After everything, this is how it ends?
I can’t reach either Ethel or Lucy, screaming when the creature’s fangs puncture my flesh and squeeze down. The pressure gets so intense so quickly that it feels like my body’s about to burst like a damn balloon. Minutes away from making a bargain that would change my life, and I’m going to die for an assignment that paid frigging nil, an assignment I might add that had me taking a dangerous murderer off the street.
This is the thanks I get.
But before the giant dog can split me in half with its jaws, Vyce and Sorrow are there. Vyce wraps a garrote around the hellhound’s neck while Sorrow drops to his knees and puts a palm on both its upper and lower jaws, keeping it from biting down any further. In a split-second’s time, Vyce has yanked the garrote tight and severed the monster’s head.
The ghouls swarm in right away, yanking the carcass off of me and devouring it like piranha, not a single bone or scrap of meat goes to waste. Sadly enough, a hellhound’s severed head can still bite.
Sorrow holds its jaws open, but just barely, that’s how fucking strong those things are. A vampire as powerful as he is can lift a semi and throw it like it doesn’t mean shit. And yet, his muscles are quivering, beads of sweat dotting his forehead as he tries to save me from certain death. If I were a full-blooded vampire, I actually would survive being severed in two. Or rather, I’d die but then I’d immediately come back to life as one of the undead. Not so much the case for me.
Wolfe appears with a snarl and a curse just before Sorrow joins him and the three of them manage to finally dislodge the giant head, chucking it across the grass and letting the ghouls take care of that, too. Even the collar ends up down one of their throats. Wow. Good for me. I mean, it is unless I’ve already been tracked.
“Fuck,” I groan as I roll to one side and cough up blood. I must’ve gotten a tooth through the lung, too. My breathing feels wet and sticky and when I look down, all I see is red. Several of the smaller ghouls, too low in the pecking order to get any meat, sneak up close and start to lap the liquid from the grass as it pools.
Bad sign.
If they’re willing to drink my blood like that, then they think I’m going to die anyway.
“We need to get out of here in case she’s being hunted,” Vyce says as Sorrow lifts me into his arms as easily as if I were a child. “Back to her place then? I think I remember where it is.”
“How could I forget?” Sorrow asks as my head lolls and my vision flashes with big white spots. Leaving my life in the hands of three mega-powerful vampires from House Stiltz? Not the best idea in the world. Frankly, three vamps with a dying dhampir is like tossing a chocolate cake in front of a starving woman on her period. My blood will call to them as it drains out of me, beg them to finish me off and suck me dry. But there’s not really much I can do about it. I can’t even move. “She lives above a Chinese food place called Dog Town. I don’t think I could scrub that from my mind if I tried. Plus, there are molds growing in that apartment that don’t exist anywhere else on Earth.”
Vyce chuckles, but Wolfe tenses up, lifting his head in the direction of the thicket and the woods straight ahead. Even the ghouls back up a respectable distance as a howl cuts through the night air.
Uh-oh.
Sometimes…hellhounds travel with their mates.
A second monster explodes from the bushes, even larger than the first one.
Well, shit.
Sorrow shoves me into Vyce’s arms and then, even though my vision is going in and out and I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at it, I’m almost positive I see him run toward the monster. As he moves, his shirt tears open in the back and there’s that weird ass motherfucking tattoo. It expands across Sorrow’s flesh, turning the pale white of his skin bright red, tufts of hair exploding out from the design. In an instant, it takes over him like a tsunami, swallows him up, and leaves the weirdest creature I’ve ever seen in my life.
The only thing I do recognize about the damn thing, is that it’s a demon. The black sigils on its forehead tell me that.
So…Sorrow has a demon inked into his back?! I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my life, but this is a new one.
“We need to get her some blood,” Vyce growls out. “I’ll take her home; you cover Sorrow.”
Wolfe’s eyes catch mine, this deep gray-bordering-on-blue color that reminds me of a stormy sky over a wild ocean. It’s the last thing I see before I pass out, his eyes, and his hands holding a pair of revolvers while a demon and a hellhound tear into each other with razor sharp teeth.
Yeah.
One of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen some weird shit.
But this one takes the cake.
No wonder my dreams turn into nightmares about chocolate cupcakes with fangs. Who would’ve expected anything less?
6
Somewhere between maniacal cupcakes attacking my ankles, I dream about a gorgeous man with blue-green-purple hair and warm lips pressing his mouth to mine. Sweet, hot blood slides down my throat, sending lightning bolts of energy zinging through me. Eventually, my nightmares shift to…erotic dreams.
I relive my threesome with Sorrow and Vyce in excruciatingly beautiful detail—their fingertips trailing fire across my skin, their cocks burrowing deep inside of me, their teeth buried in my flesh.
When I wake up, it’s with a gasp and a surge of pleasure that feels awfully close to an orgasm. But when I fully sit up, shaking and surrounded by blankets, I can feel my cunt clenching tight, liquid heat pooling between my thighs. My nipples are pebbled and sensitive to the silk nightie I’m now wearing.
“Who undressed and redressed me?” I growl out to Sorrow, sitting on the edge of my bed and watching me with smiling blue eyes and a bemused little smirk.
“Wolfe insisted on it, seeing as he’s the only gentleman among the three of us.”
“You have a demon bound into your skin?” I blurt and Sorrow cocks a white-blond brow. “Or you are a demon? I’m so confused.”
“Oh, you remember that?” he asks, scratching at his tummy. His white button-up is undone and as he scratches with long, pointed nails, I can see the red fur of the tattoo peeking out. “I was hoping with all the blood loss and the near-death experience that you wouldn’t remember.”
“Is this one of those if I tell you, I have to kill you things?” I ask, reaching over and grabbing Ricky from his spot against the wall. I lay the falchion sword over my lap and then grab Ethel from the nightstand. But if these men wanted to kill me, they could’ve just let me die last night. And they certainly wouldn’t have left my weapons in easy reach. Still, it makes me feel better to hold them close, especially when I have no idea what it is I’m looking at. A hot piece of ass? Check. A vampire? At least in part. Whatever else Sorrow Stiltz is though remains a mystery.
“Not exactly. We had Rumpel tack an NDA onto your contract.” Sorrow glances over at me and gives me a cheeky smile. Knowing what’s hiding underneath it, however, I’m just not buying the act. “You’d have found out eventually anyway, seeing as we’ll be spending a whole hell of a lot of time together.”
“You’re just assuming I’ll sign the contract,” I say with a lift of my chin, and Sorrow just shrugs, turning more fully to face me. He’s wearing leather pants and no shoes, a white button-up that’s not really all that buttoned-up, and a smirk.