Pain screamed at his scalp as the male vamp gripped hold of Kiyo’s top knot and yanked, pulling Kiyo down toward the ground onto his back. At the last moment, Kiyo thrust his lower body upward and he flipped backward, the movement relaxing the vamp’s hold on him.
He landed with a deadly silence behind the confused vampire and was about to treat him to the same end as his female companion when the vamp suddenly turned, incisors out, and clamped his strong jaw down over Kiyo’s neck.
His long teeth sliced through Kiyo’s throat and the toxins in the vamp’s saliva tickled at his senses, trying to confuse him into believing he was receiving pleasure, not pain.
Goddamn dirty trick, that.
Kiyo gripped the vampire’s head, trying to part him from his throat, but he had the strength of a boa constrictor now that he’d sunk his teeth into him. His arms were a vise around Kiyo’s upper body, and Kiyo knew the vamp had every intention of draining him dry.
It wouldn’t kill him, of course, but it would weaken him.
And mightily piss him off.
Kiyo dug his claws into the vampire’s sides but other than a grunt of pain, it didn’t shift the bloodsucker. As calm as ever, despite his growing anger, Kiyo searched for the most expedient way to kill him.
That’s when he caught sight of the perfectly angled, sharp-ended branch sticking out of the skinny white birch tree in the distance.
Pushing his hand between the tight compression of their two bodies, Kiyo dug his claws into the vamp’s chest around his heart. It was enough to make the vamp loosen his hold.
With a roar of power, Kiyo broke the vampire’s cage, feeling part of his throat come away with the pressure of his removal. Warm blood spurted down his neck as he watched the vampire soar through the air and hit the tree with accuracy.
The vamp stared down at the branch sticking through his chest with a look of abject disbelief.
And then he exploded into a burst of ash dust.
Hot pain throbbed at Kiyo’s throat and he muffled his curse as he dropped to a knee.
Despite the icy wetness surrounding him, sweat soaked his naked skin. Blood ran in rivulets down his chest as his wound slowly knitted together. The blood loss made him slightly woozy, but the thought of Niamh, vulnerable in the clearing, had him pushing to his feet.
When he stumbled out of the woods, he found Niamh staring in confusion at the dead werewolves surrounding her.
Her eyes flew to his, widening at either his nakedness, his injury, or both.
“Vision over?” he croaked out, clamping a hand over his still-bleeding, gaping wound.
Niamh nodded, blinking rapidly. Then she observed, “You’re butt naked. In the snow.”
“Yeah.”
“You have a gory tear in your throat.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes dropped to the werewolves. “You saved me.”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t have needed your help if I hadn’t been weakened by the iron.” When her eyes flew back to his, there was irritation in them.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“You’re a man of few words, huh?” At his answering silence, Niamh sighed and pushed to her feet. She swayed, and he noted her skin was paler than usual. At his frown, she waved him off. “The visions take it out of me. We better get going.” Her eyes dropped to his throat. “How long do you take to heal?”
“Faster than the average wolf.”
“That’s your favorite saying.” Her eyes flickered down his body, and he saw a satisfying tinge of red crest her cheeks as she averted her gaze. “Where are your clothes?”
“Had to shift fast. They got ruined.”
With a nod, she marched over to the largest wolf, the one Kiyo had taken by surprise first, and began to remove his jacket.
Seeing what she was about to do—and not too happy about wearing a dead man’s clothes but knowing there was nothing else for it—Kiyo helped her undress the corpse.
“I think this might be the lowest moment of my life thus far,” she said, but there was a hint of humor in her voice.
Kiyo raised an eyebrow.
She huffed. “What? You want me to feel sorry for the supernatural arsehole who had every intention of killing me?”
“Rose said you were the sweetest soul she’d ever met,” he replied. A sweet soul wouldn’t find humor in stealing from a dead man.
A pucker appeared between her brows. “Rose knew me … before.”
Realizing she wasn’t about to elaborate, Kiyo merely grunted and changed into the dead wolf’s clothes. Despite the slimness of Kiyo’s waist, he had a very broad chest and shoulders, so the material of the wolf’s shirt strained against his muscles. The jacket didn’t even fit. The jeans would do, however.
Niamh had averted her gaze as he changed but now she stared at his chest. Her eyes flew to his, that pretty blush still staining her cheeks. “Well, you are an impressively proportioned individual, aren’t you?”