Page 50 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

Behind them, three more clan members rushed in. They spread out, forming loose flanking positions without being told. Good. At least some of the training had stuck.

I frowned. “Why are they so loud?”

Con’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure.”

A cold slither of dread crept down my spine.

The answer arrived a heartbeat later.

I felt her before I heard her.

Raven.

Her presence brushed my awareness through the bond—strained, thinned, but still carrying that familiar electric hum. She must have sensed the fight even in her exhaustion. She never could stay put when her people were under attack.

“Cass!” she called from behind us.

I spun.

She stood near the low stone wall at the edge of the graveyard, hair unbound, feet bare, having clearly come in a rush without bothering with shoes. A dark robe was thrown over her pajama top, fluttering in the cold breeze.

My stomach dropped. “Raven, get back to the mansion!”

“I felt⁠—”

“Now!” I shouted. “You’re too exposed out here!”

She opened her mouth to argue.

That was when it happened.

Movement, fast and precise, flickered behind the crooked trunk of an old oak tree just past the wall. One of the enhanced humans had been waiting. Patient. Hidden. Using our own noise and reinforcements as cover.

He burst from behind the tree and vaulted the wall in one fluid leap, knife already raised.

“Raven!” I screamed.

She spun, magic instinctively rising. I felt it flare along our tether, wild and shaky. She threw up a barrier, but it sputtered, too thin, too weak.

The enhanced human slipped through the weakened shield as if it were smoke.

He slashed.

The blade cut across her side in a clean, vicious line.

Raven cried out and dropped to one knee, hand flying to her ribs. Blood blossomed between her fingers, dark even in the low light.

Before he could finish the job, Con moved.

I didn’t even see him cross the distance. One moment he was beside me, the next his blade was at the attacker’s throat. Steel flashed. The enhanced human staggered, clutching at the sudden red welling from his neck, then collapsed beside the gravestones.

The last of the six, seeing his opportunity gone and numbers no longer in his favor, broke away. He darted between the headstones toward the fence.

“Val! Quinn!” I snapped.

They moved to intercept, but the enhanced human threw something small and metallic onto the ground behind him. It detonated with a sudden burst of light and sound. A concussion grenade. Not explosive, but disorienting.

Val and Quinn flinched back, hands flying to their ears. The enhanced human hit the fence in a single jump, using a chipped angel statue as a foothold, and vaulted over, vanishing into the darkness beyond.