“No!” Donatelli moved toward them, as did Carrick, but Gwenna startled them all by grabbing the sword and yanking it to her neck.
“Don’t bargain for me, Roberto. It’s not worth it. I have no issue with dying. In fact, I’ve wished for a very long time that I were dead.” She tried to look up at Gregor, tried to force the blade closer to her flesh. “Go on, kill me. I welcome it.”
The tension emanating from everyone was palpable. Corbin was impressed with Gwenna’s courage, but also alarmed at the look in her eye. She looked serious. Gregor seemed to understand that as well.
When she said, “I’ll slice my own head off before you can touch Brittany,” he backed away, letting her go as he realized his bargaining chip was no longer worth anything.
“Give me the girl, Donatelli.”
“No.” Donatelli was in front of Brittany, and he put his arm behind him, waving at her to scoot back.
Corbin expected him to rush Donatelli, or grab Gwenna again. Instead, with no hesitation, he swung out with his sword and sliced Donatelli straight across the chest with so much force that blood arched everywhere, blinding Corbin and sending Donatelli crashing backward into Brittany, who screamed.
Wiping his face, Corbin launched himself in front of both Brittany and Donatelli, trusting Ethan and Alexis to get Brittany off the roof. And while it might not be the smartest move to go on the offensive with Gregor, he suspected Chechikov’s desire for the child was greater than his anger at Donatelli. He would step over the Italian and go right for Brittany.
Which Corbin didn’t intend to allow. He raised his own sword and attacked.
Brittany knew she should stop screaming, but she couldn’t seem to turn the volume off. There was just so much blood, it was everywhere, wet and thick, smelling sweet and putrid all at the same time. Donatelli had collided into her, knocking her down onto her butt, and now he was lying on the roof in front of her, his chest looking like he’d had a date with open heart surgery. In the dark ages. He was gored from end to end and she gagged, taking deep little breaths so she wouldn’t vomit the bile that kept crawling up her throat.
But he was a vampire. He would heal. And he had prevented Gregor from striking her. She suspected she had been the monster’s target—that he had intended to just swing out and kill her, then cart her body off in the melee. Easier to haul off a corpse than a kicking and screaming live person.
Alexis pulled Brittany back, away from her father, but that didn’t seem right, to just abandon him, so she fought her sister. Her spindly arms were no match, though, for vampire strength, and Alexis kept hauling her, despite her protestations. It was when Alexis had her a good five feet back from Donatelli, and she had stopped kicking long enough to look up, that she realized Corbin was engaged in battle with Gregor.
“Corbin! Jesus!” she shrieked, trying to break free from Alexis, whirling toward Ethan for help. “Stop him! He’s... ”
No match for Gregor
, was what she was thinking. Corbin was a lot of things, including sweet, cute, intelligent, and downright fierce in bed, but she didn’t think he could go head to head with a burly Russian double his size.
But the words died on her lips when she noticed that Corbin
was
a match for Gregor. Holy crap, he was a sword stud. He was doing that French musketeer thing, whirling and jabbing and clanking, moving with skill and confidence, and looking kind of, well, hot. Really hot. Hello. Yet he was still in mortal danger, regardless of the fact that he seemed to be holding his own.
Someone should rescue him, because she was going to croak if he got hurt. Not that he could get permanently hurt, because he was a vampire, but shit, what if Gregor cut off his head? Even a vampire could die if someone really wanted to kill him. She winced as Corbin stumbled backward from a particularly brutal blow. “Oh, geez, Alex, do something.”
“He’s fine,” was her sister’s reply. “He has everything under control.”
“But shouldn’t we... can’t we... ” Shoot a rocket at Gregor and launch him off the roof? There was an idea.
Alex rubbed her arms gently. “Sweetie, no. This is Corbin’s fight. Men don’t want to be rescued. Hell,
I
don’t want to be rescued. Now come on, let’s go.”
Leave? Was her sister nuts? “I can’t leave until I know he’s okay.”
“You’ll just distract him. He wants you safe.”
Crap. She knew Alex was right, but she couldn’t leave. Gregor was so strong and Corbin was... kicking his ass. Gregor was huffing and puffing, while Corbin hadn’t even broken a sweat. He held the sword loosely, yet whenever Gregor charged him, he was always right there with a block and a stab. Gregor’s chest was blooming scarlet from all the hits he’d taken.
“The baby, Brittany. Think about the baby.”
At the same moment, she saw Corbin glance over at her. “Brittany!” he yelled, appalled. “Get out of here!” Shoot, she was distracting him.
“Okay!” She moved toward the stairs. “But what about Donatelli?” It seemed rude to leave him there after he had tried to help her escape.
“Gwenna’s got him. She and Ethan will haul him out.”
Actually, Donatelli was walking on his own, and he and Gwenna were arguing.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he demanded. “What were you thinking to grab that sword? I almost had a goddamn heart attack.”
“You can’t have a heart attack,” she told him sharply, her arm around his middle, supporting his weight. “And you should be ashamed of yourself for kidnapping a pregnant woman.”
“I had no intention of hurting her. And this is what happens when I don’t have you acting as my conscience.”
Gwenna bristled. “That was utterly exhausting, given your many misdeeds, so I retired. It’s called a divorce. And you haven’t changed one bit in the two hundred years since.” They moved slowly toward the door.
Brittany exchanged a look with Alexis. Gwenna was a bit more of a pistol than she had expected. And Ethan looked like he was choking on a nut. His face was completely red. “Can you move a little faster?” he demanded. “We’d like to get Brittany out of here before Gregor throws down his sword and charges us. Maybe we should leave Donatelli here.”
“Don’t let me burden you,” Donatelli pronounced coldly, letting go of Gwenna, and stepping aside, a sour and stubborn look on his face.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” Gwenna yanked his shirt. “Just get your bloody arse down these steps. Ethan, you be quiet or I’ll be tempted to box your ears. You have absolutely no reason to despise Roberto as much as you do.”
Donatelli and Ethan both looked startled, but Ethan was quick to retort, “You’ve gone daft! He’s been a bloody thorn in my side for nine centuries. He broke Alexis’s wrist. And he just hired an assassin to have me killed last fall!”
Scoffing, Donatelli limped down the stairs, holding his ribs under his blood-soaked shirt. “I knew he couldn’t kill you. It was just politics, nothing personal, Carrick.”
Gwenna glared at the men. “And you both wonder why I choose to hide in a pile of rocks in York? It’s so I don’t have to deal with either one of you.”
Alexis turned to Brittany, looking bewildered. “Something weird just happened. The three of them just had some kind of power struggle and I think Gwenna won.”
But Brittany was barely listening. As they went through the doorway, she was glancing back over her shoulder, checking on Corbin. He and Gregor were circling each other. Corbin had a feral grin on his face as he strode to the left, eye always on Gregor, his wrist spinning his sword like he was working the table at a hibachi steakhouse.
There was just no way she could leave.
Doing a totally stupid girl move, she ran back up the stairs, out onto the roof, and slammed the door shut behind her.
“After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?” Gregor said to Corbin, moving slowly, his breathing hard and labored.
“If I had had any idea zat you wanted to use my research for cloning, I would never have taken your money.” Corbin should have realized that no man shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars without having a personal stake in it, no matter how rich or odd. Yet Chechikov had fooled him with his recluse status, his complete disinterest, his eccentric and random distribution of funding. “And I have lifted my sword because you took Brittany and my child.”
“You’re a scientist. You, more so than anyone else, understand the implications of that baby. You can’t keep him hidden, you know. I am going to win the election and then I will find your child. It would be much smarter to work together with me. I promise not to harm the baby if you conduct all your research on my behalf. Together we can rule the Nation.”
Corbin shook his head. “That’s your dream, not mine. And there is no more research. I destroyed all the data this afternoon. I am the only vampire who understands our genetic makeup, who can facilitate both a return to mortality and a population explosion, and it is gone. All of it.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but he was keeping that information to himself.
His words sent Gregor into a rage. “You French fool! I’ll kill you and take your baby and do the damn research without your goddamn pathetic little concerns.”
When he charged him, Corbin was ready, knowing Gregor had more strength than he did, but that his asset was agility and technique. When the Russian came at him, Corbin spread his legs, arched his sword, and with every ounce of strength he had, sliced the blade deep into Chechikov’s throat and neck, pushing backward to drive it deeper. Gregor stumbled, blood spraying, hands clawing at his neck, and with a tremendous heave, he managed to repel both Corbin and the sword back. But the momentum of his own massive push, the give of the sword leaving his neck, sent him catapulting backward, where he tripped and went over the side of the building with a roar of fury.
Dropping the sword, Corbin jogged to the edge of the roof and glanced down. Chechikov was falling fast and hard, and he heard the faint thump when the Russian collided with the top of a semitruck parked at the food delivery entrance of the casino and hotel. With any luck, Corbin had succeeded in driving the sword deep enough to cause death, or to injure him enough that he would bleed out on the truck before healing.
Unable to resist, he spat over the side to reflect his disdain for Chechikov. “Bastard.”
“Corbin, are you okay?”
He turned to find Brittany careening across the rooftop, holding her belly as she ran at breakneck speed. “What are you still doing up here?” he asked in horror. “You were supposed to leave with Carrick!”
“I couldn’t leave until I knew you were alright.”
Offended, he bent over to pick his sword up. “You did not trust me? You thought I could not handle the Russian? Perhaps I am not man enough?”
“Oh, good grief, chill. That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t questioning your masculinity, I was just worried.”
“You should have worried less about me and more about our child.” He was appalled that she had stayed when she should have taken herself straight to safety.
Not answering, she peered over the roof edge. “It’s too dark to see anything. Is he dead?”
“We should be so lucky.” Brittany was making him nervous, leaning like that, so he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “It is possible, and if you return home with your sister, I could investigate the situation.”
Her jaw dropped. “Why does it feel like we’re fighting with each other?”
“I am not aware that we are doing any such thing,” he said stiffly, even as he realized he was being unreasonable. But he had spent the entire evening terrified for her safety, and now he found that she had deliberately risked herself and their child because she thought he could not survive a battle with Gregor. It had his nerves shredded, his pride injured, his relief that she was safe so sharp, he felt as though he could actually taste it.
“Fine. Since we’re not arguing, you won’t say a word when I tell you that I’m going to the Ava and I’m going to eat something, and then sleep for about twelve hours in Alex’s apartment. If you feel like discussing anything with me, you can do it in the morning.”