Dark Angel Academy (The Complete Series) - G. Bailey Page 0,33

three women walk into the room, all dressed in leather, blood pouring from their mouths and down their necks. Even then, they are ridiculously beautiful and enchanting, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out they are vampires.

“You two take the redhead. I want the blonde to myself,” the vampire woman clearly in charge states. In the blink of an eye, the two other vampires are behind me and dragging Vesnia away. I scream and try to grab her foot, but someone pulls my hair, and I go flying across the room. The air is sucked out of my lungs as I smack onto the floor, and I swear I see stars. The blonde vampire is leaning over me as everything comes into focus, and she smiles.

“I might keep you as a pet. Would you like to be my pet, angel blood?” she asks, leaning down, and I hate that she smells amazing. Everything about her makes you want to go closer, even as she drips someone else’s blood from her lips. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“No, you stupid bitch!” I shout at her and wrap my hands around her throat, squeezing as tightly as I can. My body buckles after she lifts a hand and slaps me hard around the face. My hands fall away from her neck as tears fill the corner of my eyes, and her hand presses my cheek against the tile. In the distance, I hear Vesnia’s screams, her pleas for anyone to help her, and I want to help.

But I can’t. The vampire’s sickly breath blows against my neck as more tears fall, and I close my eyes, blocking out the world. If I’m going to die, it’s going to be while I’m in my own imagination and in my world back home. With my family.

Suddenly her hand is ripped away from me along with her body, and I look up as Henry offers me a hand. In his other hand lies a sword covered in blood, and splatters of blood cover his white pyjama shirt. Dirt and more blood are brushed against his cheeks, and his black hair is all over the place like he just woke up.

And he is my saviour.

My hand slides into his, and he lifts me up, pulling me against his chest.

“Are you okay?” he asks me, searching my eyes for some answer he can’t ask me for.

“Vesnia!” I shout as I snap out of the haze and find her on the floor, two dead vampires at her side. I search for the vampire who hurt me as I run over, but we are alone. Vesnia has two bite marks on the side of her neck, cuts all down the middle of her pyjamas, and bruises all up her cheeks.

She looks terrible, but the rise and fall of her chest gives me hope.

“We need to get her to a doctor!” I shout.

“You mean an angel healer, darlin’,” he corrects me and slides his arms underneath Vesnia and picks her up gently. “Hold my sword. I think the fight is nearly over, but it’s not safe for me to walk there. I need to fly her to the healer right now.”

“I will fight and protect Kaitlyn here,” Thallon says, and we both turn to see him walk in the room with two swords in his hands. “Go!”

“You best protect her like she is your fucking queen, Thallon. I will be back,” Henry growls and takes off, flying through the door. Thallon runs to me, dropping his swords onto the floor, and then he kisses me.

His hands cover my cheeks as his lips move across mine, softly, gently and perfectly all at the same time.

My first real kiss is in a room full of dead vampires, with a bloody sword in my hand, and yet it’s everything perfect with the world because it’s with Thallon.

“I thought you...and shit, when I saw you covered in blood and hurt... I’m sorry if I crossed a line,” he mutters, shaking his head.

“No line crossed,” I say softly against his lips, even as my cheek stings.

“Good, because I want to cross this line again and again,” he whispers to me, and my cheeks light up. I smile so widely until I flinch from the pain, and he gently lowers his hand to have a look. Suddenly the alarm stops, and we both breathe out a sigh of relief.

“Let’s go carefully to the healers’ rooms,” he suggests, letting me go, and picks up his swords. “Just