Page 82 of Vampire Soldier
Kit’s arm tightens around her shoulders. He smiles. The wrong kind of smile. Everything in me goes still. I can’t even respond to Charlie’s coarse language.
“Let her go,” I say, my voice a stone dropped in the lake of noise. “Now.”
“Sorry, can’t do that,” Kit replies, calm as anything. “We’re having such a good time. Aren’t we, Charlie?”
She doesn’t answer him. Her eyes are still locked on me. Something defiant curls in the corner of her mouth. And then, with the perfect sarcasm only this fearless, goddamn daughter of Blake’s could have, she raises her little chin and announces to all of hell:
“Oh yeah. Being kidnapped by a crazy person is my favorite hobby.”
I grin.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t take back the words, even though Kit’s jaw ticks, his fingers twitch where they press into her collarbone.
Perfect. Brave. Mine. Just like her mother.
I force air into my lungs—slow and deep, the way a long-forgotten sergeant taught me when we were waiting for war. When you want to rip the world in half, you breathe. When rage starts to chew the edges of your vision, you breathe. And then, when the final breath leaves your mouth, you move like hell.
“Let her go,” I repeat, but this time, I let the growl drop down into my chest. Let it saturate with centuries of slaughter-cloaked silence. “While you still have the use of your legs.”
Kit’s smile stretches like something dying. “That’s funny,” he says. “You act like she’s yours.” His grip shifts, more possessive now. “She’s not. Neither is Blake. She told me herself. That night? The ‘relationship’ you so proudly strutted around with? It was pretend. A lie.”
Behind me, Ashe snarls. Kasar doesn’t make a sound, but the tremor in the air answers for him. Shadows thicken further near the back of the stage, where the lighting system flickers once, misfiring like even The Place wants this over with.
“She said she feels our bond too,” Kit continues, and now his voice is rolling, almost triumphant, wrapped in the kind of deranged joy that only delusion can afford. “Said she was scared and just needed more time to understand. She’s coming right now, you know. Told me she’d be here—to reject you. In front of everyone. Then you can see it up close when I mark her.” He laughs, light and awful. “Going to bite her pretty little neck right here on your stage. Make you watch.”
The air inside me dies, like breath turned to ice. For a half-second, I believe him. For one sharp, gut-punching heartbeat, I feel the fracture of something I thought I never wanted. That Blake isn’t mine, no matter what my jaded, scarred soul tells me. But then I remember her voice.
I remember the way she fits in my arms, so perfect like she was made for me. I remember the way she laid her hand over mine and said I want this when I told her I wanted to mark her. I remember the truth in her eyes when she whispered I think I’m in love with you. That was no performance.
If Blake said that, it was only to buy us time. To help keep our Charlie safe.
I step forward, boots knocking against the edge of the stage’s wood. Angled lights still pulse overhead with their automated choreography—casting harsh shadows down Kit’s face, making his grin twitch, ugly. My fangs pulse against my gums, half-extended. I let them.
“You get one chance, Kit,” I say, and the growl uncoils inside me, curling low and dangerous. “One chance to get your hands off my daughter before I rip them from your body.”
At the word daughter, Charlie chokes back some kind of sound. Not fear. Something else. Something disbelieving and brittle and maybe—just maybe—hopeful.
Kit barks a laugh, more animal than human. “She’s not yours, vampire.”
I take a step forward.
“She is,” I say. “She’s mine in every way that counts. And you?” I glance down at his hand where he grips her shoulder—small, pale fingers crushed beneath skin I am seconds from tearing apart. “You just crossed a line I’ll never let you walk away from.”
“You’re wrong.” The words are snapped like teeth. And then he’s moving.
Kit shoves Charlie down hard into the edge of the stage, showing he’s more angry than logical. She tumbles, arms up to shield her head, but she’s nimble—already rolling away, trying to scurry off the polished floor with wide, scared eyes fixed on me. My instincts flare so sharp I nearly shift forward—but I force myself to stay grounded.
She isn’t bleeding. She’s crawling away. I can get to her in seconds—but right now, I need to finish the goddamn monster behind her.
“Get her,” I growl, flicking my eyes toward Kasar.
He’s gone in a blur of black and shadow, the world bending around his body as he snatches Charlie in the space between heartbeats—and then they’re gone, vanishing into the curtains with a rush of wind and the rustle of velvet.
Kit releases a savage roar at the loss, the whites of his eyes showing as he lets his madness take him. He shifts.
Bones crack, skin splits—his entire frame gives way to the beast inside him with none of the decorum or control most shifters possess. Knotted fur bursts across his skin as his face contorts—nose elongating, jaws tearing through flesh. His scream becomes a snarl as his human form disappears with a wet crunch, and the wolf—massive, ash-gray, foaming at the mouth like something diseased—lands on all fours in front of me, claws scraping the polished wood like chalk on slate.
Like typical shifters, he’s larger than a standard wolf, but he isn’t the first one I’ve faced. My lip curls up, snarling in natural response to the predator in front of me.
