Page 157 of A Bond Beyond Blood
“I am no one’sprey,” I snarled quietly.
And he laughed, the sound decimating my final fucking nerve.
I spun on my heels and assessed my opponent.He stopped walking then, obviously surprised that I’d faced him instead of trying to get away.
Someone should have told him not to doubt a Fiorino.
He’d remember for next time, though.
He was young, maybe my age or a bit older, with a shaved head and long, lanky limbs.He wore a dark green hoodie and acid-washed jeans, both of which hung loosely on his lean frame.
With what I hoped was a sinister smile, I strode toward him.
I’d been training in the ring for well over a year—and now sparring with both VinnyandGannon for months—and though I knew I couldn’t win a fight with a vampire, I could easily take a skinny creeper like the one staring me down right now.
“You know what?”I said as I reached him.“I’m so fuckingtiredof assholes like you.”
He stumbled back a step when I charged toward him, and my smile grew as I allowed myself a split second to be proud that I’d startled him, but then he moved so quickly it took a moment for my mind to catch up with my mistake.
My hands were at my sides, nowhere near the stakes tucked into my holster—and this wasn’t just some creep human out for a stroll.
He bared his teeth; the light from the streetlamp above glinted off his inhumanly sharp incisors.When his hand wrapped around my throat, I sputtered, trying to pull air into my lungs past his viselike grip.
I’d gravely misjudged this situation.
He slammed me against a chain-link fence, the sound of the metal screeching and scraping echoing in the quiet night.
He snarled at me and my pulse skyrocketed.“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth, whore?”
I gathered all my saliva even as my lungs strained against the lack of oxygen, then I spit into his face, using his brief shock for the opening that it was.I brought my knee up swiftly, slamming into his groin hard enough to make him release me as he doubled over, then I took advantage and slammed two swift punches into his kidneys.As he growled and snapped at me, wincing from the pain, I reached for a stake, then slammed it into his back, right beneath his left shoulder blade, praying that I hadn’t missed my target.
The vampire fell to the ground and I exhaled a whoosh of breath as relief and adrenaline flowed through me, my veins buzzing like the live electrical wires above my head.
As I strode away from him as quickly as I could without breaking into a run, careful not to turn my back on him, I shouted, “My mother is dead, asshole.”
When his head whipped up, my steps faltered.
Then he reached behind him for the stake—and Iknew.
I’d fucked up.Again.
All that training and still, I failed when push came to shove.
Imissedwhen it mattered most.
He yanked the stake out and roared as he tossed it aside.
My pulse was a thunderous rush of pounding drums in my ears.I had less than half a mile until I reached the gym, until I reached the safety of the two vampires I loved, and I’d never make it in time.
This was it.This was where I died.
But I turned and started to run anyway, because the men who raised me didn’t teach me to give up easily.
As I ran, thoughts of them flooded my mind.Dad and Giovanni, Leo out in California, his new baby I still had yet to meet...
Vinny, Gannon...my heart ached at the impending loss.
Even Elias Bristol crossed my mind and I ached from the loss of the vampire king.
