SHE FULLY EXPECTS the bullet to stop in midair and doesn't know if Lucas is simply too slow or if his diverted attention when shoving her causes him to slip up, but he's suddenly hitting the ground beside her on his back.

Somehow Lucas took his gun out when she was busy blinking.

He fires.

Cale takes a bullet to his chest.

The muscular vampire is staggered when his shoulder is struck twice in quick succession.

The other vampire that had been flirting with Nyx shoves the table onto its side, firing blindly as he takes cover.

Hannah keeps her head down as bullets zip past and grabs Lucas's bicep, and with the assistance of Stanton, they manage to find cover behind some nearby crates. She peeks over at Nyx to make sure she's not riddled with bullet holes.

"Stanton!" Nyx is gone the moment the name leaves her lips, bullets whizzing past the space she just occupied.

Then, Nyx blinks into existence beside Cale with a black stick in her hand, and at a click, it becomes a grisly blade that glints off the low lighting overhead. She growls and shoves the steel through the vampire's bleeding neck.

"Holy shit," Hannah gasps, wide-eyed.

Nyx snarls and kicks the vampire's body away. He falls to the ground, gurgling blood and twitching.

Flattening her back against the crating and trying not to vomit, Hannah's shaking so badly that her fingers beneath her dress fumble to unclip the gun from its holster. She risks looking at Lucas. He's bleeding from his shoulder.

From her other side, Stanton's elbow bumps into hers. He has his gun held tightly and peeks around the edge of the crating. Nyx is fighting; the telltale noises of a chaotic scuffle fill the room.

"You're hit," Hannah whispers to Lucas, like they're in some bad action movie.

Bullets whiz by. Some are pinging the crate, splintering tiny pieces of wood to rain down on them.

Lucas takes a handful of loose bullets from the pocket of his jacket and begins calmly reloading his gun. "I'm good."

"You're literally shot," Hannah replies, grimacing as her fingers slip on the sweaty leather against her thigh. She should've practiced longer and not let Kane's wonderful mouth distract her. "Your shoulder's bleeding. Like a lot."

Stanton is suddenly gone, and Hannah flinches. She's getting sick of people poofing away. The burnt smell of awakened magic makes her nose twitch.

Lucas is peeking around the corner of the crating, and that's why his hand between her legs takes her wholly by surprise.

She moves to close her thighs instinctively, but Lucas's palm shoves her knee wide. His fingers graze the leather holster. "Don't stick your head up." He unclips her gun in one smooth motion without looking because he's a showoff. "Only take a shot if you have to."

He drops her pistol into her lap for her sweaty fingers to fumble and looks at her then, his gun held at shoulder height lazily. Lucas laughs a little at whatever dumbfounded expression she's making.

Hannah begs Kane to forgive her for the wayward thoughts that she can't control because she's weak, so weak. She's never been forced to spread her legs for a hot man so he can remove a gun attached to her thigh. The act hits a deep, twisted desire she'd rather not look into right now.

She glares at Lucas's curious grin. "What are you going to do?"

Lucas's gaze takes on a vibrant glow. He winks, and then he's gone. As if he were never there, and she's left blinking dumbly at an empty space. She flinches at the sound of sudden, erupting gunshots and scuffling.

Hannah shifts onto her knees, facing the crating with her gun held tightly. She's about to risk a peek over the crates despite what Lucas told her when a faint scruff and creak of the floorboards have her stiffening with apprehension.

She looks over her shoulder warily.

Reddish fur is what she sees. 

Then, she fully takes in the werewolf that's sniffing the air between them. Her breath escapes her lungs in a shaky exhale and refuses to return.

This wolf is significantly smaller than the form Henrik had taken during the fight at the auction, but that doesn't mean the giant maw of sharp teeth doesn't make her blood run ice cold.

"Shit," Hannah whispers shakily.

She flinches as the crate shakes when something or someone hits it from the other side. There's a fierce battle happening beyond, but she's here, on her knees, trembling with a gun in her hand and a werewolf inches from her face.

The wolf blinks at her through intelligent brown eyes. She notices that there's a peek of fair fur and the reddish hue is blood. The wolf nears, and its claws scrape the concrete. The only reason her fear doesn't propel her to utilize the pistol shaking in her grasp is because there's a limp to the animal's gait.

"You were hiding," Hannah says, eyes widening. She realizes all at once why Cale was whining about not being able to 'break this one'. "We'll help you."

She's utterly taken aback when she suddenly has a lot of fur on her face. She thinks that when a heavy head flops onto her shoulder and soft whimpering noises begin near her ear, this is the equivalent of a werewolf embrace. She hopes anyway. She doesn't want to end up eaten and have that be her end after everything.

Hannah lays her hand on the wolf's back, fingers slipping into surprisingly soft fur. The stickiness of blood warms her palm. She pats the furry, muscular back awkwardly.

"Stay here," Hannah whispers, gently shoving the werewolf backward and into the shadowed corner between the wall and crating, claws scraping the concrete. Brown eyes blink at her. She feels strange talking aloud when she won't receive an answer, but there's a person in there. "My friends are fighting. We're the...good guys."

The wolf tilts his head, its fluffy ears flopping to the side adorably. There's a sharpness in his eyes that Hannah recognizes as curiosity.

The gunshots stop, and now there are the telltale grunts and sounds of close-quarters scuffling. She has to get out there and explains hastily, "We're trying to put a stop to men like them. Their leader—we, uh, have been trying to find him. I can't explain it fully. You'll have to trust me—and you can trust the mages fighting those vampires, too."

Those feral brown eyes blink at her, sniffing the air. Then the wolf distributes their weight to their hind legs and jumps onto the crating, claws scratching the bullet-ridden wood. There's a rippling growl that has fear ascending her spine in a shudder.

"What the fuck?" Hannah hisses past gulping, panicked breaths. She slowly peeks over the edge of the crating and nearly vomits.

The wolf's fur, already stained red with blood, is dripping with it while the maw of their sharp teeth rips into the throat of the vampire that was Cale, now unrecognizable. She's certain he was killed by Nyx's blade. The wolf is getting revenge for whatever torment it suffered.

She has to look away quickly, bile burning her throat.

Stanton lingers near some stacked crating. He's flexing his fingers with a pained expression. His knuckles are split, bleeding sluggishly.

Nyx has her blade back to its rod state. She steps over a body and glances around a corner of tall crates that nearly reach the ceiling. "There's a door back there. He must have run that way. Hurry up. Let's get our asses moving."

Lucas leans against the far wall with a hand on his shoulder. He gives her a reassuring smile that is slightly strained.

She rises onto shaky legs, rushing to him while pointedly ignoring the carnage that's covering the floor in blood that sticks to the soles of her runners.

"Let go." Hannah grips Lucas's bloody fingers, which apply pressure to his shoulder. "Let me see."

She tugs them away with mild resistance and sucks air through her teeth at the sight of a gaping bullet wound. She hears Stanton curse but is wholly focused on Lucas bleeding out.

Hannah mutters, "Not shot, he said."

Lucas laughs lowly. "Nah, I said, I'm good. Knew I was shot." He wipes at his bruised nose with the backs of his fingers, broken since the Pancake Express and now trickling blood steadily. "Got shot in the same place as Reid—romantic, huh?"

She snorts. "Yeah, real romantic."

Lucas laughs gruffly, removing his jacket. He leans closer and whispers, "Don't turn around."

There's suddenly a burst of creative cursing from a man's voice that could make even Kane blanche. Mostly wishing creatively horrible fates on the dead vampires that are currently polishing the floor with their warm blood.

Hannah whispers, "He's naked, isn't he?"

Lucas wads his jacket, pressing it against his shoulder, and tilts his head to glance past her. He looks back at her with a cocked eyebrow and an obvious appreciation in his gaze.

She glares, and Lucas grins.

"Thank you for helping me," the man says from behind her. His voice, when it's not screeching expletives, has a naturally soft timbre. Fabric rustles. "I would have killed them myself...but, honestly, I was scared shitless." He doesn't give any time for a reply. "Crap it all. I needed to question one of them. My friend's gone—"

Hannah's eyes widen in tandem with Lucas's. Rowan said her friend was a werewolf and was searching for her after she didn't return.

She whispers, "Do you think...Presley?"

"How do you know my name?"

Hannah looks over her shoulder with a wide smile. "Rowan—"

There's a lot of man standing not far away. Blood-stained blonde hair tucked behind his ears and brown, feral eyes that extenuate a soft, handsome face that's bruised and battered. He'd slipped a black shirt on, lazily buttoned, that he'd relinquished from somewhere that'd kept it free of bloodstains.

But, to her horror, he's not wearing anything on his lower half. She's given a good eyeful of his assets.

Nyx lingers near the crating, and she's grinning, not at Presley but at Hannah's panicked reaction.

Hannah covers her eyes. "Why did you start with your shirt!?" She swats at Lucas blindly when he begins chuckling at her expense. "Pants! Now!"

Presley mutters, "Oh. Sorry." There's a rustle of fabric. "Rowan? You said her name."

Lucas answers calmly, "She's a friend of ours."

"She doesn't have friends," Presley returns warily. He clears his throat. "You can uncover your eyes now."

Hannah does, relieved that he's wearing jeans and shoes. She returns Presley's shy smile. His brown eyes slide to the bloody floor at his feet, shoulders hunched. He has a slight pinking to his high cheekbones. It's a sheepish gesture—strange for a man who blinked at her without flinching when she'd openly stared at his nakedness a moment prior.

"Rowan," Hannah says, and Presley's gaze snaps back to her. She shivers from the wildness that this man exudes by simply staring into her eyes. "We do know her. Red hair. Likes to tell crazy stories."

She smiles at Presley's hasty nod. Her heart aches at the way his brown eyes brighten with hopefulness. "She, um, ran into some trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Presley asks, frowning.

Hannah doesn't know how to explain that horror. She settles for softly assuring, "Don't worry. She's safe now."

Nyx saunters over, eyes on Lucas. "You're hurt. We're in enemy territory..." She looks at the bodies on the floor and then gives Lucas's paling expression a wicked grin. "Ever done it?"

Lucas grits, "No."

"What?" Hannah asks.

"Vampire blood," Nyx whispers, nearing. She smells faintly of perfume. "It can heal you. Stanton's done it once."

Stanton shrugs from where he lingers near the crating, not far away. "I had a knife in my stomach. I thought the bastard owed me." He gives Nyx's toothy smile a narrowed gaze that holds fondness. "Tastes weird. You still have time. They don't die, die, for a while."

Lucas looks grim. "Get the bullet out."