“At the hospital. She’s en route, and we have other vampires trained as medics. But she’s the best.”
I had no reason to argue with that. “They’re shifters, Ethan. Shifters who are totally pissed off about something.”
He turned to me, stared. “Shifters. Pissed about Caleb Franklin? That was nearly a week ago.”
“I don’t know. I just know the guy who looks to be calling the shots is a shifter, and he’s pissed.”
A vampire I’d seen around the House but didn’t know personally—a man with tan skin and black hair—dodged into the room, a medical kit in hand, and fell to his knees beside Jonah.
“Unconscious,” Ethan said. “Head wound.”
“On it, Sire,” the vampire said, opening his kit and arranging his tools.
“Thank you, Ramón. Take care.”
“Always. You, too, Sire.”
Ethan nodded, looked back at me, handed me a katana. I unsheathed it, took in the beautifully engraved blade, glanced back at him.
“One of yours?”
“Peter Cadogan’s,” Ethan said. “Luc brought it up from the arsenal.” Because mine was still in our apartments; I hadn’t taken it with me to the lighthouse. “Seems appropriate our Sentinel bear it to protect the House.” Ethan rose, offered me a hand, pressed a hard kiss to my lips. “Let’s get it done.”
? ? ?
The air was thick with blood, with smoke, with magic. Sirens were closing in, and house and car alarms were sounding up and down the street.
A shifter rushed toward me, damp footsteps on grass. I pivoted, turned, sliced with the katana. He crumpled to the ground, screaming as he held an arm against the laceration across his abdomen. The air filled with the powerful scent of shifter’s blood. My predatory instincts kicked into overdrive, wanting that blood, craving it. Once again, this wasn’t the time or the place.
Another man came charging at me in a bruised leather jacket covered in NAC and motorcycle club patches. He had a bowie knife, its blade down as though he meant to take me with a single thrust.
I had two questions: Why were NAC shifters attacking us, and where the hell was Gabriel?
“Fucking vampires! We know what you did!”
“We didn’t do anything!” I yelled back, using the spine of my katana to block his strike. The spine caught in one of the notches in the serrated blade, and I twisted the sword, yanking it out of his hand and sending it flying through the air. It hit the ground fifteen feet away. The shifter gave one quick glance at his lost weapon before deciding hand-to-hand would be just as effective.
“You’re trying to kill us! Trying to take us out!” Light flashed as magic surrounded him, ensconced him. And when it cleared, I was facing an enormous ruddy-colored wolf. His hackles were raised, and his massive yellow teeth dripped saliva.
Now I began to sweat. I was skilled at fighting two-legged creatures. I didn’t exactly have the skill set for a wolf, even if I could get over the emotional baggage of intentionally hurting an animal.
When he leaped at me again, my hesitancy disappeared. I was a predator, too, with a mighty fine survival instinct.
I spun to dodge him, brought my sword around low, catching the tip of the blade on the back of one of his paws. He yelped and stumbled. Light flashed and magic spun around him again, and then he was in human form, naked and screaming at the gaping and bloody wound in his left Achilles tendon.
That was why shifters so often fought in their human forms. A shift into animal form would heal any injuries they’d suffered as humans, but the magic didn’t work in reverse.
“Maybe think before you attack next time,” I murmured. My store of sympathy was tapped out.
“Sentinel!” Juliet screamed, and I glanced back just in time to dodge the enormous fist aimed at my head. I hit the ground, rolled, came up again with my katana in front of me. It was the shifter who’d screamed and aimed the automatic weapon at the House.
“Thanks!” I yelled out to Juliet. She’d brought a handgun to this particular fight, fired neat shots into the shoulder of the first female shifter I’d seen tonight. They were the shifter version of unicorns—public sightings were rare, especially in battle.
I looked back to my enemy, who eyed me with loathing that seemed to radiate off him.
“You think you’re better than we are? You think you have the right?”
“Only in this particular instance,” I said as he punched again with his right fist. I dodged, but he grazed my sore shoulder, sending a shock of hot pain all the way to my toes. I went into a crouch, aimed an elbow into his stomach when he moved over me. The shifter grunted, stumbled back a few feet before regaining his footing.