Ash(45)

“Plan?” I huffed. Even injured, these guys were lethal. They had not made it this far without winning fights. And they wanted this desperately.

I realized Jayden wasn’t even listening to me. His eyes were pulsing and his fangs distended. “Your blood.”

Oh shit. I looked down at my bleeding thigh. Right, of course, the weird attractiveness of my unicorn blood. Wait a freakin’ minute. The obvious answer had been staring me in the face the entire time. I knew my blood attracted these a-holes. I knew that it was some sort of special, weird, not-really-ash blood. Might be time to use this to our advantage. I wiped the blade of my dagger in my blood, letting it thickly coat the tip.

“Don’t bite me, bitch,” I said to Jayden. “This blood is going to be useful to us.”

His eyes were crazed. “Trying not to,” he said through clenched teeth.

I popped my head up and saw the two guys advancing slowly. They were close and I was confident enough to pull my arm back and let the dagger fly, giving up my only weapon. It sailed through the air and sank into bow and arrow guy’s shoulder. Try shooting me with an arrow now, asshole.

He cried out at the thud, but then, almost in the same instance, his nostrils flared and his eyes widened. Holy crap … it worked. Both guys were standing there stupidly, fighting the lure of my unicorn blood. I reached down and grabbed Jayden’s weapon.

“Stay here!” I jumped out from behind the barrier and sprinted the ten feet between us in record time. The hot burn in my thigh faded a little as my mind focused on what I had to do. Both ash twisted to face me, fangs extended, and I felt my own descend in response. Their eyes were as black as night and pulsing. I expected them to snap out of their blood haze any moment and come at me double-team style, but despite the fact they were facing me head on, they still seemed stunned, especially the one with my bloody knife in his arm. Focusing on him first, I raised my arm up and whipped the flail in the air to gain momentum, bringing the spike down across his head. He didn’t dodge it; the spike sank in with a sickening thud. Something awoke in him then and he grabbed my shoulder with a death grip, holding me in place.

I was focused on spike-head and hadn’t expected the other guy to move so quickly. But as I felt fangs sink into my neck, shock ran through me. That fucker. Hell to the no! No one got to suck my blood, no freakin’ … oh my gods. It was like a sudden rush of euphoria flooded through me and spilled forbidden pleasure into my body. I didn’t even feel his fangs any longer. All I felt was the weightless pleasure of the sucking motion on my neck.

“Charlie!” Ryder’s deep bellowing voice carried through the cheering, those low tones hanging in the air, and a semblance of sanity started to filter into my hazy brain. What … no! I kneed the guy with the spike hanging out of his head in the balls before dropping to the ground to get this neck sucker off of me. I could hear him growling and fighting like I was stealing away his favorite chew toy. What the fuck was up with my blood?! Was it Nutella flavored?

I pushed those thoughts from me as I heard Jayden come up from behind and engage neck biter. Although I was feeling a little woozy still from loss of blood and the last tingles of that feeding euphoria, I tracked the scene. I would admit to some surprise that the guy with the spike in his head was still very much alive. I’d hit him hard. Dammit, he was not just alive but fighting.

I attempted to dodge as he kicked out at my legs. Of course I managed to trip over my own feet, and landed hard on the mat anyways. The sharp jag of pain in my thigh increased as the head of the arrow went deeper. My eyes drifted across the floor and my heart started pounding as I realized the dagger lay five feet away. I lunged for it just as spike head caught my ankle, my fingers grazing the hilt. It was just out of my reach. Turning back, I flexed my knee and, as hard as I could, kicked at the spike which was still in his head. Was he not removing that because the injury would be worse?

As my foot connected for a second time, I gained enough distance to close my hand fully around the knife handle, and raising to my knees I leapt onto him before he could stand, slashing at the tender meat of his neck.

He was already covered in blood from the massive spike in his head, but the neck wound finished the job. I left his prone body, standing quickly, dagger still in hand as I sought desperately to find Jayden. I realized he was all the way across the gym and my heart literally stopped beating when I saw neck biter on top of him slicing at his neck with the throwing star. There was blood everywhere, doing that little spurting thing which meant something serious had been hit. I wouldn’t make it in time.