Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,75

thrown to the ground, dizzy and exhausted and scared half out of my mind. But I landed on my back in time to see fifty or sixty vampires leaping on the thing all at once, like a hurricane. I didn’t have to ask who they were; I knew.

They tore into it as it loomed above me, literally right over top. I stared up at the massive body, rising three, four, maybe five stories high, because there was nothing constraining it now, and watched as our best troops carved huge pieces off of it even as it tried to fall on me. Even as it writhed and twisted and did its best to take me with it. Even as it was dissected where it stood, carved up and separated out so it couldn’t form back up.

Because if our guys couldn’t kill it outright, they’d take it in pieces.

And then it morphed again, but this time, I wasn’t sure it had been on purpose. The thing was suddenly going through a series of changes, almost too fast to see. The body changed and twisted, bulged and shrank and then bulged again, as I scrambled back, trying to get out of the way. I hit what remained of the wall between the waiting room and the office just as it settled into a massive, full-on fish thing with a protruding eye—

Which the consul put out with fangs longer than my arms.

And, finally, finally, that turned the tide. The whole concourse of us watched in total silence as she savaged the thing that had assaulted her army and killed her men. Blood splattered the crowd, thick and black and steaming. And burning, containing flecks of that pale, poisonous fat, which seemed to have aerosolized, because I could feel it burning in my lungs. But nobody moved until the thing lay dead on the ground, the consul’s fangs buried deep in its throat, a huge pool of ugly blood spreading over and staining the pretty new mosaic.

For a second, there was only more stunned, echoing silence.

And then the screaming started, and the cheering and the crying, along with sounds I couldn’t even name from the throats of what looked like thousands of people who’d taken refuge here, there, and everywhere. They were emerging from hallways and rubble-filled rooms, and they were running all around us now, their cries hammering against me like a tide, their hands reaching out to touch, even as I tried to get up and failed and sat down hard on my ass.

Well, I thought dizzily.

Looked like we were going to need another painting now.

Chapter Seventeen

I shifted into the foyer of my suite a couple hours later, and for a wonder, nobody tried to shoot me. One of my guys—a sweet-faced Cuban named Emilio—was on guard, and he even smiled in welcome. “Heard you had some fun.”

Vampires. Honestly, they really did gossip worse than old women. “I had something.”

“Hey, did you ask about, you know?” He looked at me expectantly.

I blinked tiredly back.

I didn’t know.

“The thing about Lord Mircea not pulling us back?”

Oh, yeah. Only the whole reason why I’d gone. “It, uh, didn’t come up. Yet,” I added when his face fell.

The perpetual smile reemerged, and it was blinding. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Yeah, maybe a phone call tomorrow. I was really starting to hate going to the consul’s. “Yeah.”

I put my hand on the doorknob, but he shook his head. “They’re having a thing on the terrace. Maybe you oughta, you know.” He looked at my destroyed outfit and then did the Bewitched thing with his nose. Only he couldn’t twitch it independently and had to use a finger. It was so goddamn adorable that I actually smiled, and I’d thought I was out of those.

It was good to be home.

“Thanks,” I said, and shifted.

Annnnd immediately regretted it. I reappeared in my bathroom, my second-favorite landing pad, because nobody was supposed to be in there but me. Which was extra fortunate tonight, since I collapsed to my knees from the power loss, biting my lip on a scream. And then wondering why I bothered; this place was soundproofed, right?

I let out a heartfelt groan, and immediately there was a knock on the door.

That was why, I told myself. You didn’t take chances, because there was always. Somebody. Listening!

This time it was Marco. “Cassie? You all right in there?”

Why does everybody keep asking me that? I thought, and then I giggled.

This did not appear to be the appropriate response.

“Cassie!”

“I’m fine,” I gasped out,