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My blast crackled over three of the bloodsuckers. Shots boomed from deeper between the trees. Bullets tore through the lower edge of my wings with a sharpstinging.
I swept upward, out of the guns’ range, and then dove back down. One undead figure, and another, and another, was visible here and there between the trees. I caught two of them before they wrenched their guns up. The third openedfire.
I managed to yank myself to the side just in time to avoid the worst of the onslaught of bullets. A fresh stinging radiated through my rightwing.
Below me, farther down the wall, a group of vamps had made a run at the estate. They leapt at the wall, flinging themselves higher than any living human could have jumped, heaving their guns with them to get in some earlyshots.
I careened toward them, withheld fire searing the back of my mouth. The shifter guard on the platform inside the wall bashed one of the intruder’s skulls against the stone blocks. Kylie scrambled up to join him and took out another vamp with a spurt of her flame-thrower. They both ducked back down as guns crackled from the edge of theforest.
Then I was on the vamps. I breathed a scorching line of fire over the rest of the group clambering over the wall and whipped myself around to blast the ones hiding in thetrees.
I couldn’t tell how many I caught amid the blackened tree trunks. They were keeping too far back, just close enough to have a clear line of fire with their guns. The forest was too dense for me to pick them off easily, not without setting it all up inflames.
More gunfire rang out from the far end of the estate. I wheeled, flapping my wings harder. Even here, I couldn’t be everywhere at once. But I had to take out more of the bloodsuckers before I pulled back and let that protective ring do the fiery work for me. There were too many still out there. If our ring burned out before dawn, if even a few vamps got past the walls, this battle would turn into abloodbath.
I rained fire down on another group of vampires that had run at the wall. Two of the shifters were grappling with one who’d managed to scramble over. I swooped toward him. He got a couple shots off before the guards wrenched the gun away from him. Blood bloomed on one of the guard’s shoulders. He slashed the vampire’sthroat.
As the undead body slumped into stasis, the guards jumped back, looking to me. Oh, I could finish the job, all right. I breathed a spear of flames down at the vampire, my lips curling into a dragonish smile as he burst intoashes.
My smile didn’t last long. I wheeled back toward the forest, and a cacophony of shots split the air. All of them aimed at me. The vampires knew who the biggest threat to them was. I spewed flames across the edge of the forest, not quite quickly enough. The hail of bullets had been aimed at my wings again, where the scales were softest and the fleshthinnest.
I flapped my wings, pushing myself higher. The air coursed through the dappling of wounds, sparking pain with every movement. More shots echoed up from beneath me. More bullets tore through the tender flesh. I poured down more fire, but the guns kept booming. Each bullet bit through my body with a sharp throbbing. My thoughts started tosplinter.
I had to keep going. Had to stop all of them. But there were too many, and my wings could barely hold me up now. Every brush of air against them wasagony.
My focus narrowed through the haze of pain. I couldn’t fall outside the walls. My kin would come to try to rescue me, and the vampires would slaughter them. But I could give my shifters one last gesture of protection. If I set our ring on fire, none of them would have to venture beyond the walls for that purposeeither.
My wings wavered. Another hail of bullets sprayed over me, some tearing more holes in my wings, some glancing off my thicker scales, a few digging into my side. I sputtered up one last gush of flames aimed at the circle of choppedwood.
The logs and branches hissed. Flames leapt up all along the ring in a rippling dance. With a relieved smile, I hurled my plummeting body toward thewall.
My knee glanced off the stones, but I tumbled over the side into the estate. Voices were hollering and footsteps pounding toward me before I even hit the ground, already humanagain.
The impact sent a fresh wave of agony through my shoulders and down my back. I cried out, flinching against ground now slick with my blood. Then the pain hazed my mind completely, and the world wentblack.
* * *
My body came back into awareness gradually. First the dull prickling of pain running all down my back and sides, where my dragon wings had crumpled back into my human form. A deeper ache searing through my ribs when I tried to roll over. A soft sheet was draped over me. Warring smells of blood and a sweet, clean perfume drifting through the air to mynose.
I managed to blink my eyesopen.
“Ren!” Kylie said. She was standing over me at the edge of the bed, her hands fisted where they rested on the mattress. The pink tufts of her pixie cut were drooping and dark smudges underlined her eyes, but she gave me her most brilliant smile. “How do you feel? Should I call thehealers?”
Of course. I was back here in the healer room again. Holding my body still, I took in my surroundings. Pale light was shining through the windows. Good, that meant we’d gotten to the morning without losing the estate. More forms were slumped under sheets around the room, but the rasps of sleeping breaths carried to my ears. They were all alivestill.
Everyone in here, atleast.
“Sore, but okay other than that,” I said, meeting Kylie’s gaze again. “I don’t think I need any help. What happened last night? Is everyone elseokay?”
“We held the vamps off,” she said. “Some of the shifters were injured, but all of ussurvived.”
That should have been amazing news, but her smile had faltered. I pushed myself into a sitting position, wincing as I went. My back throbbed, but I needed to know. “What’s wrong? Something’s botheringyou.”
“You are way too good at picking those things up,” my best friend said, waggling a finger at me. “And you should really stay lying down until someone checks you out again, Ithink.”
When I didn’t budge, Kylie let out a huff of breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong. But the vamps pulled back after the fire had been going a couple hours. They took off and didn’t come back, but they didn’t send any message about giving up the fight or anything. Your guys figure they’re making some new plan now that they’ve seen ourstrategy.”
Of course they were. I suppressed a groan. “Great. Well, I guess we can be glad we’ve got all day to prepare for whatever itis.”
