The voice crackles through the communication system. My team snaps to attention around me.
"Hold position," I say. "Wait for confirmation."
Seconds tick by. Then:
"Confirmed. Multiple hostiles approaching through the gardens. East wing is under assault."
I feel ice settle into my veins.
"Stay sharp," I tell my team. "If I'm right, we're next."
We wait. Through the comms, I hear the sounds of combat. Shouts, impacts, the particular quality of violence that vampire-on-vampire fighting produces. The east wing is holding, but barely.
One minute. Two. Three.
"Service entrance! We have a breach at the service entrance!"
"Go," I say, and we move.
The attackers are exactly what I expected. Young vampires, hungry and vicious, fighting with the desperate efficiency Iremember from the underground circuit. No finesse, no strategy, just overwhelming force directed at a single point.
There are eight of them. My team is five, plus me.
Not great odds. But not impossible either.
I take the first one myself, using speed and angle to catch him off-guard. He's strong but predictable. I've fought his type a hundred times. He goes down, and I'm already moving to the next.
My team fights well. I can't track everyone, can't coordinate perfectly in the chaos, but I hear them engaging, holding the line, doing exactly what they need to do.
Blood everywhere. Some mine, mostly theirs. A stake grazes my arm, and I spin away, taking the wielder's head with a blade I barely remember drawing. The world narrows to instinct and reaction, the same focused clarity I used to find in the underground ring.
Another attacker falls. Then another.
We're winning. We're actually winning.
And then the second wave hits.
Twelve more. They pour through the breached entrance like water through a crack, and suddenly the numbers shift from difficult to catastrophic.
"Fall back!" I shout. "Protect the medical wing!"
We retreat in formation, buying space with every step. I'm acutely aware of the door behind us. Elena behind that door. The blood supplies behind that door. Everything the attackers came for behind that door.
I can't let them through.
I won't let them through.
A vampire twice my size rushes me. I sidestep, but he's fast, faster than the others. His fist catches my shoulder, sends me spinning. Before I can recover, he's on me, stake in hand.
I catch his wrist. We struggle, strength against strength. He'solder than the young ones, more experienced. His stake inches closer to my chest.
I wrench sideways at the last second. The stake misses my heart, but drives into my shoulder instead.
Pain explodes through me. White-hot, blinding. A scream tears out of my throat before I can stop it, raw and ragged. My grip falters.
Not like this.
I never got to tell him…
