Chapter 40
Chapter forty
Ethan
Blood pounded in Ethan’s ears, and the frenzied beat of his heart seemed to vibrate through his bones. After weeks of nightmares, endless hours of training in the gym, and constant memories of shattered glass and Jake’s blood dripping from ivory fangs… he was finally going to get his revenge.
Except he had no fucking clue what to do.
He thought he was over it—the violent, all-encompassing need to make her pay—but from the moment he saw Renata sitting by the surf, one voice screamed in his head, “Kill!” while another threw out plans of attack that were immediately dismissed as downright reckless.
Visions of the hospital and church parking lot flashed through his mind, and with his logical brain reactivated, he was fully aware he was no match for the sheer speed and power of this creature.
He still wanted nothing more than to tear out her throat with his bare hands, but his survival instincts left him quivering with impotent rage.
He finally had something and someone to live for, and he wasn’t going to carelessly throw it away. He had to be smart. If he couldn’t beat her with brawn, it had to be brains. But his brain glitched the moment he was finally ready to listen to it.
The thundering of the ocean waves and his own pulse were deafening, and he nearly missed the moment when the three vampires at his side launched their attack. Blurs of pastel, black, and brown flew forward, and all hell broke loose.
At first, Ethan couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening.
He could only see a whirlwind of limbs and the occasional arc of ruby red blood flying through the air to splatter on the sands around them.
The harsh staccato of fists meeting flesh popped off faster than a string of firecrackers as the cadre didn’t let up their assault for even a second.
And not a damn bit of it made any difference.
Renata maintained her smile throughout, and there wasn’t a scratch on her.
She moved through combat with an ethereal grace, bending, twisting, and weaving among the other vampires like a willow tree thrashing in a maelstrom.
Though she was clearly fighting purely defensively—focused on dodges and blocks—she manipulated the other three with the ease of a puppet master, using them against one another.
Each slash or punch was not so much deflected as it was redirected toward someone else.
Tressa, Derrick, and Saiden were continuously knocked into one another, their limbs fouling each other’s strikes and their knives drawing friendly blood.
With a twist of the hips and a sharp upswing of her arm, Renata spun an attacking Derrick in front of her, and he accidentally buried his knife in Tressa’s bicep when she came flying in with her own dagger.
Before he could dislodge his blade, Renata planted a hand on Derrick’s shoulder and vaulted over him.
The momentum sent him crashing into Tressa, knocking them both to the sand.
Slipping behind Renata silently, Saiden closed in on her, but his dagger flashed through empty air as she dove forward in a summersault that sprayed a wave of sand into his face.
Renata popped up from her roll only to blur back over to Derrick and Tressa as they rose from their tangle.
She viciously tore out the blade lodged in Tressa’s arm and sent it tumbling end over end for Saiden’s heart.
Though still blind to his surroundings, Saiden threw himself to the side, and the blade merely sliced through his shirt, scoring a line across his ribs.
Off to the side, Ethan finally overcame the initial shock of watching their combat. Just because he wasn’t going to be reckless didn’t mean he was going to sit on the sidelines the whole time. Not when he had a love worth fighting for.
He surged forward, hoping to tackle Renata to the ground while her back was turned and give the cadre a chance to collect themselves. If they could all pile on at once, her speed wouldn’t matter for shit when pinned under four bodies.
He only needed to close a few yards, a dozen steps at most, and with his new speed it should be over in…
A flash of sky and water whizzed past his face as he soared through the air to crash into the surf, a hot lance of pain spreading across his ribs.
Spitting out sand and seawater, Ethan pushed up to his hands and knees to see Renata smirking over her shoulder at him, her arm still extended from the backhand that had sent him face first into the ocean.
“Dammit,” he cursed. He could run faster than some cars could drive, yet Renata still made him feel like he was all but human again.
He let out a frustrated roar, but it quickly died in his throat when he saw Tressa spring to her feet and charge Renata. The rogue whirled to meet her, skin rippling and shimmering. In the most surreal experience ever, Ethan watched Renata transform into… himself?
Worse. She turned into a version of him he barely recognized—cringing in fear, hands held up, abject horror pasted across his face.
Tressa stumbled when she pulled up short, her eyes wide with shock, and worry spread across her face. Ethan could only imagine what was running through her head, faced with a vision of her mate so obviously terrified of her.
Before he could shout at Tressa to kick his own ass, Renata shifted back into herself and blurred forward. “Your will is weak, Loloma,” she snarled, then launched a push kick into Tressa’s chest.
There was an unmistakable crack of bone, and Tressa was launched a dozen yards away, sand swirling up in the vacuum created by her sudden departure.
Something broke within Ethan as he watched his mate tumble down the beach. Something deep and primal howled its fury, and his analytical brain that was still stuck in processing mode gave way to neanderthal anger once more.
Ethan tore from the surf and flashed forward, heedless of danger, his vision awash in red.
Snatching up a driftwood log as he ran, Ethan gripped the heavy wood in both hands as he bellowed his defiance and ripped loose a home run swing with every ounce of strength he could muster.
When the log whiffed through the air as Renata simply bobbed beneath the blow, the inertia of the swing pulled Ethan off balance, and he toppled to the ground.
Instead of landing in the sand, though, an iron grip seized him by the belt at the small of his back. Pain exploded in his head as he was violently flung through the air to crash into Saiden who’d been stealthily approaching from behind Renata.
They hit the ground hard, and Saiden cried out in agony when his shoulder twisted at an odd angle, the jagged end of a fractured clavicle tearing through the fabric of his shirt. Blood spurted out, spreading swiftly across his chest.
“She’s too fast,” he said, reaching up to press his hand to the gushing wound. “Even with my Gift, I can barely keep up.”
Ethan yanked his own shirt off, balled it up, and handed it to the wounded vamp.
Saiden let out a pained grunt as he popped the bone back inside and held the wad of fabric to the wound. His eyes darted from the downed Tressa over to Derrick, who was locked in his own dance with Renata. A dance he clearly wasn’t leading.
He shifted to look at Ethan. “I don’t think we can beat her.”