Page 60 of Wicked Bite
They almost acted as if they revered or respected her wildness. This was bad. This was very bad. I rolled my sleeves up and pressed my fingers to the weapons on my forearms. The swords I had tattooed down each of my arms glowed a bright red, and again that red, bloodlike mist covered them. They shot from my arms and down into my hands.
“Make a perimeter and drive her this way. I’ll go from the other end, and we’ll meet in the middle.” I pulled my mask up over my mouth and my hood lower over my eyes.
Jester waved his hand, commanding the rest of the team to move out. They took off and the forest was clear of them within seconds. I stood there for another moment, letting my sense expand outward. Other vampires were fast and strong. But I had something extra—a sense for the hunt. All I had to do was focus on the one thing I wanted, and my body would send me in the direction I needed to get exactly that. Poe was a part of me and I was a part of him, I tapped into him using my senses as he soared overhead. I felt through Poe and knew he too was feeling the cool air through his feathers. When I closed my eyes, all I heard was the symphony of the forest. The wind rustling through the bare trees, small critters in a panic with the number of predators nearby, and the movement of my team. A normal vampire wouldn’t hear them, much less a newly made one. And yet there was a sizzle across the ground, a current of danger I hadn’t felt before, at least not with a feral.
Then it hit me. “No!”
Poe turned and I ran toward my desire, using my senses and him as a guide. Gunfire filled the air and shouts echoed toward me. I ran into another clearing and the men were standing back-to-back in a circle with their guns pointed up toward the trees.
“There! She’s over there!”
“No! Here!”
“No! That way.”
“On your left!”
“Right.”
I stood on the outside waiting while they lost their minds. The girl was a hunter for sure. But how strong was she? And what would it take to stop her? Then I saw the eye reflected at me in the trees. She was there one moment and gone the next. The branches rustled, and one of the men flew up off the ground and smacked into the tree behind me.
“Behind you!”
Another one was suddenly thrown up in the air and landed on his face at my feet. I chuckled and darted to my right. I grabbed a branch and swung myself up into the tree. I landed just next to her on the branch. She was hunched over with her wild midnight hair covering her face. Her white dress was in tatters around her body, and it was covered in blood.
I gave a little whistle to catch her attention. She leapt of the branch like a startled cat and landed just above me. When I tensed to leap up next to her, she dove right for me with her little fingers shaped like claws ready to tear at my throat. Blood covered her mouth and neck, but I couldn’t see the rest of her face behind that curtain of hair. The smell was a mix of animal and human. I ducked to the side at the last second and let her hands shove right into the tree. The wood splintered around her hands.
“Been hunting?”
I grabbed the back of her neck and yanked her head back. Her hair flew out of her face, and I froze. My stomach sank and I held my blade away from her. “Holy shit, Piper?”
A feral scream ripped past her lips and she struck out with her fist, connecting with my rib cage. I flew off the branch and landed on the ground next to the others. They pulled their triggers, firing off a volley of bullets. Light blared from the tips of the guns, unleashing a deafening sound.
I shoved Jester to the side. “Hold your fire!”
All at once, firing stopped and everything went silent. The smell of gunpowder and hot metal filled the air.
Jester pulled his mask from his face. “Are you crazy? We need to put her down. She’s too dangerous!”
If Grayson ever found out that she rose and we killed her, he would never forgive himself. Or me. “We capture her.”
“Do you even know how to do that?” His brow furrowed.
“Piss off.” I laid my swords across my arms and that glowing red mist covered them and sucked them back into my skin, then I yanked the taser from his belt and wagged it in his face. “I can bring in something alive.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
But he was right. I didn’t capture. I killed. It was my way. But for Grayson, I would do this, and it would either save him or damn the kingdom completely. If she survived this and could come back from being feral, that is. Either way, Gray deserved to know, and I would deliver her to his doorstep. I turned and ran in the opposite direction, chasing behind her. There was no rhyme or reason as to why she moved the way she did. Feral vampires were all instinct and no thought. It’d be amazing if she even remembered her name.
I pumped my arms and ran harder. She was fast but getting weaker. Dawn would soon approach, and I had to get her out of here and out of the sun before it was too late and she turned to dust.
It may already be.
The second she came into view, I dove for her, wrapping my arms around her hips and taking her down to the ground. She kicked out and flipped us over. I rolled and shoved her to the ground, pinning her arms to her side. Her fangs extended as she growled and hissed at me. I shoved the taser to the side of her neck and pressed the button. The current popped and sizzled when it hit her skin. Her body jolted and shook with the high-voltage. When she went limp, I sucked in a deep breath. I rose to my feet. Her fingers had already began to twitch. Bloody hell. I pressed the taser to her neck again and hit her with it once more. She went completely still, and I knew I only had seconds before she would stir once more.
I needed a way to lock her up. “Over here!”
There was a rush of movement and the team had us both surrounded with all the guns pointed at Piper. Jester tossed a set of handcuffs toward me, and I caught them. I snapped them on her wrists before she woke once more. “Get the ones for the ankles too.”
