Chapter 168

Joseph’s POV

Tessa?

Why the hell was Tessa inside the bank?

I looked down and saw that Mulligan and some of the officers passed out on the ground with bleeding ears. Tessa also passed out, but she didn’t have bleeding ears. It was clear Ryan had drunk from her and she lost too much blood.

My blood was boiling.

Everything happened all at the same time. Rogues were coming out everywhere to attack both Carter and me. More rogues piled into the building.

I witnessed Fae’s new goddess-given gift and now I’m seeing the aftermath as Mulligan struggled to regain his consciousness. When Fae stopped screaming the first time, it knocked him and the others out, but since she stopped, they were starting to twitch back to consciousness.

Fae started to scream again, and it shook the entire building; I looked at Carter who returned my confused look. She was trying to take us out, but because we were elders, her abilities didn’t work for us. This gave us an advantage.

I knew from Fae’s eyes that Ryan had given her a drug that turned her extremely feral. I also noticed that most of the rogues and Ryan had earplugs. But I knew there were more rogues in this building, and I wondered if they all had earplugs too.

The rogues attacked us on Ryan’s orders as he stood in front of Tessa like he was protecting his precious jewels. That only pissed me off even more.

I was seeing fucking red.

“We need to get Tessa out of here,” I said to Carter, knowing that no one else could hear us speaking while Fae screamed.

We fought the rogues with ease; between Carter’s strength and my speed, they weren’t a match for us.Carter looked around as he continued to fight; he broke a few rogue necks, and they instantly went down. But it wasn’t going to kill them permanently; only silver and wood can be used to kill vampires.

It didn’t take long for Carter to reach one of the handguns the Nightwalkers had dropped and shoot the rogue in the head.

“He gave Fae something that’s making her like this,” I shouted to Carter. “Look at her eyes! She’s not herself, even as a new vampire!”

Carter glanced at Fae and his eyes shined with recognition.

“It’s Stardust,” he announced, looking back at me. “I trained all my warriors to recognize it during battle.”

He was right; Stardust could make any vampire feral.

Fae had finally stopped screaming when she realized it wasn’t doing anything.

“Is there a cure for it?” I asked.

Before Carter could answer, we were attacked by more rogues, along with Ryan. I let Carter take care of the rogues while I dealt with Ryan.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked while we fought.“I want you to make me into a rogue and let me go free with Fae by my side,” Ryan growled.

“That’s not happening,” I growled in return. “You’ve done too much wrong to be set free and with Fae being a new vampire, she needs to train and learn how to use her abilities.”

“She can use it just fine,” Ryan seethed as he struck me with his fist.

I grabbed his arm to keep him from punching me again and punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

“Joseph!!!” Carter yelled from across the room and when I looked at him, he was surrounded by new rouges.

These rogues had just entered through different sections of the building.

It only took a moment of distraction for Ryan to stab me in the arm with a wooden stake he must have been hiding. I yelled out in pain as I slammed him into the wall. His head bounced off violently and he hissed in pain. He was powerless and weak with the prison cuff still around his wrist.

I grabbed the stake that was sticking out of my arm and threw it to the ground. Ryan was in a daze when I slammed his head into the wall. I was planning on killing him, but I wanted him to watch as I killed his little army first.

I left him to fend for himself as I went to help Carter.

“Get to Tessa!” Carter yelled, drawing my attention to Tessa who was still passed out on the ground.

Fae had gotten to her and was about to sync her fangs into her. I used my abilities to get to them quickly, but Fae had already dug her fangs into Tessa’s neck.

I body-slammed her off Tessa and she went flying across the room. As she hit the wall, I saw that her mouth was filled with Tessa’s blood.

I turned to Tessa and pressed my fingers to her neck, feeling her pulse; my heart both racing rapidly and aching painfully. She was so pale; she lost a lot of blood. I moved some of her hair out of her face and her eyes opened slightly to look at me.

She looked as if she wanted to say something but shushed her and held her to my chest. I needed her to feel my warmth and the passion that I had for her. I needed her to know that I was here and that I wasn’t going to let anything else happen to her.

“Isn’t this precious,” Ryan seethed. “Too bad the reunion will have to end.”

I looked up to see that Ryan was pointing a gun at me. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Carter was now alone in fighting the rogues and there seemed to be even more rogues that had joined the fight.

“But if you turned me into a rogue, I’ll let you both live. If not…then, I’ll just have to kill you all and then find other elders who will do as I ask,” Ryan seethed through his teeth.

I opened my mouth to speak but just before I had the chance, I heard gunfire, making me flinch. For a second, I thought I was shot. I released Tessa and stared down at my chest. When I saw there was no bullet, I panicked and looked at Tessa, searching for a bullet wound.

It didn’t take long to see that it wasn’t us that was shot.

Ryan fell to the ground with a bullet wound to his head.

Standing behind him, pointing the gun, was Fae.

Fae was breathing heavily and shaking rapidly. Her entire body trembled as she dropped the gun. Her eyes were no longer black; they were back to their normal blues, and they were filling with tears as she looked down at Tessa.Before I could say anything to her, our attention was turned to Carter who was grunting and growling at the rogues who were still attacking. Some of the hostages were already awake and sobbing as they held their aching ears and tried to recover their burst eardrums.

Mulligan was now sitting up and assessing what was going on around him; he looked as if he had aged many years. Blood still trickled out of his ears and winced in pain.

I quickly stood, taking Tessa with me and keeping her close to my chest. I reached Mulligan across the room before the rogues noticed; they were too preoccupied with Carter.

“Get her and the others out of here,” I ordered.

I don’t think Mulligan could hear me because his brows creased, and he looked confused.

I motioned for Tessa and glanced around the room at the others who were starting to wake as well. Then I motioned with my head toward the door, indicating to get them out. He understood what I was saying and nodded as I placed Tessa in his arms.

Fae stood in the far corner, watching as Mulligan gathered those around the room and led them out of the building. I didn’t stick around to watch; I went back to Carter and helped him fight.Once the hostages and the Nightwalkers were out of the building, Fae grabbed a gun off the ground and went to join us in the fight.

I still had so many questions as to how she recovered from the stardust, but I knew now wasn’t the time to ask these questions. If she was on our side and able to help us, then I was going to let her.

She was also a good shooter as well; managed to shoot some of the rogues that had entered through the backdoor without leaving her spot. Once they were dead, she turned to me and narrowed her eyes, then she gave me a nod.

I knew exactly what she was about to do. I turned to Carter who was still fighting like the mighty warrior he was.

“Carter!” I yelled to get his attention.

He looked over at me with a frown, so I continued and yelled, “Get down!!!”

Without hesitation, Carter flung himself to the ground and I did the same, just as Fae began to scream at the top of her lungs. This time, the scream was even more intense, and it made me incredibly uncomfortable. I had to cover my ears before my own eardrums shattered.

I heard the glass from the windows shattering. The entire building shook so much that I knew it was going to fall.

The rogues screamed in agony as they fell to the ground. I knew if we didn’t get out of here and quickly, we were going to be in the middle of a crumbled building. I stood, and though I felt wobbly and uncomfortable from the screaming, I ran as quickly as I could toward the front door with Carter on my tail.

But not before I wrapped an arm around Fae’s waist and pulled her along with us. Just as we got out of the building, the entire thing began to collapse.

I heard Tessa screaming at the top of her lungs in terror as she watched the building fall to the ground. She was starting to run in its direction, not seeing that we were already outside but Jordan came out of nowhere and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her away.

What the hell was he still doing here? He was supposed to head back to the headquarters.

She fought angrily against him. I was lying on the ground with soot and dust in my lungs and my vision was becoming blurry from the amount of dust in the air.

I wanted to reach out to her and tell her that I was fine. She needed to know that I was alive. I could feel her pain and horror and it hurt my heart.

But as the dust cleared the vision restored, I saw Jordan taking a syringe from one of the EMT workers and sticking it in Tessa’s neck, making her collapse against him.