Мишель Роуэн - Lady & the Vamp

I'm slaying my own demons."

Quinn looked at Gideon. "He's a werewolf, you know."

Gideon shrugged. "He's crazy. And that's how I need my men to be before going into battle."

And before Quinn could say another word, Gideon turned, with a grin, and ran into the burning building,

not even waiting for his men to follow him.

Every muscle in his body tensed. "I have to go with them."

Janie grabbed his arm tightly. "Not a chance."

He turned to face her. "If I can do anything to stop it, to protect you—"

"You've done enough. Besides, fire and vampires do not go well together. Any prolonged exposure to flame and you'll go up like atiki torch." She grabbed him by his waistband, and thrust her hand down the front of his pants—which made him gasp with surprise—and slowly drew out the Eye. Then she threw it on the ground and, with a firm step, crushed the crystal. It let out a flash of light and then went dark.

"Hopefully that might give Gideon a bit of an edge." She picked up what was left of the golden staff.

"Never knew you two were friends."

"Still"—he looked at the hotel barely visible through the flames—"I need to go—"

He felt only a short burst of pain as she clobbered him with the Eye, and he fell to the ground unconscious.

Safe. But unconscious.

She stayed with him until he woke up. It took only a couple of minutes. She sat on the ground next to him, holding him in her arms while she watched the madness surrounding them.

She knew when the Boss was finally dead, vanquished, because there was a sound unlike anything she'd ever heard before. A piercing, inhuman scream that seemed to split the air in two. She covered her ears to protect them, but it hurt as if somebody had beaten her senseless. Afterward she felt bruised and very tired.

Suddenly she felt a rip through her center, and she grabbed at her stomach and cried out in pain. The

Boss's hold on her—the contract she'd signed in blood—was null and void. He was dead, and she was finally free.

If she hadn't felt like a sack of shit, she would have celebrated.

As Quinn blinked his eyes open and looked up at her, she gave him a weary smile.

"Hey there," she said.

"Wh-what happened?"

"We won," she said simply and kissed him lightly on his forehead.

She helped him to his feet.

"You knocked me out." He rubbed the back of his head.

"And I'll do it again if you give me any problems."

He looked angry with her, just for a moment, and then a smile spread across his face. "You are so annoying."

"Right back at you." She placed her hands flat against his chest. "I'm sorry about the wish. I'm sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted it to."

He shook his head. "I was going to wish for you to be human again, anyhow. Not me. So I'm the one who's sorry."

"Me? Human again? But why?"

He laughed a little. "The fact that you ask me why makes me realize that being a vampire might not be as bad as I originally thought."

"You don't think being a vampire sucks anymore?" She grinned. "Get it? Sucks?"

"That joke is so old your Boss probably made it up. As far as being a vampire, I'm still getting used to it.

But perhaps things aren't quite as black and white as I thought they were."

"Good way to think of it." She raised his hand up and kissed it. The feel of her lips made him ache. "So what now?"

"Well, that all depends—"

Angela ran over to them and grabbed Janie into a bear hug. Quinn's grip on her fell away.

"Janie! You're okay!"

"I am." Janie pulled back to smile at her sister. "I don't want to lose you again. Promise me you're not going anywhere."

"I promise. Well, wait. I do want to go back to Florida. I miss home so much. As long as the two of us are together again, then nothing else matters."

Janie hugged her tightly. "Florida sounds really good. I would so appreciate getting my life back to some sort of normal. Whatever that is. And Lenny's coming, too?"

Angela nodded and reached out a hand to the big guy, then transferred her hug to him. "My two favorite people in the world are safe. My big sister and my true love."

"I love you, Angela." Lenny leaned over and kissed her passionately.

Quinn felt very envious watching Lenny. Not of kissing Angela. But of kissing Janie. He reached out to her.

"Quinn!" a voice caught his attention, and he turned toward the burning casino. It was Barkley, who was covered in soot from head to toe. "We did it!"

Quinn grinned and slapped the werewolf on the back, causing a puff of black ash to appear. "Of course you did."

"Don't sound so confident. It was crazy in there. I could hardly see anything. All I could hear was yelling and screaming. But we did it. At least I'm pretty sure we did."

"You did. You should be proud."

"I am." White teeth showed through the darkness of the ash. "And the best thing is, even though I was really scared, I didn't turn wolf to protect myself. I'm not a coward."

"Of course you're not. So are you going back to your pack and fight to become alpha?"

"Hell, no. I'm going to start my own pack. Start from scratch. I don't need to revisit the past. I never felt at home there. Maybe I'm an open-road kind of werewolf. I'm going to prowl around until I find somewhere that feels right. How about you?"

Quinn glanced at Janie, who was still celebrating with her sister and Lenny. "I… I don't know what my plans are yet." He turned back to Barkley. "Where's Gideon?"

The werewolf shook his head. "Not sure. He went face to face with the demon, from what little I could see. And then I didn't see him again. I… I think he's gone."

Quinn nodded. If he was a betting man, he'd say that Gideon had finally found a challenge worth his talents. But it had been his last one. Even though he knew Gideon was a murderous scumbag, it still hurt a little to know that he'd died to save them all.

It would be only a short time before someone else rose to lead the hunters. Gideon's death would mean nothing in the long run. The world kept turning. Vampires kept being sired. Hunters kept hunting.

He turned to look at Janie again, but he couldn't catch her eye. He heard her say to her sister than she wanted to go back to Florida with her. To their home. To a normal life. Now that Janie was free of her boss, she could do anything she wanted. Find somewhere safe to adjust to her new life as a vampire. It made sense.

He was far from being completely okay about being a vampire, himself. He was a mess. Not something that he wanted to inflict on somebody he cared deeply for.

It started to make sense to him that now that their short time together had come to an end. Now that the

Eye was destroyed, her new life was one that he might not be a part of. Maybe it would be better that way.

He let her celebrate with Lenny and her sister. She didn't even notice when he slipped away into the shadows.

Janie paced back and forth at the airport the next day. She'd tried to get a message to Quinn that she was leaving to go home to Florida. He'd left the night before without saying anything to her—he'd just disappeared. After everything that had happened between them.

That said a hell of a lot to her.

He didn't want her in his life.

Did she blame him? Not really. She had a long way to go before she would be the sort of a woman that any man would want to spend more than a couple of days with. Plus, now that she was a vampire, she needed to devote a lot of time to adjusting to that fact. Her first goal upon getting to Florida would be to find an apartment for her and her sister to share. Then she'd source the local vampire bars and find out where she was going to get her blood supply from.

Blood, she thought.I'm going to have to drink blood if I want to live .