by Leia Stone
“These blood suckers messed with the wrong family,” she growled.
I looked into my hand and grinned at the silver stake she’d placed in it. Women, children, and hobbling elders ran to our corner of the room as a bloody battle unfolded before us. My wolf held the front of the line, hackles raised.
“Honey…” My dad’s worried voice came from behind me. “Do you need my help?”
I shook my head. “Keep mom safe. We got this.”
The first wave of vampires came. Five at a time, and for a split second I was scared to fully give into my powers, scared to know what I was capable of and scared to show them off in front of everyone. But that moment passed and then I just wanted revenge.
Our alpha was dead, and they would pay dearly.
My wolf acted first, running out to meet the first blood sucker. She leapt into the air blindingly fast and attached herself to his shoulder, biting into it. My human half gripped the stake in my fingers and then fully let go of all of my powers. I let go of fear, my shame. Bolting forward so fast that everything blurred around me, I stabbed one of the vampires in the chest, killing him instantly before he could even track my movements. Then I moved to the next. Stab. Stab. I was a maniac, beating them at their game, using my speed against them. I took two more down when I heard Sage scream.
Spinning around, I realized I’d gotten too far away from the ones I was supposed to be protecting. A dozen vampires were descending on Sage and my father, who’d stepped out to help hold them back. My wolf was halfway to running back to be with them, but she wouldn’t make it in time. A dozen vampires against Sage and my dad were not odds I wanted.
Panic welled inside of me and I screamed, thrusting my hands out and unleashing wild unrestrained magic in the direction of the vampires’ backs.
A force shot out of me and they went down like bowling pins, like an unseen wave had completely knocked them forward. They tripped and fumbled, pinned to the floor by an unseen force.
My magic.
Holy mother. I did that…
Without overthinking it or worrying too much about the shocks and gasps around me and my freaky power, I lurched forward with my wolf and leapt in tandem over their bodies writhing on the floor, pulling against the power that held them down. When I hit the ground on the other side, I spun and held my staked fist out, as if this alone would keep them at bay.
My gaze flicked to the rest of the room, quickly taking in the scene. Sawyer and his guards were doing okay, but they had their hands full. This was all on me and Sage.
I wasn’t sure how to use my powers yet, so I didn’t even know how to replicate what I’d just done. I needed practice. So much more practice.
I also needed to get these people out of the room so they were out of harm’s way and I would be free to help Sawyer and his men fight. But they’d barred the doors…
Think. Think. Think.
It came to me in a vision.
Fire.
Flames flickered in my mind’s eye and I looked at Sage. “I need fire,” I told her.
She didn’t question it, just took off running to another corner of the room.
The vampires were starting to stand now. Whatever effects my magic had, that pinned them to the floor, was wearing off.
I took a second to glance behind me. There was a window, a beautiful window with stained glass.
“Dad, break the window and get them out,” I told him.
He gave me a quick nod, and without even protesting he walked over to the window and kicked it until it shattered. A little girl started to weep, clinging to her mother, and I gripped the stake in my hand, wishing I had another, or Marmal’s shotgun. I vowed in that moment to never leave the house without two stakes on me at all times from now on.
The vampires popped up to their feet one by one and I rushed forward, slamming the stake into the chest of the one nearest me. The network of veins in his face immediately turned black, and I was just about to pull the stake out and kill another one when I felt two hands wrap around my throat from behind, then another set wrapped around my upper arms. Two very strong blood suckers pinned me to the spot as I bucked in their arms and struggled to breathe.
“Demi!” My mom’s bloodcurdling scream ripped through the sounds of fighting.
‘Why is your mom screaming? I can’t see you.’ Sawyer’s panicked voice broke through my muddled mind as I thrashed in the vampires’ arms like a fish out of water.
‘Nothing. I’m fine,’ I lied. I didn’t want him worrying about me when I knew he had his own issues to focus on.
Okay, being choked out by two vampires. Don’t panic, just think…
Air.
I need fucking air! The only thing I could think of was just to go limp and play dead. I went fully relaxed in their grip, letting go as my legs and everything went weak so that they had to hold me up. It worked. The pressure on my neck eased.
“The queen wants her alive,” one of the vampires hissed.
That’s when I exploded. Whipping my head back, I cracked my skull into the vampire behind me and internally shrieked in joy at the sound of breaking bones. Gulping deep lungfuls of air, I spun out of the other dude’s grip just in time to see Sage holding a manmade torch made from a ripped curtain and a bottle of liquor. My wolf was at her side.
Thank God.
We all burst into action. My wolf leapt to rip out one of the vamp’s throats, while Sage threw the bottle of liquor at the nearest vampire’s chest with a battle cry.
It exploded, sending liquid and bits of glass raining down around him.
“Torch him!” I yelled. This was war, you didn’t stop, you didn’t think, you just reacted.
She tipped the flaming curtain torch forward and he tried to back up, but I was behind him, and lifting my bejeweled sneaker into the middle of his back, I kicked him forward and into the flames.
His body ignited and started smoking a black thick inky plume as he fell to the ground. I pointed to the right side of the room. “Burn that table. The ceiling sprinklers will kick on before the entire building goes up, but we can chuck blood suckers in the flames and even the score.”
Sage grinned. “I like how you think.”
We had no weapons, this was a freaking engagement party, not a war zone; we’d been ill equipped for such an attack. Sage pulled a small bottle of liquor from her belt and grinned at me. “Cheers.”
She chucked the bottle at the most beautiful table décor I’d ever seen and then tossed the torch.
The table burst into flames four feet high, and just in time.
“Demi!” my dad yelled.
I spun to the window to see he was trying to get Mrs. Hudson outside. She looked like she’d fainted and had completely lost consciousness. She was in her human form, naked and limp in my father’s arms. I followed his gaze to see that a vampire had shown up and backed my mom into a corner. She was in wolf form, hunched over the alpha’s dead body, hackles raised.
I’d never seen my mom’s wolf in person. Only in pictures. She was stunning, strong and absolutely feral in this moment. I knew she would protect Curt’s remains so that he could have a proper burial. And she would probably die for it.
My dad looked like he was about to drop Mrs. Hudson halfway out the window and run to my mom.
“Got it!” I yelled to him and burst forward. One second I was standing with Sage near the flaming table and the next I was on the vampire’s back, squeezing the blood sucker around the middle until I heard his ribs snap.
I didn’t know what came over me, but I was strong, really strong. I heaved him up into the air as he kicked and hissed like a toddler having a fit.
“Mom, go!” I growled at her, unsure how long I could hold him.
My mom’s wolf just looked up at me in shock, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. That’s when my wolf appeared. She nipped my mom on the neck like a mother would to a cub, and dragged her to the window where my dad was waiting.
Plume
s of gray smoke swirled in the air and I spun. The entire hall had filled with smoke now. Oops. Didn’t think this through, but maybe it would force them to open the damn doors.
Screams rang throughout the space and I couldn’t tell if it was their people or ours. The dude in my arms was bucking with so much force that it rocked me backward. I started to run with him in my arms, wobbly and off balance, when I looked ahead of me and saw Sawyer and Walsh. They were tossing vampires into the bonfire like they were skipping rocks on a lake.
Horrifying and genius. I was so going to need therapy for this.
The fire alarm finally sounded, shrill and loud, and I winced, unable to hold the vampire much longer as my arms burned with fatigue.
“You’ll die for this, bitch! She’ll drain you, she’ll—” The vamp’s words were cut off when Sawyer appeared out of nowhere and throat punched the guy, collapsing his trachea. Sawyer grabbed his legs and I relaxed my hold on his ribs, letting him sink into my arms as I hooked my hands under his armpits.
‘Chuck him,’ Sawyer growled as the vamp thrashed and coughed in our grip.
With one swing, we arced him back and then let him loose to fly through the air and land right on the flaming inferno. He hit the table and it cracked in half as he was consumed by the flames. His screams would haunt my dreams forever, but somehow I turned off that emotional part of me and stayed in battle mode as I scanned the crowd. Most of the guests were exiting through the window my dad had bashed out, but there were still a good hundred people to get out.
“How many more vamps are there? I need to carry more stakes. I need a gun, or a sword. We need…” I couldn’t think straight as the trauma of the night hit me dead on. My fists balled as I scanned dead body after dead body. Most were them. Some were us.
Oh God, Sawyer’s dad. A sob ripped through my throat, which turned to a cough as the smoke hit my face.
Sawyer was wearing torn pants and no shirt. He stepped forward then and took my cheeks into his palms, pressing his forehead to mine. “It’s over, Demi. That was the last one. We’re safe now.”
The sprinklers finally kicked on then and everything was drenched with a downpour of water that felt like someone had turned a garden hose on us. It pelted my skin in cold hard droplets that caused me to suck in a breath in shock.
“It’s over?” I whimpered, unable to meet his eyes.
His body shuddered and he pulled me into him, holding me as I cried. “Your dad, Sawyer. I’m so sorry.”
His chest shook as he tried to breathe, but it turned into a cough as more smoke wrapped around us.
Walsh appeared beside us suddenly. “Let’s get out of here.” He yanked us toward the window. Sage appeared by my side with my wolf and I nodded to them both.
When I looked to the corner where Sawyer’s dad’s body should have been, I saw that it was gone. I knew that my mom and dad had taken it; they wouldn’t leave him behind. I stood numbly at the back of the line while our guests crawled out a broken window of a multi-million-dollar hotel with a fire alarm blaring in the background. This wasn’t how this day was supposed to go. Holy shit, this was the worst engagement party in the history of parties.
“Why won’t the doors open? Can’t our people on the other side open them?” Sawyer growled as it was finally our turn to exit the building.
Eugene was here now, covered in black goopy blood and sporting a nasty gash on his arm. “They welded them shut with steel, sir. In a manner of seconds. This was highly coordinated. Looks like they had a tipoff.”
Sawyer frowned. “You think it was an inside job?”
Eugene nodded. “They knew the time, the place, the room.”
Sawyer and my eyes met at the same time. “I want you to detain Mrs. Pepper for questioning,” he growled.
Eugene nodded and leapt through the open window, scanning the crowd for Meredith’s mom.
When we finally got through the window and stepped onto the grass lawn, one by one our guests clapped. Not a joyous exuberant clap, just a slow, weird, I’m glad you’re not dead clap.
Walsh elbowed Sawyer who looked back at his best friend, confused.
Walsh puffed his chest up. “Your new alpha, Sawyer Hudson,” he said as if presenting him to a royal court or something.
Oh shit.
Sawyer was the alpha now. How did that work? One died and the other just…
It seemed to dawn on Sawyer at the same time it dawned on me.
‘You’re alpha. Say something,’ I told him.
He swallowed hard, his eyes flicking to a tree where his father lay at the base covered in a jacket, while his mother wept over his body wearing some random dude’s shirt. My mom rubbed small circles in her back.
This was so wrong. How had this gone so wrong?
Sawyer closed his eyes for a moment, seemingly regaining composure, and when they opened they were bright yellow and pissed as all hell. “My father’s death will be avenged.” His voice was deep and raspy, heavy with his wolf. “The vampires have waged war, and it’s a war I intend to win.”
The clapping resumed and some of the men even cried out in agreement, but the children just clung to their mothers. How long had it been since they’d seen war? A hundred years? No one alive here surely. Certainly not my generation.
The mothers with children started taking their little ones around the side of the building for home. It was horrible to hear their screams. I knew this day would be imprinted on all of us forever.
We’re all in shock, I thought. My father-in-law is dead under a tree and I’m in shock.
People stared at us and I wondered if we looked as horrible as we felt when I heard a whisper.
“Cursed one,” someone said, and that’s when I realized that my wolf was right beside me.
Shit. Everyone had seen me split shift. As if she wanted to throw it in their faces again, my wolf went semi-transparent and leapt into my chest, causing people to fall backward in shock, and gasp.
Well, there was no hiding what I was, and I didn’t want to anymore.
“Yes, Demi is a split shifter. She’s also my future wife so… get over it,” Sawyer snarled, and alpha power leaked out of him and slammed into the people, causing a few to stagger backward. Some of the onlookers bowed their heads, looking to the ground in submission, but a few still stared.
“You’re marrying a Paladin! Split shifters can only be Paladin wolves,” a man growled.
Everyone gasped at that, and I was guessing not a lot of people knew that little tidbit of info. This was going to go off the rails really quickly if we didn’t rein it in.
Sawyer opened his mouth to speak, when my mother stepped into the center of the crowd. “I met Demi’s Paladin biological father when I was a young girl. He lived on the border to my gran’s farm, and we were best friends since childhood.”
People fell silent, looking at my mom with curiosity.
“Then he grew into a young man and I fell in love with him,” she declared boldly.
Every single woman gasped as if my mom had just admitted to a murder or something equally shocking. I didn’t like the way they looked at my mom, like she was a slut, so I decided to top her story with one of my own.
“Then at fifteen I was gang raped by four vampires,” I said, and everyone fell silent, mouths popping open in shock. “I was banished, so I had my cuffs on. Couldn’t shift and protect myself.”
Hands went to mouths, people openly cried out, and it was the most uncomfortable moment of my life, but I pressed on, swallowing hard as Sawyer’s hand slipped in mine. “And I blacked out, but my wolf was able to split off from my body and save me.”
Grown men had tears in their eyes, and women wept openly, causing me to squirm under their gaze.
“So I am who I am. Demon. Cursed one. Split shifter. Whatever you want to call me is fine, just leave my family and loved ones out of it.”
Sawyer nodded. “Alright, you’ve heard your gossip for the night. Go on home now.”
; He raised his arms to shoo our wedding party away, but then the women started to drag their husbands and line up single file in front of us.
What were they doing?
The first one was a woman I didn’t know, about thirty years old. Her hair was drenched from the sprinklers and her mascara ran down her face in two thin black streaks.
“I’m sorry that happened to you. Thank you for protecting us tonight.” She reached out and grasped my hand, giving me a small bow before leaving.
My throat tightened as the next woman stepped up. “Oh, honey, we shouldn’t have judged you. I had no idea.” Her voice broke as she stepped forward and pulled me into a tight hug. “Happy engagement, dear,” she whispered before pulling away.
Then another and another. These women formed a line, and one by one apologized for their treatment of me, or simply said they were sorry for what happened to me, or some said nothing at all, just a hand squeeze or a hug, or a thanks for inviting them.
I chewed the inside of my cheek raw to keep from bursting into tears until the very last woman, an old lady about eighty, came up to me hobbling on a cane. Sawyer stood firm at my side, shaking the men’s hands as I waited for whatever the woman was going to say. She stepped up and kissed my cheek, then leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Did you know you can rip a man’s scrotum off with the same force you’d throw a punch?” She then pulled back and winked at me before hobbling away.
Okay… that lady was a bit unhinged.
“Bless you both. I wish you a long and happy life together,” a couple said, and bowed their heads to us.
The world had gone to shit around us, but people were still paying their respects. It was weird and sweet and… strange. When the last person had left, Sawyer sagged against my side. We stood in the grass, covered in water and blood, and he’d finally let go.
‘Dad,’ he croaked in my head, and my heart tore in two as I reached for him.
My mom and dad sat patiently with Mrs. Hudson at the base of the tree while she wept over Curt’s body.