Blood Warrior (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #4) by Jennifer Malone Wright

bit.”
    “ Let him go and then we
can talk.” Anthony ignored her taunting.
    She shook her head again. “I do not
think so. I know why you are here, why you are looking for me. So,
no, I will not release this boy. She used her free hand to tilt
Zander’s face up toward her so that she could look at his face. “As
a matter of fact, I think that maybe I will keep him.”
    Anthony took another testing step
forward. She saw him advancing on her and moved backward with
Zander.
    “ I’m not anyone’s pet,”
Zander spat at her.
    She ran her fingertips over the line
of his neck. “We shall see about that,” she whispered and then
turned her attention back to Anthony. “I am quite disappointed in
you. I would think you so much better than consorting with such
pathetic creatures. Truly, Anthony, humans? This is what you have
lowered yourself to?”
    Realizing that she had no intention of
releasing Zander, I decided that I should probably chance shooting
her. It looked like that was the only option. I breathed out
slowly, and aimed at Korina’s head.
    Zander saw what I was doing and closed
his eyes. I could only thank God that Christina wasn’t in the room
yet, she would have went after him and done everything she could to
avoid this. Where was she anyway?
    “ I shall be leaving New
Orleans now, so don’t bother continuing your search for me after I
leave here. She backed out the door. We followed, the entire group
moved as one, stepping forward slowly. “My bloodline shall never
perish, I have worked too hard for centuries to build such a
family.”
    “ We shall find you,”
Anthony told her.
    Shoot Chloe! Shoot
her! I told myself, over and over
again. She is going to get
away .
    “ Oh hell, no,” Drew
muttered. “We have lost too much to let her get away now.” He
raised his gun and took aim.
    “ Drew, no,” I whispered.
“Let me.” He knew I had the better shot. But, dammit, I had to take
it soon or we were going to lose him.
    She continued to back up and Drew
nodded. “Last chance, Chloe, then I’m doing it.”
    “ Tell your friends
goodbye,” Korina told Zander, her lips close to his ear. “It will
be a…” Her sentence was cut off and she lurched forward, almost
letting go of Zander.
    Behind her, about six feet down the
deck, Christina stood with an expression fiercer than I’d ever seen
on her. She threw another knife, which lodged itself deep in
Korina’s back. “You take your hands off of him!” Christina yelled
holding another large knife.
    Korina didn’t turn around, she still
faced us and even though she had two knives sticking out of her
back, she smiled. “Missed the vital organs, honey. You are going to
have to do much better than that, if you want to kill me.” And
then, without warning, she lifted Zander into the air and jumped
over the side of the deck with him wrapped in her arms.
    We all ran forward as we heard the
splash. Everyone leaned over the railing, searching for any sign of
them. I held my gun out, wanting to fire, but not wanting to hit
Zander in the process.
    Everyone in my group had the same
thoughts as me, but Sarah, now that was a different story. She
didn’t know Zander and her only mission was to stop this freaking
apocalypse.
    “ Screw this,” she growled
and then fired her rifle into the water. The rest of her group
followed suit and began peppering the river below us with
bullets.
    Oh, please God, let him be
all right.
    “ Let’s go!” Christina
screamed, running down the deck, toward the dock. “We have to find
him.”
    I stayed where I was for a moment,
trying to get a focus on the water. Anthony stayed with me while
everyone else followed Christina. Nothing. The water was still
moving from the spray of ammunition so it was hard to tell if there
was any movement underneath.
    “ There,” Anthony
whispered, pointing at the bank of the river, a good distance away
from us. The shadowy form of a woman was dragging Zanders limp body
from the confines of