AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Got it.” My badass princess circled left, the switchblade in her hand.
Tomas backed toward a wall, keeping an eye on both me and Zoe.
Meanwhile, Father had lunged at Tomas. But Victorine had leapt onto the tabletop, gripping the dagger she’d stolen from Zoe. She swooped off the table like an avenging bat, slamming into Father from the side and taking him down before he reached Tomas.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Victorine rise above my father and stab the knife down toward his heart. Father blocked it with his own blade. Silver clanked against silver.
Father threw Victorine off. She sailed across the restaurant, slamming into the other guard, who’d raced to Father’s aid. The soldier plunged his blade toward Victorine’s chest, but she rolled away and faded into the shadows quicker than I’d ever seen a vampire disappear. The knife slammed into the wooden floor.
Still, it bought Father the time he needed to rise to his feet.
Tomas’s eyes flicked sideways. I saw the moment he realized Victorine had attacked my father. His mouth slackened. His whole body stiffened.
Victorine appeared behind my father, knife raised.
Tomas growled and streaked between me and Zoe, heading straight for my father. He shoved Father out of the way and plunged his dagger into Victorine’s chest.
For a sliver of a second, we all stared at him.
Then Zoe gasped. I swore.
Father lunged at Tomas.
Tomas had already pulled out another knife, a switchblade this time. As he pressed the catch, Father slashed out with his knife. The switchblade flew out of Tomas’s hand. Blood gushed from his wrist. He backed up, that damned grin on his face, making no move to pick up his weapon.
The other guard gulped. “Holy fuck.”
I spun around, but he brought his blade back to his side. “I’m sorry, sirs.” He looked from my father to me. “I didn’t know it was the lieutenant. I swear, I’m not in on this, whatever it is.”
“Good,” I snapped. “Now get on the fucking phone and call for back up.”
“Yes, sir.” He whipped out his cell phone.
Father advanced on Tomas. “What in Hades are you playing at?”
He gave Victorine’s dying body a hard look. “You were never the target. That lying bitch promised she wouldn’t hurt you.”
“So not me. My sons.”
“Yes.”
Father’s jaw tightened. “Were they that much of a threat to you?”
Tomas cradled his bleeding wrist in his left hand. The scent of blood filled the room—his blood, Victorine’s. It mixed with the acrid scent of her smoking skin.
“Not a threat,” he said. “A weakness. Your weakness.”
Father said something sharp in Slovak and bared his fangs. “I don’t give a fuck that you saved my life. No one attacks my family, not even you.”
“Do it.” The big blond man spread his arms. His half-severed hand dangled from his wrist at an odd, scarecrow-like angle, but his grin was as wide as the world. “You always did talk too damn much.”
Father was a foot from him now. He lunged, rattlesnake-fast, punching the sharp point through Tomas’s sternum and into his heart, a quick, clean kill that the man didn’t deserve.
Tomas touched the knife’s handle. His grin never wavered. “Zaquiel is ours.”
“What do you mean?”
Tomas’s hand fell away from the handle. He crumpled to the floor. His skin smoked and turned black.
