And then the shadows move.
A whimper slips past my lips before I can stop it.
Skeletal hands claw their way out of the dark, flesh long rotted away, fingers scraping against the floor with a sound that makes my teeth ache. Ghostly figures follow, translucent and hollow-eyed, their faces twisted in silent agony.
The dead.
My pulse hammers so hard it blurs my vision. Every instinct I have screams to run, to hide, to pretend this isn’t happening, but I can’t look away.
Bone constructs pull themselves together from nothing, snapping and locking into place as violent arcs of purple death-energy crackle around them, the air stinking of ozone and decay.
They form a wall between the vampires and the rest of the clubhouse.
When the vampires try to force their way through, skeletal hands erupt from the floor, dragging them down. Death energy surges, burning through flesh and bone alike. Their screams don’t last long.
I press myself back against the wall, shaking, tears stinging my eyes as a single, horrifying truth settles deep in my gut.
Fire can kill you.
Claws can tear you apart.
But this?This means there are worse things than dying.
As I peer at the entryway, Grizz holds the main doors. At first, I don’t understand what I’m seeing, then my breath catches hard in my throat. His skin changes before my eyes, flesh hardening into living stone, veins disappearing beneath granite and slate. The sound of gunfire cracks through the room, bullets striking him with sharp metallic pings before dropping uselessly to the floor.
I stare, frozen, my mind scrambling for something, anything, that explains this.
A vampire launches at him with inhuman speed, a blur of teeth and fury. Grizz doesn’t step back, he doesn’t brace, he catches it mid-air like it weighs nothing, his body locking into place, immovable as bedrock. The impact reverberates through the room, a deep, punishing thud I feel ravage my body.
He slams the vampire into the floor.
The concrete cracks, spiderwebbing outward beneath them. I flinch, a sharp breath tearing from my chest, but Grizz doesn’t stop. He lifts the creature again and brings it down. And again. And again. Each strike lands with brutal certainty until the vampire is nothing but broken ruin beneath his fists.
There’s no rage in his face. No frenzy.
Just purpose.
I swallow hard, fear and awe tangling tightly in my chest as the truth settles in.
Some monsters hunt.
Some burn.
Grizz doesn’t do either.
He holds the line.
Near the pool tables, Ronan moves like he’s dancing. It hits me all at once, that loose, effortless sway, the way he never quite looks where he’s stepping, never where the danger should be. Vampires lunge for him and somehow trip over nothing, their bodies tangling as if the floor itself has turned against them. Weapons jam at the worst possible moment. Bullets veer off course, curving away from him in ways my brain refuses to process.
A breathless laugh slips out of me before I can stop it.
Of course.
All those times I’d sworn things around Ronan went sideways, the coincidences, the near-misses, the way trouble never quite landed where it was meant to, it was never luck.
It was him.
I watch, half hysterical, half awed, as the luck of the Irish plays out in real time. A vampire swings a metal pipe at his head, and at that exact moment, Ronan’s shoelace comes untied. He bends instinctively, the pipe slicing harmlessly through empty air above him.
