He roared in challenge at the weird vamp, the sound of him both wolf and blood-drinker, which had her watching with interest even as she allowed Talon to tug her back. The crowd had more sense than she did. They at least knew not to get near a vampire gearing up to battle, watching from a distance.
Kraft and the old vampire smacked into each other.Hard.Kraft tossed the old guy away, but he scuttled back to Kraft with the speed and dexterity of a spider, his curved spine bringing his hands close to the ground. Then he snapped, breaking his own back, and went down on all fours as he darted back to attack the nachzehrer.
Talon again tugged her to retreat, but she couldn’t step away.Literally.Her feet remained glued to the ground. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t put distance between her and the battling vampires.
Her inability to move had to be rooted in some kind of powerful magic. Likely, the vile magical substance she couldn’t see or smell, but that slowly crawled up her feet to her legs. It felt connected to the old vampire in some way.
A wash of what felt like decay smacked into her left cheek, snapping her head back in a brutal punch. “Ow. Damn it!”
Talon swore. “What the hell was that?”
Good to know she hadn’t imagined it. “I have no idea.”
“Quit messing around, Riley. Come back here before you become the meat in that vampire sandwich. Ew.”
“I’m trying,” she growled. “But something’s got a spell on me.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
Helpless to flee, she watched as the vampires tore at each other, striking with a speed and strength that killed several unfortunate magir before they could move out of the way. The older vamp didn’t hesitate to drink down anything it could get its freaky fingers on, though Kraft gave it distance as he studied it, intent only on the vampire, not any poor stragglers.
She heard the sound of tearing, then an eagle’s shriek and the wind from massive wings flapping as Talon shapeshifted and left the ground, his shadow covering her.
“Get to safety.” She shooed him away. Or she tried to. Her limbs felt heavy, the feel of oppression dragging at her entire body. “I can’t move.” The creepy-crawly spell scared her because it shouldn’t have touched her. As a berserker, she had a natural immunity to a lot of bad magic. But this stuff felt like warmed-over slime, making it difficult to move. To breathe. Tothink.
Kraft and the vamp continued to fight in silence, which was worse, somehow, than if they’d been screaming. They clawed and bit at each other while some looming presence watched. She felt it more than saw it—an entity, a master, controlling the dead vampire.
Screw this.She called on the change of her berserker and found...nothing there.
Panic set in, the vampire battle only less terrifying than her inability to call forth her direwolf.What the hell is happening?she roared deep inside, so close to letting her direwolf free yet still bound by that invisible malevolence oozing around her, just waiting for the right chance to seep inside her.
She could feel it, especially when the old vamp curled its lips, no expression mirrored in its eyes as it glanced at her. “Mine.”
“Oh, hell no.” Riley yelled at Kraft, “Fang-boy, get your head out of your ass and end him, already.”
His low growl caused an instinctive fear to settle deep. “Don’t tell me what to do, female.”
Female this, buddy.“Quit messing around.”
He snarled at his enemy and cut its throat. But it only healed and grinned back at him.
“Try harder,” she suggested.
He glanced at her, and his distraction cost him. The old vamp shoved a fist through Kraft’s lower torso, moving so fast he appeared a blur.
The punch pierced skin and bone like a knife, and she lamented the fact she wouldn’t get to see Kraft really fight before he died. Not even a vampire could heal from a wound that deep, could he?
Dark laughter echoed in the bazaar, mingling with the cries and screams of terrified magir fleeing for safety while vile predators took advantage of their misfortune. A small group of sorcerers and warlocks gathered the energy of the dying, the accruing death magic rich with power. A few lycans from rival packs assisted in dispatching more magir instead of helping them, which angered Riley to no end.
She’d been bred to defend the weak, to attack threats to pack. Or in this case, to protect less powerful magir from a common enemy. Her magic pulsed with the need to act, but stuck as she was to some malignance, she could only fight against the disgusting miasma holding her fast.
A loud avian shriek made her wince. But Talon’s warning was all she had to brace herself before giant talons pierced her shoulders and yanked her off the ground, breaking through the spell that had immobilized her. And damn, but those claws of hishurt.
“Thanks, I think,” she muttered and wiggled in his grasp. A regular golden eagle would have trouble holding a human of her size, but Talon seemed to have no problem carrying her. An interesting tidbit she’d ponder later.
He flew some distance away from the vampires and dropped her. She landed on the ground in a crouch and let her instincts take over.
