“Yeah, but that was at least two girlfriends ago. You’re well behind the curve on this one.”
I heard a gasp from behind me. Which part of stay here had they not understood? I very pointedly did not turn around—if there was ever a moment for a vampire to pull a high-speed neck-snapping this would have been it.
“Sofia.” Yelena made to approach her but I put myself firmly in the way. “And you brought a friend. How nice.”
“Who are…” Sofia’s voice was soft to the point of vanishing. “What did you do to Marc and Nigel?”
Instead of answering, Yelena casually tossed the heart past me. From the shriek, and the sound of something wet hitting the floor, I guessed neither of them caught it. Probably a good call for about nine different reasons.
Right, this was getting past what I could put up with. “Leave now,” I said. “Or I swear I will—”
“You’ll what?” Yelena looked up at me with something that was almost amusement. “Kill me? I know you’ve grown a little since we last met, but I’ve always had power you don’t understand, Katharine.”
Something started moving in the darkness at the edge of the room. The King of Shadows had said—or at least strongly implied—that Yelena had been one of his creatures in life, and I’d known for a while that she had this creepy witchcraft schtick she could fall back on if the superhuman strength, speed, and cruelty weren’t enough.
Fuck it, let’s see what she’s got. I took a swing at her. I was pretty sure the attack caught her by surprise because there was no way seventeen-year-old me would ever have dared go for a vampire unarmed. Or at all, for that matter.
She dodged with that annoying speed and grace that vampires had and caught me by the wrist. I realised about half a second too late that letting an undead witch with blood on her hands get that blood on your skin was probably a bad idea. She said three words in a language I didn’t recognise and I felt a stabbing cold cut right through the guts of me, like my whole body had an ice-cream headache. Then she shoved me aside and went straight for Flick.
Here lies Kate Kane. Froze to death while failing to protect a teenager she nearly shagged. Total fuckup. Not especially missed.
I looked up from my pile of frozen agony on the floor to see Yelena drawing Flick into that I will kill you in an inappropriately sexualised manner embrace that vampires seemed to learn on day one of monster school. Fuck.
That was when Sofia went nova. She reached out to her friend in a way I found almost touching in its sincerity, then almost blinding as a burst of sunlight flooded out from her and chased the shadows from the room. Yelena recoiled and the bone-deep cold that had been holding me down began to fade rapidly.
The vampire retreated to the window, cowed but unrepentant. “Your Hellenic patron can’t protect you forever, and we will come for you and yours. Count on it.”
I was almost back up to full not-incapacitated-by-dark-magic-ness, and I wasn’t going to get a better chance to finish this. I threw myself across the room at Yelena, but she didn’t engage. Instead she drew the pelt around her shoulders, taking on the form of a gigantic black wolf and bounded through the window, shattering glass as she went. If I’d been less shaken or more reckless, I’d have gone after her, but her power would only increase as she got further from Sofia’s Aura of Loveliness and I didn’t know if shapeshifting was the only trick her stolen werewolf skin would let her bring to the party.
And yes, I’m very proud of myself for not taking the get yourself killed for no reason option. Thank you for asking.
Flick and Sofia were holding each other and crying so openly and sincerely that I felt distinctly uncomfortable intruding, but it was about to get really, really important for none of us to be here and even more important that none of us have blood on our clothes.
I steered the two of them back into Sofia’s flat, where they sat at the kitchen table—I doubted they’d want to take the sofa after what they’d seen on a basically identical piece of furniture—shaking. I wasn’t sure which of them I was more concerned about. It was true Sofia had less of a tough-girl vibe but Flick had