18. Gross.
EIGHTEEN
Gross.
Just as my father predicted, Breckenan and his brood of idiot vampires attempted to ambush the ship from the shore, making use of their preternatural abilities to clear the water and land on the lowest of the accessible decks where we waited for them.
Outside of photographs, I remembered nothing of the man who had ruined my life.
I would thank my father’s uncle for that later.
For the moment, I would hunt him and then beat him to death with my favorite of my weapons, the humble bowl. Getting to him would prove problematic, however.
He’d opted to board the ship a hefty distance from my position closer to the gangway. Emerick growled, wound up, and bitch slapped the nearest miscreant with his ancient Bible.
The man erupted into a shower of golden light and dust, and the planks where his remains scattered shone with a brilliant luminescence. I blinked, and in the time it took me to suck in a breath, the glow spread, sweeping across my ship and imbuing everything it touched with its radiance.
Rather than dwell on it, I lunged for my chosen target, a younger man who stared at the spreading golden illumination with a mix of shock and terror.
Determined to prove I could handle myself in a fight without copying my husband, I opted to put the opal stake to the test, using my body weight to drive the tip through his breastbone and towards his heart.
I grunted at the force of impact, and the stake met some resistance before it slid into my victim with the silky smoothness of a hot knife given the task of cutting warmed butter.
His body slumped to the desk, falling off the stake.
At first, the opal dripped blood. The first few drops remained crimson before it withered to a ghastly dark shade neither black nor red.
The decay began with the hole in his chest, spread rapidly, and in the span of a few seconds, the corpse rotted away to bone and desiccated sinew.
Gross.
“That’s different,” Emerick commented before taking a few steps forward and marching to his next target, an older man with darkly tanned skin, who wisely stayed out of Meridian’s reach but failed to cover his back, likely expecting his two fallen comrades to safeguard him.
I foresaw the three of us battling over the body. As I wanted to leave the wereviper a snack, I went for the bowl, put every bit of my preternatural strength into the swing, and clobbered the back of the bastard’s head.
He staggered forward.
Meridian transformed into a giant cobra at least thirty feet long, her coils forming a neat ring. She snapped her head forward, enveloped the man’s head and chest in her mouth, and bit down. I grimaced at the start of a muffled scream, although the sound halted with Meridian’s second bite.
We kept going, and the vampire’s feet disappeared down the wereviper’s throat in the time it took us to dodge her and head towards where Breckenan had boarded the vessel.
A part of me harbored relief my father battled lesser vampires and irritants behind us.
Understanding my father’s origins gave me a better insight on our differences and similarities.
Unlike him, I had been born a hunter. Like him, the thought of becoming anything like Breckenan sickened me.
We fought for the same causes, but I lacked many of my father’s misgivings.
I had no scruples regarding my place in the world, and I would shed however much blood was needed to see Breckenan’s evil fall to nothing, incapable of rising again.
I suspected he carried more than his fair share of regrets.
When I viewed my life through the lens of my father’s circumstances, from the moment I’d drawn the first breath of my second life, he’d given me as charmed of a life as he could.
His inability to wrap me in satin sheets and put me in the ivory tower served me well, and I would become a sun-quenched sword so he could chase his gentler pursuits.
As hungry sharks waited in the waters below, I didn’t bother wasting time with my second victim.
Backhanding him over the rail with the bowl would give our allies something to do, and while we could jump, vampires couldn’t fly.
I paused long enough to peek overboard and smile as the man splashed into the ocean.
Dorsal fins converged, bubbles rose, and in short order, the surface stilled.
“Not in the mood to play with your prey today?” my husband asked, and he borrowed a page from my book, although he used his shoulder to heave his target over the railing.
I checked on Breckenan to discover Ben had joined the party armed with two opal dinosaur femurs.
“These things aren’t my prey. They’re irritants in my way.
My prey is over there learning why Ben is terrifying when armed with a stick.
Well, clubs. Do you remember what sort of dinosaur those came from? ”
“I don’t. I was too busy trying to convince this Bible to leave me alive for your entertainment.”
“Thank you,” I told the ancient relic. “I very much appreciate your mercy towards my spouse. I’d miss him if anything were to happen to him.”
“That was almost as good as you telling me you love me.”
I raised a brow at that. “I do love you, which is why I said it. If I didn’t, I would have said something entirely different. If you want additional love, we need to finish hacking our way to Ben before he steals our kill.”
“If he steals our kill, he’ll be even more of a legend than he already is.”
That gave me a moment of pause, as the old vampire had been alone for a long time and wanted to once again experience the love he’d lost long ago. “Hmm.”
“You shouldn’t be matchmaking during the middle of an ambush,” Emerick stated, and he shook his head. “Top number of kills gets to pick dinner tonight and controls our bedroom celebrations for the next week.”
“You’re on.” I rolled my shoulders, stretched my neck, and steadied myself with a deep breath, taking stock of the flurry of activity on the lower deck.
For the most part, Breckenan dodged Ben. I respected his caution.
If Ben got a hold of the bastard, that was that, and I appreciated that he understood he faced a real threat.
However, the last thing I needed was Breckenan surprising any of us. In combat, surprises tended to have lethal consequences.
As the werevipers could handle themselves, I aimed for Ben and Breckenan, determined to eradicate anyone dumb enough to get in my way.
The walkway around the ship, which allowed for four people to walk comfortably, helped contain my prey.
With the choices of up, into the shark-infested waters, or stay and fight, the failed ambushers tended to stay and fight.
The first, who looked to be a teen, hissed at me and displayed his diminutive fangs. A recent turn? An experiment gone terribly wrong? I regretted I would likely never have the answer.
He lunged for me, attacking with his bare hands angled at my throat.
In the time it took him to reach me, I stowed my bowl in its holder so I wouldn’t drop it, dropped the opal stake into its sheath, and adjusted my stance. Before he could touch me, I introduced my knee to his groin, grabbed hold of his tattered clothes, and tossed him overboard.
Without bothering to behold his fate, I retrieved the stake, seeking out my next victim so I could plan the perfect date with a satisfying dessert of my husband. I locked my attention on Breckenan.
While going for the main target might lose me the bet, I’d win us the war—even if I ruined Ben’s chance to finish off our prey.
As though somehow sensing his death closed in on him, Breckenan cursed, lunged for the rail, and jumped, propelling over the wall, the smack hard into the pier beyond. Rather than a graceful roll, he skidded to a halt before scrambling to his feet.
Ben snarled curses but did not pursue.
Upon realizing their master fled, the other vampires chose to leap overboard instead of continuing to fight with us.
Some made it to the dock, but most splashed into the water.
The hunting preternaturals below struck, and blood frothed at the surface before the waves quieted to ripples.
I leaned over the rail, raising a brow at the bits of bodies the predators below hadn’t gobbled down. “Well, I think I will be taking the gangway to get to shore.”
My father, who wore more blood than I was comfortable with, approached, joining me in examining the water below. “I believe I shall fly. He isn’t escaping me, not now.”
Ben growled, tucked the bones under an arm, and leapt to the dock. Unlike Breckenan, he tucked into a neat roll, did a full revolution, and popped back to his feet before taking chase.
“I’m not even trying that.”
“You have wings, use them,” my father suggested before transforming into his hierofalcon form and launching into the air. I waved my fist, but as flight would get me safely to land so I could join the pursuit, I huffed and puffed before saying, “I trust you can make that jump, Mr. Lowrance?”
“With as much grace and skill as Ben, I assure you. Go stretch your wings, and I’ll catch up. I may delay to eradicate an irritant along the way. I spy with my little eye a miscreant you’d love to drain dry.”
“That filth doesn’t deserve being consumed.
Stab without remorse or hesitation and reduce them to dust,” I replied.
After taking a deep breath, I followed my father’s lead, attempted to embrace my avian form, and transformed.
While becoming a sun-colored cat had been much simpler than a black one, taking up the mantle of the hierofalcon reminded me of breathing, automatic and natural.
The merest thought of zipping into the sky was sufficient to begin the process.