Ashes of Midnight Read Online Free

here!”
     
Tires squealing, the Mercedes jerked into a violent backward retreat. As the car spun around on the narrow track of pavement, its bumper crunching into the vehicle behind them in the driver’s panic, Claire watched the guards in the two remaining cars out front throw open their doors and try to make an escape on foot. One of them leapt to safety in the woods.
     
The other proved only seconds too slow. The first fireball crashed down into the hood of his car, obliterating man and metal both in a sickening roar of twisting, flying debris.
     
Claire screamed, turning her face away from the carnage just as the second fireball rained down onto the empty car ahead of them on the road. The thundering explosion shook the earth and chewed a deep, smoking crater into the ground.
     
The guard next to her made the sign of the cross on his chest, then punched the back of the driver’s seat with anasty curse. “Go, you moron! Hit the fucking gas! Get us out of here!”
     
Too late.
     
From out of nowhere—from out of the sky itself, it seemed—came a rolling, fiery sphere of heat. The fireball soared down past the windshield of the vehicle, the glow of it so intense it filled the interior of the Mercedes with blinding white-hot light. Whatever it was, it felt charged with the power of ten suns, as electric as a bolt of lightning, concentrated into an orb the size of a bowling ball. All the hair on Claire’s arms and at the back of her neck rose up as the thing smashed into the ground mere feet from the hood of the car.
     
Another fireball hit behind them, knocking Claire and her two companions forward in their seats. The driver’s head hit the steering wheel with a sickening crack . The airbag detonated with the impact, setting off the car’s security system. Amid the bleating alarm and the puff of chemical smoke from the deployed airbag, Claire also smelled the trace scent of blood. She wiped her forehead and swallowed hard when her fingers came away stained crimson.
     
Shit.
     
It was never a good idea to bleed in front of vampires, even vampires disciplined by Enforcement Agency training and dedicated to the service of her very powerful, very unforgiving mate. Not that she really expected to live long enough tonight to worry about the potential blood thirsts of her guards. It didn’t seem likely that she or any of them would survive these next few moments.
     
“Run,” growled the one in back with her. He had a gun in each hand. His pupils were contracted to vertical slits in the center of their amber irises as he glared at the doorhandle beside her. The panel swung open with the force of his Breed mind. “Run as far as you can. It’s your only hope.”
     
Claire scrambled out and hit the ground in a clumsy stagger. Her legs were weak, shaking. Her head was ringing, her heart hammering in her chest. She heard the guard roar as he got out of the vehicle on the other side and stood to face whatever assault was coming.
     
Claire drifted toward the tall black shadows of the woods as the chaos continued all around her. A couple of guards raced past her, weapons drawn, as though any of them could stand against the hell that had arrived here tonight. She couldn’t imagine what kind of army had opened up such a brutal offensive strike. Claire shot a terrified look over her shoulder as she made her way to the edge of the forest.
     
Whoever the attacking forces were, they were coming closer now. The unearthly glow of the forest behind her was growing brighter, marking their progress. Her steps slowed as the orange light reached through the trees like rays of scorching sunshine in the midst of coldest darkness. She stared, transfixed, unable to look away from the approach of what was probably going to be her death.
     
A silhouette began to take shape.
     
Not an army, but a single man.
     
A man whose entire being was alive with flames.
     
For one instant—one jarring, delusional instant—Claire thought she recognized the