Page 31 of Shadow Hunter

She lunged at the vampire from behind and stabbed the meaty flesh of his shoulder. Not enough to kill, but enough to injure. In an angry fury, the vampire spun and grabbed at her. She dropped to her knees and sucker punched the bloodsucker straight in the groin.

Take that, asshole.

Human or vampire, getting hit in the crotch hurt like hell.

The creature doubled over in pain, falling on top of her. They rolled across the pavement, each trying to gain the upper hand. Though she was strong, the vampire’s supernatural strengthoverpowered hers, easily. With all its weight, it pinned her to the ground. If it sank its fangs into her neck, she’d be done for. Like a snake, it hissed and threw back its head to attack, but a harsh growl, deep and full of anger, sounded in her ears.

It wasn’t the vampire.

7

Suddenly the weight of the vampire’s body disappeared. Tiffany’s chest heaved from adrenaline and fear. She stared upward and saw the vampire’s feet dangling above her as the creature struggled helplessly. Damon clenched the monster by the throat. His whole body shook with uncontrollable rage as he crushed the bloodsucker’s esophagus. “Stake it before I tear its head from its neck,” he growled.

She scrambled to her feet and with both hands drove the lacquered wood of her stake into the vampire’s heart. One last batlike screech ripped through the night before the monster exploded like a bursting sack. Blood splattered over her face and torso, and she thanked God she’d remembered to close her mouth.

Damon lowered his hands and unclenched his fists as the last remnants of the creature’s flesh fell to the ground.

With her one semi-clean hand Tiffany wiped the vile liquid from her face. “I hate when they do that.” She glanced toward him then, only to find Damon’s stare fixated on her.

The raw power that surged through him hit her full force. He was fierce, terrifying and beautiful all at once.

“You are not leaving my sight,” he growled. “Understood?”

She nodded, at a total loss for words.

Drenched in vampire blood, he walked over to the dead man and hoisted him into his arms. Shifting his balance, he resettled the weight of the man’s body over his shoulder before nodding for her to follow him. They needed to get out of there before the cops showed up, and fast. As they snaked down the back of the alley, the distant sound of sirens, followed by red and blue lights cast into the alleyway, lighting a fire under their feet. They moved faster. Tiffany sighed. Thank God help for the wounded officer had arrived.

Slipping through the darkness, they kept to the shadows all the way back to Damon’s apartment building before slipping up the fire escape. Two people soaking wet with blood, holding a mutilated corpse, was not a sight for civilian eyes. Half expecting him to break his own window, to Tiffany’s surprise, Damon hit a keypad beside the fire escape window, before he climbed into the loft, body in tow. Tiffany’s eyes went wide.

She had to admit it was almost…eerie howpracticedhe was at this.

Not to mention the whole having a keypad on his fire escape window thing.

How often did he make that his main entrance?

Once they were safely inside, Damon positioned the body on the kitchen island. She stripped off her leather jacket, and Damon followed suit. Silently, he held out his arm, and she laid her coat across it, placing both coats in his laundry room before returning to the kitchen. One at a time, they both used the sink and washed the caked-on blood from their faces and hands.

Tiffany stared at the body as she used a dishrag to dry her face. “What the hell was wrong with that vampire?” They were the first words either of them had spoken since that moment in the alley.

The moment he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.

His stare had been so intense it’d felt as if the whole universe hinged upon her safety.

If only for a moment.

Damon shook his head, suddenly clearing his throat. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a vampire guard a dead body or leave so much leftover blood in its victim like that. And I’ve never seen a baby vamp capable of stopping in the middle of a feeding to take a breather, and strong as it was, from the sloppy movements of that thing that was a baby vamp as sure as I live and breathe.”

She nodded in agreement, attempting to wipe some of the blood off her shirt, only to fail miserably. “It was like it was an animal with a piece of food.” Her thoughts wandered back to that wild look that’d been in the bloodsucker’s eyes and she couldn’t help but shiver. “Vampires are chickenshits. Every peon vamp feeding off the street runs like hell if their victim is already dead and someone approaches. And you’re right, what kind of bloodsucker leaves blood like that? I’ve learned at least that much from hunting.”

Damon shot her a look, a close imitation of the intensity he’d shown in the alley. “You shouldn’t be hunting vampires alone.”

She glared at him. “Why because I’m a woman?”

Even with as necessary of an organization as they were, the Execution Underground was notorious in its refusal to employ women. She’d given her brother endless flack about that, badgering him to the point of annoyance more than a time or two. Mark had always given her lame excuses about the serum injections the EU used not working on women, but she knew better. It was a good old boys club through and through, and there were plenty of women, unofficial hunters just like her, hoping to change that.

“Because you’re not trained, that’s why,” Damon answered, as if any alternative wasn’t even up for discussion. “If I hadn’t been there, that bloodsucker would have drained you.”

She turned away from him then, her jaw clenched.

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