Crimson Covenant (Onyx Assassins 1)

“There.” I started down the path at a normal walking pace. The Covenant’s first commandment was to never expose the world of immortals that dwelled alongside the humans. Besides, it would have taken precious time to compel any human to forget they’d seen us if we did anything that brought undue attention.

“Son of a bitch.” There was a demon just ahead, moving in the same direction as Avi’s scent, passing an oblivious human jogger.

I wasn’t surprised the jogger looked unbothered by the set of horns that had just blown by. Demons wore permanent glamours. Their supernatural features were invisible to the human eye.

My pulse galloped at the thought of Avi in demon hands, and I increased my pace. We came around the corner of the curved path to see the blue-horned demon shove a human woman out of his path, revealing a dagger in the moonlight.

My heart fucking stopped, as if the scent of vanilla and cinnamon was a physical fist around the blood-pumping organ. The blonde hit the pavement with a sharp cry, a stack of books skittering around her.

Avianna was only a hundred feet away, just beyond the next curve. I could smell her from here, and yet I was powerless against the overwhelming, unbreakable urge to make sure the demon hadn’t killed the human. The cleanup was a pain in the ass.

I didn’t have time to stop, and in the seconds it took to reach her, I battled the primal, base instinct that called me to the human…and I lost.

I fucking lost.

“Go,” I ordered Ransom and Lachlan, pointing to the path ahead.

They didn’t question the command—they valued their lives more than that. Lachlan would grumble at me privately, but never in front of anyone else.

I stopped suddenly in front of the human woman, dropping to my haunches and running my gaze over her frame in less time than it took my heart to beat. The scent of her blood made my mouth water, and I gritted my teeth against the craving. I ordered my fangs and my cock to stand down. Damn, I hadn’t even seen the woman yet, and I was hard—she smelled that good.

“Asshole!” she shouted down the path where the demon had run.

Obviously, it hadn’t been a death blow.

“Are you okay?” I growled, annoyed as fuck at myself for checking on a human when my sister was in danger.

She shoved her mass of blonde hair out of her face and looked up at me with widening green eyes.

Fucking beautiful. I took in a breath reflexively, then wished I hadn’t, because all I could smell was her.

Oh shit, I was fixating, which was as good as draining the woman right here. A fixated vampire hunted his prey no matter the consequences. The craving was too strong to deny, and it would drive us mad if we didn’t satiate it.

Fixation, that’s all this was…right? Her blood called to me.

“I’m fine,” she said, her gaze flickering down the path again. “He barely got my forearm. But that asshole was chasing two other girls.”

Avianna.

I blinked, trying to free myself of the fixation, the craving, but I didn’t lunge or pounce on her as fixated vampires did. Instead, I took her wrist, testing her pulse. Quick, but strong, and given the change in her scent, flooded with adrenaline. Fuck, her skin was warm and soft. Perfect in every way.

Gravity shifted.

My chest tightened like a damned vise.

Electricity coursed through my veins.

Every cell in my body screamed one word—mine.

Wait. What the actual fuck?

“See? It’s not bad.” She lifted her arm, showing me the cut, and I bit back a growl. That demon had sliced into her delicate skin and—what if it was laced with poison?

A scream pierced the silence, and we both snapped our heads toward the sound.

Avianna. My heart lurched, worry quickly replaced with icy rage.

“Get out of the park,” I ordered the human as I took off. “It’s not safe.” My sister’s cry must have broken the fixation because my body was my own to command again.

“He was wearing a black hoodie and a Halloween mask with blue horns!” she called after me.

I sprinted faster than I should have and turned the corner in time to see four demons— including the one who’d attacked the human woman—advancing on my sister and her bodyguard.

Lachlan shot the first.

Ransom took out the second.

The remaining two stared at me with horror, but not surprise. They knew exactly who Avianna was and one of them had her under his knife.

I saw red, disappearing and wending, materializing in front of a yellow-eyed demon. “You attacked what is mine, and the sentence is death.” I wrapped my hands around his neck and twisted, breaking his spine. “Justice served.”

The last demon, the blue-horned one who had attacked the human, wended, leaving the three bodies behind.

I was going to fucking kill Xavier for this.