Rain begins to batter the metal siding of the building, and a muted boom of thunder cracks from somewhere distant outside.

Hannah clutches the revolver in both hands and slowly peeks over the edge of the crate.

She's met with the visual of the vampire dodging Kane's sword with otherworldly agility. His voice was muffled because he was wearing an intricately designed and demonic mask with a mouth of sharp teeth set in an everlasting snarl. It's fully covering his face, save for his dark eyes and tousled black hair.

Hannah might have zero experience with a blade, but even she can appreciate the impressiveness of Kane's footwork and the way he never wavers with the weapon, even though he must be feeling it in his muscles with how hard he's arching his sword through the air, swiping the blade with his entire body, but he refuses to give up an inch to allow the vampire to retaliate and keeps the creature dodging and on the offensive.

And, all the while, Kane's smiling manically; it's really unnerving, and at the same time, she's holding her breath at the sight of it, sweating beneath her jacket.

Her gaze moves down.

On the floor, not far away, a dead woman lies. She looks to have been young—not over twenty. A rain slickened a deathly pallor to her skin. Dim eyes stare up at the metal beams crisscrossing the building's high ceiling. Her neck has been ravaged, ripped apart, with blood spilling to stain the dirty concrete crimson. It's a sickening sight. It churns Hannah's stomach with nausea.

A sudden howl of pain draws her attention sharply back to the fight. Kane's breathing heavily, his body bowed forward with the hilt of his sword clutched in both hands, and his smile has widened, causing a shiver to ascend Hannah's spine.

The vampire clutches his bleeding hand, making pathetic sounds that are close to whimpers from beneath his mask.

Kane says breathlessly, "Bad idea to come after me, huh?" He straightens his stance, keeping a bit of distance between him and the vampire, and his eyes glow with magic, the green alight with a fire that promises chaos. "Come on, then. Who's your master?"

The vampire growls and shakes his head. Blood drips onto the concrete from the three stumps left of his fingers. The digits in question scattered across the dirty flooring in speckles of crimson. "Not after you," he chokes, "Not you. We've been told to kill you if we have the chance. But we aren't after you."

Kane's boots scuff dirt as he walks closer. Unafraid that he's within reach of the vampire, he lays the sharp edge of his blade against the creature's throat as a cocky threat. The gruffness in his voice is dangerous: "Who are you after, then? Tell me, or I'll spend the evening hacking away all your important parts, slowly and very enjoyably."

The vampire stares at his own dripping blood pooling against the concrete. "Who are we after? Who have we been watching? And, waiting for, so patiently." His dark eyes rise slowly, meeting Hannah's gaze over the top of the crates, and the glint of darkness in the vampire's eyes has all her instincts on high alert.

The vampire's gaze slips to Kane with a slow rising smile. "Reid Kimberk."

Hannah's about to shout Kane's name to warn him that something is amiss, but it's too late. As the name is uttered, Kane's eyes widen a fraction and his breath stutters, leaving an opening.

And, the vampire takes it.

It happens unbelievably fast. The vampire seizes Kane's wrist and twists, not letting up even when the weapon clatters to the ground, surely cracking bones with the force and leaving Kane gasping pain-filled breaths.

An echoing backhanded slap cracks across Kane's cheek, and he's thrown against the concrete, his head smacking hard against the dirty floor.

Hannah's raising the gun with both shaking hands and using the wooden crate to steady her aim the moment her head can catch up to what she's seeing; it's all happening so quickly, in a matter of seconds, it's jarring.

The vampire is atop Kane in the blink of an eye. Weight heavy against Kane's middle, and with his bloodied hands, he clasps Kane's throat, strangling him with a maniac glint in the dark eyes that peer out from beneath the mask.

Kane's out of it, blood pooling on the floor beneath his head, revealing an injury. He's dazed, his head lulling, but he still fights, punching at the masked face, doing little from his position, and clawing rivets of blood down the vampire's bare throat.

Hannah sucks in a breath and pulls the trigger of the revolver. The echoing sound is defeaning, but the click of the chamber turning is loud even beneath the ringing in her ears.

The struggle between the pair on the ground unfortunately has the bullet go wide; there's a loud ping against the metal siding on the other side of the warehouse.

The vampire looks at her sharply, startled by the barrel of a gun he apparently hadn't expected. "Don't move. Don't breath."

He's disregarding her a second later when a punch lands against his jaw. Not seeing her as a threat any longer, he presses harder against Kane's throat, cutting off the sputtering lungfuls of air that Kane had been desperately taking.

She can't move. It's an overpowering wave of dark power crashing against the coast that is her adrenaline-racing thoughts. Her finger twitches on the trigger. Her cheeks are wet with tears that fall unbidden as she's unable to blink. Lungs burning with the need to breathe, but refusing to allow her the reprieve of air It's torture.

The vampire leans closer to Kane's reddening face, purring so darkly that it seems to draw the clinging shadows nearer, "Don't worry. After you lose consciousness, I'll tie you up, turn you, and keep you for a few hundred years." He growls lowly, "I'll make you my pet. Show you off. The great Kenneth Rainier, how beautifully tragic you'll be."

Kane's palm pushing at the vampire's face is growing sluggish, and his weakened fingers hook in the edge of the demonic mask, yanking it off and leaving it clattering to the bloody concrete. His sword isn't far; he might even be able to reach it, but she can see Kane's not thinking right; with a lack of air and his head wound, he's only reacting.

Hannah's going to die. With her body stuck fast. Her head is growing dizzy. She can make out the vampire's ordinary features, maybe in his late twenties. It's frightening that there's a good chance Hannah could have passed him on the street, and she'd never have known that she just walked by such a monster.

The vampire doesn't let up on Kane's throat. He opens his mouth ever so slowly, and the fangs that peek from his lips as he nips teasingly at Kane's fingers that try and shove at his face are downright frightening; they're big, not something she'd wish to have anywhere near her.

Kane's eyes are threatening to close, dark lashes fluttering shut, but when the vampire bites into his palm savagely, they fly open, nostrils flaring, and dripping blood seeps beneath the wrist of Kane's leather jacket. And she knows if Kane could, he would be growling and cursing with the sheer amount of hatred that's burning behind his dimming green eyes.

Hannah almost loses consciousness from lack of air, and if she could move, her head would have fallen against the crate below her resting elbows. Just as her eyes begin to shut for good, suddenly, the pendant against her chest warms, and her magic thrums to life as if pushed to awaken.

She gasps for air. Life races through her blood, clearing the cloud of darkness over her thoughts, and she pulls the trigger without hesitation.

The bullet meets its mark in the vampire's shoulder, and the vampire rears back, howling in pain.

Hannah shoots again and again until she's used every bullet, and all that's left is the click of the empty chamber.

At least three are embedded in the bastard, but he doesn't waver.

The vampire's dark eyes hone in on her, letting Kane's bleeding hand fall beside his lulling head, and the vampire's bloody fingers slip away from Kane's throat, now more interested in the other threat.

It's as if she's staring at the shadows themselves come alive to drag her into hell; it's frightening on a level that she herself can't comprehend, other than a primal urge to live and flee the creature of death that's hunting her.

Kane takes ragged breaths. He clutches at his neck, black and blue bruises already marring his skin and smearing blood.

"Kane!" Hannah shouts, her voice wavering with fear and adrenaline. Her voice seems to rouse him somewhat, because he stops trying to refill his lungs and blinks rapidly, trying to take in the situation with obvious disorientation. "A bit of fire. Yeah?"

Without looking away from her, the vampire covers Kane's mouth and nose with a palm, garnering a soft, throaty sound of protest from Kane's throat as he's suffocated once again.

The vampire doesn't react to the fingernails digging groves into the back of his hand or the way Kane moves his head back and forth to try and jostle his hand, which is cutting off his air.

The vampire growls at her, "Kill yourse--"

But he never gets to finish because he's cut off by his own screaming.

The scent of burnt flesh emanates from the palm Kane's slapped against the vampire's cheek, and with a vibrant glow to his green eyes, Kane uses his magic to conjure enough fire to leave half the creature's face cauterised and bloody.

She tastes blood in her mouth from how hard she's biting her tongue.

And, before the vampire can think to fight back, Kane's already grabbed the hilt of the fallen blade, and the steel arcs through the air, glinting against the torchlight, and embeds itself into the side of the vampire's neck.

It's a sickening sound—flesh rendering and steel tearing.

Kane retakes his blood-covered sword, spraying blood across the concrete. He shoves the vampire off of him with a guttural snarl.

It's not a clean cut; no more sound escapes the vampire except gurgles. He's still alive, body spasming, hands scrambling to clutch at the deep wound bleeding profusely from his rendered throat.

Kane struggles to rise, his knees threatening to buckle, and ever so slowly straightens his back, standing tall. His breathing is ragged as he looks down at the fallen vampire.

There's no hesitation in raising his blade, even as he and the vampire must have met eyes. Kane brings down the sword until the vampire's head is rendered from its body and the gurgling falls quiet.

But Hannah's not staring at the nightmares staining the warehouse floor; she's staring at Kane. It's hard not to. His throat is bruised to hell; speckles of blood darken his black clothing; blood drips from the deep bite in his palm and mingles with the blood dripping from his sword, leaving a crimson stain atop the concrete floor.

He stumbles back a few steps, away from the carnage. After everything and coming so close to death, he's smirking like he's having the time of his life. It's crooked and not far from deranged, but god, she's never been more turned on in her life.

Hannah's eyes skirt the shadows, afraid she'll see Valrus, but the pendant lays cold against her chest. Valrus helped her; she knows it deep somewhere within her; he saved her life tonight.

Her legs feel shaky, but she refuses to show it, walking out from behind the crate and hurrying to Kane's side.

Kane's watching her warily.

She hesitates to touch him, afraid of rejection, but shoves past it, laying her palms against his throat, fingers brushing his cheeks, careful not to ache the nasty bruise that's darkening the right side of his battered face.

Kane stiffens at the touch but doesn't move away. "Finally scared?"

"You're so hot." She leans up on her tiptoes and whispers breathlessly, "What the hell? Why are you so hot?"

Kane's eyes widen.

He doesn't have a chance to let the rosy blush settle and redden his cheeks before she presses their mouths together. If he doesn't want her, he'll have to shove her off, and she'll gladly take the concrete floor to her ass for a chance to quell this aching heat that's clenching in her core.

She shouldn't be startled when fingers fist the back of her hair, aching her scalp, and drag her closer, hard, but she is, and she lets out a loud moan of surprise to rumble between their slickened lips.

Kane kisses like he fights—no hesitation, rough, stealing breath, and leaving no room to counter.