Chapter 10 #2
From up above, some of the shifters lifted the heavier weaponry I’d designed myself.
I smirked when I saw the barrels of the semi-automatic machine guns come into sight, knowing that they were loaded with the wooden bullets soaked in garlic oil.
The constant popping sounds of their gunfire went off and the vampires on the battlefield with me screeched in surprise.
They hadn’t been expecting that.
I fought on even harder, my confidence renewed. I spun and sank my stake into more vampires than I could count. I made every single step count. I maneuvered with purpose, dancing through the ranks of vampires as if I’d been made for this.
“Keep going, Ava. Keep making me proud.”
With a roar, I launched off my feet and stabbed a rather large vamp with my stake.
He was so muscled that my stake didn’t quite sink in far enough, but Lawson threw his body upward, using the base of his paw to slam the wooden weapon in far enough to kill him.
I stared down at it for a second, almost in surprise.
I wouldn’t be able to wrench that one back out.
I reached for my belt and grabbed another.
The continual blast of gunfire from above was comforting.
A vampire sped toward me, and I sidestepped to avoid him, only to have the contents of his skull explode across my cheek.
I hastily wiped it off of me, knowing it was probably still streaked across my face.
I turned back, only to see Toboe about twenty feet away, a lopsided grin on his face.
“Thanks!” I called out.
“No problem, boss lady,” he answered and in seconds, he’d shifted back into his wolf form only to tear into another vampire.
His fighting style was rather majestic, smooth and swift, almost as if he was dancing through the battlefield.
I didn’t watch him for long, because I was quickly distracted by another vampire rushing my way.
I clocked him in the jaw hard and spun fast, feinting in one direction before I stepped back and slammed my stake straight into his heart.
He was thin, rather gangly, and not particularly strong so he went down easily.
The sky was getting dark, and the first few stars were beginning to twinkle high above. The moon was already well above the horizon, bright and full and giving off enough light for me to be able to see pretty clearly.
I fought through several more vampires trying to make their way into the mansion. It felt as if we were making headway for a short while, at least until a second wave of vampires swooped in on the perimeter of the property.
They were carrying much bigger guns than the first wave had been.
I stiffened, knowing that things were about to get far more intense.
They didn’t wait to begin pulling the trigger.
The constant pop of gunfire echoed heavy in the air, and it was quickly returned by my shifter family.
The vampires screeched in agony once my garlic-soaked wooden bullets struck them at first and those screams only grew louder when they began to splinter inside them.
Several of them paused long enough for the sentries above to shoot a sunfire bullet straight into their skulls, but they didn’t get them all.
I dove into the fray, trying to take care of as many of them that I could.
They were caught off guard by me and I took advantage of that, driving my stake into one Venuti Clan member after the next.
Lawson followed after me, his snarls vicious as he tore into the monsters that threatened his pack.
It seemed to be going well and I began to hope that all of us were going to see this through.
I ignored the sweat dripping down my back and focused on knocking out a particularly nasty fighter that had taken down at least one or two of the wolves.
I met his eyes and he knelt down, cocking his head to the side like a slithering snake.
I grimaced, studying his graceful movements as he slinked in my direction.
He was tall and lanky, but the muscles of his arms were solid.
His red eyes bore into mine, and a wicked smile spread across his lips that left me feeling chilled.
I didn’t like it. He was going to have to die next.
I waited for him to come to me. Cocky monsters like him couldn’t resist a fight.
I slid my hands along my belt, remembering the knife in my vest. I didn’t want to use that yet.
There was one last clip of sunfire bullets, and I swiftly loaded it into one of my guns.
The vamp had chosen that moment of distraction to race toward me, but I’d expected that and when he was within a few steps of me, I turned quickly on my feet so that he rushed past me in his haste.
I leveled my sight with the back of his head and pulled the trigger, ending him in less time than it took for me to draw in a breath.
My only regret was not being able to see the look on his arrogant face when he realized that I had won.
The battle raged on all around me. When it finally ended, there were going to be a great many dead, both wolf and vampire alike. The constant gunfire and ceaseless screaming would haunt me for a long time, but now was not the time to focus on that.
I had to kill as many of the Venuti as I could. They’d killed my father and now they were trying to kill my second family. I wasn’t going to let them.
I used the rest of my bullets to take out several more vamps that were carrying heavy-looking guns. They exploded in a brilliant show of light, and I moved on quickly, knowing that every second counted in this battle between the Venuti and the Crescent Moon Pack.
Without warning, a group of vampires surrounded me.
Out of bullets and armed only with a wooden stake, I quickly realized that I was outnumbered, and things were about to get rough.
The vampires consisted of both men and women, all very strong and from the looks of it, quite old.
Their skin had an opaque papery consistency, more so than most vampires.
I also noticed that the red in their eyes wasn’t quite as bright as the younger ones, almost a dull blood red rather than the brilliant scarlet of a freshly sired vamp.
One of them walked forward and looked me up and down. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
She looked like she’d come from money, her black pantsuit some designer label that I didn’t remember the name of.
The fabric was covered in muted gray stripes, making her appear tall and lean, and accentuating the elegant curves of her body along with it.
Her eyes weren’t like the others, bright red and intense as she stared back at me.
Long blonde hair wound down her back, soft waves that probably took a long time to perfect.
She was really quite pretty, but I could sense nothing but danger as she peered back at me.
“I didn’t expect to see the likes of you here in the wolf’s den,” she purred, and I didn’t like how unsettled her voice made me. I swallowed bravely and lifted my chin, gazing back at her with a look just as hard as hers.
“Well. Surprise,” I quipped brazenly, not caring that the rest of the vamps around me stiffened at the challenge in my voice.
Her eyes hardened and she cocked her head to the side, appraising me with interest. Her expression was cold and unfeeling. The other Venuti kept looking toward her and I quickly realized that she was the one in charge of this massive attack.
“Ethan Winters’ daughter,” she murmured, her voice laced with expectation. “Now you are most certainly a prize.”
She lifted a finger and a vampire grabbed me from behind.
I reacted solely on instinct and lurched forward, throwing the unfortunate soul straight over my shoulder.
It turned out the one that had grabbed me had been a woman and when she landed flat on her back, I forcefully stabbed a stake right through her heart.
I stood back up, taking my bloody stake along with it.
I stared back at the woman, rolling my upper lip in her direction. I studied her face a bit more, taking note of the high curve of her cheekbones and the plumpness of her lips. When she was alive, she’d probably paid for her fair share of plastic surgery.
“My name is Ava Winters. Who are you?” I asked boldly.
Her smile widened.
“Lola Claiborne,” she answered simply.
Immediately, I recognized her last name.
Her father was the governor of Louisiana.
He was well liked by the human faction, but his daughter’s reputation had followed him around like a dark cloud.
She liked to spend money and party in the quarter like it was going out of style.
More than once, she’d walked out on a tab or left a hotel room a mess and her father had needed to deal with it for her with an endless amount of dollar bills.
Apparently, it had finally caught up to her and the Venuti had taken her for themselves, probably to get the governor on their side.
She began to circle me, and I followed suit.
I could tell from the swiftness in her movements that she was still a fairly young vampire.
She still wasn’t used to humanizing the way she moved, each one happening a bit too quickly and a bit disjointed to the eye.
Her fledgling status would mean that she would be harder to kill and stronger than most of the others.
I wasn’t about to back down though.
I could sense Lawson on the outside. His incessant growls of fury were met with shrieking from the vampires, but I knew he was working his way in. Toboe’s snarls joined his, and before long there was a small group of shifters trying to break into the circle that held me captive.