Page 51 of The Lunatics

Screw waiting for backup.

I glanced behind me. We were deep enough into the alley that the towering walls and heavy shadows of night gave us cover. Human eyes couldn’t penetrate this level of darkness. I turned back to the vampire, loosened the cage around my power, and started to shift. My fingers thickened, claws pushing out of their tips. Fur flowed down my arms. My jaw cracked, elongating, making room for the stiletto-sharp teeth that punched through my gums. Muscles rippled beneath my skin, gaining mass. A seam along my zipper gave out with a loud tear, scattering beads over the alley floor.

Damn it! I really liked this dress!

I growled in anger, the sound low and guttural and filled with menace.

The witch caught sight of me and let out a muffled squeak. I knew what I looked like: a monstrous amalgamation of human and wolf. Most adults in my adoptive pack had this level of control, so to me it was nothing out of the ordinary. We even had an annual contest to see who could distort themselves into the most grotesque half-form, and the winner received the Lon Chaney Award.

Word of our ability had spread, but we rarely displayed it to outsiders. It was one thing to hear about it, another thing entirely to see it firsthand. In certain situations, like dinner last night, it gave other preternaturals pause. Or, judging by the witch’s spiking scent, scared the shit out of them.

The vampire finally looked away from Michael to me. It backed up another few steps, the wall only a few feet behind it now. Its eyes were wide in its face. I’d surprised it. Good. Now let’s see if I could keep that up.

I took a step forward.

A dark shape shot past me.

What the…

Michael sprinted toward the pair, his earlier rage replaced by a cool, steady calm. The vampire grinned at him, like this was what it had wanted all along, and then lifted the witch and threw her at the brick wall so hard that if she hit, her skull would crack.

Shit!

I assessed the situation in a microsecond. Something threatened my mate. Something big and undead and powerful that could probably kick his ass. But the witch was about to die, or at the very least be critically injured if one of us didn’t make her our priority. If Michael shifted his trajectory to try to save her, his right side would be left wide open to the vampire, and I didn’t know if he was fast enough to reach her before the vamp reached him.

“I got her!” I yelled.

I sprang forward, closing the space between me and the witch so fast that the alley blurred around me. I got between her and the brick and wrapped myself around her much smaller frame, trying to soften the impact, careful to keep my claws off her. My spine cracked against the bricks when we hit, and the wall shuddered. Her head bounced off my chest. Mortar wafted down around us like snow.

Well, that fucking hurt.

I set the witch on her feet. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes were slightly glazed, but she nodded. Then she caught sight of me and took a quick step away.

I opened my mouth to tell her I wouldn’t hurt her, but a crushing pain erupted along my right side, and all that came out was a low wheeze. It felt like someone just hit me with a sledgehammer. I doubled over, clutching at my ribs. What the hell? Had I hurt something critical when I smacked into the wall? I didn’t think so. I could already feel the bruises healing down my back.

Turning, I saw Michael favoring his right side as he circled the vampire. Oh, dear Goddess. I hadn’t been punched.He had.I forgotthat on top of sharing pleasure through the bond, we also shared each other’s pain.

Michael feinted right, and the vampire moved with him. Michael dodged back to the left with inhuman speed, planted those tree trunk legs, and hammered three blows into the vampire’s rib cage. Beneath his fists, the bloodsucker’s bones snapped with the sound of dry sticks splintering.

Pain spread through my hands, and I looked down to see red blooming across my knuckles.

The vampire snarled and surged forward, but Michael danced away. Vampires were supposed to be faster than us, more graceful. My memory served up images of a wraithlike creature that cut through ranks of werewolves like an unstoppable miasma of death. Michael made this one look clumsy in comparison.

The vampire reached for him, clawed fingers outstretched like a giant bird of prey. Michael let them come. I was just about to shout a warning when he shifted out of the way. The vampire’s fingers grazed his suit jacket and grasped empty air where his neck had been. Michael raised an arm and pinned the vampire’s nearest wrist to his shoulder. Then he stepped back and dragged it off balance, locking the creature’s arm straight. His heavy muscles flexed beneath the dark fabric of his suit. They uncoiled with shocking violence as he smashed his palm into the vampire’s elbow, shattering the joint.

The vampire hissed, its face contorting into a demonic rictus. It threw an impossibly fast punch with its free hand. Michael somehow managed to duck, tensing, and took the blow on his upper back instead of his face. An echo of his pain shot through me, making me stumble.

Michael didn’t stumble. He didn’t even slow. Hereacted.Like he’d been punched a thousand times and this was nothing new. Like he’d been trading blows with vampires his whole life. Andto think, the first time I saw him, I’d doubted he’d ever been in a fight. This would teach me to not judge a book by its cover.

He took the hit and kept spinning, one leg planted, the other slingshotting forward. The heel of his expensive Italian loafer connected with the vampire’s solar plexus with a sickening thud, and the vampire flew backward. Michael surged forward with him, managing to land several blows even as the vampire fell.

I stared at him in confusion. He was so fast. How was he this fast?

Suddenly, I felt a gentle breeze rush past me, and the hair on my arms stood on end. Aether permeated the air.

Magic.