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I pressed my lips together. “That took immense bravery.”

“You can thank Della,” she said. “If it had been up to me, I would’ve already been gone. But my stubborn bird wouldn’t let me.”

While I was looking at her, I realized I’d been hearing voices below for some time without listening to them. Voices that were now getting louder.

Even though it pained me, I pulled my hand away from hers and turned toward the door. My own jacket greeted me, hanging from a nail on the back of the door. I would’ve smiled had it not been for the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and the smell of dark magick seeping beneath the door.

Chapter 12

Protecteur

YVES

Ilifted a hand, keeping my eyes trained on the door. “Get behind me.”

“No,” she argued. Then, “Why?”

“Whoever is coming up those stairs is coming for you. And they will have to go through me first.”

Della squawked as if to say, ‘And me.’

A moment later, the door burst open, and two men appeared. One squat and broad. The other tall and slim. Both had shaved their heads in an attempt to conceal their identity, but I could easily see the missed stubble. A glamour spell would’ve been more convincing.

These were Damien’s witches.

More concerning than their hair was the emblem they wore on a thin chain around their neck: a snake throttling the moon, cast in blackened silver.

The Devouring.

She’d said they wanted her to cast a spell for them. And they knew she couldn’t fight against them with magick. The protection charm on the medallion ensured it.

They thought this was going to be an easy task, but they had not accounted for me. It took every ounce of control I possessed not to transform before their eyes and rip their throats out. I could almost taste the iron tang of blood on my tongue. It would be easy, too easy.

“Lou said you left to commune with the dead,” the thinner one said.

The broader one’s gaze remained unwavering. “We didn’t realize you meant a vampire.”

She lifted her wand. “If you don’t mind, fix my door before Widow Martell has your head, then leave. I told Lou I’d have an answer for him in the morning.”

The squat one touched his silver emblem, and a wave of power swept the room, making the furniture rattle and plaster dust rain down from the ceiling.

“Looks to me like we can’t wait until morning,” he said darkly.

Slowly, I moved her behind me with the flat of my hand and stepped into the space between her and their wands. “I would suggest you go.”

“And who’s going to make us?” the squat one asked. “The man who hides in a tower all day and night, crying over his dead wife’s bones?”

Black bled into my vision, and the world came into sharp focus as my fangs lengthened. A familiar, but long-neglected power snapped into place. It had been years since I’d allowed myself to be in this state. Not transforming to feed, but for a reckoning. Gods, I had forgotten how it felt to want to hurt someone this much. And I did want to hurt them.

“The only ones who will be crying tonight, begging for death,” I said through my teeth, “will be you.”

Both witches’ eyes flashed red. Dark magick crackled in the air, lifting the fine hairs on the back of my neck. An intense wall of energy that I hadn’t felt in a long time rose in all directions.

They might think me weak, but they’d never fought a vampire.

Before the broad one had finished murmuring his spell, I had him by his wand-arm, crushing his bones in my grip. He screamed in pain, and I drank it down like my first sip of blood. Then I spun and swung my fist, slamming it into the thin one’s jaw. He hit the ground with a heavy thud, and didn’t look like he’d be getting up any time soon.

The squat one tried to throw a punch at me, but I twisted his arm until I felt it pop.