Son of a bitch.
Derek Walsh.
And judging from the vampire’s murderous glower, he had no intention of giving up Melena without a fight. The SUV lurched into a more reckless speed. It careened behind a semitrailer, dodging between a car of teens and a commuter bus. Lazaro could only follow, negotiating the traffic and keeping his focus trained on his quarry.
Walsh drove erratically for several miles with Lazaro chewing up his bumper. More than once, there was the opportunity to ram the bastard and send the SUV rolling, or to draw one of his semiautomatics and blast a hole in the Breed male’s skull...but not with Melena inside. Not when Lazaro’s heart was tied to her and every breath in his body was devoted to keeping her safe.
He hissed when Walsh narrowly avoided a collision with a car drifting into his lane. And when another near-miss snapped off the SUV’s passenger side mirror, Lazaro shouted a furious curse. He saw a break up ahead—a chance to get in front of Walsh and force him into the median. Lazaro buried the gas pedal and flew past.
But Walsh saw the maneuver coming.
Instead of letting himself catch up to Lazaro, he hung a hard right and gunned it for an upcoming exit.
An exit that was under construction, littered with barrels and an obstacle course of concrete barriers.
Walsh was going too fast, too frantically.
Lazaro stomped on his brake and was whipping around to give chase again when the SUV clipped one of the barriers and went airborne, rolling into a hard crash.
All the breath seemed to suck out of Lazaro’s lungs in that instant. The entire world seemed to stop breathing. Dust went up in the darkness, the haze illuminated by the beams of passing vehicles on the road.
Then, a spark of flame.
“No,” Lazaro moaned, his blood screaming for Melena. “Goddamn it, no!”
He threw his vehicle in park on the shoulder and hit the ground running.
Even with his preternatural speed, he’d barely gotten within arm’s reach of the wreck before the ruptured gas tank ignited. A blinding wall of flames shot skyward, heat blasting his face.
“Melena, no!”
* * * *
She couldn’t breathe.
Heat all around her. Splitting pain in her skull, ringing in her ears. She opened her eyes and saw a churning, thickening cloud of gray smoke. And flames.
Oh, God. Fire everywhere.
Melena tried to move, but her arms wouldn’t work. Her wrists were tied. She remembered now, awareness coming back to her. Derek had bound her. He’d driven away with her.
He and his Opus Nostrum comrades were going to kill her.
“No,” she gasped, choking on smoke and heat. “Oh, my God...no!”
She started kicking, screaming, trying frantically to get free of the restraints. She couldn’t loosen them. And something was crushing her in the back of the SUV. She looked up and saw the floor. Beneath her, the roof of her father’s GNC vehicle.
The smoke was rolling in front of her eyes, burning them. She couldn’t keep her lids open. Hurt to see, to breathe...
“Melena.” The deep voice penetrated the fire and sooty air that surrounded her. She wanted to reach for it—for him—but she was trapped, unable to move. “Melena, I’m going to get you out of here, sweetheart. You stay with me, damn it!”
There was a great, groaning howl as the vehicle rocked where it had fallen. A gust of cool air, followed by a rush of hot, intensifying flame.
“I’m coming in to get you,” Lazaro said.
She couldn’t see him, but she felt him climbing inside the inferno. Crawling all the way to the back, where she lay broken and half-conscious.
And then she felt his strong hands make contact with her.
“Ah, Christ,” he hissed, and she knew what he saw couldn’t be good.
Another metallic roar filled the air, then the crushing weight that had pinned her down was lifted. Tenderly, Lazaro took hold of her. Started pulling her free of the wreckage.
“I’ve got you now, Melena. I’ve got you.”
She didn’t let the first sob go until she felt the warmth of his chest against her cheek. She buried her face in that comforting strength, breathed in the scent of him even as her throat screamed with pain from the smoke that choked her lungs.
And then he scooped her up in his arms and he was running. Away from the smoke. Away from the heat and the fire and the horror.
Cool night air enveloped her, filled her nose as she braved a cleansing breath. And circled around her were Lazaro’s strong arms, holding her close, keeping her safe—carrying her away from certain death.
He set her down in the crisp, moist grass, while behind them came a jarring roll of thunder as a plume of fire and smoke shot up into the moonlit sky. Horns blared out on the highway. Tires screeched as traffic came to a halt at the scene of the accident.
But all Melena knew was the haggard, terrified face of the man she loved, staring down at her as he held her in a careful embrace. He tore off the lamp cord that bound her wrists and tossed it aside on a vicious snarl. When he reached down to smooth a hank of limp hair from her face, his fingers trembled.
Melena tried to speak but couldn’t push sound through her lips. Her body ached everywhere, some of the pains searing, others a dull, relentless throb.
Lazaro’s dark eyes were sober in his handsome face. His beautiful, sensual mouth was a flattened, grim line. “You’re going to be all right, you hear me? I’m not letting you go.”
She wanted to argue that he already had. That her heart was still breaking from the thought of him pushing her out of his life. Out of his heart.
He stared down at her, misery swimming in his gaze. “I’m not going to lose you, Melena.”