A savage cascade of power, all of it focused on one central target. Lijuan's body bowed as the power hit her, the sky turning to daylight for a single startling second. When night returned, Zhou Lijuan was simply gone, the Forbidden City nothing but a black crater, Beijing a memory in immortal and mortal minds.

The agony of the dying was drowned out only by the silence of the dead.

He found Elena buried under the wings of two of his Seven. Jason and Aodhan were unconscious, the bones in their legs twisted. But those injuries were nothing to immortals of their age. They'd survive. Elena was far, far younger.

But she had the will of a hunter-born.

He felt the stubborn flicker of her life even as he picked her crumpled body up from the hard earth where she'd been thrown. Her hands were torn open, her face bruised, but her body . . . Stroking his hand down it, he realized he felt only a few fractures. Minor. Even for such a young angel. He should have let her rest, but he couldn't bear the silence.

Elena.

Her lashes fluttered.

He couldn't hasten her healing, having burned out his power in the fight to hold Lijuan.

It would take time to recover.

Hunter mine.

Pale silver eyes looking into his.

Love, he thought as he held her to his heart, was an agony beyond compare.