Page 92 of Slayer

“Well done, Sinclair,” Silex noted.

Madison peeled herself off the wall. “Thanks for that.”

The fire alarm suddenly blared, and dinner guests fled from the second floor into the stairwell as we ran up to the offices on the third floor.

“The owners pulled the fire alarm to get humans to safety,” Celia told me. “But more drinkers will come now that they know we are here.”

“One down, one to go,” Asher whispered encouragement to me.

I nodded just as Madison took off ahead of me.

Eager much?

Celia and the two professors ran after her, boots pounding down the hallway, their shadows stretching and vanishing around the corner, while Asher and I stayed back, momentarily alone in the sudden quiet. My pulse was still racing from the fight, ears ringing with the echo of the fire alarm and distant screams. I turned toward Asher, about to say something, anything, when the world lurched.

A violent force caught me around the middle and yanked me backward with shocking speed. I barely had time to gasp before my feet left the floor, my shoulder slamming into something hard as I was dragged across the tiles.

“Asher!”

He pivoted instantly, sword flashing into his hand as he broke into a sprint after me, but I was already being hauled through a doorway. Bright fluorescent light burned my eyes as I was thrown into a pristine office, the smell of cleaner and fresh paper hitting me in a wave. The door slammed shut behind me with a thunderous crack, the impact rattling the frame and echoing down the hall.

I staggered, sucking in air, heart hammering so hard it felt like it might burst out of my chest.

Then a presence settled behind me.

Slow footsteps. Unhurried. Confident.

The blond sire stepped into view, her expression calm, almost amused, as if she’d planned this moment down to the second.

Cold dread flooded my veins. I fisted my stake, fingers slick with sweat, bracing myself just as the door shook violently. Asher threw his whole body into it, the hinges groaning under the force of the blow.

“Reinstate the monthly payments or else.” Her voice was smooth, deadly casual.

My entire body went numb.

Emilie. It was her. The realization hit me like ice water straight to the spine. My mother was paying a vampire.

“Or else what?” I snarled, forcing steel into my voice as I shifted my weight and readied my attack, every muscle coiled and ready to strike.

“Or else I kill your mother.” She said it calmly, clinically, like she was discussing a late fee, and the fight drained out of me in an instant.

My hand fell to my side, fingers loosening around my stake.

“My…my m-mother is dead.” The words tasted wrong as they left my mouth, thin and uncertain.

She cocked her head to the side, blond hair sliding over one shoulder, her grin sharp and knowing. “Is she?”

The door finally gave way with a violent crack as Asher shattered it open, splintered wood flying inward. Emilie vanished instantly, her form dissolving into a cloak of shadows that slithered across the walls and disappeared. Asher stood there with his sword drawn, chest heaving, just as Celia appeared behind him, both of them wide-eyed and scanning the room.

“She left?” He glanced around in confusion, blade still raised.

I swallowed hard, my throat tight. “I scared her off,” I lied, lifting my brass knuckles, bloody from the vampire I’d punched earlier, hoping it sold the story.

His brow furrowed. “Sires don’t back off.”

“This one did,” I insisted, forcing confidence I didn’t feel.

My mind was spinning so fast it made me dizzy.