Page 84 of Vampire Soldier
Malachi is there, meeting him blow for blow. Again, I think about how this is everything and nothing like the first night Malachi fought for me. This is Malachi as he really is. A vampire, a monster snarling, his fangs and face streaked in bright crimson. Annihilation given flesh.
And he ismymonster.
They crash together in a blur of motion too fast for my eyes to track. One moment, Kit’s claws rake across Mal’s chest, tearing through the black fabric of his shirt and the skin beneath. The next, Malachi’s hands—no, claws, I realize with a jolt—are buried in the wolf’s scruff, yanking him sideways with impossible strength before throwing him through a half-moon booth and table.
Screams echo somewhere behind me—in the wings, in the VIP boxes, I don’t know. Eloise shouts my name, but I can’t look away. The world is narrowed to this carnage before me, knowing that if Malachi falls, so will I. So will my daughter.
“Charlie,” I whisper, breaking enough of the fascination to search for her among the wreckage. Oh god, what if she’s buried under one of the piles of destruction?
The scream that carries my name threads through the chaos again. Eloise. Distant and fraying at the edges. But it sounds too far behind me to matter, like a door I’ve already slammed shut.
My eyes sweep the wreckage. Smoke from busted wiring curls into the ceiling in slow gray ghosts. A tablecloth flutters like a wounded flag. The spotlight above the stage flickers once. Then again. Then dies.
But I don’t see her.
My heart is a live wire sparking in my chest. The air turns viscous, sticky with the silence between impacts. My heart beating with terror to the rhythm of the fight.
Then: movement. Not a lunge, not a blow—something slower, steadier.
A figure flashes through the wings, cutting clean through the edge of light. I almost miss him. But then his form materializes out of the shadows at my side. Cradled tight against his chest is Charlie.
She’s here.
She’s alive.
My knees lock, then buckle.
He’s already crouching as I fall toward them, flinging my arms toward the precious center of my existence. Charlie throws her arms around my neck the second I’m within reach, her fingers digging into my shirt as we crumple together on the floor. Kasar’s physical support is the only reason we land with any semblance of order.
I sob, not with theatrical wailing, but the quiet, gut-deep kind of cry that makes your whole body shake. Charlie buries her face in my neck and clutches me tighter, her breath hot and staccato against my skin. I rock us gently in place like I did when she was little and sleep didn’t come easy, when the world outside our apartment was too loud, too unsafe.
It still is. But now I have her back in my arms.
“Are you hurt?” I manage, brushing the hair back from her damp forehead, searching for bruises, cuts, signs of anything I can’t see. My fingers tremble along the curve of her jaw. Her face is pale, but her gaze is bright and steady beneath the fear. No blood. No broken skin. A little smudge high on her cheek. She shakes her head, the smallest, sharpest movement, and when I look at Kasar, his usual expression of cold indifference is softer.
“She’s okay,” Kasar says, the words barely loud enough to hear over the snarls. Charlie starts to look toward the scene, but he stops her with a careful but firm touch. “We should get you both out of here.”
“Take her,” I demand, guiding Charlie back into the stoic vampire’s arms. “I can’t leave him with Kit. I have to make sure he’s okay.”
Kasar smiles; well, it’s more of a smirk, but still I’ve never seen him smile before. “Malachi is fine.” Kasar rises, Charlie in his arms again. “He’s dragging this out because he’s pissed at Kit. The mutt doesn’t even realize he’s already dead.”
I look toward the pair, battling each other with such savagery I can’t understand how Kasar isn’t worried. The light brush of a breeze over my skin tells me Kasar has left like I’d asked.
Kit swipes at Malachi, who leans backward enough that his claws only scrape across his chest.
“Mal,” I breathe, fear returning to lodge in my throat. I swear I see him look over at me for a fraction of a heartbeat, across the wreckage of the restaurant and through the darkness. I swear our eyes meet in the blink of time.
Then Malachi is focused on the irate beast in front of him, attacking with a new ferocity. I understand what Kasar meant now.
It stops being a fight, then. It becomes a brutal, clawed, bloody inevitability. No mercy, no quarter. Only finality. Only death.
Malachi sidesteps a lurching bite, his expression cold and precise. Not indifferent. Not cruel. Just still. Like this is a dance he’s done countless times.
Kit lunges again, and Malachi doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t block either. He absorbs the hit—shoulder cracking backward with the force, a claw carving across his ribs. He lets it happen only to slam his full weight forward in the next breath. Those nails, sharpened into claws, anchor into the shifter’s thick, matted hide. His hands find purchase like a butcher setting his grip.
Then Malachi wrenches. Pulls.
The sound that comes from Kit isn’t a cry. It’s a rupture, something internal bleeding into the air. Tendons slide against bone. The ripping snap of ligaments fills the silence between heartbeats.
