Venom? The one they were chasing before? Awesome. I looked around me, looking for any sort of weapon I could use before meeting the disgusting destiny the gentleman with the stinky breath had for me. For my ego, I’d like to feel that I, at least, tried to put up a fight.
How did you kill a vampire? Stick that weird metal blade into their heart and burn them after. I wasn’t going to find something to do that here.Fuck you, Dasher. You went on and on about your medallion, but never occurred to you to give me one for nasty moments such as this?
Venom towered over me again, baring his teeth—fangs—at me.
“Look, Mister Venom, I understand you have a beef with Slasher, but I am not his…mate,” I stalled, my hands clutching the dirt under me, searching for anything to hurt him with. “Whatever you’re planning on doing with me, it’s not going to work.”
He yanked me up with a fist in my hair. I yelped, my legs flailing in the air. His gesture could have felt much more pleasant if it had been coming from a tattooed stud while he mashed his kissable lips against mine.
Venom’s stinky breath fanned my face. “I think you’ll do just fine.”
“If you say so, Mister Venom.” Swiftly, I shoved the dirt I’d gripped in his eye, and stabbed the little branch I’d hid in my other hand into the second eye as hard as I could.
A growl thundered out of him. His fist dropped me down. I fell on my knees, but I crawled out of his space, and then ran into the darkness.
I could hear him shuffling behind me for a second, but then there was another gust on my back. I ran faster, my heart skittering, branches slapping my face. A hand was suddenly on my wrist, dragging me back before another hand was clamping over my mouth.
I kicked and screamed, but my body was also dragged backward until it was pressed against a hard body. Of someone’s familiar.
When I dared look behind me, I saw Mad Dog’s face. And in front of me was Terror.
Oh thank God.I closed my eyes in relief. Shit, that was close.
“Look who has come to join us. Why are you alone, mutts? Where’s your filthy leader?” Venom’s voice echoed behind the trees.
I glanced at Mad Dog, taking small breaths against Terror’s palm. Mad Dog only put a finger on his mouth, signaling for me to keep quiet. His hand on my body extended on my abdomen. I looked down to see it had shifted.
He exchanged a glance with his brother, and Terror took his hand off me and stepped to the side. I was exposed to the wind and whatever was out there behind the trees.
Deafening silence hit the place while my heart thudded in my skull. Glowing eyes burst forth in the dark along with long fingers and fangs pouncing on me. Mad Dog pushed me aside a little too roughly. I rolled on my side and watched as he clawed Venom’s face.
Mad Dog shifted in a flash, and only then I noticed Terror had shifted as well. The two beasts stood tall, taller than Venom. The vampire gave them a predatory grin that froze the blood in my veins. All of a sudden I wasn’t sure this fight would end in the brothers’ favor.
Mad Dog was first to lunge at Venom, but the vampire quickly tightened his arms around Mad Dog’s neck. Something broke. A bone? And then another. Terror swooped on Venom’s back, sticking the antler in the vampire’s butt. It gave Mad Dog a chance to get out of the deadly grip.
Terror took his antler out and kicked Venom in the nuts with his hoof. Then his half wolf snarled and tore apart a piece of the vampire’s arm. Growling, Venom doubled back and climbed up a tree. He put his hand in the pocket of his jacket and dropped a handful of vials on Mad Dog.
The glass shattered on Mad Dog’s head. Thick liquid covered him, and the smell of blood filled the air. He shifted back into his human form, mumbling strange sounds. The asshole had triggered Carter’s episode with his vials of blood.
Terror gnashed Venom’s ankle, bringing him down to the ground. Then he stabbed the antler in the vampire’s neck, and then in his heart. Mad Dog half-shifted into his wolf, but then he became human the next moment, the bone shattering with every shift echoing painfully through my own body.
Venom rattled, his struggle easing down until his body was no longer moving. Terror shifted back and ran into the dark.
What? Why would he run? Was Venom dead? Was it over?
Mad Dog’s gaze yawed right and left. Then he caught mine, staring at me with bloody eyes. He started toward me, naked, golden strikes burning brightly in his hungry pupils. His nostrils flared. His claws out.
I dragged myself up and lifted my hands in surrender. “Mad Dog, it’s me.”
He just snarled.
This was not good. Dying at the hand of an enemy made sense. But losing your life to a friend who went coco didn’t make sense at all.
I swallowed, a shadow blurring behind him. My eyes flicked ahead at Terror, who had returned with something shiny in his hand. The blade that would finish the vampire, I hoped. But I was facing a bigger problem at the moment to know for sure. “Carter, it’s Vixen. Your teacher. You don’t want to hurt me. You want to do very bad things to me, but they don’t involve claws or me dead.”
“Professor, stay back,” Terror yelled, crouched over Venom’s body.
Carter hunched his shoulders and growled at me, about to attack. I froze for a split-second, but then I stepped forward instead of backward, swung my arm as fast as possible, and I slapped him.
