Page 7

I cannot move.

The lights flicker. The shadows groan. I’m going to pass out. I’m going to feint and she’s going to devour me, and I’ll never find out what really happened to Steven. I’ll never have truly mind-blowing sex, or swim naked in the river under the moon and stars, or⁠—

She brings my wrist to her lips and bites down. Hard. Pain ricochets down my arm, sweeping every other sensation from my body.

I cannot fight her.

I’m going to die.

The other vamps are closing in, like those vicious grey dinosaurs from Jurassic Park who hunt in packs, when the door clatters back on its hinges.

The sound swallows the tingle of the bell. The entire building seems to shake.

The vampire holding me spins around, pulling me against her so my back is pressed to her chest, and wraps one arm tight around my neck.

She hisses, baring her fangs, staring at the door.

There is a blur of movement.

In a fraction of a second, she is on the floor, neck snapped, blank eyes staring up at the ceiling.

The other three vampires try to run, but the blur of movement engulfs them too.

The first one, the male who taunted me, doesn’t even have time to scream before his head is wrenched from his body. It falls to the ground with a sickening thud, his lifeless eyes still wide with shock.

The two remaining vampires turn to face their attacker. They bare their fangs, hissing and snarling like cornered animals. But there is no one there.

Until…

I stagger backward. I tread on Steven’s tongue. The feel of it beneath the sole of my shoe makes me jerk sideways, heart pounding.

In the center of the room, a vampire I’ve seen twice before flexes his fingers and bares his fangs.

Thornfield.

Professor Lucien Thornfield.

When did he come to the shop? A couple of months ago?

Once when I was with Steven, then again looking for some obscure text on shifters.

Bear shifters.

Was he this good looking then?

Tilting his head from side to side, he shrugs off his dark brown suit jacket to reveal muscular shoulders encased in a crisp white shirt. He’s wearing braces, black with silver buckles, and runs his thumb under one of them as he assesses the two remaining vampires.

If he was this hot before, I didn’t notice. I mean, I noticed he was kind of smolder-y. But not turn-a-girl-on-when-she’s-fighting-for-her-life levels of smolder.

It’s the shoulders.

And the braces.

Fuck, Luna. Get a grip.

“Thornfield…” One of the vamps mutters. She glances at the other.

Thornfield holds up a hand to silence them, then turns to me. “Luna, are you all right?”