Into Death's Arms (27 page)

     One giant black eyebrow rose. “Of course, if you are AoLi I might be persuaded to let you live.” He licked his lips in a very suggestive manner. Ewe!

    I laughed the sound reverberated off the silent buildings and dumpsters in the outlying area.
“How about I just kill you and your buddies then I don’t have to persuade nobody. I like that plan.”
I could play tough with the best of them.
I crouched waiting for one of them to charge me.

    He laughed it was a deep frightening sound. I was suddenly very glad I wasn’t an AoLi I didn’t want to survive in that guys tender care. “Answer
the question girl. AoD or AoLi,
” he clenched his big ole hands.
Rat boy kind of wavered in toward me and back out again as Orson’s caught him with a warning glance.

  
  “I have never been quiet so please
d to be able to say I am an AoD
and you aren’
t going to live much past today,
” I still waited. Let them make the first move I told myself again.
During
training,
I always rushed dad and he always wiped the floor with me. Wait, I told myself, wait.
They began to shift. My
heart
beat
against my chest no wonder they were so big they were bears
,
the whole lot of them big
-ass
werebears.

   
All
of them were
taking their fighting form. Deep calming breaths I told myself once again. 
Why
,
oh, why hadn’t I allowed Laith to come with me?
I was tha
nkful
Shadow-born
don’t use guns. 
Well most of them don’t. One of the twins
,
the one with the red hair
,
lurched toward me I stepped to the side. I was waiting for him but I hadn’t expected him to
be
so quick. I swung my
blade
wildly and managed to slice into his
side
. It
was a shallow cut but I’d drawn firs
t blood
.
I was happy.

  
The other, the one with blue hair, lunged while the big one and the rat
closed
in.
I fell to my knees the bears being so much bigger than me in the first place
drove their claws
into each
other.
I
was trapped in a wall of legs
.
Red was closest. I kicked him in the knee as hard as I could in a crouch. It made a crunching sound and he fell back.
I rolled out from be
tween them and took
B
lue
through
the back with my sword
while they untangled from the heap they’d gotten themselves into. 
I think I hit spinal cord, the blade didn’t slip free as easy as I thought it should.

    
Unfortunately,
I hadn’t been tracking Orson
.
He
stepped out
from
behind me and
gouged
his claws down my back. The armor I wore shre
dded beneath his deadly claws.
I spun to face him. He struck again
, m
an
, something that big
should not be that fast. He hit with both claws. One met my blade but the other ran across my belly.
These beasties
tore through my armor as if it were
tissue paper.

   
I swallowed hard my flesh was next. He closed his claw around my blade
and
tr
ied
to wrench it from my grasp. I jerked it hard and it split his hand sliding down his arm and taking a good chunk of flesh with it.
I’d caught with it. That gave him time to take another swipe at my belly. This time he made contact.
My blood splattered his arm and left side. That probably wasn’t good.
I blocked the pain as best I could and moved to a better defensive position.

   
I heard another
Shifter
growl as he came at me from behi
nd
.
I threw myself to the side and R
ed
ran into Orson and they both went down in a tumble of fur. The one I’d gotten in the back wasn’t getting back up.
Thank God!
Orson and
R
ed
wer
e tangled but getting up and the other two
moved toward me
.
Take out the weak one
first,
I told myself.
I drew
a d
agger
from the holster next to the one I used for my gun. I threw it at R
ed
, prayed and forcibly
drove
tow
ard the rat looking
one.
He was smaller than the rest.

  
I don’t think he was expecting me to go for him because he stepped bac
k giving me the advantage. Penetrating his sternum the blade passed into
his heart. I slid back
and took
in the
astonished
look on his
face. My
blade stood out from his chest. Two more,
Woo Hoo,
I
turned to face
them!

    Orson smiled. “I worried you were lying and were
actually an AoLi I am glad you’re not
.
I won’
t regret killing you.” He and
the other big
guy pounced
at me.
I blocked Orson who I saw as the bigger threat but the other one broug
ht both his claws into my torso. I screamed, the sound echoed
through the night. Orson flinched at the sound then backhanded me in an attempt to silence me.
Apparently,
they both had very sensitive ears.
Blood trickled from the other ones
ears.
Cool, but
I was los
ing blood. I had more holes in me than I cared to count.
I needed to finish this.
I jumped on Orson, clamping my knees around his big
barrel
chest
and brought my gladius two ha
nded in an overhead strike
in desperation.
H
e clawed my hips as he tried to
pry me away from him. For a moment I
worried,
I’d missed but slowly he fell to the concrete with a big wet meaty sound
.

   Red was on me again the moment Orson’s body hit the pavement. He had me in a bear hug, literally. My arms were pinned to my sides and I bled pretty profusely. This was so not how I wanted to go. In desperation I head butted him as hard as I could right on the bridge of his nose. He let go and I fell but his head was so damn hard I had kind of knocked myself silly for a moment. I sat on the cold wet ground blinking and tried to focus on where that scary Shifter had gotten himself off to. I heard the slightest movement off to my left and suddenly I didn’t care if the entire San Franciscan police force heard me I pulled my
Sig
and shot him. I pulled the trigger until it just wasn’t firing anymore and I think I continued to pull it for a couple of seconds after that too.  He fell to the ground but was still moving. Like I said before bullets just slow
Shadow-born
down you want them dead you have take the head or heart. I stumbled over to him climbed onto his chest and straddled him. I lifted my silver knife high over my head and plunged it into his heart. He made a brief gurgling noise and then gave up his struggle.

   
I shuddered, then
turned toward the last one
damn he was big
. My chest rose and fell heavy with the effort it
took to take in every breath.
Steam rose from my mouth and nose in the cold as
I stumbled toward him. He looked up at me with fear in his eyes.

    Ha, he was scared of me!
I laughed it was just too much
. I was bleeding to death before his eyes and he
backed
away from me like I was the monster. Well I guess
ed
to him
now I was. I certainly felt like one. Blood bo
th my own and the others
ran in rivulets down my
body
, making
my clothing uncomfortable and sticky.
I stalked toward him. I lowered my head aggressively. The bear actually whimpered. It was then that I realized just how young he was. He might have been olde
r than me by decades but in their
world
,
as Laith had said
,
he was still a baby
, a really large baby
. “Tell the bastard that sent you that next
time there will be no survivors,
” I said softly to him. He nodded vigorously, backed away from me. “Go!” I yelled and he did
,
he ran from me, leaping over the bodies of his fallen pack.

    
Damn kid, the world
kind of started getting fuzzy
, the whole
passing out th
ing was becoming habit with me.

  I
wobbled;
st
rong hand
s
gripped my shoulders “
I have you my sweet,” t
hat voice, I knew that voice I thought as I fell into darkness.

   I woke in a soft cloud of satin. This was not my bed. The room smelled like sandalwood but the sheets themse
lves smelled of cedar, Dayton.
My skin felt too tight. I lifted the blankets to take a look and found most of my body was covered in bandages. The only thing I was wearing clothing wise was my panties.
Great, I was in the
Vamp
ire
’s bed and I wa
s naked, er, well mostly naked.
“I like you naked in my bed.” His voice came from the doorway.

    “I need clothes,
” I answered. I scrunched up to the top of his mo
nstrous sized bed.
All the while trying to keep everything covered up. What did anyone need a bed this big for anyway?
Where did you get a bed this big?

    He held his hands out, “Well I’m not in any mood to
acquiesc
e to any of your demands at the moment.
” He continued to move toward the bed. I found myself having a hard time breathing again. His chest was
bare;
the
pair of jeans
he had worn earlier
rode low on his hips, his black hair spread around his shoulders like liquid silk. In
short,
he was mouth watering.

   “Are you using your powers on me?” I asked my voice
high-pitched
and slightly panicked
.

    His eyelids dropped to cover half his eyes
as
he gave me a demure glance. “I don’t have to use my powers on you Macyn. It seems you are just as attracted to me as I am to you.” He continued that slow walk toward me.

   I put out my hand in an attempt to make him stay put. “No, you are a
Vamp
ire
. You are not my AoLi,
” I hissed at him.

   He continued toward me. “Are you sure Macyn?” God I wished he would stop using my name it was causing all kinds of bizarre reactions. He licked his lips a slow glide of his tongue over those lush planes. “I have healed you twice now and my powers have not suffered in the slightest for it.”

    “That doesn’t mean…” I shook my head. “You didn’t heal me fully the second time. I can still feel the wounds.”

    He nodded,
“You were very near death.
I have never healed anyone so close to death successfully b
efore.” His eyes bore into mine,
“and I am very angry at you for coming that close to dying on me, but we will discuss that later.”
That liquid amber made me feel all melty inside.    

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to look at him. “No, you are using your powers on me.” I denied.
Denial was something else I was getting good at.

     “Block me out then AoD. If I am using my powers on you, block me.” His voice was much closer than it had been a moment ago.

    “I can’t,
” I yelled opening my eyes again. He was at the edge
of the bed. His gaze was hungry and I don’t mean the I need food
or blood type of hungry,
I trembled.

     He fisted the satin and began to crawl towards me. I backed away but there was nowhere to go. “I am not using my powers on you Macyn. Your body reacts to my presence just as mine reacts to yours.” The air left me in a whoosh
,
man he was gorgeous. So unbelievably sexy
,
I whimpered.
His eyes rolled in pleasure. “Y
our scent is killing me Macyn,” h
is hands brushed my legs and I could feel his heat even with the blankets between us.
His eyes were glowing not the neon of a
Vamp
ire
but amber with a rim of white
like mine when I glowed only mine were green. They glowed with the power of an Ao.
Oh,
what was I getting
into?
He rubbed his face along the length of my legs
, across the outer thigh, then against the inner,
closing his eyes and letting out a low gravelly sound of satisfaction.