Page 62 of Love Bites
"I already did! I'm getting a cab to head over."
"Don't!"
"Sorry, if you want to stop me, you'll have to make me." No way was I going to stand idly by while my family was threatened. Besides, I knew that if I rushed over there, so would Talon, andhemight actually be able to help. So I dropped the call and ignored my phone while I hailed a cab.
* * *
The house lay ominously quiet before me when I got there.
I took a second to glance at my phone again, but I hadn't received any new messages from Luke.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, and then I climbed the steps to the front porch and opened the door.
Streaks of blood tainted the wooden floor of the den. I smelled it before I saw it. Over the last couple of weeks, my senses had become incredible sensitive to any traces of blood. I swallowed hard.
This wasn't Luke's blood, right?
It couldn't be.
Focus, Collin,I chided myself, because I wasn't helping anyone by freezing in the den. I took another deep breath. Aside from the blood, there wasn't anything unusual in the den, and no one else around. I looked to the stairs. Luke had said they were hiding in the office.
A sound came from upstairs. Heavy, hurried, footsteps. A shocked yelp.
Luke!
I sprang to action, sprinting up the stairs.
Luke stood pressed to the wall only a few feet down the hallway, a stranger towering over him with a menacing grin. Luke's eyes were so wide he looked like a terrified bunny backed into a corner by a fox.
My throat closed up. Why the hell hadn't he stayed in the office?
The stranger exposed his fangs, and my thoughts stopped short.
I launched myself at the stranger, taking him down in a tackle. A feat I knew I only managed because he hadn't seen me coming. There was no way he hadn't heard me come up the stairs, but he'd obviously been too arrogant to think I was a threat.
Or maybe that hadn't been arrogance at all.
I had taken him down, yes, but only for a second, then he was on top of me.
"Collin!" Luke screeched.
"Run!" I barked at him, but he shook his head and said something, I wasn't sure what because I was too preoccupied with keeping the strange vampire from sinking his teeth into my neck. There was onlyonevampire who was allowed to do that, damn it. "Get the fuck off me," I growled.
Someone who wasn’t Luke hissed my name. My eyes darted to Remy, who was standing a few feet away. Had he been there the whole time? He was waving something at me, though I couldn’t quite make out what.
The vampire on top of me demanded my attention again. "Don’t be so shy," he drawled, making my skin crawled. His teeth were so close to my throat now, I felt his cold breath as he exhaled.
I spit in his face.
That didn't help much, of course, but I counted the disgusted look he shot me as a win anyway. He wiped his face, and Remy, suddenly at my side, used that moment's distraction to pass me the thing he’d been waving.
A stake!
Without even thinking about it, I rammed it into the bloodsucker's shoulder. If I could've, I would've aimed for his heart. Maybe another time.
The vampire howled, and I pushed him off me, jumping to my feet. I grabbed Luke's wrist and raced down the hall toward the office, hoping that we would be safe there, at least for a few minutes.
Things didn't go that smoothly. Of course not.
