Flashing was a Mage skill I hadn’t acquired, and it made them impossible to catch. Once again, destiny screwed me over.
“Smartass,” he hissed in my ear. “Aren’t you going to beg for your life—for your virtue?”
“I’m just going to beg for you to eat a breath mint,” I ground out.
He kicked my legs open. “Beg.”
That was when I looked up at him in the mirror and flashed a smile, revealing my sharp fangs in the mirror’s reflection. “You first.”
When I caught his startled expression, I shoved back and spun around. His eyes were stupidly transfixed on my fangs, darting between them and my mismatched eyes. Before he could react, I kneed him in the groin.
No matter what his strengths were as a Mage, all men had balls.
He doubled over, grimacing and grunting out a few colorful words. He hunched his shoulders, making it impossible to get a good angle to bite his neck. Kneeing him in the head did the trick.
I dropped to my knees and drove my fangs into his jugular, but before I could draw blood, he punched me in the side three times and threw me off.
“I’m going to teach you some fucking manners,” he snarled, mashing my face against the cold, dirty tile.
I glanced up, my heart banging against my chest as I realized my dagger was out of reach. When he kicked me in the back, it nudged me a little closer to the stall. I crawled on my forearms, pushing back the pain and gathering up my energy.
He gripped my ankle, so I flipped onto my back, twisting my leg out of his grasp. Small spaces limited a Mage from flashing around much, which leveled the playing field since they had to rely on their fighting skills. And as I’d come to find out, not every immortal knew how to fight.
When he came at me, I kicked him in the head, and he fell onto his left side. Once he was down, I executed a maneuver and scissored my legs around his neck, my knees bent, exerting as much force as possible. Before he could throw a punch, I gripped his left arm in a tight lock and then angled my body so my head was out of reach.
He thrashed as I delivered enough force to cut off the circulation above his neck. His knee jerked out a few times, but he couldn’t see where my head was. Then he tried to get up, but he was losing strength with every passing second.
When his body went limp, I didn’t hesitate. I released my hold and fell over him, puncturing into his artery with my fangs and drawing out the blood before he knew what had hit him. After enough swallows, I licked his wound. My Vampire gifts allowed me to change the chemistry in my saliva at will so that I could seal up bite marks left behind on my victims.
I rose to my feet and staggered around him, my stomach churning as his blood made its way down. The thought of having to consume his Mage energy made me tremble with revulsion.
A gust of fresh air blew in when the bathroom door swung open, and an older blonde halted in her tracks. “Oh… Oh my God.”
I glimpsed myself in the mirror and saw blood trickling down my lip.
“He attacked me. Call the police,” I said, panic rising in my voice. I reached in the stall for my dress, folding it over my dagger.
Holy crap, this was a hot mess.
The woman’s fingers were tapping on her phone, dialing a number. A night in the slammer would keep this bozo out of trouble for now, but that meant letting him live another day to commit crimes. What choice did I have?
I bristled at the thought that people would die if I didn’t finish him off, but I needed to get out of there. If the human police arrested me, I wouldn’t have anyone to post my bail. The higher authority kept an eye on all arrests, matching them with Breed aliases and bailing them out within a certain time frame. As a rogue, I didn’t have an alias.
“Hello? We need the police, and… Do you need an ambulance?” she asked me, her eyes brimming with concern.
“No, I’ll drive myself to the hospital,” I said in a hoarse voice, pushing past her. “He beat me up, and he’s drunk. I can’t believe this is happening.” My voice broke as I pretended to cry, and I moved swiftly past her through the club.
Out the door.
Through the rain.
Down the alley.
I ran until I finally collapsed behind a Dumpster, sheltered from the rain by a one-foot overhang and a sympathetic breeze.
Chapter 3
It took me two days to get on my feet again. Not just from consuming vile blood from two thugs, but drinking up dark Mage light. The only place I could find to sleep was inside an abandoned Dumpster in an alley. Since no one was using it for trash disposal, it didn’t smell, but I still had to throw out a few old boards. At least it kept the rain off my head.