a vampire lord with fully extended fangs. “They came to my bastion and left no one alive. They slaughtered all of those under my protection and left my home in shambles.”
I wanted very much to leap out of the car. When it came to taking my chances with an angry vampire lord or asphalt going seventy miles per hour, I’d take the asphalt. It would be less painful. “Then who called you?”
“Ryder,” he said. “He was supposed to help you acclimate to the new…atmosphere.”
And even though fifteen years of conditioning made me want to lunge for my sword, it would only prove cumbersome in the car’s interior.
That and I didn’t think Noir would give me the time to pull it out of its bag, much less the sheath itself. “You’ve been rather accommodating to someone who hunts things like you.”
His smile was crumbling visibly at the edges. “It would seem you’ve got more pull with him than most other Ailwards. Seen but not heard, I believe, is the purpose of them, no? Clearly, you must not have received the memo.”
His fangs had retracted just a bit but it was enough that I released my death grip on the door handle. I might die that night, but chances were high it would not be in that moment, in this car.
“What happens now?”
The car took a right turn a little too abruptly and I careened into Noir’s side.
Slamming into a brick wall woiuld’ve been less painful and the breath left me in a sudden whoosh that left me gasping for air, my stomach cramping.
Someone screamed, long and high.
I didn’t realize it was the driver until the car screeched to an earsplitting halt and I bounced off the front barrier, cutting my chin on a metal coat hook.
“That…that wasn’t planned, was it?” I asked, like a stupid idiot. I tasted blood in my mouth and felt it dribble down my chin; I’d bitten my tongue, and pretty badly at that.
Noir stared at me, his eyes wide, and I stared into those empty, pitch black depths. “What?”
He shook his head and turned away, as though he could not bear to look at me. “Wipe your chin. Hurry up and wipe it before I do something I regret!”
Shit. I swiped at my face with trembling fingers. I almost put an eye out. “Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Never mind,” he said forcefully and opened the door. “Are you ready?”
I didn’t think he was, when someone, something jerked him out of the car and into the darkness that seemed to beckon like some horrible shadow that knows all your secrets.
Suddenly, I couldn’t get away from that side of the car fast enough.
Sword clenched in my right hand, I felt for the door handle digging deep into the small of my back, and I frantically depressed the handle, all the while aware of the terrifying howling, snarling I heard from the other side of the car.
The car door gave suddenly behind me and I fell heavily on my back, my right arm twisted in an awkward position underneath my hip.
“Well, ain’t this a surprise!”
Marcus leered down at me and before I could move, reached out, squeezing my shoulder hard enough to bring a cry to my lips.
Pulling me onto my feet, he dragged me around the side of the car where I saw Noir flanked by a pair of vampires, their eyes dark, fangs fully extended.
Meanwhile, the vampire lord’s right eye looked like it would explode in its socket if someone so much as coughed in his direction and blood drenched the flannel coat, dripping on the asphalt that seemed to absorb the blood before it even had a chance to pool.
I didn’t recognize the vampires standing on either sides of the bested vampire lord, although I did recognize the feminine figure that sat on the car trunk, her black stiletto heels kicking in the air.
“Hello, Ailward.”
Marcus shoved me forward and I fell on my knees, bruising both kneecaps.
“Vincent’ll have your heads,” I managed to say with some modicum of dignity.
Annabel exposed the long, pale length of her throat, running a fingernail down it as she pretended to observe the full moon. “Yeah, well, what he won’t know won’t hurt him, now would it?”
Noir tried to pull free of her guards, but one of them kicked him in the back of his knees, forcing him back down. “So, this is how you planned on eliminating the Sanguinate? Take out his allies and then take him out as well?