CHAPTER 11
Deep within the shadowy maw of the alley, a vampire held a witch in its arms. The air around them shimmered with its glamour, like electrified heat waves rising from asphalt.
Humans passing by would probably see a happy couple making out, but vamp magic didn’t work on shifters, and the sight that met me was much less romantic.
The bloodsucker was a huge, hulking male with oleaginous dark hair and nacreous blue-green eyes.
Its skin was alabaster white, paper thin, and looked slightly…
moist. This was why vampires needed glamour.
No one would look at this creature and think it was human.
The sight of it was deeply repellent to me on an instinctual level, and they only became more monstrous the older they got.
The witch it assaulted was short and curvy.
Strands of her mousy blond hair clung to the vamp’s clammy skin.
Her brown eyes were wide in her face, and the smell of her fear permeated the air.
Stronger still was her anger. She was pissed, and if given half the chance, might help me take the vampire down if I freed her.
I noted all of this within a second of entering the alleyway, my brain working on overdrive to assess the current threat.
The vampire pulled its lips from the witch’s neck and backed up, dragging her with him, deeper into the shadows, where it wouldn’t be seen from the street.
Its hand was clamped over her mouth in a viselike grip that must have been painful.
Her eyes met mine and she tried to yell through it, whether asking for help or trying to curse the bloodsucker, I couldn’t tell.
I let out a low growl and took a measured step forward.
I didn’t like witches, but I hated vampires.
I had been bred to kill them. My worst memories involved an ancient one ripping my birth pack to pieces.
Not even the fact that we’d earned her wrath lessened my hatred of the species.
The countless hours I’d spent in my adoptive pack’s therapist’s office working through the resulting trauma were useless to me now.
Seeing this vampire attacking someone brought all of my terror and rage boiling to the surface.
Back then, I’d been too helpless to save anyone. Things were different now. This vampire was young. From the feel of its magic, I’d say it was less than a year undead.
I could take it.
An echo of my mother’s warning tried to surface then, cautioning me against anger. I smothered it. In my shoes, she’d step in and do something, too. She wouldn’t just let a vampire kill a witch in front of her.
“Hey, asshole,” I said, moving forward.
Michael grabbed my shoulder. “Wait for backup.”
The vampire smiled. It was a terrible sight. Its teeth were long and needle-sharp. They dripped crimson like something out of a nightmare. When it spoke, the voice that rasped out of it sounded like a dry wind scorching through a barren wasteland. “I killed your backup.”
Michael stiffened, fingers digging into my shoulder. “Layla?”
I took a deep pull through my nose. Son of a bitch. “It smells like wolf blood.”
Anger thundered through the bond. Michael let go of my shoulder and stepped beside me. His face was open, tone conversational, betraying nothing of his true feelings. “Free the witch, and I won’t tell your brood leader that you attacked her in the middle of my territory.”
I could tell from his scent that he was lying. Hell, the vamp probably knew he was lying—they had some freaky magic. The question was, why was Michael lying? Was he stalling? Hoping someone would find the bodies and converge on us? Or give a passing sentry time to feel the vamp here?
Wait a second. Why hadn’t we felt the vamp?
Was this one so young that it slipped under our magical radar?
I concentrated, directing my power in its direction.
Nothing. It didn’t even register as a vampire from this close.
Like it didn’t exist. Or was cloaked. But Michael said they couldn’t do that.
What the hell was going on here? Why did nothing make sense in this Goddess-cursed city?
The vampire’s grin widened. “What makes you think my brood leader would care?” It pulled the witch back a few more steps, staring Michael down, and then leaned in and dragged its long tongue over her savaged neck.
She jerked away and kicked at its shins.
It chuckled like it thought her struggle was cute, and then licked her again, lapping up her blood like a cat with a saucer of milk.
In general, I didn’t think of myself as a violent person.
I’d trained pretty hard not to be. The instincts might be there, but I was able to think past them and instead solve my conflicts with words.
Right now, no amount of talking would lessen my desire to punch the smug smile off this vampire’s face.
It had come into Michael’s territory, killed wolves, attacked a witch, and now it was taunting us.
Screw waiting for backup.
I glanced behind me. We were deep enough into the alley that the towering walls and heavy shadows of night gave us cover.
Human eyes couldn’t penetrate this level of darkness.
I turned back to the vampire, loosened the cage around my power, and started to shift.
My fingers thickened, claws pushing out of their tips.
Fur flowed down my arms. My jaw cracked, elongating, making room for the stiletto-sharp teeth that punched through my gums. Muscles rippled beneath my skin, gaining mass.
A seam along my zipper gave out with a loud tear, scattering beads over the alley floor.
Damn it! I really liked this dress!
I growled in anger, the sound low and guttural and filled with menace.
The witch caught sight of me and let out a muffled squeak.
I knew what I looked like: a monstrous amalgamation of human and wolf.
Most adults in my adoptive pack had this level of control, so to me it was nothing out of the ordinary.
We even had an annual contest to see who could distort themselves into the most grotesque half-form, and the winner received the Lon Chaney Award.
Word of our ability had spread, but we rarely displayed it to outsiders.
It was one thing to hear about it, another thing entirely to see it firsthand.
In certain situations, like dinner last night, it gave other preternaturals pause.
Or, judging by the witch’s spiking scent, scared the shit out of them.
The vampire finally looked away from Michael to me. It backed up another few steps, the wall only a few feet behind it now. Its eyes were wide in its face. I’d surprised it. Good. Now let’s see if I could keep that up.
I took a step forward.
A dark shape shot past me.
What the…
Michael sprinted toward the pair, his earlier rage replaced by a cool, steady calm. The vampire grinned at him, like this was what it had wanted all along, and then lifted the witch and threw her at the brick wall so hard that if she hit, her skull would crack.
Shit!
I assessed the situation in a microsecond.
Something threatened my mate. Something big and undead and powerful that could probably kick his ass.
But the witch was about to die, or at the very least be critically injured if one of us didn’t make her our priority.
If Michael shifted his trajectory to try to save her, his right side would be left wide open to the vampire, and I didn’t know if he was fast enough to reach her before the vamp reached him.
“I got her!” I yelled.
I sprang forward, closing the space between me and the witch so fast that the alley blurred around me.
I got between her and the brick and wrapped myself around her much smaller frame, trying to soften the impact, careful to keep my claws off her.
My spine cracked against the bricks when we hit, and the wall shuddered.
Her head bounced off my chest. Mortar wafted down around us like snow.
Well, that fucking hurt.
I set the witch on her feet. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes were slightly glazed, but she nodded. Then she caught sight of me and took a quick step away.
I opened my mouth to tell her I wouldn’t hurt her, but a crushing pain erupted along my right side, and all that came out was a low wheeze.
It felt like someone just hit me with a sledgehammer.
I doubled over, clutching at my ribs. What the hell?
Had I hurt something critical when I smacked into the wall?
I didn’t think so. I could already feel the bruises healing down my back.
Turning, I saw Michael favoring his right side as he circled the vampire. Oh, dear Goddess. I hadn’t been punched. He had. I forgot that on top of sharing pleasure through the bond, we also shared each other’s pain.
Michael feinted right, and the vampire moved with him. Michael dodged back to the left with inhuman speed, planted those tree trunk legs, and hammered three blows into the vampire’s rib cage. Beneath his fists, the bloodsucker’s bones snapped with the sound of dry sticks splintering.
Pain spread through my hands, and I looked down to see red blooming across my knuckles.
The vampire snarled and surged forward, but Michael danced away. Vampires were supposed to be faster than us, more graceful. My memory served up images of a wraithlike creature that cut through ranks of werewolves like an unstoppable miasma of death. Michael made this one look clumsy in comparison.