Tes Hilaire - Prince of Shadows

She rolled her shoulders, fending off memories as she prepped herself for the heartbreak ahead when something tickled her senses. Twisting, she pushed back the edge of her hoodie, scoping out the dimly lit sidewalk. Sure enough there came a vampire, dressed to party in bicep-clinging black silk and snugly fit trousers. And what do you know? He’d brought a few buddies with him. One of which she knew…intimately.

“Lawrence…” she hissed, already imagining the hot warmth of his blood trickling down her throat before she stuffed her knife up under his ribs.

One of the others would have to do for her new puppet.

She smiled, and something of her eagerness must have slipped through her shields because Lawrence drew up short, causing one of his buddies to bump into him. The lead vampire took another couple steps before he, too, noticed something was wrong, his head lifting, tongue flicking out as if he could taste her on the air.

Not likely. The only thing in the air was the standard mix of human sweat, desperation, and the vices they used to drown the latter out with…oh, that and death. Death was definitely in the air tonight.

“Lawrence? You know one of them?” Aaron whispered, reminding her that she wasn’t alone on this hunt. She flicked a glance at him, annoyance spiking again before she tamped it back down. Eats garlic, computer whiz …and she had other prey in mind.

“Yeah, but I think it’s past time to end the relationship.” She stood. “Either get ready or get lost. Just don’t get in my way.” And with that she whistled, raising her hand for a gleeful wave at the scowling group of vamps.

“Pay dirt. Looks like we aren’t the only ones hunting tonight,” Valin said, nodding to the skirmish going on near the back edge of the playground. It was one hell of a fight, an opinion validated by a staggering couple who exited a nearby club, took one glance at the violent encounter, then sobered up enough to scurry down the street in the opposite direction.

“Should we help out or wait until they’re done and follow?” Bennett asked, stopping beside Valin.

Valin considered the fight. Six against two. It would have been staggering odds but for the fact that the two fighting were obviously not your average humans. The air around the man wearing the camouflage pants practically sizzled with power, overshadowing any power signature that the petite blonde might have. Not that she seemed to need to resort to any sort of magic given how she wielded her knife and axe like a vengeful Valkyrie. Not a big axe, granted, just one that could be clipped on to a tool belt, but the thing must have been seriously sharp for how she cut through the vamps as if they were butter. And just watching her seductively lethal dance had him buzzing with adrenaline.

“I don’t see why they should have all the fun,” he finally said.

Bennett nodded, then reached under the back of his jacket. There was a snap, and he pulled out his curved blade.

Valin blinked, rocking back on his heels. “Hey, where’d you get that?”

Last he knew all the Paladin weapons were being kept in a shielded trunk down in one of Senior Calhoun’s off-limits storage rooms. His paranoia about the blades falling into the wrong hands (or being exposed to the general public or other such blah blah blah) was beginning to eclipse logic.

“Think I’m going to go hunting without my knife?” Bennett shook his head, disgust plainly written on his face. “Not bloody likely.”

“And you didn’t bring me mine?”

Bennett shrugged. “I figured you wouldn’t want to lose it if you had to ghost.”

There was that point. He lost his clothes and anything on him any time he entered the shade, but still…“You wouldn’t have offered to carry it for me?”

“What am I? Your valet?” Bennett called as he dashed across the street.

Valin swore and jogged after him, still in shock that easygoing, it’s-all-good, sure-thing boss Bennett had gone against council edict and stolen back his knife.

“And where are your cojones ?” Valin muttered to himself as he scanned for something to use other than his bare hands.

There were a few ways to kill a vamp—sunlight, stabbing it in the heart, lopping off its head, snapping the neck, and severing the spinal cord—but using a Paladin blade was certainly the easiest. One good plunge with that sucker, heart or not, and there was a better than good chance that the vampire would be dust.

A mangled pallet sat half under a pile of broken bricks nearby, left over from an attempt at re-facing the building it sat beside. Valin jogged over, grabbed a prime piece of the splintered wood, and yanked it free. A couple nails came with it, but he pounded those in quickly with a brick. And look at that, a stake.

He cursed the time it took him to run down the street, climb over the chain-link, and join the fray, but he didn’t want to ghost—not when he’d lose his perfectly good weapon, and not when he hoped to talk a little business after. Birthday suits were fine and dandy for the right occasion, but not when trying to make friends and influence people.

By the time he arrived, Bennett had already taken care of one vamp and was helping the tall, camo-clad guy take on three more. That left one for the axe-wielding Valkyrie and one for himself.

He whistled, drawing the attention of the vampire currently circling the woman and her dancing partner. The vampire—a big motherfucker—glared, then chuckled at Valin, who probably didn’t look all that imposing to the behemoth, even with the splintered piece of wood.

Valin smiled back.

The vampire hissed and charged. Easy enough to dodge, and Valin even got in a good kick to the vampire’s kidneys. The vampire roared and charged again, this time coming away with a busted knee and a nice gash across its ribs from Valin’s rough-edged stake.

His opponent hesitated, his eyes gleaming a wary crimson.

“It’s all in how you use it, big guy,” Valin jibed. The vamp made a low, back-of-the-throat growl and came at Valin again. They danced, Valin settling into a dodge and attack pace that was guaranteed to wear his partner down, eventually allowing for a final strike with the makeshift stake into his opponent’s chest cavity.

Through the cloud of ash, Valin saw the blonde go down, her boots losing purchase in the thick puddle of blood she’d made with that handy axe of hers. Her partner yelled from the other side of the playground, power pulsing and the lights in the street flickering as he threw his knife at the vampire standing over her. At the same time she rolled, slicing at the vamp’s ankle. The vampire screamed, crumbling as the knife sailed harmlessly over it where it dinged into the nearby building. Unfortunately for her, the vampire fell on her, its anger overcoming the pain. A hand snaked out, grabbing her axe arm and twisting it into an unnatural position. A quick flash and its other hand had latched on to her side, dragging her further under him.

She swore, kicking and punching as the vampire snapped at her throat.

Yeah, not going to let that happen. No dinner for tall, dark, and deadly. Valin ran to the struggling pair on the cement. A quick plunge of his stake and right-o, disappear-o. Ignoring the lingering cloud of dust, he reached down to offer a hand, but the blonde was already up, her axe ready as she eyed him warily.

Whoa…and that was a whole lot of blood pouring out of a gash at the crux of her neck. “Are you okay?”

“Never better,” she ground out from between clenched teeth, even as she tossed her hair. Ignoring the bloody mess on her shoulder, she struck a stubborn hand-on-hip pose.

Valin sucked in a breath. Holy friggen fuck. Gabby. Never would he forget that pose—or the bite of attitude that came with it. And those eyes…well, he might as well lie down, roll over, and play dead because all she had to do was look at him with those emerald greens and he was her slave.