Chapter 25
A Mother Vampire
There was nothing more terrifying than a furious vampire, except perhaps a furious newly turned mother vampire.
Her arms shot behind her and razor-sharp claws grated into the brick as she clawed her way to the other side of the pillar. Which meant my power no longer held her. I didn’t think about how she got in. All I could think about was the children and their open bedroom door.
Feet and heart pounding, I bolted into the foyer. I threw my hand up as I ran, my legs feeling heavy and impossibly slow, my words coming out barely audible over the chokehold fear had on my throat. “Per may el impregnable, per may el impregnable,” I chanted. The door to the children’s bedroom snapped shut.
A cold vibration of steel assaulted my senses and increased like a freight train roaring straight at me. A glance behind confirmed my worst fears—Leah was tearing through the room. With no time to turn and face her, I dived to the right. Pain burned my left shoulder as something sharp ripped through my jacket, biting into the flesh. I prayed she didn’t bite me. I didn’t even have time to draw a breath let alone scream. My right arm swung back as I fell and cracked her across the head. She clutched hold of my jacket, and my stomach whirled as I washurled across the room with whistling speed. The wall exploded at my face. At this speed, I’d break every bone in my body. I jerked my palms out and my powers erupted. The wind slammed into the wall, the force counteracting the power of her throw and slowing my body. Still, my body crashed, and I smacked onto my hip and arm and skidded, spinning uncontrollably across the polished floorboards until my back thumped against the wall, taking the oxygen from my lungs. I yanked at air, trying to breathe, and raised a hand, ready to hurl her if she advanced again.
The vampire’s eyes glittered like dark diamonds as she glared at me with an enraged leer.
“Leah,” I wheezed. “Your children are safe. We don’t want to hurt you.” Warm liquid trickled down my back. Oh God, was it blood? “Please, you don’t want to do this.” My voice shook. “We can help you.”
Get up!a voice in my head cried.
Her head tipped to the side like an owl that had spotted its prey, her voice full of rage and hatred. “No one ever helped me.” Her fangs dripped scarlet. “No one has ever cared about me, and now I don’t need anyone, not anymore.”
Speaking of help, where the fuck were the vampires?
“Your children care about you.”
The comment struck. She paused, her face softening.Maybe I could work with her.The moment the thought crossed my mind, her features hardened again. “And you stole them from me.”
“We gave them a safe place to be for now. You’re a new vampire, you won’t control yourself around them, but we can help you. And once you can control the urge to feed, you can have them back again.”
She laughed bitterly. “You sound like my social worker.” She gave a wolfish grin. “She’s dead now.”
Fear burned through me. Keeping both palms out, I climbed shakily to my feet.
It was a mistake.
The scent of blood must have hit the air because she lifted her head and sniffed.
Her irises were stained like an oily lake, her voice sounding like silk-wrapped poison, sending shivers all over my skin. “You smell delicious.”
“Leah, don’t, we can work this out.”
She ran a snake-like tongue over her red-soaked lips. “I’m going to suck you dry until your body is nothing back an empty, shriveled sack of skin.”
She hurtled toward me. Fueled by fear and desperation, my magic flew out on invisible streams, striking her as if she was hit by a bomb. It threw her backwards and she slapped into the wall. Bones cracked and her head smashed to the side, her jaw jutting at a horribly deformed angle. I held her there. A stabbing pain in my head warned me I was using too much power.
She stretched her mouth open unnaturally wide. I heard apop, popsound as her jaw cracked back into place.
“Stop!” I shouted to be heard over the wind born of my powers roaring around the room, rattling windows and sending a painting crashing to the floor. “Please, stop. They will kill you.”
The night light reflected off her dead eyes, making them look like hell’s fire burned inside; making them look like Sarah’s.
“No, witch. I can’t die, not when I step in front of a car, not when I jump off a building. I’m invincible.” Her words came out with a rattled slur as if her jaw hadn’t quite healed yet. “The only one that is going to die today is you.”
Her broken bones made terrible crunching sounds as smashed pieces shifted with each jerky movement as she crawled inch by inch like a crab across the plaster. Once she gotto the door and around the corner, she’d be free to attack again …
Sarah’s manic face, her lips reared, glistening white fangs, black talons outstretched, the explosion of terrible burning pain as her fingers ripped through my flesh, muscle, and the wall of my stomach.The memory crashed through my head, sending a fresh burst of terror through my body. If Leah freed herself, without my blades, without the powder Dahlia had left me, I was powerless.
Help, I cried, but my voice sounded weak and barely audible.
Fear gritted my teeth and urged my powers to roar, trying to keep her pinned to the spot. Pain drove into my head like a blade and my muscles began to shake as my power increased, but the bitch was relentless. She kept dragging her spindly arms and legs across the plaster. Sweat ran down my forehead, stinging my eyes. I blinked through blurry vision. I was losing strength, my power seeping away like water through the soil.
