Rogue Darkness by Dianne Duvall

Sean.

Immortals were not immune to flash-bangs. Their significantly enhanced hearing and vision actually increased the effectiveness of such weapons. It could be excruciatingly painful for them.

Ears ringing, she swiftly retrieved her fallen weapon and returned to her position in the bathroom doorway.

A man dressed in black and wearing body armor stepped into view. While two others started shoving and tugging at the furniture barricade, the first raised a 9mm.

She risked a glance at Rafe and Sean. Both were bent at the waist and staggered as they held their ears and blinked furiously.

The mercenary started shooting. Blood spurted from Rafe’s back and Sean’s hip.

Nicole opened fire, hitting the man’s vest, then the unprotected flesh above it.

Blood gushed from his neck as the merc dropped his weapon and stumbled backward.

Nicole didn’t wait for him to fall. She had to keep those bastards too busy to shoot Sean and Rafe again. So she targeted every mercenary who stepped into view. A second and a third man collapsed. Then a fourth. But each made progress in knocking down more of the barrier before they fell.

Behind them, dark figures hurried past and continued up the stairwell.

“David,” she said, knowing he and the immortals above would hear her, “you’ve got incoming. Some are bypassing us and heading your way.”

Her 9mm continued to bark bullets.

Recovering from the flash-bang, Rafe and Sean sent the intruders snarls of fury.

Nicole stopped firing as the two immortals dove toward the door.

Yeah. They were pissed.

Sean didn’t even wait for the men to get through the barrier. He just reached over it, yanked a mercenary across the top, and vented his anger upon him with shoto swords.

Rafe did the same.

The fight eventually dislodged enough furniture for more bodies to stream through the door. Wide-eyed mercenaries fired 9mms with mags as long as hers. Panic filled more than one face as they took in the immortal pair’s speed, strength, fangs, and glowing eyes.

Maybe no one had briefed them regarding the incredibly powerful beings they would face.

More and more began to fire wildly. A few did their damnedest to slip past Sean and Rafe in search of other targets.

Nicole shot anyone who succeeded, targeting body parts that weren’t protected by helmets and vests.

Bullets tore through the wall beside her. Ceramic tile shattered behind her.

How many mercenaries were there?

Bodies carpeted the floor at Sean’s and Rafe’s feet, yet more kept coming.

One mercenary did as she’d feared and started spraying the floor with bullets, no doubt believing doing so would increase his chances of hitting the immortals that zipped about.

Pain ignited in Nicole’s arm when a bullet passed through it. A second hit her in the thigh. As her leg buckled, a third grazed her side just below the edge of her vest.

Swearing, she dropped to her knees. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she fought back the pain and gave the wounds a quick glance. They hurt like hell, but it didn’t look like they’d struck bone or major arteries.

Agony burned through her arm when she tried to raise it, so she passed the 9mm to her left hand and targeted the idiot shooter. Tile shattered above her head an instant before she returned a flurry of fire.

The man jerked backward as a bullet hit his shoulder. A second and third hit his vest. The fourth tore through the carotid artery in his neck.

Good thing she’d practiced shooting with both hands.

Nicole’s injured leg ached unmercifully. Her arm throbbed. Warm blood stained her sleeve and slithered down to drip off her elbow.

Cursing, she gritted her teeth and shot the next mercenary, then the next.

“Nicole!” Sean shouted.

“I’m okay!” she called back. “Mind your six!”

She shot a mercenary aiming at his back before Sean could turn around.

“Define okay!” he called back.

If her arm and thigh didn’t feel as if someone were holding a blowtorch to them, she might’ve laughed. “Okay enough to kick your ass if you don’t stay focused!”

At last, only a couple of mercenaries remained. Confident that Sean and Rafe could handle them, Nicole rested her weapon on her uninjured thigh and tried to breathe through the pain.





Chapter Twenty





Rafe planted himself in the door to the stairwell while Sean dropped the last mercenary and looked up the hallway.

He’d heard Nicole grunt and swear earlier. She’d said she was okay, but he wanted to confirm it with his own eyes. Unfortunately, all he could see from this angle were her knees.

His heart sank.

The navy blue fabric covering one was darker than the other and glistened with moisture.

Oh shit.

Sean raced up the hallway. The many wounds he’d incurred protested as he knelt before her. Fortunately, most were already healing.

Blood ran down one of Nicole’s slender arms and dripped onto the floor. More stained her shirt and smock on the same side at her waist.

Panic gripped him. “Are you okay?”

She responded with a series of curses so foul they could’ve made a sailor blush.

Relief rushed through him, driving him to smile. “Now who’s crazy as a bag of ferrets?”

She laughed, or tried to. A grunt of pain cut it off.

Sean checked the wound on her arm. It was a straight through-and-through that had missed both the humerus and her brachial artery. “Feel better now that you got that off your chest?”