Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [1076]
Rubber and metal smoking in protest, the sedan stopped short.
Hunter’s body kept moving, sailing through the air and landing several hundred feet ahead on the cold pavement. He rolled out of the tumble and was on his feet like nothing happened, pistol raised and firing round after round into the unmoving car.
He saw Murdock slide out of the backseat and dash for his escape into a shadowed back alley, but there was no time to deal with him before the Gen One was out of the car as well, the barrel of a large-caliber pistol locked and loaded, trained squarely on Hunter. They faced off, the assassin’s weapon raised to kill, eyes cold with the same emotionless determination that centered Hunter in his stance on the iced-up patch of asphalt.
Bullets exploded from the two guns at the same time.
Hunter dodged out of harm’s way in what felt to him like calculated slow motion. He knew his opponent would have done the same as Hunter’s round sped toward him. Another hail of gunfire erupted, a rain of bullets this time as both vampires unloaded their magazines on each other. Neither of them took anything more than a superficial hit.
They were too evenly matched, trained in the same methods. They were both hard to kill, and prepared to take the fight to their final breath.
In a blur of motion and lethal intent, the pair of them ditched their empty firearms and took their battle hand-to-hand.
Hunter deflected the rapid-fire upper torso blows that the assassin led with as he roared up on him. There was a kick that might have connected with his jaw if not for a sharp tilt of his head, then another strike aimed at his groin, but diverted when Hunter grabbed the assassin’s boot and twisted him into a midair spin.
The assassin regained his footing with little trouble, coming right back for more. He threw a punch and Hunter grabbed his fist, crushing bones as he tightened his grip then came around to use his body as a lever while he wrenched the outstretched arm backward at the elbow. The joint broke with a sharp crack, yet the assassin merely grunted, the only indication he gave of the certain pain he was feeling. The damaged arm hung useless at his side as he pivoted to throw another punch at Hunter’s face. The blow connected, tearing the skin just above his right eye and hitting so hard, Hunter’s vision filled with stars. He shook off the momentary daze, just in time to intercept a second assault—fist and foot coming at him in the same instant.
Back and forth it went, both males breathing hard from the exertion, both bleeding from various places where the other had managed to get the upper hand. Neither would ask for mercy, no matter how long or bloody their combat became.
Mercy was a concept foreign to them, the flipside of pity. Two things that had been beaten out of their lexicon from the time they were boys.
The only thing worse than mercy or pity was failure, and as Hunter took hold of his opponent’s broken arm and drove the big male down to the ground with his knee planted in the middle of the assassin’s spine, he saw the acknowledgment of imminent failure flicker like a dark flame in the Gen One’s cold eyes.
He had lost this battle.
He knew it, just as Hunter knew it when a clear shot at the thick black collar around the assassin’s neck presented itself to him in that next instant.
Hunter reached out with his free hand to grab one of the discarded pistols from its place on the pavement. He flipped it around in his hand, wielding the metal butt like a hammer, then brought it down on the collar that ringed the assassin’s neck.
Again, and harder now, a blow that put a dent in the impenetrable material that housed a diabolical device. A device crafted by Dragos and his laboratory for a single purpose: to ensure the loyalty and obedience of the deadly army he’d bred to serve him.
Hunter heard a small hum as the tampered casing triggered the coming detonation. Dragos’s assassin