by Justin Sloan
And then she was on them—sword cutting through them and leaving only moans and gasps of dying breaths behind.
When she was done, she went to the doors, kicked aside the scraps that had once been the pod, and said, "Let’s get this over with," before leading the way down the stairs.
She emerged into a dimly lit hallway, lights flickering amid echoing shouts. An Enforcer emerged from a side room and got off a couple of shots before she cut him in two. A click sounded from behind and she turned so that her bad shoulder took a third hit, and then she ran back to cut down another Enforcer.
It fucking hurt to move her sword arm now, each swing pulling at the wounds on her opposite shoulder.
But she was too pissed to care.
She ran to the far end of the hall, barely aware of Sandra and Diego following her as best they could. Here she kicked open the doors and found a series of desks, bookshelves, and more, toppled over with a line of Enforcers on the other side, at the ready.
"Hey fuck-heads," she shouted, checking the pistol to see it was empty. Damn. "Didn’t you hear, I’m the only Enforcer now. And Justice is calling for you! "
"Under whose authority?" a steely voice asked from the rear of the room. She strained to see him in the complete darkness, but then he stepped forward and there was no doubt in her mind that this was Commander Strake. His silver hair was combed back so that it didn’t touch his ears but fell to his shoulders, and he wore a silver jacket with the blue Enforcer lines along the sleeves.
"Mine, appointed by Michael, the Dark Messiah," she said. "I am the Justice Enforcer in America."
"The name means nothing to me," he replied. "And I’m not sorry at all to say this—you can take that authority and shove it down your throat along with that stupid fucking sword of yours. No? Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you."
With a wave of his hand, the Enforcers opened fire.
But Valerie was fast—she rolled to her left, careful to avoid falling on the hurt shoulder, then ran forward, hoping to hit them before they saw where she’d gone with her vampire speed.
Click.
She turned to see what’d just happened when—
KA-BOOM! A small explosion went off and sent fragments of metal into her skin. At first she moved forward, not giving a damn, and then the burning started.
"Ahh!" she screamed, dropping at the pain. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"
"Silver frag-grenades," Commander Strake said. "Silver… isn’t that what works on you all? Definitely on the Weres, and honestly I thought only on them at first, but then we got to experimenting and, well, as you can see, it works … well, perhaps not as nicely on you."
The door opened behind Valerie and then more shots sounded. Diego cursed as Sandra shouted to get down, and the door slammed shut again.
"We’ll deal with your friends after you," Strake said as he stepped around the debris. He held two long knives, likely silver, one in each hand and waved one at her. "Well, come on Justice Enforcer, whatever the hell that means. Enforce your justice on me."
She pushed herself up, each movement sending pain to course through her limbs. It was like nothing she’d ever felt—even worse than the day Donavan had left her for dead. But it was a different kind of pain, and with Michael’s blood in her, she was stronger. No matter what pain held her back, she’d overcome it with sheer willpower and determination.
But no matter the determination, she really hated pain and this wasn’t changing her mind about it.
"We’ve never seen one as strong as you," Strake said, circling her and he brandished his knives. "It’s going to be fun sipping your blood as I sit by the fire, reading my shitty Dostoyevsky. Nothing like some old, classic literature and a glass of a near-immortal’s blood."
"You talk too much," she said, and lunged for him.
Shots rang out as his men fired, and sure enough, these were silver bullets. Two hit her in the leg, one in the thigh and one in the calf, and another in her right bicep before she was able to dive for cover. Her sword went sliding across the floor, halfway between her and Strake.
"Take me on, man-on-woman!" she shouted in a fit of tormented rage. "You fucking coward!"
"Now how would that be fair?" he said, and stepped forward with an evil smile.
She backed up, pushing herself across the floor, wondering when they’d shoot again, or if they were going to let their boss finish her off. She glanced back to the door and saw Sandra peaking through one of the side windows that had been shattered by bullets.
It couldn’t end like this.
Valerie reached for her sword, but in her hurt state she was slow and Strake leapt forward, pinning her hand to the floor with one of his silver knives.
He was so close she could smell him now, and she lunged, but he jumped back and the blade in her hand pulled her at the last minute. She pulled the blade out with a shout and prepared to throw it, when another shot went off and caught her in the forearm, causing her to drop the knife and start a new string of curses.
"Watch your shots!" Strake shouted to his men. "I want this bitch alive."
"Don’t call me that," Valerie hissed. She knelt, holding her injured hand with her arms and legs seeping blood. A fresh rage filled her, one that told her that no matter how much pain she was feeling right now, it would be nothing compared to the pain this asshole would cause if he was allowed to continue living.
"What?" he asked, his face curious. "A bitch?"
Then he stepped forward with his other knife, and lifted the blade. "This is my world, and I’ll do with it what I want, bitch."
She felt the rage overwhelming her, filling her, consuming her and demanding release. She screamed in anger, pushed the emotions out into the room. The effect was immediate—Enforcers shouting, pulling back to cower in terror behind desks and cabinets. Even Strake stepped back, hands up in terror, eyes open in fear.
Gritting her teeth, she considered what she had just done and what she had witnessed from Akio. Smiling mirthlessly, she did it again, pushing, and the shouting turned into screams. They were terrified, and now, she was causing it!
"Go!" she heard Diego shout, and then he charged in, in puma form, and darted for the Enforcers on the far side of the room, snarling as he tore them to shreds.
Sandra stayed at the window, but had her sniper rifle and—
BAM!
Her shot hit Strake, the hand that held the knife, and he fell to his knees as blood sprayed from his wound across the floor and halfway up a nearby desk.
"Get them!" Strake shouted. "Kill them all!"
But half of his men were trying to leave the room, terrified, the other half dead by Diego’s doing. Valerie, full of pain, held up a hand for Sandra and called out, her voice tired, "Wait." She pushed herself up, body shaking, and focused on every ounce of her will to step forward, then again.
"You have been found lacking in honor," she told Strake. "It’s time you understood what it means to face justice."
He turned to her with teeth bared and lunged with his good hand for the remaining blade, but she stomped on the hand and, gritting her teeth at the pain, fell on him, teeth bared.
She hated the feel of his skin against her lips, but when the blood flowed and she felt his life draining, giving her energy and beginning the healing process, she reveled in it, just letting the power of blood flow into her.
When he was drained, merely a shell with enough life left for his eyes to twitch, she pulled his face in front of hers, smiled to let him see how his blood coated her fangs, and then dropped his lifeless body to the ground as Sandra entered the room.
"Holy fuck," Diego said, stumbling over to her side and offering a hand to help her up. "That was amazing."
"What’s amazing is that the two of you are still alive," Sandra said as she swatted aside his hand and helped Valerie to stand.
"We still have the CEO’s to go after," Valerie said, her voice sounding weaker than she imagined it would. "We…" She stumbled, but Sandra caught her an
d wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her.
"In time, yes." Sandra turned to Diego and said, "See if there’s a pod we can use to get the hell out of here."
"And the others?" he asked. "The ones that fled?"
"I doubt they’ll be a problem. Let’s just worry about getting you two back to HQ to get patched up. Then we can worry about tracking them and the CEOs down."
Valerie was about to argue, to say they should find some for questioning now, but as she opened her mouth to speak, her head started swimming and everything went dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Enforcer HQ
Sandra had a hell of a time figuring out the controls to the pod, but she’d seen Valerie doing it earlier and had finally managed to get it in the air. Now she was almost laughing with joy at the sight of old Manhattan, lit up in the otherwise black landscape.
There was Enforcer HQ, standing tall above the other buildings, the line of blue light along its side impossible to miss even from here.
"We did it," she said, putting a hand on Diego’s knee beside her.
He looked at her with a pained expression, and then turned to look back at Valerie as she moaned in pain.
"We have to get that silver out of her ASAP," he said.
Sandra breathed, working to fight the fright from her voice as she said, "I’m going as fast as I can. Plus, I’m pretty sure it won’t kill her, just hurt like shit."
"You know you curse more when you’re scared?"
She pinched his leg. "Shut the fuck up."
"Ouch!" he laughed and took her hand in his. "I rest my case."
They came in low enough to the wall to signal that it was them, then moved on to the side of Enforcer HQ where pods could dock.
Soon they were in, checked by a vampire who knew them well enough even though they didn’t know him. The vampire carried Valerie from the pod while Sandra helped Diego. They made their way to the infirmary as quick as possible.
"What happened to her?" Royland said, having just moved up to her side at vampire speed. "Is she…?"
"She’s fine," Sandra said. "Just… we have to get some silver out of her."
He cringed, but then nodded. "I’ll go ahead and get them prepped."
In a blur of speed, he was gone.
Soon Duran appeared and took the other side of Diego, helping to move faster, and then Royland was back to help with Valerie. They burst through the doors and two vampires were there waiting with the tools they’d need to patch up Valerie, and meat and blood to help the healing process, for Diego and Valerie respectively.
When the two were out of Sandra’s care, she stepped back, found a chair, and plopped down into it.
"They’ll be just fine," Royland said, sitting in the chair next to her.
He stared at Sandra long enough for her to finally say, "Yes, okay? We got him."
"Commander Strake is… dead?" He leaned in, doubt creasing his face. "You’re sure of it."
"The only reason Valerie didn’t need any blood to heal up on the way over was that she’s quite full from his. And yeah, we saw him die."
She told him the whole story, doing her best to block out the moaning and groaning each time more silver was removed from Valerie. Finally, she got to the part where the silver grenade had gone off, and he just shook his head in disbelief.
"Good thing your man wasn’t in there when that happened," he said. "Otherwise, you’d be on your own right now."
She looked at Diego who was getting stitched up, and for the first time it really hit her that she could’ve lost him tonight. With a nod to Royland, she went over to Diego and held his hand.
"I’m gonna be just fine," he said. "And Val? Psshh, she’s better off than I am, or will be once they get that silver out of her body. So would you stop looking so worried?"
Whatever she’d thought about saying right then flew out the window, and instead she just leaned in and kissed him. It was a long kiss, and they only stopped because the vampire at her side cleared his throat.
"Sorry," she said, and stepped back so the vampire could finish the stitches.
"I’ll be healed in no time," Diego said, again trying to comfort her. "These help ensure there’s no scarring on the really bad wounds."
"Weres can scar?" she asked. It hadn’t really been something she’d thought about.
"We heal, but it’s not like we’re gods or something." He laughed. "As much as we might look like it with our clothes off."
She went to hit him as she laughed, but the vampire gave her a stern look and she backed off, blushing. When the vampire walked off, she pinched Diego’s leg and said, "You’re lucky he saved you."
He stared into her eyes, licked his lips, and then said, "I’m lucky for a lot more than that."
The heat from blushing got worse, and she had to turn away to stop from getting emotional.
"Shut up," she said, then turned and bent down, slowly kissing him again.
***
The first sight Valerie saw when she woke was Diego, shirtless and stitched up, and Sandra sticking her tongue down his throat.
"Ah, come on," Valerie croaked out. "Don’t they have a rule about making out while your best friend lies dying at your side?"
Sandra pulled back and smiled sheepishly.
"In all fairness," Diego said with a squeeze of Sandra’s hand, "neither of us ever doubted for a minute that you’d pull through."
"Hmm, vote of confidence…" Valerie considered, then nodded. "Okay, that cancels out the creepy making out right next to me thing. We’re mostly good."
A knock came from the door and a moment later it burst open with Jackson entering.
"You can’t barge in there,” a Were was telling Jackson from outside the door, but Valerie waved him off and the Were returned to his post, begrudgingly.
"Aren’t you supposed to be out keeping peace in the city?" Valerie asked Jackson.
"I’ve briefed my men and women, and yeah, consider the city yours, as much as we can influence it." He stepped up beside her, glancing around at the others before leaning in and lowering his voice. "I just… had to see you. I was waiting downstairs when someone said something about you being injured."
"I’ll heal," Valerie said. "Nothing to worry about here."
He chuckled and looked at her with a comforting smile. She noted how his collared blue shirt complimented his green eyes, and then realized she’d been staring too hard.
She quickly looked down, but when she glanced up, she saw he was holding a pair of new fake Pumas.
"Not exactly an optimal date," he said, handing over the shoes. "But I figured I’d get these to you early, so you can enjoy walking about in them when you’re ready."
"Oh, damn." She glanced at the vampire who’d been taking the silver out, and he shrugged.
"No more silver left in you that we can find," the vampire said.
"Damn straight." Valerie slowly pushed herself up and held out her hands for the shoes. She was surprised by how much less her pain level already was, but she still had to have him put them on, since she couldn’t bend over that far right now.
"Fit like a glove," he said when he’d finished putting them on.
She reached down and took his hand, saying screw the pain as she did so, and then gently bit her lip before saying, "Thank you."
"Oh god," Sandra said from nearby. "This is nearly worse than me and Diego kissing."
Valerie reached behind her, found her pillow, and tossed it at her friend. Sandra caught it, laughing, and then sat down on the bed next to Diego.
"So, what now?" Sandra asked. "I mean, we can still get attacked by the CEOs’ mercenaries, so we need to figure out a plan. There’s bound to be more vampire blood bottling facilities, and who knows what sort of defenses they’ll have."
"We’ll get to it," Valerie replied. "Tell Royland to set up a team to check Strake’s fortress for stragglers and any intel we can find. But right now? I’m about to get some well-earned beauty sleep."
She lay back, feeling the warmth of sleep creeping through her body, but before she let it take her, she motioned Jackson closer.
He leaned in, a curious look in his eyes.
"Thank you for the shoes," she said, then kissed him before lying back and closing her eyes. Finally, after way too long without it, she fell asleep.
FINIS
Author Notes - Justin Sloan
Written January 11th, 2017
Here we are at the end of book two in the series. I hope you loved Claimed by Honor as much as we loved the process of writing it! If there’s one word to describe the process of writing these books?
I’d say it’s FUN.
Some people think of writing as work, or as something to struggle over – not us, or at least, not with this series. Trust me, I’ve done some fiction writing (for others) that was a bit more on the work side, so I know.
For those of you who don’t know my situation and/or didn’t read the notes at the end of book one (yes, you can pause now if you want and go read them, we’ll wait… okay, let’s continue), I consider myself super blessed to have been picked up by Michael to write this series with him in a world that’s not only already established, but has an amazing fan base. And I mean that!
You all have been so inspiring in the process of writing this book and in the days following the publication of Justice is Calling. That book was a bit of a gamble on our parts. We had a feeling it would do well, but I was blown away. Did you know that book hit the top 150 on Amazon during launch week? Pretty cool! In less than a month, that one book did better than all of my other 20 books have done in the two years or so since they were published.
Okay, that’s both depressing and amazing. What it means for me is that I just didn’t have the discoverability that Michael found for himself. He found his tribe early on, and you all have built a civilization where we can all live and simply sustain ourselves with Kurtherian books, if the authors can keep busting them out. Am I right?