"Come on!" he was shouting in a voice sharp with panic. "Before that cat recovers-"
"But the girl!" the second vampire said. "We don't have the girl." He looked around. Diana was standing by a display of porcelain figures, looking just as pale and graceful as any of them. She had both hands at her throat and seemed to be in shock.
The second vampire started toward her.
Afo, Keller thought. But she couldn't get her legs to move. She could only lie helplessly and stare with burning eyes.
"No!" a voice beside her said, out loud this time. Galen was jumping up. He got between the vampire and Diana.
The vampire grinned, a particularly nasty grin. "You don't look like a fighter to me, pretty boy."
It wasn't exactly true, Keller thought. Galen wasn't pretty; he was beautiful. With that gold hair and his coloring, he looked like a prince from a storybook. A rather young and inexperienced prince. He stood his ground, his expression grim and determined.
"I won't let you get to her," he said steadily.
Who the hell is this guy? Keller thought Iliana, pale and wide-eyed, glanced up at him, too. And then Keller saw her... melt. Her drawn features softened; her lips parted. Her eyes seemed to quiver with light. She had been cowering away from the vampire, but now her body relaxed just a little.
He certainly looked more like a champion defender than Keller had. He was clean, for one thing.
Keller's fur was matted with her own blood and the dragon's. More, she couldn't help the little raspy snarls of rage and despair she was making, showing dripping teeth in a red-stained muzzle.
Too bad he was about to be slaughtered.
He wasn't a fighter. Keller had seen the inside of his mind, and she knew he didn't have the tiger instinct.
The vampire was going to massacre him.
The vampire started forward.