Back From Hell by Shiloh Walker

tunnel vision, desperate to get to Jenai’s side, he hadn’t seen the trap as it had closed around him.
    A growl trickled out of his throat as he eased Steph over his shoulder. Her blood was hot on his shoulder, seeping through the layers of her clothes and his. Tainted. The bullets the bastards had used had some sort of silver in them. Poison to so many of the autre .
    They were going to pay for this. Austin Brunich would die. Ronan would see to that. After he solved the puzzle of why Austin wanted these women dead…and him, as well. The ground blurred under his feet as he ran. Jenai was just ahead at the tree line—or she had been, when he yelled at her to go.
    Turning, he saw the white-gold cap of her hair as she ran over the ground so fast that her legs blurred as she launched herself toward the men who had hurt her sister.
    He should have known—the woman he knew wouldn’t stay out of harm’s way, even if there were silver bullets flying and the threat of death imminent.
    Not when these bastards had just attacked her and her sister without cause, not when her sister had the poison of silver pumping through her system.
    The need to hunt, to kill, to protect pumped through him, almost overtaking his mind, and he wanted, badly, to join her.
    But joining her now , when they were so badly outnumbered, and Stephanie seriously wounded—they would be digging their own graves.
    “Jenai.”
    She heard him across the distance, even though he spoke softly. Her head moved in his direction for the quickest of seconds before she took down one of the men holding a rifle. In that moment, as he watched her sink fangs into the man’s neck, one burning question was at least partially answered.
    She wasn’t wholly vampire, but vampiric blood and hunger ran through her. Whatever else she was, he didn’t know.
    His own hunger tore through him as he scented the blood and the flesh, but he battled it down.
    “Jenai. Your sister is alive…for now. Do you want her to stay that way? Or die before we can help her?”
    He had known his words would enrage her, but still, it was rather disturbing to see the effects of that rage. Blood still stained her lips, and the very fires of hell seemed to burn in her eyes as she ran back to them.
    “They will die,” she whispered, touching her fingers lightly to Steph’s brow.
    “Yes. But if we try to make it happen tonight, so will she,” Ronan said, shaking his head. Glancing over her shoulder, he saw that they had been spotted by more of the men who surrounded the blazing house. “C’mon.”

Chapter Four
     
    The hotel was as anonymous as they were going to get.
    Ronan lay Steph on the bed, feeling something in his gut clench. Damn it. It was his fault she was lying there, the poison of the silver bullet leeching through her system.
    Rising, he turned to Jenai and said, “Open a vein. Feed her.”
    The way her silver eyes widened was almost comical. “Okay, you obviously know a little more about us than I like. But I’m the vampire, not Steph.”
    He shook his head. “Part vampire,” Ronan said, surprising a gasp out of her. He moved up to her, reaching out, trailing his fingers along the length of her slender neck. The way she trembled under that light touch had him fighting the urge to snatch her against him—taste her mouth, in the flesh, for the first time.
    The need to feel her body against his was driving him insane. Instead of grabbing her though, he ran his finger up her neck, skimmed it along the bow of her lips, pressing lightly, just there, where her fangs would show if she was angry.
    “Only part vampire—I’ve been driving myself insane wondering that about you. Of course, you’d never tell me. You tried so hard not to tell me anything.”
    Her lips parted and he could almost hear the angry words she’d use to push him away. Sorry, sweetheart, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going anywhere.
    Pressing his fingers against her lips, he silenced the words before