“Kat, get that girl out now!” Ridge bellowed again.
Kat whirled to drag the girl away even as she realized the monster was the blond man they’d seen at the party, the one who’d been so interested in her locket. She’d felt his evil then, but she’d ignored her instincts.
Ridge had told her the man and his father were werewolves, but she hadn’t imagined anything like this towering monster. No wonder the cops had believed Karen had been attacked by some kind of animal.
She had been.
“Come on!” Kat hauled furiously on the blonde’s arm, dragging her out of the clearing by main strength.
“What . . . what are they?” The girl stumbled, staring over her shoulder as the vampire charged the towering werewolf, sword flashing in great arcs. “What are you?” Like Karen, she couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She even looked like Kat’s sister—same long blond hair and big blue eyes in a heart-shaped face.
“Don’t worry about it!” A gate. They needed a gate. She reached for the magic . . .
And Ridge shouted in pain.
Kat jerked around. Blood rolled down the vampire’s armored side from a huge gash that ripped across his cuirass.
In the flashing instant it took her to register her lover’s injury, the werewolf was on Kat and the girl, snarling mouth gaped wide to reveal teeth the length of her fingers, clawed hands reaching. Kat shoved the girl clear and swung her sword at the monster’s torso.
He threw himself back, avoiding her stroke, then lunged again. She hacked at the clawed hand swinging at her face.
Fast. God, he was fast. He darted right past her guard with that enormous reach. Even as she threw herself back, she felt claws rake her torso, heard the shriek of metal tearing like paper. It didn’t hurt.
I’m not going to get out of this alive. The thought cut through the furious blur of action. There was no fear in it, just cold reason. Just her brain’s calculation of the odds.
Fuck it. If I die, I die. But I’m taking this bastard with me.
Kat flew into full extension, the kind of fencer’s lunge she’d used in college, thrusting her blade toward the monster’s chest. And it bit deep.
He roared in pain and fury. She didn’t see the blow coming until it hit her with the force of an armored Humvee. Pain detonated in her shoulder, a bright and sickening blast, and she went flying. Hit the ground hard, light bursting in her head as she struck. Blinking, Kat stared blankly at the moonlit trees overhead. She’d never been hit that hard in her life.
Get the f**k up, Kat!
Somehow she rolled to her feet, staggering, shaking her head, sick and aching.
Ridge had faced off with the monster again, despite the scarlet flow that slicked the right side of his armor.
The girl was crawling on the leafy ground, trying to get away from them all, blood running down her face. Impossible to tell if it was her own.
We need reinforcements. The thought slashed through Kat’s consciousness a breath before she remembered the ring her father had given her.
“Lancelot du Lac!” she bellowed. “Dammit, I need you!”
And nothing happened.
TEN
Lancelot!” Kat bellowed again. Nothing.
“So much for his magic ring. “Say my name, and it will bring me to you,” my ass. The bastard had never been there for her before. Why should he ride to the rescue, just because she happened to be fighting nine feet of psychotic fur?
Shaking off the growing dizziness—she suspected a concussion—Kat lifted her sword and prepared to charge.
“What?” her father snapped from behind her. Then: “Holy God! How did you piss off a Direwolf?” The relief she felt was so great, she wanted to kiss his handsome, irritated face. “That’s the bastard that killed my sister.”
Lancelot swore.
Ridge ducked a vicious clawed strike, came up, thrust, missed when the werewolf twisted aside like a matador. Kat raced toward them, swinging her own sword up. Damned if she’d let that monster kill Ridge too.