by Riley Storm
“Fuck you,” Lilly spat as the knife headed home.
She was fast, but the vampire was faster. It turned, reached between its legs, and simply pinched the blade between two fingers. Lilly stopped cold an inch short of her target, her arms shaking with effort, but she couldn’t overpower the vampire.
Then, the vampire blurred in a twisting motion, and abruptly Lilly was back in the main room, on her knees, head wrenched to one side. Claire watched in horror as fangs emerged from within its mouth. The vampire was preparing to feed.
Claire got to her knees and reached for another kitchen knife, preparing to charge at it.
Something closed around her wrist before she could find one. Claire looked up to see the second vampire looming over her, a deadly smile on its face.
Muscles screamed, and suddenly she was next to Lilly, heads bent in toward one another. The vampires were hissing with delight. She could only imagine the fangs emerging from its mouth, preparing to suck her dry of blood.
This was it then. This was how it ended for both of them.
“I’m so sorry I got you into this, Lil,” Claire said softly. “You’ve been a great friend.”
“I’m sorry too. I should have been there for you.”
She felt muscles tense as the vampires lowered themselves to the women in unison. Claire tensed, steeling herself against the pain she knew was to come.
Then, the lights went out.
Claire blinked, and for a second, she thought she was dead. Everything was frozen, and in that moment, she realized one very crucial detail.
The lights hadn’t gone out. She wasn’t blind.
They had just dimmed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pietro
Something violent and electric surged through his system, jolting him awake.
Hairs stood on end all across his body as the excess electrical charge worked its way through every nerve ending. Pain followed. Lots and lots of pain.
Pietro was no stranger to pain, however, and he clamped down on it hard, shunting it away. There were more important things going on, a part of him knew.
Like why was he lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood?
A quick look around showed him the broken down door. A further glance at where the door should be showed him the frantic face of someone he knew.
Trent was here and gesturing frantically at Pietro to look to his right. Frowning, Pietro did.
What he saw dulled the pain and replaced it with searing anger.
Claire and Lilly were in the main room of his house. They had been forced to their knees by the pair of gray-skinned vampires, their heads wrenched to the side until they were nearly touching, exposing the soft skin of their necks.
And the flowing veins below. The creatures were taking their time in preparing to feed, letting the fear build in their victims, making their hearts beat as fast as possible. They could feed deeper that way.
I don’t fucking think so, Pietro snarled as he extended an arm towards the far one.
Fire filled his fist, as bright as the sun.
At the same moment, Trent reached up, and the lights dimmed as he sucked the power from the house.
The vampires looked up at that, their vision immediately letting them see what was happening, though the sudden appearance of the ball of fire in Pietro’s hand was a dead giveaway.
“Down!” Pietro boomed.
The two women reacted instinctively to the command-laced order, dropping flat as they pulled themselves free of the startled vampires.
Lightning and fire streaked across the room, their race to hit the vampires ending in a tie as they drove both creatures back, sending them tumbling twice. The vampires recovered with uncanny speed, rising to their feet an arm’s span short of the big bay window at the front of Pietro’s house.
The two dragons were already in pursuit. They cleared the women like hurdlers in perfect unison, taking one step to re-assert their balance before lowering their shoulders and tackling the vampires in the midsection.
All four of them crashed through the window and tumbled out into the street beyond.
Keeping a grip on his quarry as they went, Pietro hauled it in tight, squeezing hard until he felt several ribs pop.
The vampire reared back and slammed its head into him. The blow aggravated his head wound from the door, and fresh blood poured down his face, blinding him in one eye. Pietro rocked backward, but even as the vampire came in closer to attack, it got a face full of fire.
An inhuman shriek rattled the windows and set off car alarms four houses away.
“Shit,” Trent muttered, and Pietro knew what that meant.
Humans would be awakening soon. If they saw the battle going on in the streets, it would raise many questions. Questions that dragons as a race were not yet ready to answer.
Such as who were they fighting, and why? Humanity did not need to know of the enemy beyond the Gates, the innumerable magical entities that inhabited the Otherworld. Some things were better left unsaid.
A person could know. But people were an unstable mob. They would destroy everything with their fear and ignorance. This needed to be managed properly. Which meant ending the fight as soon as possible.
Wiping blood away, Pietro looked around wildly for his quarry, which had broken free of his grasp.
Something sliced at his leg and he twisted at the impact, but the knife the vampire held—a long kitchen blade—failed to penetrate his dragon skin.
The creature hissed in anger and tossed the knife at him, but Pietro just batted it aside and then jumped on his foe. The vampire was strong, but it relied on its speed for survival. It wasn’t anywhere near as heavy or thickly built as Pietro was. They were very nearly the same height, but he had twice the mass.
They went down together, and Pietro’s weight advantage began to tell. He broke another of its ribs, and then snapped one of its arms, earning yet another shriek.
He called upon fire once more, intending to shove it straight down the vampire’s throat and incinerate the creature, but the arm he’d broken gave the vampire an unexpected out. Since it no longer cared what direction the arm bent in, it could escape the hold he had on it and wriggle free faster than Pietro could adjust.
Then it ran, body-checking Trent sideways to free its partner. Without even a pause to read the situation, the pair of vampires simply turned and ran off into the night faster than the dragons could hope to match.
“That was eerie,” Trent said as he got to his feet. “Did you see that?”
Pietro grunted, swiping more blood from his face. “They did the same thing when they hit my car two nights ago,” he said. “Operating like they were thinking with one brain. I don’t like it. If they’ve bonded—”
“They’re getting strong. Fast,” Trent said.
“Did you notice their skin?” Pietro asked.
“What of it?”
“When they came out of the Gate, it was black and shiny. Like a beetle shell. Now it’s gray, even lighter than it was two days ago. It’s not shiny either. Looks softer. Kind of like—”
“It’s becoming more human,” Trent finished heavily. “What does that mean?”
Pietro shrugged. “No idea. We don’t know much about vampires, let alone Hunters. What are they capable of? What will they become if they feed enough? This has never happened before, that we know of.”
The two exchanged long glances, then they turned with similar unison and headed back for the house.
Pietro walked inside, looking around.
“I guess we aren’t staying here tonight,” he said dryly as Claire rushed him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pietro
He gathered her up into his arms, holding her gently but close to him. The blood had stopped flowing from his face as the wound closed itself, but there was still a dull throb from it. Pietro carefully adjusted Claire so that she was leaning against his other side, to avoid getting her clothes covered in blood
.
“Are you okay?” he asked, noting the drywall dust. “What happened?”
“Lilly is a badass,” Claire said quietly, squeezing him tight. “That’s what happened. She attacked the first vampire that came through with a kitchen knife after it had me in its grip.”
Lilly scoffed. “Whatever. I stabbed it in the shoulder. You yanked the knife out and shoved it in the thing’s eye! Now that’s badass.”
Pietro glanced at Trent, who was holding his mate tight to him, much the same way Pietro was with Claire. A slight frown filled him as he had a sudden thought, but Pietro pushed it to the side.
Now was not the time to start thinking of that. Not at all.
“In the eye, you say,” he muttered, leaning back to look down at Claire.
“And then in the leg after it tossed her into the wall,” Lilly added. “I tried to stab it in the junk, a last ditch dick-shot before it killed us, but it was too fast.”
“You tried to stab it in the dick?” Trent asked, staring down at his mate as he stroked her head.
“It was in the heat of the moment,” Lilly said defensively. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Right.” Trent shook his head. “Remind me not to make you angry when there are knives around.”
The four of them shook with laughter briefly, but they subsided quickly. Everyone was still rather stunned over everything that had happened, and lingering fear swiftly overwhelmed any joy they might experience.
“You two put up one hell of a fight,” Pietro said quietly. “I’m proud of both of you. That’s impressive. I’m just sorry it came to that.”
“What do you mean?” Claire asked, looking up at him, her hands still tight around his waist.
“I should have been more alert. I walked right into that one, and because of it, you two almost died.”
“You got hit by a rogue flying door,” Claire pointed out. “It’s really kind of tough to plan for that, don’t you think?”
“I should have done better,” Pietro insisted, upset at himself. “I was in charge of keeping you two safe, and I didn’t.”
“Everything is okay,” Claire said, squeezing him tight. “You came to the rescue. That’s what matters.”
Pietro started to say that it wasn’t, but he was interrupted by Trent, who had been muttering quietly with Lilly, and now looked like they had come to an agreement.
“We’re going to go,” he said. “Heading to our house before those things recover and come back. You two are more than welcome there. It will be safer than here.”
The threshold would be stronger there, is what Trent meant. Because he lived there with his mate. The two of them were turning it into their home.
For some reason, that hit Pietro harder than it should have. There was even a flash of something akin to anger in him, taking him completely by surprise.
Why would I be angry at Trent for finding happiness? That doesn’t make sense.
Unless it wasn’t anger but jealousy.
That was it, Pietro knew, as he explored his inner thoughts in the blink of an eye. He was jealous of his friend. Jealous that Trent had found his mate.
Jealous that he had the means to protect her, whereas Pietro was failing in that so far.
He jerked, unable to restrain himself as he traced that line of thought back to an implication he had been unprepared for.
Could it be? Could I have found—
“You okay?” Claire asked, her eyes golden-brown in the interior light. She looked up at him with concern, perhaps attributing his twitch to the head wound he’d suffered courtesy of his own front door.
“Fine,” he said a bit more abruptly than planned. Shaking his head in apology he spoke again, his tone softer. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Claire said, but her eyes didn’t seem to accept his answer, telling a different story than her single-word agreement.
“We’ll meet you there shortly,” he said to Trent, giving answer to the offer for the two of them to join the storm dragon and his mate at their house.
“Don’t take too long,” Trent said, the pair heading for the door, the dragon shifter alert and cautious, looking around as he led the way out.
Once they were gone, Pietro turned, eager to get going as well, but he was stopped by the look Claire was giving him.
“What’s wrong?” he slowly asked, glancing around, trying to identify the problem.
“Why did you just agree that we would go to their place without asking?”
Pietro frowned. What the hell? Why wouldn’t they go there? It made sense.
“I…we can’t stay here Claire. You know that. Why wouldn’t we go to their place? What am I missing here? It makes perfect sense.”
“Why not go up the mountain?” she asked, already looking ready to dig in and staunchly defend her argument. “To where the rest of your clan lives. You don’t think that would be safer?”
His jaw dropped open in surprise at the vehemence of her reply. Claire obviously felt very strongly about this. Which was fair, he supposed, since it was her life that had just been threatened.
“We can’t,” he pointed out. “It goes against the terms of your bail. Like you yourself said. It’s outside of Five Peaks.”
Claire shook her head in frustration. “Are you saying that my life isn’t more important than some bail terms?”
Pietro almost told her that it was her idea not to break the bail terms in the first place, but something told him that would not go over well. Claire was in shock right now, her system filled with adrenaline, and she likely wanted nothing more than to feel as absolutely safe as possible.
To get as far away from the problem as possible.
For an instant, he almost relented. He almost caved and said okay, that he would drive them up the mountain. But he didn’t. Pietro knew that once things calmed, once Claire was thinking properly again, she would regret it. Would regret violating her bail.
He didn’t want her to feel that way. Besides, he was confident that Trent’s place would be safe. The life the two of them were creating was more than sufficient to hold the vampires at bay.
And with the women safe inside, he and Trent could begin the hunt for the vampires. The Hunters would become the hunted, and they could stop them from becoming a scourge on Five Peaks.
“The vampires won’t be around for much longer,” he said, projecting as much confidence as he could into the words. “My kin and I are going to hunt them down and deal with them.”
“I just want to go somewhere I’m safe,” Claire said, hugging her arms around herself.
“You’ll be safe at Trent’s. We’ll be safe there,” he said. “There’s no need to go anywhere else.”
“The mountain would be safer,” Claire said in frustration. “You know that too. I know you know that!”
“You’ll be breaking your bail provisions by going up there,” he said tautly. “You’ll go to jail for even longer if I take you there. We need to stay in town. Trent’s place is the safest option.”
He carefully did not add that her parents’ house would probably be even safer, but she’d have to have a hard talk with them if she was to be welcome back. The threshold on a family home would be completely impenetrable to even the strongest vampire. But he doubted Claire wanted to hear that right now.
“Who cares about my bail provisions!” Claire shouted, unable to keep her cool any longer. “Just break the damn rules for once, Pietro. Why won’t you bend them for me?”
His growl shocked both of them. Not in its anger, but in the pain laced throughout it. “I’m not bending them for you,” he said. “Can’t you see that?”
Claire’s face crinkled as she frowned at him. “No, I can’t. What do you mean?”
“I’m trying to get you to follow them,” he said softly. “So you don’t make the same mistake I did.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Claire
“The same mistake you did?”
Pietro
sighed, looking over her head, refusing to meet her gaze.
“What are you talking about Pietro?” she asked, her frosty exterior softening somewhat as she realized that there was a reason behind his refusal to take her up the mountain.
She thought he was using the bail provisions as an excuse because he didn’t want to take her there. Perhaps because he was ashamed of her, or maybe he had someone else up there waiting for him. She didn’t know what, but his reluctance had finally been too much for her, and she’d decided she needed to know.
Now, it seemed, she was finally going to find out what it was he was keeping hidden to himself. What he was keeping locked away behind those blue-green eyes. The pain she’d seen glimpses of, but which had never been allowed to come to the forefront.
“Talk to me, Pietro,” she said quietly, fighting the urge to go to his side. It was strong, however, and she didn’t know how long she could keep herself back. “What’s going on?”
He was quiet, but he didn’t deny her anything, didn’t try to end the conversation. He just didn’t say anything.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you get like this,” she told him. Perhaps if he knew she could see his hurt, he wouldn’t be so reluctant to open up about it. “You’ve always come across as a bit of a rule stickler.”
“Oh, I know,” he rumbled. “I know I’m too much of a ‘goody two-shoes’. That I’m a ‘take home to mom guy,’ not a ‘take home to bed sort of guy.’”
Claire’s mouth fell open, and her face flushed with flame as Pietro quoted her own words back to her. It was what she’d said to Lilly after the night they’d met at the bar several weeks back, her first impression of Pietro. It hadn’t been flattering.
“That made its way to you did it?” she said softly.
Pietro nodded but remained silent.
“If it helps at all, I’ve now done both to you,” she said with a little shrug.
The big man blinked in surprise. “You know, I hadn’t actually thought of that,” he said slowly.
