Page 86 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

“Are you hurt?”

I tried to speak, but only managed a hoarse croak. My throat felt raw—had I been screaming?

Kit’s gentle fingers inspected me, twisting my face this way and that. His fingers brushed the blood on my neck, and his face went stone-still for a heartbeat before something dark and violent crashed over his features.

“I’m okay,” I finally managed to whisper. “He just… just grazed me. W-with his fangs. Where’s the other one?”

“Dead.” Kit’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact. “Stake through the heart. Got to you as quickly as I could.”

The full weight of what had just happened hit me all at once. I’d been seconds away from having my throat torn out by a creature that moved faster than thought. If Kit hadn’t finished his fight when he did…

My hands started shaking. Then my whole body.

“Hey.” Kit’s voice softened. “Hey, you’re safe now. It’s over.”

Kit pulled me to my feet, gathering me in his arms. His hands rubbed up and down my arms, warming me through the fabric of my hoodie.

“I did it,” I said suddenly, surprise cutting through the lingering terror. “Holy shit, I did it!”

Kit pulled back slightly, confusion flickering across his face. Possibly because he was the one who staked one vampire and scared off the other.

But still.

“The elbow strike,” I clarified, adrenaline making my words tumble together. “When he grabbed me, I got him with the solar plexus move you taught me. It actually worked. He let go and everything.”

Understanding dawned on Kit’s features, followed by something that might have been pride. “Felix, that’s brilliant. You bought yourself time, stayed calm under pressure. That move probably saved your life. You saved your life.”

“I was terrified,” I admitted.

“Being terrified and doing it anyway—that’s courage.” His thumb traced along my cheekbone. “You did everything right.”

I leaned into the touch, letting his warmth ground me. But questions were already crowding my head.

“Who were they? Why did they attack us?”

“Earlier today I went to Brixton to pass along a message to Marcus Vale. Told him Seb was going to finally meet with him tomorrow whether he liked it or not.” He glanced down the street where the vampire had disappeared. “I guess this was them passing on a message back.”

“They followed you all the way from Brixton to Ealing?” I stared at him in disbelief.

Kit’s face flickered through several expressions—shock, lingering fury, then… something else.

“I should have thought. Should have realised they might follow me. Instead I led them straight to you,” he said quietly, his hands still framing my face but his eyes distant now, looking somewhere over my shoulder. “I put you in danger. They came for me, and you nearly—” His voice cracked. “God, Felix, you nearly died because of me.”

“Kit, stop. You saved my life. I mean, after I saved myself, of course.”

Kit didn’t look convinced.

“This stuff comes with the territory of working for Killigrew Street. You know that. I know that.”

I forced myself to look past his shoulder to where the other vampire lay crumpled against the scaffolding, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. The sight should have made me sick, but instead I felt oddly detached, like my brain was protecting itself by focusing on practical details rather than the magnitude of what had just happened.

“Annoying they don’t actually turn to dust when staked, right?” I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. “Would make cleanup so much easier.”

Kit’s mouth twitched despite everything, the ghost of a smile breaking through his self-recrimination. “Actually, their bodies do almost completely decompose within twenty-four hours.”

We found an industrial-sized bin down a side alley, padlocked shut. Kit smashed the lock with one sharp strike, the metal shrieking as it snapped. Together, we lifted the vampire’s body. It was heavier than I’d expected, dead weight that made my shoulders ache as we manoeuvred it into the bin. Clearly, more exercise was still needed.

Kit buried the corpse under layers of rubbish. I happily let him do that job alone.