Page 46 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

"Such as…?"

"Old Slovakian, French, Spanish, English…" he answered.

"I see." Unfortunately, she spoke only English. Biting her lip, she thought up more questions. "What could you do to find information on my father, and what would you want from me in exchange?" She hardly saw him as a man who easily gave favors.

His gaze swept over her in a heated flash from head to foot as if he saw her as some seductive piece and not a filthy, goblin-blooded mongrel.

"Nothing, Tabitha. I'd do it for free."

She burst out laughing. "You'd help me for free? Are you serious?"

His eyes suddenly tracked left like a hawk sensing a mouse in the distance. "Yes, I would." And he indeed sounded most serious.

"Well, if you're telling me the truth, then maybe I'd like your—"

She never got to finish her sentence, for out in the distance the sand began to form waves, undulating the ground and shaking the earth like a quake.

She wobbled side to side and grabbed onto Kane to keep from falling over.

"What is that?" she said, her pitch high.

"I know not," he said, but Graham growled in such a menacing way that the hair on her arms stood on end. Danger was afoot. "Stay here!" he ordered her, and she couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"You know what happened the last time you said that, right?" She'd been stalked by Torpence, some demon slave-lord, and then trudged up to a dais by pretty dancing demonesses, who totally didn't help her, but threw her to the shark. She wasted no time in pulling out the gun Kane had giving her and flicking off the safety. She opened her stance and peered where the ground was churning and moving closer to them.

Graham let out a rabid growl that made her skin crawl, and then he bent low in an attack position, his eyes glowing like a deer's at night.

Kane swiftly pulled out two weapons, one for each hand like a gladiator. He wielded two axes and took on a protective position in front of her. Rolling her eyes none too subtly, she took up position beside him like a professionally trained cop, and aimed her weapon for the stirring sand coming for them. After being attacked by two werewolves in her own home, who were looking for Kane, she'd professionally trained on how to shoot at a real gun range. She knew what she was doing!

Graham growled some garbled nonsense and Kane replied, apparently understanding his Chewbacca-speak, "I sense it too. Smells foul and alien. Looks like an underground earthworm of tremendous girth."

Tabitha squinted to see what they could see, but her human eyes and the darkness made it impossible. The most she could make out was the churning of sand and the quaking of earth that seemed to be coming straight for them and gaining speed rapidly.

Suddenly, the ground burst outward and a gnarled being shot towards them like a giant snake with copious amounts of teeth. It launched for them with its mouth open, as huge as a shark's mouth, and Tabitha screamed in fear as her finger pulled on that trigger.

Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow!

She unleashed the entire magazine clip, then swiftly released its entire cartridge and then pulled out the extra mag Kane had given her and shoved it into the gun just as Graham and Kane lunged forward in an attack. Growls emanated from the snarling "earthworm"—which was too great a kindness to give this heinous snake-like creature that seemed to want to feast upon their flesh.

Tabitha had just clipped in the new magazine when something struck her from behind, knocking her face first to the ground. Scuttling around, she rolled over and gave aim, just as another snake shot up through the earth and fearsomely opened its mouth to devour her.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!

She let loose the entire clip into its mouth and blood rained down on her as it squealed, its mighty head loping in a circular orbit, before it recoiled back down into the earth from where it came.

Heart pumping a mile a minute, Tabitha shot a swift glance over her shoulder to find Graham atop the back of the first gigantic snake-worm's neck like some kind of wrestler with his teeth and claws ripping apart flesh as Kane filleted its neck wide open with a dual-handed, decisive strike.

The head lopped off and a massive spray of blood gurgled out from its decapitation. Tabitha screamed in terror, her entire body shaking in a way she simply couldn't control as it was out of her hands. Her stomach convulsed as terror overtook her, and she was unable to deny the need to get up and run, which she did, booking it clear into the night and away from the terror. Her gun was empty and discharged, and she had nothing left to protect her. She flew away from the scene, tripping over sand and her own uncoordinated feet, as she heard Kane howl into the night with a roar.

"Tabitha!"

Getting up again, she ran faster, afraid with all her breath that her life would be ended by this God-forsaken place.

Suddenly she was plowed into from behind.

Screaming in unholy terror, she was shoved to the ground, face barreling into gritty warm sand that plunged into her mouth and up into her nose. She squeezed her eyes shut as she hyperventilated, unable to breathe properly. Quickly, she was forced around, and came face to face with Kane Gunner.

She'd thought it was one of those creatures, but she couldn't speak to tell him so.

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