Night Kissed (Chosen Vampire Slayer #1) - Mila Young Page 0,31

body; I felt the lowest layer of clothes begin to smolder on my skin.

A low whistle cut through the gloam. “Over here, Smokey.”

This time I pinpointed the voice right away. The cluster of vamps leaned up against the walls at the end of an alley, their dead eyes flat in the dusky light. They were not the same maddeningly elegant breed as the bloodsucker I loved to hate. No, these were mongrels, mangy and feral. No scruples at all.

No one would miss them.

They grinned at me as I turned to face them down the narrow passage, mouths stretching to expose hungrily pointed teeth. The ravenousness I could understand, but I wasn’t about to give up my own blood.

“Sorry.” I rubbed my chin, eyes narrowed. “You talking to me?” All of us were obviously itching for a fight. The air crackled with thinly veiled tension.

“What if we are?” The vamps straightened up, tall and thin and gangly. Two of them cracked their necks and knuckles in anticipation. They thought this was going to be as straightforward a beatdown as they were ever likely to get. A gift from the gods of the street.

But that would make me the sacrificial lamb, and if there was anything I had never been, it was meek and compliant. “Well, then you’d better be ready to have something to show for that bad attitude.” Again I pushed up my sleeves. The veins in my forearms burned hot, and I wondered if I should just let the sons of bitches drink my blood. Call it an experiment, see what that would do to them.

The vamp in the lead laughed and spat on the ground. He spoke like his throat had been packed full of gravel. Eyes that should have been bloodshot were spidered with gray capillaries. “You think you’re on the high ground, all cozied up with the clanmaster, don’t you? Think you’re safe in this town?” Their advancing circle began to pull in tighter around me. “Think again.”

My least favorite thing about vampires was the inherent difficulty in gauging their strength. Every one of those assholes looked like he had walked straight out of the crypt he’d died in, but experience taught me how easily they could be underestimated. If there was anything I did not want, it was to be shown up by the local stiffs.

“Are we gonna do this, or what?” I sucked in a deep breath, churned it into smoke, and as the first one lunged toward me, blew the whole cloud out in his face. He reeled back and came up choking as I grabbed for his throat through the smoke screen. “Never mind. Guess I answered my own question.”

“You cocky son of a bitch!” The vampires leaped on me from either side, clawing at my arms and shoulders with ragged nails like an angry, grotesque flock of birds. I used the one flailing in my grip to shove them off. My hand tightened around his neck. He gagged. His tongue lolled from his mouth. Someone threw a punch into the side of my face, causing stars to briefly explode behind that eye.

I dropped him and swung around to face a different attacker. This one wasn’t much more than a scrawny punk, probably a kid struck down and turned out of pity. For all he lacked in muscle mass, he knew how to fight in the way a caged animal fights: with desperate, wild strength. I clenched my fist until it glowed white hot and drove it into the center of his sternum. He howled in pain, and when he staggered back, the imprint of my knuckles was branded on his skin.

The leader of this pathetic little club still writhed on the concrete, holding his throat. The two who remained knelt at his side. I turned to stare down at them. Blinding heat radiated off my fist. I lifted it and snapped my fingers.

“Want me to burn it all down?” I demanded. “Because I will.” All I had to do was apply a little pressure, and he’d be in prolonged agony at the very least.

Then I remembered how I’d have to return to that damn house and face up to Orion about killing some of his men. Didn’t matter that they were like plague rats, weak and disgusting. Their beloved clanmaster would have my head. And I couldn’t count on Logan for shit.

The realization was a downer, to say the least. Instantly, I felt the adrenaline ebbing, its high spiraling down into