Page 72 of Deadly Alliances

Hennessee shrugged and sheepishly looked up at us. “Honestly, why not?”

“Why not? Why not?” Kai began to pace inside the circle. “Because he’s part of your team! You don’t abandon your teammate to death!”

“The world might be better off,” Sakura muttered.

“Sakura Tekashi,” Kai scolded, and she shrank inwardly. “You’re better than that.”

Not that I had any sort of love for the creepy bastard, but letting him die at the hands of vampires went against everything I believed in. But I couldn’t do it alone. I didn’t know how many vampires were out there. Kai and I needed them.

I sighed. “If we don’t help him, they might torture our location out of him. We might as well fight them while we have the element of surprise on our side rather than wait here like sitting ducks.”

The three of them tipped their heads in consideration.

“Ugh, fine.” Gibson stood and shifted on the spot, his burly formgrowing even wider as a thick, brown coat sprouted to cover his entire body.

Sakura rose from the ground next, nine tails emerging from the bottom of her uniform and her face growing into a delicate foxy snout.

Hennessee rolled his eyes and reluctantly climbed to his feet to join the party.

“Kai?” Janette asked as she exited the tent. “What’s happening?”

He turned to her with what I assumed was his best attempt at a sexy grin. “We’re going to go kill some vampires.”

Then he explode-shifted into his formidable golden kitsune and leaped through the barrier, galloping into the woods on all fours.

I turned away from her flustered, open-mouthed smile and shifted into my gryphon, and the rest of us raced after Kai.

Like a dark storm, we charged through the forest, weaving through trees and bushes with claws, talons, and wings. Gibson quickly surpassed all of us, his massive footfalls shaking the ground as he barreled forward. The trees were too low and thick to allow flight, so Hennessee and I leaped from tree trunks, bouncing from one to the other to maintain a swift momentum.

Finally, we spilled into a clearing where Peters stood surrounded by five vampires. His reptilian face bared two long fangs, his bloodied body hunched in attack position, his tail poised upward and striking at the white-faced assailants as they feinted forward and backward.

Gibson pounced high, landing right on top of one of them and chomping his head clean off with his grisly maw. The vampires turned their attention to us, and the battle commenced.

A pale face and arms flashed toward me, and I reared up on myhind legs, waving my wings to send a targeted gust of wind that blew the vicious creature off his feet and slammed him into the trunk of a large oak. His marble body blasted the tree, sending splinters flying in all directions, but he quickly rebounded, landing on his feet like a jungle cat.

He shot toward me once more, his speed too quick for my vision to catch, and his fangs clamped onto my neck.

Bastard!

I reared my head, opened my beak wide, and chomped onto the back of his skull with all my might. His head was too hard to crush, but the pain of my assault caused him to shriek and release his teeth from their hold. I jerked him away with his head still firmly in my beak, whipping my neck from side to side to slam him into trees, the ground, other vampires—any solid object I could find.

The edge of my beak slipped under his chin and around his neck, so I pinned his body in my talons and yanked my head backward, rewarded with the most satisfyingsnapI’d ever heard. The metallic taste of his blood filled my mouth, and I chucked the severed head, shoving away the decapitated corpse.

I hacked and squawked, desperately trying to rid myself of the nasty taint, but spitting isn’t exactly easy when you don’t have lips.

In my distraction, a female vampire pounced onto my back, clawing my wings and trying to tear them off. I bucked and shrieked, but I couldn’t dislodge her. She climbed up my shoulders and stabbed her claws into either side of my neck, and then, she started to tug.

Her strength was too much for me, her bending and stretching my neck at an odd angle no matter how I pulled against her. Icould feel my bones beginning to loosen, could feel my muscles tearing inch by inch as my throat tightened, narrowing my windpipe.

This would be the end. I couldn’t shake her, and I couldn’t match her strength.

I’m sorry, Shea.

A howl sounded behind me, and suddenly, the monster was ripped off of me. Snapping back like an overstretched spring, my head whipped forward, disorientation forcing me to collapse onto the snow. When I finally managed to turn my aching neck, I saw Kai pinning the female vampire against the tree, forcing currents of electricity into her.

Her body quaked and convulsed, her skin sizzling and blistering from the overwhelming heat his high-voltage generated inside of her. Finally, her eyeballs exploded from their sockets, splattering Kai’s foxy face with her blood. He blinked and reared, trying to shake the substance off, though it clung to his golden fur.

I guess I should count myself lucky. I only got it in the mouth, but he got it in the eye.

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