The Last True Vampire (10 page)

“No,” Michael replied, his eyes still fixed on the priest who held his prize. “It isn’t. The slayers have found us, Ronan.”

The Sortiari had come to Los Angeles and this one meant to kill his mate.

CHAPTER

8

A red haze of unrestrained rage clouded Michael’s vision. His single obsessive thought was to bring a painful, bloody death to the creature that dared to harm his mate. Her fear permeated the air, the acrid scent like scorched plastic. Ronan tensed beside him and took two tentative steps back. A violent snarl pierced the quiet, and the sidewalk trembled beneath Michael’s feet.

“Easy, vampire.” The slayer’s eyes gleamed like obsidian. He drew her deeper into the shadows of the alley. “My hold on her is tenuous.”

Easy?
Michael was going to rip the bastard’s throat out.

The slayer dragged his tongue across her cheek once again, taking her blood into his mouth. Michael’s lip curled at the affront as the slayer taunted him. “Sweet,” the beast hissed. “No wonder you want her so badly.”

Michael took a lunging step forward and the slayer choked up on the tiny knife, nicking her skin. A rivulet of blood trickled down her neck, and Michael’s thirst flared hot in his throat, distracting him from the urge to commit violence.

“Come forward and drink of her.”

Like a moth drawn inexorably to a flame, Michael took a slow step forward and then another. The sweetness of her blood overrode the sharp tang of her fear, the need to taste the crimson drops sending him into a state of mindlessness and utter loss of control.

Michael’s gaze narrowed on the ribbon of red that flashed across the pale column of his mate’s throat. She struggled against the slayer’s grip, her eyes wide and shining with fear. Her voice was nothing more than a whisper, her mouth barely moving with the word “Mikhail.”

A battle cry erupted from Michael’s lips, the shout charging the air with his residual rage. The slayer’s black eyes flickered with trepidation even as his lips thinned into an arrogant smirk. His actions were a dark smudge in the shadows as he shoved Michael’s mate forward. A distraction, to be sure, but Michael wasn’t about to take any chances with her delicate human body. He cradled her in his arms, catching her before she sprawled to the sidewalk. He kept his gaze locked on the slayer as the false priest produced a silver dagger and a wicked wooden stake from a wide belt slung around his waist.

“Protect her, Ronan.” As the slayer lunged, Michael spun away, handing his mate into Ronan’s capable arms. The dagger glinted in a flash of silver and caught Michael high on his biceps, searing his flesh as the blade cut through his shirt and grazed his skin.

The Sortiari had done their due diligence, training their berserkers and creating fine-tuned killing machines. With inhuman speed the slayer struck out again, this time catching Michael in the torso. He hissed in a sharp breath, forced the pain to the back of his mind as he pulled his daggers from their sheaths. No longer on the defensive, Michael lashed out, cutting and stabbing, his movements a blur as he sent the slayer into retreat.

With each swing of his arms Michael felt invigorated, every connection with his enemy’s body a thrill that spread through him like wildfire. The slayer was fast, every action precise. Well trained and as deadly an opponent as ever Michael had faced; but he refused to let the slayer win. They’d failed to kill him two centuries ago; it wouldn’t happen now. He blocked a downward cut of the dagger, and the slayer used the opportunity to come at him from the left, grasping the silver-tipped stake tightly. Michael kicked out, catching his attacker in the gut, and the slayer flew backward, landing on the pavement with a crunch of broken bones.

Still the bastard came at Michael with no outward expression that he felt an ounce of pain. In the grip of battle lust, a berserker was nearly invincible. They healed almost instantly from their injuries. Bred for war, they were killing machines. Perfect assassins.

The slayer moved as though through time, his speed astounding even to Michael. In the blink of an eye the slayer was beside him and a white hot-bolt of pain shot from his shoulder, down his left arm as the silver blade sank into his flesh. His hand went numb, his fingers releasing their grip, and one dagger fell to the pavement with a ring of metal.

Michael went down on a knee and behind him Claire cried out, the sound of her distress cutting him deeper than any Sortiari blade. The slayer brought his left arm up, the stake held high as he said, “We are Fate.” He struck with a quick downward stab and froze, the stake poised just above Michael’s chest.

The slayer’s dark eyes stared, disbelieving as his voice gurgled in his throat. Blood welled from his mouth as Michael sank the other blade into his enemy’s flesh, tearing through skin, sinew, and tendon. Michael opened the slayer’s throat in a forceful jerk, and dark crimson spilled from the wound, over the black fabric of his priest’s fa
ç
ade.

Blood had indeed flooded the streets tonight, but it wasn’t Michael’s mate’s. A low growl rumbled in his throat as he let the slayer fall to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The sounds of a struggle drew Michael’s attention. He whipped around to see his frantic female kicking and fighting against Ronan, desperate to free herself from the man’s hold.

“Let me go, asshole!”

“Mikhail? A little help here?”

Ronan looked as shocked as the slayer had over the course of events. He held on to the female, barely registering her struggles or cries. Her eyes were wide with fear and the frantic beat of her heart, the blood rushing through her veins, echoed in Michael’s ears. “Be calm,” he said as he approached her. The slayer’s blood stained Michael’s hands and shirt, no doubt making him look like a monster. He retrieved his fallen dagger from the ground and sheathed them both. Mercy was not afforded to slayers. Neither was an honorable death.

“Don’t touch me. Get away from me!”

Her chest rose and fell with her quickened breath, and despite Ronan’s hold on her, she swayed on her feet.

“Amy—”

“That’snotmyname!” The words were strung together, little more than a frantic blubber. “Let. Me. Go!” She kicked at Ronan once again and managed to free herself from his grasp. She tripped on her own feet, sprawling face-first onto the unyielding sidewalk. A snarl built in Michael’s chest that she’d take so little care with herself. She scrambled away, clawing up to her feet only to stumble again as she fell back against the brick of the building behind her.

“Y-you killed that man!”

Stating the obvious must have been a human defense mechanism. Something to help her reconcile what she’d just witnessed. Her distress caused Michael pain, but until she allowed him to comfort her, to reassure her of her safety, there was nothing he could do to assuage her fears. “He intended to kill you. I will not suffer any creature to live that means to do you harm.”

Michael took a step toward her and she scurried back like a mouse caught in a fox’s sight, using the alley wall as leverage to hold her upright. He took another step toward her and she whimpered with fear, a sound that cut him deeper than any slayer’s blade ever could.

“Try to calm down.” Michael took a slow step forward and approached his female with arms outstretched in supplication. She pressed her body against the unyielding bricks as though hoping they’d swallow her up. The fear that leached from her pores burned his nostrils and masked the sweet scent of her blood. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Bullshit.”

Ronan smiled. “Come on, we, well, he”—he jutted his chin toward Michael—“just saved your life. Do you really think we want to hurt you?”

Her pulse slowed and she studied Ronan with an intensity that caused a pang of jealousy to flare in Michael’s chest. He let out a low growl that vibrated in his throat.

“Down, boy.” Ronan cut Michael a look.

Michael swallowed down the residual aggression that caused his fangs to pulse in his gums. He lowered his voice, solely for her. “Take a deep breath. Gather your thoughts. You
know
I won’t harm you.”

His mate eased herself away from the wall, no longer trying to become one with the bricks. She took a stuttering breath and then another. “Maybe not.” Her gaze locked with Michael’s. “But I still don’t trust you.”

*   *   *

Despite the fear that shook her right down to her bone marrow, Claire’s heart soared in her chest at the sight of Michael standing not five feet away. This was crazy. Completely bat-shit insane. The star of her nightly sex dreams had just brutally killed someone. With a freaking knife! Granted, the bastard had been about to carve her up like a Thanksgiving turkey, but it was murder just the same. Her mind refused to wrap itself around what had just happened. Never in her life had she seen anyone move so fast, yet both men had been nothing more than a blur in her vision as they fought. The entire scuffle seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Shit like that just didn’t happen.

She studied the man who approached her like she was the dangerous one. Ha! If that wasn’t the joke of the century. He was slightly smaller than Michael, though no less imposing. His use of the name Claire had spoken in her dream—Mikhail—sparked her curiosity. And despite her very dangerous, very precarious situation, her instinct did in fact tell her that she had nothing to fear from these men.

The other man—Ronan she thought his name was—smiled and Claire blinked, craned forward to get a better look, and blinked again. Were those fangs poking down from his gums?
Jesus
. She’d heard of people getting body modifications done, forking their tongues like lizards’ and having cat whiskers implanted into their faces, but she’d never seen it firsthand.
Seriously,
fangs. The priest had used the word “vampire.” Claire thought back to her dream.…
What. In. The. Hell?
Maybe these guys were part of some deranged cosplay group? She’d witnessed some pretty effed-up shit in L.A. but this took the cake.

“It isn’t safe here. We need to leave. Immediately.”

Mister Tall, Dark, and Overprotective was a little on edge. “What’s the matter?” Accusation flared in her tone. “Worried about the cops?”

His turquoise eyes bore straight through her. “Hardly. Where there is one slayer, more will be close behind. I need to get you to safety before the vermin crawl from their holes.”

“I’ll be fine on my own. Thanks.”

His gaze darkened and his lip curled into a sardonic smirk. “You’re coming with me.”

Claire’s eyes widened with incredulity. Unlike his buddy’s, Michael’s upper jaw sported two sets of fangs. Who in the hell had money to throw around on unnecessary dental work like that? Maybe for once her instincts were steering her wrong. “Look, buddy, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.” His gaze slid over her, protective and predatory, and she shivered. “No way am I jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire just because you say I should.” Holy crap, even bloodied and looking like an axe murderer, he stirred her desire.
Sick!
But no matter how badly she wanted to touch him, kiss him, and do naughty,
naughty
things to him, Claire wasn’t going to fall for his spoon-fed bullshit.

Michael brushed past his crony and Claire bristled. Each individual nerve ending in her body was aware of him, igniting with a heat that left her flushed and sweating. Her body was a sex-starved traitor, responding to his massive body and dark, broody expression that all but stripped her bare to his gaze. That same low, delicious rumble that had driven her crazy at the club vibrated in his chest and it was all she could do not to tackle him to the sidewalk. Her mind was starting to think that her body might be on the right track.
Damn it, Claire, focus!

No matter how much she wanted him, he was still dangerous. Panic swelled within her like water at high tide and Michael’s step faltered as though he felt the shift as well. “Sorry, but there’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere with you.” No one conned a con artist.

“I’m afraid this isn’t up for discussion.” His voice vibrated through her, and Claire’s bones went soft. “You’re coming with me. End of discussion.”

Claire snorted. Michael was sporting a pair, wasn’t he? She looked to Ronan. “Is he always this pushy?”

Ronan folded his shoulders across his wide chest. “I’m afraid so.”

“Too bad for you,
Michael,
because I’m just as stubborn as you are pushy. First of all, you lied to me. I don’t appreciate that. Second, I don’t let perfect strangers—not to mention guys who think every day is Halloween—haul me off to god knows where. And third, whether it was self-defense or not, you just killed a man.” Panic flared within her once again, drowning out the sense of elation that had swelled in her chest. She kept her gaze from wandering to the spot on the sidewalk where her assailant lay in a pool of his own blood, and swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat. She had to get away from here. Now. Alone. “Do you what you want, but I’m getting the hell out of here before the police show up and throw us all in jail.”

Michael flashed a superior grin and Claire couldn’t help but notice that his fangs were longer than Ronan’s. He took a step toward her and her body went rigid.

“Easy,” he said as he put the pad of his thumb to the sharp point of one of those fangs, breaking the skin. Blood welled from the wound and Michael reached out, brushing it over the cut that bastard had made on her cheek. Delicious heat suffused her skin and she felt a tug. Her breath hitched and when he pulled away she put her own fingertips to the place he’d just touched to find the skin smooth, the wound instantaneously healed. “Jesus Christ,” she breathed. “What did you just do to me?”

A rush of smug pleasure radiated from Claire’s center and she was struck with the realization that it wasn’t her pleasure she was feeling. Could this night get any more surreal?

“I’m not concerned about the authorities,” Michael simply replied.

Claire’s jaw hung slack and she gave herself a mental shake. She was losing her edge and needed to get the upper hand. Now. “You should be. When they get an eyeful of your bloody clothes and the dead body over there, you might as well embrace the orange jumpsuit, if you know what I mean.”