We need you in god-mode, Clive said in my head, referring to the hyper fast gear I can sometimes shift into. I focused on needing to protect Clive from harm, which usually helped me access it.
I’ll try.
Try hard.
The one closest to me lunged and Clive dove, taking the elf down before he could get his hand on me to abduct me to Faerie or swing his sword to decapitate me. While they fought, the other one leered and flipped his sword in his hand.
“Alone at last,” he smirked.
Razor-sharp claws slid from the fingertips of the hand not holding an axe. Heart racing, desperately hoping that Clive had it, I let my eyes go wolf gold and my jaw elongate to hold my wolf’s teeth.
The elf took in my altered appearance and displayed a moment of fear. It was instantaneous, but it was there. I wasn’t running away. I wasn’t following his script.
“Your boss is obsessed with me,” I told him, my voice still clear, though my jaw had reshaped itself. “It’s embarrassing.”
His sword was slicing through the air toward my head and the world slowed down. God-mode engaged. I blocked his sword with my axe, knocking it back while I leaned forward, my claws digging into his face.
He leapt back, shocked, his face in ribbons, and then he charged. We went at it, back and forth. He jabbed under my arm and I felt a breeze. My cardigan was catching strays.
“This is Chanel, you asshole. You’re paying for that.”
Nonplussed, he sidestepped and aimed for my heart. I did a disarming move that would have made sense if I too was wielding a sword. It worked with the axe, mostly, though I felt the sting on my wrist that meant I’d been cut. Thank goodness I was wearing black. It forgave so much.
I didn’t feel Clive’s fight behind me. I wouldn’t look, couldn’t take my eyes off my opponent, but it felt like that fight was over. I didn’t feel crushing grief or irreparable pain, so I hoped Clive was fine.
The elf I was fighting looked over my shoulder with an expression of shock, but I wasn’t born yesterday. He wasn’t distracting me.
When he leapt forward again, I spun out of the way, grabbed his arm, yanking him forward, and then swung my axe at his back while he was off balance. Thankfully, it hadn’t been a ploy on his part. He really was off balance, so when I swung, my axe connected with his flesh and he popped out of existence.
Spinning, I braced for what I would find with Clive and his elf. Clive was watching me, his hand around the elf’s neck, choking him out just enough to make him pass out but not to kill him.
“If I finished the job, he’d reappear in Faerie. The only way to truly get rid of him is for you to kill him with the axe.”
I didn’t want to give the elf a chance to heal and extricate himself from the chokehold, so I swung for his chest and he popped out as well.
Clive was in front of me, raising my wrist so he could check the wound.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I barely noticed it.”
“That’s the adrenaline talking,” he said before his tongue traced the cut.
My body went up in flames as my skin knit together. His eyes were vamp black. He stepped into me, gathered me in his arms, and kissed me senseless. I was vaguely aware of people talking around us and music playing.
My axe was replaced in my sheath and my clutch was slapped into my hand. Vlad was behind me, hiding my axe and sheath until they disappeared.
“I smell Sam’s blood. What happened?” Vlad asked.
“Not right now,” Clive murmured, walking us to the table.
All the vamps were on high alert, looking in every direction. They’d been frozen for the action, but they knew they’d missed something.
“I had no choice,” Nerissa said behind us.
Clive pulled me closer and looked over my shoulder at our hostess “There’s always a choice. You chose incorrectly. Sam came here, at your request, to investigate for you and in return you told the king’s assassins she was coming.”
Nerissa stood tall, staring Clive down. “I’ve worked hard to maintain and grow my business. If I hadn’t told them, they would have destroyed it. I risked myself and my business to warn you. It was the best I could do.”
I patted Clive’s tense chest. “It’s okay,” I told him. “She shouldn’t lose everything because the king has it out for me.” I turned in his arms, though he made it difficult. “Thank you for the warning.”
