A blur of motion. The vampire is ripped away from me, the stake tearing free as he goes. His head snaps back, his body crumpling. Maximus stands where he was, eyes wild, fangs extended, more terrifying than I've ever seen him.
"Celeste." My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer. Like a curse.
"I'm fine," I manage.
"You almost…"
"I'm fine."
The battle isn't over. More attackers pressing forward. But he looks at me for one endless moment, and I see everything in his eyes. Fear, relief, rage.
"Later," I say.
"Later," he agrees.
And then we're fighting side by side, and there's no time for anything but survival.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
The stake was in her shoulder thirty seconds ago.
Thirty seconds, and I'm still seeing it. Still feeling the moment my dead heart tried to restart in my chest. Still tasting the panic that flooded my mouth like copper.
Now I'm tasting blood. Theirs.
A vampire rushes her from the left. Before she can react, I'm there, catching him mid-lunge, driving my blade through his throat with enough force to nearly sever his head. He drops. I'm already moving to the next one.
"I had him," Celeste snaps.
I don't answer. Can't. The rage has swallowed everything else.
She ducks under a swing, drives her blade up through an attacker's ribs, spins away before his body hits the ground. Blood arcs through the air. Some of it hers, still seeping from the wound in her shoulder, mixing with the spray from her kills. She's fighting like the injury doesn't exist. Like she didn't almost die a minute ago.
I intercept another vampire angling for her blind side. Thisone I don't kill quickly. I break his arm first, then his knee, then I tear out his throat with my bare hands while he screams.
The sound satisfies something dark in my chest.
They made her scream. I heard the pain in it, and something in me snapped clean in half.
Now I want to hear all of theirs.
We fall into rhythm despite my fury. She goes low, I go high. She draws their attention. I come from behind. Two bodies moving as one. But I'm not fighting tactically anymore. I'm fighting to annihilate. Every vampire I kill is the one who drove that stake toward her heart.
Another comes at me with a stake, movements precise rather than frantic. He feints left, strikes right. I read the deception a half-second too late, and the stake grazes my ribs, tearing through shirt and skin. Pain flares, hot and sharp.
Before he can press the advantage, Celeste sweeps his legs from behind. He goes down hard, stake clattering away. I crush his skull beneath my heel. No hesitation. No restraint.
Our eyes meet across his body. Her face is streaked with blood. Hers and theirs, indistinguishable now. Her chest heaves with unnecessary breaths, her fangs fully extended. The wound on her shoulder seeps through her ruined shirt, a dark stain spreading with every movement.
She's still fighting. Still bleeding. Still here.
The rage doesn't fade. It sharpens.
She nods once. I nod back.
Then we're moving again, because the fight isn't over, and I have more killing to do.
