Page 78 of Slayer

I gagged and spat, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve.

“Help!” I screamed again and rushed her with my stake out, forcing my shaking hands to steady.

She looked straight at me, and I remembered the training.

Nose.

Center line.

Two to three inches left.

I lined it up and charged.

When I got within two feet of her, her knee shot up and drove straight into my crotch.

Pain exploded through my hips and lower stomach.

I can confirm, it hurts for girls too.

I folded forward with a strangled noise, vision flashing white.

She pawed at the side of her head and then spotted something on the ground behind me.

“You ripped my ear off, you psycho!”

Her canines lengthened before my very eyes.

My stomach dropped.

“I’m gonna drink you dry,” she promised.

“Stella, down!” Celia barked, and I followed orders without a second thought.

I hit the ground as the vamp’s eyes flashed red and she lunged for me. A thunderous crack split the air. Her body jerked mid-stride and then flew backward like she’d been yanked by a wire.

She hit the ground hard, a smoking hole in her chest the size of a baseball.

I spun toward the sound.

Celia stood there with a sawed-off shotgun braced in her hands, smoke curling from the barrel.

Third-year student hunters fanned out behind her in black gear, weapons raised.

Celia’s gaze flicked from the ear lying on the stones beside me to the vampire disintegrating into ash on the ground.

“You okay, Stella?” she asked.

I just nodded, still catching my breath.

“Asher?” she asked him.

I peered over to find Asher standing over his kill. His hair was tousled but he otherwise looked good.

“I’m good.” He stepped over the now dissolving body and toward me. “Stella,” he breathed as he reached me.

My name in his mouth was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. There was so much tenderness there. It made me ache to hear him say it again, but I instantly felt guilty because he was in a relationship.

He helped me up.