took in the scene before me with a grin.
He must have had someone set this up while we were eating. The space opened up into a small but luxurious apartment, very modern and masculine. On the coffee table was a pizza takeout box, and around it were various video game cases and two controllers.
I couldn’t stop smiling; my cheeks actually hurt.
I spied a game I was exceptionally good at as I stepped into the apartment. “Is that Call of Duty?”
He winced. “Too gory for a first date?”
I chuckled. “I think I’ll be fi—”
My brag was cut off by a hissing sound, and that’s when the coppery scent of vampire stench hit my nose. Someone reached out from behind the dark hallway and grasped my shoulders, sending panic flying through me.
“Eugene!” Sawyer yelled into the courtyard and then burst forward, yanking me by the wrists and wrestling me out of my attacker’s grip. In one quick move, Sawyer tucked me behind him, and then I heard the cracking of bones. But the vampire moved blindingly fast, plowing into Sawyer’s half-shifted form while I watched in horror as they collided.
My wolf clawed at the surface of my skin as I longed to help Sawyer fight him off, but he’d told me not to shift in front of anyone but him … Eugene burst through the door, two silver stakes in hand, and that’s when four other vampires stepped out from the shadows.
Shit.
They were all male, more muscular than the royalty I was accustomed to seeing around Delphi when they came for visits or threw parties. These men were warriors, hired assassins.
“Demi, run!” Eugene shouted, and then turned into a white Jackie Chan. He was a blur of motion as he attacked the oncoming horde of vampires, but I knew from experience they were just too damned fast. Sawyer was in the hallway tearing into the first vamp if those screams were any indication, while Eugene tried to fight off the others.
I backed up into the kitchen, grabbing the first knife handle out of the wooden block by the stove that I could reach.
Please don’t be that useless sharpener stick.
In a blur of motion, one of the vampires had reached me and I looked down, relief coursing through me at the giant twelve-inch blade in my hand.
The vampire inhaled through his nose, like he was smelling me. “I found her!” he shouted behind him to the others, and my stomach dropped.
What?
My wolf rattled against my ribs like a cage. I was so used to keeping her inside, but I wasn’t sure I could do that now, not in a life or death situation like this. I knew Sawyer had told me never to let anyone see me shift but maybe that weird split shift thing was a one-time freak accident?
Before I could think any more on it, the vampire lunged for me and I got stabby.
After my sexual assault, I had a hard time sleeping—being a boring old human was such a helpless feeling in a world full of magical creatures. Although I wasn’t just a boring human, with my cuffs I might as well have been. A week after the attack, I signed up for self-defense classes and slept soundly that night for the first time in days. They weren’t just any self-defense classes, the class was taught by a badass named Krev who had been with the Israeli special forces. If I was going to live my whole life without shifting, I needed to turn my body into a weapon. I still had years of training to become a total badass, but I knew enough to hopefully not stab myself with this knife in a fight.
The vampire went right for my throat and I tracked the motion, keeping my grip firm on the knife as I lashed out quickly and stabbed him right in the armpit. He hissed, kicking out, but I saw it coming and jumped up and over it. In human form I was faster than a normal human, but not as much as a vampire. I wouldn’t be able to outrun one, but I should be able to stay alive … I hoped.
“Do you even know what you are?” he hissed, his gelled black hair having come undone in our scuffle.
His question was causing panic to creep up my throat as I assessed the situation around me. Eugene had killed two vampires and was still in human form; Sawyer was bounding down the hall, black ashy blood around