“And Mal hunting me down,” I add, agreeing. “And it’s likely already gotten back home. If we go back, it will cause my parents a lot of trouble.” It’s probably best if we pick up and move to another town. We can use new names. Though it will be harder with Talon being a Dragon.
Talon slows at my side, nostrils flaring, the collar of his open leather jacket fluttering in the breeze. The molten cracks between his scales are dim, but they pulse once—like his body’s bracing for something.
We’ve wandered into a part of the city lined in rusted chain-link fences. We're still close enough to smell the salt from the ocean baked into the bricks. But it’s too quiet, and uneasiness kicks up in my gut.
Shapes peel out of the shadows. Hooded. Casual. Like locals out for a late-night stroll, except they move too smoothly, too quickly. There’s no sound of footsteps.
I freeze. “Talon?”
“Behind me.”
The first vampire lunges. Talon grabs him and sets him on fire.
It happens so fast I barely register the scream. Heat explodes in the alley as flame ripples across the vamp’s coat, curling denim and skin in the same breath. He goes down flailing.
Another comes in from the side. Talon spins, driving a boot into its chest, sending the creature flying into a dumpster.
But there are more. Half a dozen now. Maybe more.
One charges me.
I scream and swing my fist in a wild motion, but it connects hard with his face. He grunts, more surprised than hurt, and grabs for me again. I elbow him in the side and duck away, but the edge of the curb snags my step. I pitch forward, skin scraping raw as my knee cracks against the ground
Another grabs my arm, yanking me upright with claws scraping skin. I twist and rake my nails across his cheek, shrieking like a feral animal.
I’m not trained. I don’t know what I’m doing.
But I won’t go down easy.
A blur of black fabric.
Steel flashes.
One of the vampires jerks backward, a dagger embedded in his temple. The other’s head whips around just in time to catch a boot to the face.
Snow drops to a crouch beside me in a godsdamn catsuit. Her white hair is braided tight, daggers glinting in each hand like frozen lightning. She slashes one across the chest of the vampire nearest me, then pivots and plunges the other into another’s eye socket with terrifying precision.
She’s breathing hard but she’s calm, eyes like twin ice picks.
“Are you?—”
“What the hell are you wearing?” I gasp.
She doesn’t look at me. She hurls a second dagger into another vampire’s throat and grabs my wrist. “Run.”
“What the fuck are youdoingout here?”
“Not now, Aura.” She spins, a third dagger already in her hand.
I look over her shoulder…
Just in time to see Talon go down.
He’s surrounded. Overwhelmed. Three vamps cling to his back, clawing at his scales, trying to rip them free. Another wraps a chain around his throat, yanking him backward, dragging him down with brute force.
He sets one alight, but the others don’t falter. More chains flash through the dark—around his ankles, his wrists. One clamps his wings to his body.
They’ve come prepared this time.
