Chapter 11
Jaxon
“What the hell?” Flint exclaims.
I turn to find an actual arrow sticking out of the top of his shoe. I have one second to register that he’s been shot before an entire volley of arrows comes flying at us.
“Fuck.” I grab Flint and shove him toward the entrance of the private park we’re walking by.
It’s midnight, so the gates are closed and locked, but a quick thought has them flying open.
After ripping the arrow out of his shoe—and foot, it turns out—I drag him inside the park. “Are you all right?” I demand as another thought slams and relocks the gates behind us.
Not that I expect the lock to keep out anyone who really wants in, but we are talking about people who are shooting arrows at us. In the middle of New York City. It makes no sense.
If they’d used a gun, we’d be dead now, or at least badly injured. Instead, the arrows all went wide except the surprise one that struck Flint on the foot. Basically, we’re fine and we’re alerted that we’re being hunted. Plus, we’ve got a head start—one I definitely plan on taking advantage of.
Except when I turn to Flint, it’s to find him pale and swaying.
“Are you all right?” I demand again, grabbing his shoulder to steady him.
“Yeah, I just—” He breaks off, and I realize he’s sweating despite it only being about fifty degrees out.
“What’s going on?”
Instead of answering, he runs/limps past me to the nearest bush, where he throws up an entire bucket of popcorn.
“Fuck. That arrow was laced with something,” I tell him.
“No shit, Sherlock,” he replies right before he pukes again.
Which is just great, considering I dragged us into this park and turned us into sitting ducks for whoever’s hunting us.
Hunting.
The word hits me like a poisoned arrow, repeating over and over in my head as my stomach churns and my blood runs cold. I tell myself I’m being paranoid, tell myself that this is just the dragon clans up to their same old tricks, but I’m not so sure that’s true.
Also, who says the dragon clans haven’t been in league with these so-called hunters the whole time?
Just because I didn’t realize they were active again before today doesn’t mean that they haven’t been here the whole time.
It’s not like the dragons are exactly fond of vampires right now—after Flint’s brother got mixed up with Cyrus’s paranormal supremacy plan and Hudson killed him to stop him, any relationship between the two paranormal species ended.
So why wouldn’t the dragon clans align themselves with a group of people determined to rid the world of vampires forever? Plus, if they’ve been hunting vampires for a while, like Reginald claimed on the phone this morning, then they might know a lot more than I gave them credit for.
And now they’ve got Flint and me on the defensive.
Oh, hell no.
I don’t care what happens to me, but there’s no way they’re getting Flint. They’ll have to kill me first—which they obviously aren’t opposed to, but I’m hoping it will give Flint time to get away. But if he’s going to have any chance, we need to start moving now.
“Can you shift?” I ask. Because if he can, we’ll fly out of here and to hell with whatever these assholes have planned.
“As soon as I stop puking.”
At that moment, the gate starts to rattle, followed by a shout for someone to get the bolt cutters.
“I’m not sure we’ve got time for that,” I tell him. “Besides, won’t you metabolize whatever that shit is faster if you can get to your dragon form?”
I look around, trying to formulate a backup plan. There’s a small copse of trees about fifteen feet away. If I can get us there, at least we’ll have some cover.
“Good point,” Flint groans as I ease us deeper into the park shadows.
But then he doesn’t do anything. Which is a problem, because the gates are creaking open.
“Hurry up!” I urge, not wanting to shift myself until I know he’s okay.
“I can’t,” he answers, and for the first time, there’s real panic in his voice.
“What do you mean you can’t?” I move us into the trees as footfalls fan out from the front of the park.
“I mean I can’t,” he hisses. “There must have been something in that fucking arrow—” He breaks off as he starts to gag again. Unfortunately, he’s not the least bit quiet about it, either. Because why should something go our way?
“Okay. I’ll carry you out of here,” I whisper softly. “Just let me—”
I break off as I realize I can’t shift, either. No wings. No tail. No fire. And I can’t use my telekinesis. None of which makes any sense because I wasn’t— “Shit. They got me, too.”
I reach down and pull the arrow out of the back of my thigh.
“How did you not notice that?” Flint demands as I throw it on the ground next to me.
“How the fuck do I know? Adrenaline?” I sure can feel it now, though. It hurts like a bitch.
“Why aren’t you puking, then?”
I can’t believe how disgruntled he sounds about the fact that I’m not throwing up. “I don’t know. Different metabolism?”
The footsteps are getting closer—a branch cracks about twenty feet away from us.
“Do you think you’re done puking yet?” I demand. “Because we’re going to have to fight our way out of this.”
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” he answers as he shakes his whole body a few times like he’s trying to get his shit together. “Okay, I think I’m ready.”
A wave of dizziness hits me, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I ignore it. “Stay behind me,” I tell him as he pushes to his feet.
“I’m bigger than you, asshole.” Flint gives me an insulted look. Then he steps out from the cover of the tree we’re currently hiding behind and yells, “So which of you fuckwits thought shooting me with an arrow was a good idea?”
And that’s when all hell breaks loose.
A whole new volley of arrows comes flying straight at us. Instinctively, I try to use my telekinesis to knock them away, but—of course—it doesn’t work.
“Shit!” I grab Flint and drag him back behind the tree right before an arrow lands right where he was standing just a few seconds ago.
“Let me go,” he tells me. “We can’t stay back here forever.”
I want to argue with him, but he’s right so I just nod.
And follow him toward the closest group of hunters.
I can still fade, so I break away from Flint and approach the hunters from the right.
On the plus side, I’m so fast and they’re so focused on him that they don’t even notice me until I’m right up on them.
The first one I come to yells as he finally spots me.
But I slam my fist into his face, and he drops like a rock.
As he does, something scratches against the back of my hand, and I realize he’s wearing a necklace.
And on the necklace, like a charm—or a trophy—is a pair of very real-looking vampire fangs.
Rage explodes in me at the sight, and I whirl on the two hunters who are closest to me.
One of them has a hatchet, and he tries to bring it down on my head as I approach.
I dodge, but then he lifts it again, his eyes bright with a fervor that chills me to my bones.
And fuck it, just fuck it. I grab his head in both hands and twist fast in opposite directions.
His neck snaps, and I drop his lifeless body at my feet before turning to the guy standing next to him. He comes at me with a wicked-looking blade, but before I can disarm him, Flint grabs him by his weird little ponytail and sends him flying into the nearest tree. He hits with a satisfying crack.
“Thanks,” I tell Flint, who just grins and punches another hunter in the face.
He’s a big guy—much bigger than Flint or our friend Remy or anyone I’ve ever seen in person who wasn’t a giant—and he doesn’t go down. He punches one massive hand into Flint’s stomach, but then he screams when Flint kicks his heel into his knee hard enough to have the bone crunching loudly.
He hits the ground, and I kick him in the face, then pull my foot back to do it again. But the light blinks out of his eyes before I can connect, and he passes out. More’s the pity.
I jump over him just in time to stop an asshole from bringing a knife down right in the center of Flint’s back.
Flint is too busy duking it out with two other guys to notice, so I grab the bastard by the back of the collar and send him flying over my head and into the iron fence behind me.
It rattles loudly, telling me I hit the mark.
Flint, in the meantime, takes a pretty serious kick to his stomach. But he comes up with a roundhouse punch that sends the bastard flying. He doesn’t bother waiting for him to land before he’s looking around for someone else to take on.
Since three guys are currently converging on me, I grab one of them and send him Flint’s way. Apparently, he wasn’t expecting him, though, because he takes an elbow to the eye before knocking him away with a fierce dragon roar.
One of the guys coming at me is wielding one of those damn arrows like a knife.
He gets close enough to aim at my jugular, and I see another one of those fang necklaces around his neck.
I’m not sure what pisses me off more—the fact that he’s walking around with a fucking trophy from someone he’s killed or the knowledge that he would plan to do the same to my fangs.
Which is so not going to fucking happen, no matter what he thinks.
As he brings the arrow down straight toward my carotid artery, I whirl at the last minute and rip it out of his hand. Then I stab it straight through his chest and watch as he falls, lifeless, to the ground.
Since he doesn’t need it anymore, I yank the arrow out of his chest and plunge it into the other asshole’s cheek. Within seconds, he’s puking all over his own shoes—which can’t be pleasant with an arrow sticking out of his face.
Not that I give a shit.
I turn to try to find Flint and end up getting clocked in the face hard enough to have me stumbling several feet backward. I blink and shake my head, trying to get my wits back about me, but before I can, Flint breaks the guy’s neck and drops him next to the one with the arrow problem.
Then we’re both whirling around, back to back, as we wait to see who’s next.