, having fought off the other two Savages raced over to kneel beside her as Nathan, still hanging off Joseph’s waist, gripped Joseph’s crotch and twisted his hand. Joseph howled as his dick and balls were almost ripped from him; he lifted his hand and swung it back to deliver a crushing blow that snapped Nathan’s neck to the side and caved in the left side of his face.
“Stay here,” Killean commanded Simone.
He ran through the trees at Joseph, and as the Savage freed himself from Nathan, Killean lowered his shoulder and drove it into Joseph’s back. The Savage was thrown ten feet forward and hit the ground with enough force that the earth and trees shook. Killean didn’t give him a chance to regain his feet before he closed the distance between them and slammed his foot onto Joseph’s back to pin him to the ground.
Joseph rolled faster than Killean anticipated, and before he could pull his foot away, Joseph grabbed it and jerked him off his feet. When Killean’s back crashed onto the ground, his breath wheezed out of him as Joseph rose into a seated position. When Joseph leaned toward him, Killean gripped his head and shoved it down as he lifted his knee and smashed it into Joseph’s nose.
A whistling sound issued from Joseph’s crumpled nose as he lurched forward to grasp Killean’s shoulders. His fingers shredded Killean’s flesh as Killean drew his knees up and wedged them between their bodies.
He shoved up with his feet but couldn’t fully dislodge Joseph. A purebred vampire who was trained by Ronan and had killed countless innocents since turning Savage, Joseph was far more powerful than the other Savages Killean slaughtered.
Instead of trying to shake him free, Killean gripped his shoulders and rolled him over. He had only a second on top before Joseph rolled him again. Killean dug his fingers into Joseph’s shoulders and tore away chunks of flesh and muscle before smashing his fist into Joseph’s face.
Lifting his knee, Joseph rammed it into Killean’s crotch. Killean grunted as pain lanced throughout his body. His distraction gave Joseph a chance to release a rapid series of punches into Killean’s stomach. The blows left him nearly as breathless as his aching balls, but as the agony spread through him, his body absorbed and twisted it into a strength that fed him.
“Your little mate was the best thing I ever tasted,” Joseph taunted.
Killean thought he’d experienced rage before, but those words pushed him into an entirely different state of it. A sound, more monster than man, issued from him as, grabbing Joseph’s hair, he rolled with him again. There was no reason left to him as a yawning pit of darkness rose up to engulf him. He tore and beat at Joseph with the intensity of a rat burrowing through the earth to escape a fire.
Simone gawked as Killean’s skin became almost entirely pitch-black. It was so deep a black, it looked like tar coating him as an inhuman sound she would associate more with a demon than a man issued from him.
Simone’s hand went to her throat as Killean and Joseph pummeled each other. Joseph had appeared to have the upper hand in the beginning, but Killean had turned the tables and Joseph’s blood now drenched him.
“What’s happening to him?” Simone whispered out loud.
She’d thought she was alone and didn’t realized Kadence stood beside her until her friend replied, “It happens to purebreds when they’re enraged, or their mate is threatened. He’ll be… he’ll be okay.”
Kadence’s words would have been more reassuring if she hadn’t sounded so uncertain. Simone glanced behind her to find Ronan and Nathan battling more Savages. When she turned back, she discovered that Joseph and Killean were rolling toward the edge of a clearing. The sun streaming through the trees spilled across the leaf-strewn ground only feet away from them.
“Killean!” Simone screamed as she ran toward him, but they were rolling again.
Killean feasted on the pain of Joseph’s fingers digging into his throat as the Savage sought to kill him.
“You’re going to fucking die,” Killean promised as he drove the heel of his hand up under Joseph’s nose and snapped his head back.
Gripping Joseph’s shoulders again, the distant sound of screams barely pierced the bloodlust thundering through his veins as he once more rolled with Joseph. Agony blazed down his spine, the sound of crackling flesh filled his ears, and it took him a second to realize that he’d rolled them into sunlight.