Chapter 15 #3
We stepped into the hallway, and I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Madison, blood streaming down her neck in dark rivulets.
Derek pressed a rune wafer to her lips, murmuring instructions.
Celia snapped the rune dispenser on her belt, placed a tab on her own tongue, then bent and scooped Madison up effortlessly, one arm under her legs, the other braced behind her back.
She murmured something to her husband and jogged toward the stairs like Madison weighed nothing at all.
Strength wafer. Had to be. She made it look terrifyingly easy.
“Come on. A fight has broken out upstairs. It should be easy pickings for you, Stella,” Silex said, jerking his chin toward the upper level where shouts and crashes echoed over the wail of sirens.
We moved fast. Asher, Silex, Derek, and I took the stairs two at a time. When we reached the bar level, the room had been cleared of diners and staff. Tables were overturned, glass crunching underfoot. It was just us and vampires now.
“Go on,” Asher urged, pointing to a distracted vampire stalking toward a student with their back turned.
Okay. One more. One kill and then I could go home and process the fact that my mother was willingly paying a vampire twenty grand a month and might still be alive.
I sprinted forward, stake in hand. The vampire heard me at the last second and pivoted, colliding with me like a freight train. One moment, I was charging, and the next, I was airborne. The air blasted from my lungs as I crashed backward into a table, wood splintering beneath me.
“You need help, Sinclair?” Derek shouted as the vampire launched himself into the air, coming down hard toward me.
Damn it. My stake lay useless on the floor where he’d clotheslined me.
“No!” I croaked, barely managing the word as I rolled aside. He landed where I’d just been, and I scrambled up, grabbing a steak knife from a fallen place setting.
His eyes glowed red as he snarled and charged again. I caught a glimpse of Asher in my peripheral vision but forced my focus forward.
The vamp closed the distance fast. When he was close enough, I kicked hard, my boot slamming between his legs. He folded forward just like I’d hoped, and I drove the knife upward, aiming for his heart.
I missed. I knew it instantly, the blade scraping bone instead of sinking clean.
Damn.
I yanked it free and stabbed three times in rapid succession, just like Alex had taught me. This time, it worked. The vampire collapsed forward just as Asher screamed my name.
“Stella!”
I turned but too late. A massive vampire, nearly seven feet tall, seized me by the throat and lifted me up off the ground like I weighed nothing.
My feet kicked uselessly as he dragged my neck toward his mouth like he was about to bite into an apple.
I swung wildly, slamming my brass knuckles into the side of his face as stars burst across my vision.
Then pain, sharp and burning on my neck.
I felt him gulp.
One second, he was drinking me like a smoothie, and the next, he dropped me. My head cracked the ground hard as the vamp staggered away and retched violently. Dark blood splattered the floor.
I barely had time to process the horror before Silex took the vampire’s head clean off.
Asher was at my side instantly, catching me as I crumpled. I thought he was shouting my name, but everything sounded distant, muffled.
That was when the world went dark.
I came to a few minutes later with a pounding headache, my skull throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I cracked my eyes open to find myself in Asher’s arms, cradled against his chest as we walked down Main Avenue behind the others.
He felt me stir and looked down. “You okay, Tyson?”
I groaned. “Yeah.”
“She all right, Voss?” Derek asked.
“I think so, sir,” Asher answered, his gaze drifting over my face, lingering at my lips, before a grin broke through.
“What?” I asked weakly.
“We’re getting hunter marks tomorrow.”
A surge of excitement cut through the fog in my head.
“We did it,” I managed, my voice thick.
Derek stepped closer and held out a wafer. “Stitch mender wafer. Helps with concussions, which I’m pretty sure you have right now.”
I opened my mouth, and he placed it on my tongue. As it dissolved, the pressure eased, the dizziness fading, the lights sharpening back into focus.
“I think I can walk,” I whispered to Asher.
Asher said nothing. His arms tightened around me even more, pulling me closer like he didn’t want to let me go.
I rested my head against his shoulder, breathing him in. Cologne, coffee, salt, something smoky like burnt wood.
He smelled unreal.
The warmth in my chest flared, then dimmed just as fast.
He was taken. He was Daphne’s. I wasn’t that girl.
“Asher, I want to walk,” I said more firmly.
He stopped short, looking down at me, hurt flashing across his face.
“I’m sure Daphne’s excited to hear that you’ll be getting your hunter marks tomorrow,” I added, and guilt immediately crossed his face.
He let go of me, and I slid slowly down his body until my boots met the pavement. There was a brief dizzy spell, the world tilting for half a second, but then it passed and I steadied myself, taking a few slow steps away from Asher.
The best way to avoid temptation was to remove it from your life entirely.