What Lies Beneath

Landon.

"I already don't like this," Jaxon stated as I turned off the car.

"Too bad," I shot back.

We got out of the car and opened the back door to look for the weapons that we'd stolen from the dead guard dogs. There were no guns, unfortunately, but there were some nice looking hunting knives. Jaxon and I each took a knife, and Mila got out her handy-dandy pocketknife.

I took it from her and replaced it with a bigger one. "Better safe than sorry, darlin'."

She examined it. "Not bad."

"Couldn't agree more." Jaxon grinned as he grabbed one for each hand.

We each had an extra on our person, just in case. I closed the trunk and locked the car for good measure.

"Listen up," I started. "We go in, and anyone that comes at us, we kill. They're all going to be trying to kill us, and I doubt Knox is gonna come out of his hide hole until all the kings horses and all the kings men are dead. Do you understand?" My wife nodded. "What do you think is waiting for us in there?"

"If Knox was smart, and sadly, I think he is, then a lot of men. Armed, maybe. A lot of danger, for sure. We need to stick close together. We'll be swarmed if we don't. You need to be careful."

She nodded again.

I bent down and kissed her for what I hoped wouldn't be the last time. Jaxon made no comment, and he let us take our time. Maybe he was more worried than Mila thought.

Her small hands found my face. She was so scared. But that was a good thing. I would keep her alive. I could comfort her later.

"We ready?" she asked.

"We are. Mila," I said quietly, "if I die, if Jaxon dies, I need you to promise me you'll run. Don't stay and fight. Don't try to get revenge. You run as fast and as far as you can. Don't ever look back. Just stay alive." Her eyes were miserable as she clutched my shirt. "Don't die."

I smiled. "I won't if you don't."

Her returning grin was crooked. "Deal."

We approached, and I was planning to find another entrance to go through. That was until I noticed the open front door. It was ajar, and it gave us all pause.

"Obviously a trap," I said.

"Yeah," Jaxon agreed. "So, who goes first?"

Me, of course. I was the best fighter here by far. We all had our knives at the ready as I went to the door. I pushed it open and looked inside. Not a soul in sight, but I could hear a dozen heartbeats. I gave a signal to hold before I went inside. Three men were on me. One, I shoved back and into a wall on the other side of the room; another got a knife under his jaw. The last one, he got a kick to the stomach.

Mila and Jaxon ran in behind me when the rest of the cavalry swarmed us. When I was sure Mila was handling herself just fine, I moved on. The man I'd hit was coming back at me, so I caught him by the wrist and snapped it.

There were gunshots and the sound of bullets missing bodies all around. I saw more men coming to join us. Four were armed and firing. Jaxon very quickly used the vampire he was fighting as a shield. Six bullets hit his chest before he died. I tossed a body at one of the armed men, and it knocked the gun out of his hand. It slid to the corner and went off again, piercing a hole in the wall.

I saw Mila sink her knife into a human's chest at the same time she ducked from a punch by a demon. It was unreasonably sexy, and it was distracting enough that I caught a hit to my jaw. I proceeded to break the neck of that very rude demon.

I heard three more shots and saw Jaxon with a gun in his hand. Two men fell at his attack. A third was clipped in the arm. Mila took care of him with a stab to the eye.

"Ew," she said as she pulled the knife out.

Then we were back to back, watching more men come in.

"You hurt?" I asked in the brief pause.

"A few ouchies, but I'm good. You?" "Same."

Then we were back to the fight. There were eight or so men left that we knew of. Several of them were vampires. All we had to do was break their necks, and they would be out long enough so we didn't need to kill them, not that I cared for their lives. If you hit my wife, you forfeit breathing privileges. But it would take up more time than we had to spare.

Another man with a gun came for me. He shot, and I felt the bullet graze my side. It flew past me and landed in the leg of a guard on Jaxon. My brother was bleeding from his ear, but he wasn't letting up on the man he was hitting. Nothing a little demon blood wouldn't fix.

We were already in a pile of bodies, but then more men just kept on coming out of all corners, no more vampires, but a whole lot of humans. He was running out of options. They were too easy to kill. Mila took out two in less than a minute, and neither had managed to even touch her.

Ten more minutes of fighting, and it was more of the same. Then a woman walked into the room.

I knew her in a second. Viviana Knox, the woman who'd smiled over my cage and ordered her son to drag me out in chains so that the sun could bake me until I was close to death, only to be revived to do it again the next day. I'd lost track of the hours I'd spent outside. I'd lost track of how many times she'd grinned when I was drug back in with even less will to live than before.

Her hair was icy blonde, and her face was that of a twenty-year-old girl. Demons, the girls stop aging young. This face of a child was one that haunted my nightmares. She was grinning, even now.

"Nice to see you again," she said with glee as she twisted a knife in her fingers.

I heard three more shots as bodies dropped. Jaxon took out the last of the humans, and he aimed for the woman's head. When he pulled the trigger, he was all out of bullets. Good. I didn't want him killing this one. "Aww..." She wrinkled her nose. "...doncha hate when that happens?"

Mila was clutching my side. Her arm was bleeding, and her bottom lip was beginning to swell. Her angry eyes were fixed on the woman.

"My son is quite annoyed with you all," Viviana said. "He seems to think that you are going to be able to hurt him. I promised him that Mommy would handle it. Maybe you and I can relive some of those moments that you seem to be obsessed with."

She threw her knife, and it would have hit Mila if I hadn't shoved her out of the way. Jaxon caught her at the same time the knife sank into my stomach. I fell onto my knees as the pain burned through me. I pulled it out, and the blood poured. Not fatal. Only destruction of the heart could kill me. But what it did do was leave my wife and her brother out in the open.

Mila was yelling for me as Viviana pulled another knife from her side. Jaxon put himself between his sister and the woman. He was stronger, but she was quicker. Her knife cut across his throat, and she shoved him into a wall. The force of it damaged the sheetrock before he sank onto a pile of bodies.

Mila was cornered, and her eyes held fear and rage. Her knife was on the floor and out of reach, unlike Viviana's.

"And you're the little thief," she taunted my mate. "If I had patience, I'd let you die last. Sadly, I have things to do today-"

Mila kicked the woman in the knee and grabbed her arm, bending it backward until her ulna was poking out of her skin. Mila took the knife from her and shoved the woman onto her knees. She grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her head back. With a quick swipe, the blade dragged across her throat. Mila shoved the dying woman to the floor.

Mila walked around her to me. "Don't be so cocky, bitch."

My mate dropped to her knees in front of me, and her hand covered the wound on my stomach. All anger melted into worry. "Drink, sweetie." She brought my mouth to her neck. I broke her skin with my fangs and drank her in. The blood was sweet, and it made the pain leave me in only moments. When I was done, I rested my forehead on her shoulder as I caught my breath.

"You good, Jax?" she asked. I looked over to see what she was seeing. Jaxon was finishing off the rest of a demon. His neck was bloody, but the wound was gone, like the one on my stomach.

"I am." He smiled. He looked at the now-dead demon woman. "Don't the baddies know that talking about the plan only gets you killed faster?"

"Guess not." I sighed.

Mila's hands turned my face to her. "I'm sorry. What she was saying? Was she the woman on your list? I know you wanted to kill her."

I kissed her bruised cheek. "That doesn't matter now. You're safe, and we have one more man to kill."

She went to rise, but I stopped her. I made her drink some of my blood until she was all healed. We started searching the house.

We came across a handful of humans, but they were disposed of quickly. He was out of people now. Only one heartbeat left. It was just the three of us and one of him. It was over; he just didn't know it yet.

We came to a door with a lock on it. Really? Does he think this will keep us out?

I kicked the door, and the lock broke without any real effort. We didn't see him, but when we stepped through the open door, we all dropped. The pain in our head was familiar. We'd felt it in the hotel, and I had felt it every day the Knoxes had

me in their capture. I never found out why they'd hurt me like they had, but it hardly mattered now. I just wanted him dead, the last of the Knox line. I wanted to exterminate him from this planet.

His foot was the first thing I saw. He stepped from around the corner, smug as ever. He was in a suit, and he didn't seem bothered that his mother was dead. He had to know. She would be here if she were alive.

"I see you had fun mowing through my guard," he said. "Replaceable. Still, a bit annoying to do. I just wanted a civilized conversation, and you people insisted on fighting me."

He moved closer to Mila, who was glassy-eyed. "Nice to see you again. I was very much hoping that you were on his blood. So sweet that Landon shared with you. But I suppose all he was ever good for was his blood."

He was too close to her. She was angry. I was angry. We both wanted him to die.

"The great thing about vampires," he went on, "is that they can live through so much. I could keep you for as long as I want. I very much like to play. But you'll find that out firsthand. Very soon."

He grabbed her by the throat like he had in the hotel. My wife, my mate, the mother of my future children. He was hurting her. I had told her she was mine to protect, so I needed to prove it.

Knox was squeezing her neck, and I didn't care about my own pain anymore. I reached out for the knife I'd dropped. My head was a mess, and thoughts weren't even coming in as words anymore. It was all just feelings. I love her, and she is in pain. I need to end the pain.

My fingers closed around the hilt of the knife, and I gripped it in my hand. I lifted it up and sent it into Knox's Achilles tendon. He screamed, and the pain in my head lessoned as he dropped Mila.

I forced myself up and pulled Knox to the floor. He was already weak. He was trying to get into our heads again, but when you were in as much pain as he was, it wasn't so easy.

This was it. Hundreds of years, and it all ended in this moment, the moment I sank the knife into the heart of the coward before me. It went in, and I ripped it down his torso, splitting it open and ending him quicker than he deserved.

He was dead. My family was safe.

And I didn't want to die anymore.