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My eyes shifted toward theasshole—I needed to find out his name—he barely nodded. Good, he had spotted the vampire too.
When the kids disappeared, Fang followed.
I burst into action. Okay, I briskly walked until I cleared the fairgrounds and then I burst into action, following my nose.
About fifty feet away, Fang stood resting one hand on a thick Oak. I followed his line of sight and found the kids standing in a circle talking about something I couldn’t and didn’t really care to focus on. Fang held all my attention and I watched as his face transformed into an actual creature of the night. The skin grew taut across his face, his lips pulled back, revealing the sharp, deadly teeth. I swallowed my gasp.
I’d seen vampires before, but rarely had I seen them in this state. A true predator ready to kill anyone in his path. I knew my eyes were glowing as power collected inside my chest, building and urging me to destroy this vampire—to seek justice for all the victims he’d claimed.
In a blink, Fang disappeared…
Screams filled the air. My head whipped toward the teenagers and my eyes locked with Fang’s red ones. He was standing behind a pretty brunette with a hand clasped around her throat, teeth poised at her neck. His lips pulled up into a feral grin— I yelled, “No!” at the same time he struck, his teeth sinking deep.
The other kids dove behind trees—screaming hysterically—while I sprinted toward Fang.
He dropped the girl seconds before I reached him and flashed away. He moved so fast it literally looked like a flash.
Turning circles with the steak held wide at my side in a solid grip, I scanned the area and heard grunts and hisses. That’s when I noticed Fang andassholefighting. I raced toward them, half-pissed that someone else could possibly take out my mark. I’d been chasing Fang for far too long and refused to letassholesteal my thunder. Fang was mine!
Vengeance was mine!
More growls and hisses, crunching leaves and breaking tree limbs, the two slashed at each other. At first, I thought the shifter would win, but the next thing I knew, Fang caught him in the ribs with a hard kick, knocking the shifter offer balance. With no time to recover, Fang winched the shifter’s arms behind his back, his teeth latched onto his neck, draining his blood. The shifter (I could no longer think of him asasshole) thrashed, but I could see this strength waning.
I panicked! My heart kicked into overtime as energy crackled beneath my skin. I felt helpless to stop Fang. My rage grew and mingled with sheer determination. I couldn’t let him claim another supernatural. Human blood gave vampires the substance needed for survival, but supernatural blood acted like an addictive drug that enhanced power. Unless you were mates, The Agency deemed this offense punishable by death.
Power built as my vision blurred, energy danced from fingertip to fingertip.
In a voice that wasn’t mine, I commanded, “stop!” and leaped forward, ripping Fang’s body away from the shifter and throwing him against a tree with impossible strength.
Fang hit hard, sagging down to sit against the trunk.
The shifter fell forward, going to his knees and then collapsing on the ground while bleeding profusely from the gaping neck wound.
Rage covered my vision white; all I could see was the blood dripping from Fang’s chin. I stalked forward. Then, with the stake hovering over his heart, Fang smiled, showing his bloody teeth.
“You!” he laughed like a lunatic, “You are the one my master is looking for. A forbidden shifter. A hybrid.” He cackled as if he wasn’t about to lose his life.
My heart stuttered a beat from being called forbidden. Already self-conscious, I didn’t need the reminder. The fact that I let Fang get under my skin pissed me off. A murderous vampire’s opinion shouldn’t matter, but I still felt the sting.
“Forbidden my ass,” I mumbled to myself and then plunged the steak inside his chest, piercing his heart. He disintegrated into a pile of ashes. “Finally. Good riddance,” I spat. Now he couldn’t hurt anyone else.
Turning, I dropped down next to the shifter and held pressure over his wound. A barely audible moan slipped from his throat. My insides twisted with dread. The shifter had lost a lot of blood—too much blood. Luckily, vampires couldn’t turn them into one of them. They either recovered or died and right now, I was hoping for the first. It didn’t matter how much he had irritated me; he did not deserve to die at the hands of a serial vampire. Nobody did.
The blood gushed through my fingers; I applied more pressure knowing it wouldn’t help. Shifter or not, he couldn’t recover from that amount of loss. Emotions clogged my throat and I wished I could turn back the page. I should’ve never gone into the tavern. My gut told me to walk away, and I would’ve listened any other time. Curt might have gotten mad and sent another agent tonight, and even though it would’ve pissed me off, this shifter wouldn’t be dying right in front of me.
Tears welled up but I refused to cry. I never shed tears, but dammit, it pissed me off knowing that Fang had most likely claimed another life. If only I had been a few seconds faster—if he died, his blood would be on my hands. This was my damn job!
Emotions clogged my throat. I could easily disassociate myself from the situation when I didn’t know the victims. But now I would have to explain to both Curt and Luca how I let this happen. Would they believe me, or would they blame me? Maybe they would think I was too slow to jump in and help. They both knew that I never wanted a partner.
My hands tingled with warmth as grief filled my soul. I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn’t have to watch him slip into the afterlife. What would Luca think? The Agency considered me their best, yet I couldn’t stop Fang in time. He took not only the human life but most likely this shifter’s as well, and I didn’t even know his name.
The shifter moaned; my eyes cut to his pale face just in time to see his eyes slowly open.
Magic heated my hands, and a faint glow knitted his skin back together. My hands trembled as my eyes widened to saucers.How was this possible?I thought as I sucked in a gulping breath.
Cloudy and distant eyes suddenly turned sharp and alive. Life quickly returned as his glacial eyes penetrated mine. I sucked in a ragged breath. His injuries should have sent him into the afterlife, but he was far from dead. He sprang to his feet as fast as lightning, almost knocking me backward. His eyes fixated on my bloody hands before he carefully reached up to feel his now healed wound.
My breath hitched. Shifters healed exceptionally fast if they could shift into their animal. But he hadn’t shifted, and his neck had healed entirely. Would he know that I had used magic? And what the hell! I had never healed anyone before in my life. I didn’t even know I could do that or how I did it.
