Page 83 of Vampire Soldier

“Keep the room clear,” I instruct Ashe, never taking my eyes off of the massive wolf in front of me.

He doesn’t reply, but his presence is gone. Which is good. I don’t want to risk anyone coming in only to end up as collateral damage. Because I’m not here to protect someone now.

I am here to end a threat.

Kit lunges.

It isn’t finesse. It isn’t practice. It’s an unhinged obsession. A full-bodied snarl, a leap propelled by fury and madness wrapped in too much muscle. Teeth wide. His form is blur-fast, but I’m already moving. I sidestep with a pivot, fluid and precise, violence honed down to ritual. My fist meets the side of his gray-furred muzzle as he passes, and the bone-deep crack that echoes across the room is fucking satisfying.

For half a second, Kit lands hard, stumbling. He shakes it off in a whirl of blood-sharp breath and claws scoring the floor beneath him. He recovers quickly. Good. I don’t want this over too soon.

I want him to suffer.

This time, I don’t wait for him to strike. I run.

Boots hammer against hardwood and stageboard alike, the wood trembling beneath the force of my stride. Somewhere in my peripheral vision, the velvet drape rips downward, where his claws had swiped too wide—an accidental tear, but symbolic nonetheless. The curtain’s falling, Kit.

I leap, twisting midair with a snap of twist and momentum. He meets me, jaws open, snarling, but my boot connects with his throat and we crash down together onto the stage before we roll off into the dining area. Chairs splinter around us, red velvet flying like entrails of indulgence torn free. Kit lands hard against the edge of one of the tables, teeth bared, claws flailing, snarling high and hoarse. There’s panic in the sound. Good.

Let him know, beneath that delirium, that this was never a fight he could win.

My knuckles are split already. I feel it without seeing it—warmth slicking down the inside of my thumb, wet and constant. Doesn’t matter. Pain doesn’t register when fury is the only thing singing in your veins.

Kit scrambles and launches again, his body blurring, pale gray fur streaked with shadows as he lunges at me like a rabid thing with no concept of death—only the need to conquer, to claim, to destroy.

I meet him eagerly.

ChapterThirty-Three

BLAKE

The moment the car stops, I’m moving.

I don’t wait for doors to open, for warnings or orders or plans. I’m out of the back seat before Ambrose has fully put the car in park, shoving through the crowd gathered in front of the entrance.

It’s raining. I hadn’t noticed in the car. The sky has cracked open, pouring silver on the street, soaking clothes and skin and ash-dark pavement in a veil of grit and wet. It’s like the first night all over again, except this time the danger is worse. Ten times worse.

I shove my way through the crowd, not caring who I have to shove by to make it to the front. If I have to put my elbow into the gut of the damn president, I will without hesitation. I barrel through the front doors, vaguely noting Ashe stepping aside for me. Perry and Carla are there, the latter looking wide eyed as she stares at Ashe and then me. I don’t care, though, and stagger toward the stage I learned to command, into a home I never expected to have.

Then I swear I hear my daughter scream.

My legs give out beneath me for one terrible half second.

Then I’m running.

Inside, the scent hits me first. Blood. Not the sterile smear of cut fingers or the thin trickle of scraped knees, but something deeper. Hot iron, wet velvet. Animal. It slams into me like a fist to my lungs, thick enough I nearly stumble again as my body reacts on instinct—an ancient response passed down through generations.

Not hers. Please, not hers.

The stage is carnage. The Place—my beautiful, renovated, glitter-lit Place—is shattered beneath towering shadows and falling debris. Tables overturned, cloth ripped like entrails across ruined floors, velvet curtains in tatters, spotlights shattered. It looks like something clawed through the air just to taste grief.

Sounds break through the hum of horror next. A roar that isn’t human, low and guttural, echoed by a frenzied snarl so close to a scream it might as well be one. Something crashes through a table a few feet ahead of me, wood splintering like bone. I flinch back, heart pounding hard and wild, and my vision narrows to a single, monstrous shape barreling across the wreckage.

Oh, gods.

Kit.

The wolf shifter snapping and lunging in the center of the destroyed space is monstrous, soaked in blood and snarling with pure, deliberate hate. His fur is patchy, matted in places with gore. His eyes are sun-yellow and wrong—blown wide with madness, fixed with rabid focus as his massive frame lunges again toward Malachi.

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