I lunged, my first bite earning me nothing but a mouthful of fur.
Gross.
Note to self—chowing down on a werewolf was best done when they were not wearing their fur suit.
Adjusting my grip, I got a better hold on Brax’s wolf and struck again. It was just as awkward as my last attempt. Only this time,instead of just a mouthful of fur, my fangs actually found their target.
Liquid life, painfully hot, filled my mouth.
Savage snarls erupted from the wolf’s throat. His struggle renewed. One last desperate attempt to evict me from his back.
It worked.
My grip slipped, my fangs coming loose.
He bucked. My body flew off. I hit the sand on my side, rolling.
He was on me before I could recover. A blur of teeth and claws.
Desperate, I jammed my left arm into his mouth, hoping it would prevent him from ripping out my intestines or throat. Always better to lose a limb than something more vital.
I screamed as his jaw closed around it. Bone cracked, blood flowing from the wound as he shook his head hard.
My shoulder wrenched, sending another flood of pain through my body.
With the last dregs of my willpower, I clung to consciousness.
Preoccupied with my looming demise and weakened from blood loss and the venom of my bite, the wolf’s defenses finally dropped.
It was what I’d been waiting for.
I struck, my power diving into him and arrowing right for the complicated metaphysical collar of golden light wrapped around his neck. Thank God I’d already done this once. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known where to start and Brax would have finished tearing my body apart before I could free him.
My magic breaking power ate through the light, smothering its brilliance with a shadow that looked like ink.
Before I could finish, my consciousness started to slip away. Blood loss stealing my will.
I was past caring as the growls coming from above me slowed and then stopped. My body had gone numb. Pain and fear so far away.
I was going into shock, I thought distantly.
Was that even possible for a vampire? Or was that a human thing?
The wolf’s jaw loosened.
I barely felt it as he withdrew his fangs from my arm.
He retreated a step and then another.
“Oh good, you’re back.” My eyes blinked downward. So sleepy. “I can explain everything.”
Brax’s howl followed me as I sank below the waves. A funeral dirge that felt fitting as a last requiem for a vampire who’d promised miracles and then failed to deliver.
eighteen
The low rumble ofvoices arguing from the next room intruded on the strange dream I was having about being chased around a desert dune-scape by a set of dentures. In my dream, I tripped on the sand, somehow landing on my back as the dentures loomed over me. The sterile white of the chompers opening wide to swallow me whole.
Pain blazed up my arm as I tried to push myself upright. That, coupled with the realization of how hard the sand beneath me was, brought me the rest of the way out of sleep.
