Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires 12)

When he leaped at me again, my hesitancy disappeared. I was a predator, too, with a mighty fine survival instinct.

I spun to dodge him, brought my sword around low, catching the tip of the blade on the back of one of his paws. He yelped and stumbled. Light flashed and magic spun around him again, and then he was in human form, naked and screaming at the gaping and bloody wound in his left Achilles tendon.

That was why shifters so often fought in their human forms. A shift into animal form would heal any injuries they’d suffered as humans, but the magic didn’t work in reverse.

“Maybe think before you attack next time,” I murmured. My store of sympathy was tapped out.

“Sentinel!” Juliet screamed, and I glanced back just in time to dodge the enormous fist aimed at my head. I hit the ground, rolled, came up again with my katana in front of me. It was the shifter who’d screamed and aimed the automatic weapon at the House.

“Thanks!” I yelled out to Juliet. She’d brought a handgun to this particular fight, fired neat shots into the shoulder of the first female shifter I’d seen tonight. They were the shifter version of unicorns—public sightings were rare, especially in battle.

I looked back to my enemy, who eyed me with loathing that seemed to radiate off him.

“You think you’re better than we are? You think you have the right?”

“Only in this particular instance,” I said as he punched again with his right fist. I dodged, but he grazed my sore shoulder, sending a shock of hot pain all the way to my toes. I went into a crouch, aimed an elbow into his stomach when he moved over me. The shifter grunted, stumbled back a few feet before regaining his footing.

He must not have expected much from me, because the fact that he hadn’t knocked me out seemed to infuriate him. He came at me again like a linebacker, hands out and ready to move me back across the line.

Both hands on the katana’s handle, I sliced diagonally, leaving a stripe of blood across both hands. He howled, fisted his hands so blood ran down his wrists, and aimed an uppercut at my jaw. I turned the blade to the side, whipped the steel against his flank, and when he was a step beyond me, kicked the back of his knee so he hit the ground.

He rolled to get up again, but I was faster. I put a boot on his chest and the katana’s point at the throbbing pulse in his neck.

I’d had it there for only a moment when a voice rang clear behind me.

“Kitten, I’m going to have to ask you to move that sword.”

• • •

Gabriel Keene had walked into our war zone.

I glanced back at what had remained of the gate, found my grandfather assembling and organizing CPD teams. Luc was also there, his shirt ripped and bloodied, pointing to spots where the House had been attacked, where the shifter had tried to destroy us. They’d let Gabriel in. But why?

Before I could even think to warn Ethan, he flew across the yard, slammed Gabriel to the ground.

“You son of a bitch!”

They rolled once, then twice, before Ethan flipped him over, pounded a fist into Gabriel’s jaw. Gabriel’s forearm deflected some of the blow, but not much of it. Ethan’s fist still knocked pretty hard, sending Gabe’s head flying back. Gabriel roared, as much in insult as pain, and kicked up, sending Ethan flying into the grass ten feet away.

Ethan wasn’t deterred. He scrambled to his feet, made another run at Gabriel, who’d climbed to his feet again.

The shifter on the ground tried to take advantage of the chaos, slowly lifting his head, probably hoping he could roll out from under my katana.

I snapped my gaze back to him, pressed the point farther into his neck. “I can see you moving, moron. And given what you’ve done to our House, I doubt running to Gabriel is going to help you much.”

“This is the second goddamn time your people have attacked our House!” Ethan said, touching the back of his hand to his face, drawing back blood. “This time, you’re going to pay for it.”

“Hold on a goddamn minute,” Gabriel said, rising and spitting blood. “I didn’t authorize this attack or request it. I don’t know what the fuck it’s about.”

“Look at my House, Keene! Look what your people have done!” Ethan stepped toe-to-toe, and there was war—and worse—in his eyes. “She was in the front room, Gabriel. The front goddamn room. And if you had hurt her, a split lip would be the least of your concerns.”

Gabriel changed tactics, raised his hands. “All right,” he said. “All right. I didn’t know anything about this. Your Sentinel, who looks to be healthy at the moment, has a sword pointed at one of my soldiers. Can we ask him what the hell this is about?”

I nodded toward the shifter. “He had the gun, was screaming about vampires taking out shifters.”

“May I?” Gabriel asked, and I glanced back at Ethan for the all-clear.

When Ethan nodded, I lifted the katana.