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“Yes. Werewolf.” More vamps joined him on the edge of the pit to gawk at me, like I would appear different somehow now that they knew the truth.
What did a half-vampire/half-werewolf look like?
She looked like a pissed-off blonde stuck in a hole with a dog and a sword. What were they expecting? Fangs and a tail? Fine, they wanted fangs, I could give them fangs. I was angry enough.
Feed, I thought, and the fangs sprang forth with no effort. I bared them at the crowd above and took a few steps back.
“I’m going to kill you,” I snarled.
“Your threats are meaningless to me now. You should have used your sword against me when you had the chance. But that’s the problem with you, isn’t it? You think too far in advance. You didn’t kill me earlier, and for what? Because you were afraid of what would happen to your pet dog? Now you’ll both die, and I’ll go on living. All because you made a coward’s choice.”
Aw, hell no. I wasn’t dying in some pit.
And I sure as hell wasn’t going to die at the hands of Alexandre Peyton. I hadn’t survived all the bullshit I’d been through already to go out like this. I’d made it through The Doctor—barely—and I wasn’t going to let a sadist with a baby face be the last thing I saw before I died.
Fuck that.
Some of the old me had sparked to life, and I was grateful to know she was still there. The woman who didn’t cower at nightmares, the woman who wasn’t a ghost haunting the hallways of her own life. The old Secret was precisely who I needed to be right then, and I’d previously given up hope of ever being her again.
Apparently all it took was the threat of death to bring about tiny miracles.
I still wasn’t sure how to get out of the pit, but I knew once I did I’d make that little prick regret everything he’d ever done to me.
“Hey, Peyton?”
“Hmm?”
“When I get out of here, I’m going to take your other tooth.”
He faltered a moment, showing uncertainty for the first time, then he steeled himself and said, “Before you die I will have the dog skinned in front of your eyes.”
Desmond snarled, mirroring my bared fangs by showing his
own to the vampire. Undead or not, I didn’t think Peyton would want to spend time with werewolf Desmond one-on-one. I’d normally put my money on a vampire in that matchup, but I wasn’t sure I’d count Des out.
And then I saw it.
I’d been so busy looking for outcroppings of rock to use as a handhold, I hadn’t scoured the walls for anything else. But about three feet under Peyton was a slim hole in the stone. It wasn’t big enough to get fingers into, so I might have overlooked it on my first pass, but it was certainly capable of having a blade stuck into it.
I didn’t know how deep it went, or if it would give me enough leverage, but I was going to find out.
It meant leaving Desmond behind, but I had to believe he was capable of taking care of himself against a few vampire guards, if worst came to worst. Ideally they’d be focused on me, and he wouldn’t be a priority.
I wiped my hands again, wanting to be sure I wouldn’t slip. I’d only have one shot at this, and if the hole was deep enough to get the blade into, I didn’t want to fall. I’d have to act fast, and there’d be no time for second-guessing or mistakes.
Smiling to myself, not caring whether he saw it or not, I hurled my body against the opposite wall. The slippery stone didn’t give me much purchase, but I simply needed a kick-off point. I angled the sword as I pushed towards the wall beneath Peyton, and my focus was all on the small gap between the stones. I jammed the sword into the space, and blessedly it stuck in almost a foot.
I held tight to the handle, knowing I’d need to have the sword in hand when I reached solid ground. I mirrored the move I’d just made, reminded of jumping window to window in the Paris alley only the night before. That had been much easier with the jutting ledges and no wet stone, but the mechanics were the same.
Bracing my feet on either side of the sword, I pushed the blade deeper as I got my bearings. Ideally I’d have been able to jump right up to Peyton, who was now scrambling to his feet. But if I jumped up, I couldn’t take the weapon with me. I pushed off again, upward, and yanked the sword from the wall as I went.
I hit the edge of the pit, and a few of Peyton’s crew shuffled backwards, clearly not expecting me to have managed an escape. I clambered out before they had a chance to get their wits about them, and shook my mussed curls out of my face.
“I think it’s high time I got to take that promised stab at you,” I hissed.
Peyton took a long look at me, his lips curled into an angry snarl that exposed his one remaining fang. The fang I would take with me when I left this godforsaken place.
His glanced around the room to where his crew was waiting, nervously anticipating his orders.
