Page 70 of Daddy's Friend’s Mate

She bared her teeth and launched at me with the three vampires behind her. Inside the shop, screams broke through the air as glass shattered. Strange whirling sounds erupted, along with a mixture of shouts and growls. Two of the vampires rushed inside to quell the fighting while the one vampire remained to latch onto my arm.

Kiara sprinted out of an alley in her wolf form and snatched the vampire by the arm, dragging him away with a sharp scream toward the darkness. My attention snapped back to Teresa when she landed on me. I fell backward and rolled, grabbing hold of her shoulders while planting my feet into her stomach. I used her momentum to toss her across the street and bounced easily to my meet.

A few hops got my adrenaline going. My wolf wanted desperately to come out to play, but it wasn’t his time yet. Teresa would probably pull a dirty trick. I had to be in my human form for that kind of thing. And as I watched her struggle to her feet, I realized how much my life had shifted lately.

In under two weeks, I had been matched with a mate, completed a mission to return something to a vampire, and had the most fantastic sex with the woman of my dreams, who just happened to be my daughter’s best friend. Now, I was facing down my ex-girlfriend, the very woman who had caused the gaping wound in my heart.

It was time to heal that wound.

Teresa pulled a dagger from her belt. She held it in the air and shouted, “I’ll have that amulet whether I have to cut it from your body or not!”

She rushed across the street, pointing the dagger at my heart. Ander flew from the right and joined my side, offering his assistance by raising his sharpened nails and showing his fangs.

I held out my right arm to stop him. “No, this is my fight. Go inside and make sure Regina is okay.”

Kiara barked up a storm at Teresa. I waved for my daughter to stay back because her mother was going on a rampage with a deadly weapon. If anyone should suffer the consequences of knowing her, it should be me.

And only me.

As soon as Teresa was within a foot of me, I ducked out of the way and swung my right arm into her stomach. She flipped again, but this time, she landed on her feet and whirled around to face me. Her face contorted with the early signs of shifting. Her shimmering eyes reflected the streetlamps, and her nose was pointing into a snout. Sharp teeth were crowding her jaw.

“Give…it…” She hacked and then howled.

I gritted my teeth while bending my knees into a fighting stance. “That’s always been your downfall, Teresa. You never could control your emotions.”

She wailed as she lunged at me, swinging the dagger around recklessly. I raised my arms to block the blows, catching a couple of slices along the way. Those wounds paled in comparison to the one she left in my gut from her egotistical behavior. That ended today—as safely as possible without my daughter or my mate suffering further harm.

Kiara barked louder, whined, and then charged up to Teresa’s side. When Teresa turned to stab her daughter, I flung myself between them with a shout, suffering the brunt of the blow in my left rib cage. I hit the ground hard, blood pouring from my side. My poor daughter whimpered loudly and then barked violently at her mother, growling viciously as she stepped over my twitching body.

“Stay back,” Teresa warned. “You stupid mutt, you better stay back!”

I lifted my head from the tar. “That stupid mutt is your daughter, you ignorant coward.”

Teresa gaped at Kiara, almost like she was in awe. For the moment, she lowered her arm, the dagger now pointing at the ground. My vision swam with eerie colors, puke green, and pus yellow, making me sick. Nausea slammed into my core as my head lolled back.

“Don’t…don’t you hurt her…”

“Eric!”

That voice…so familiar…

Hands as warm and comforting as the sun’s rays on a summer day touched the back of my neck and my chest. I tried to look up to see who was touching me, but my vision was getting worse, swirls of color colliding together like a trippy kaleidoscope.

I licked my dry lips. “What?”

“Eric, you’re losing a lot of blood. Shoot, it’s poisoned. Captain, look at me. Come on, look at me, sweetie. Look at me!”

I widened my gaze, forcing myself to focus on the solid points inside the tunnel of colors. Lavender hair and gray eyes shimmering with pinprick dots of indigo.

I smiled. “Hi, GG.”

“Hi, sweetie. I need you to breathe, okay?”

“Teresa?” I fought to lift my head but couldn’t. “Kiki…”

She sniffled. “They’re fine. They’re okay. Ander just intervened and has Teresa in custody. You two distracted her enough for us to fight back inside. You came with guns blazing, baby. What a hunk.”

She was crying now. I could tell by the way her body shuddered as she cradled my head in her lap. Her hands kept frantically flying over the wound on my left side. Soft lips rapidly spoke in shuddering whispers, the kind of words I might find in a fantasy movie about elves. Except this was real life.

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