I'll Be Slaying You(96)

Catalina is wrong. Wrong.

But Simon was already spinning away from her. Grabbing her jeans and a shirt and tossing them to her before he turned to the door, fangs bared.

“Since when does evil knock?” She asked him, only half-kidding because a knot was tightening in her belly. This close. She’d come so close to being happy.

Should have known fate would screw her over again.

Dee pulled the shirt over her head and shimmied into the jeans. “Why aren’t they kicking the door down?” And it was them. She could smell ’em. At least five vampires. Six?

You were surrounded. Catalina’s stupid words wouldn’t stop playing in her mind.

Simon shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Not like vampires were into playing nice.

He grabbed their weapons, tossed her a stake, then reached for the door knob.

“Simon!”

A pause, then he glanced back at her. Dee wet her lips and said, “I really do love you.” That regret wouldn’t be with her, no matter what was waiting out there. She’d tell him how she felt.

Like she hadn’t been able to tell her family.

“Why do I still feel like you’re saying good-bye?” His fingers hesitated over the knob.

Because I could be.

No, no, Catalina was wrong. “Do you think our futures are set? That what witches and demons see, those images are the only future we can have?”

“Hell, no,” Simon said immediately. “I don’t give a shit what they see. I know my future.” His stare could have burned a lesser woman. It just made her blood heat. “I’m looking right at her.” He jerked his thumb toward the door. “Once these assholes out here are gone, I’ll be taking her again, too.”

That sounded like one fine plan. Now if the fear in her belly would just go away.

“Forever, Dee. Forever starts now.”

He yanked open the door.

No one waited outside. Just the odor of the vamps, drifting on the wind. A warning? Had they been trying to scare her?

She stalked to Simon’s side. In the distance, she could just make out the faint pink rays of dawn.

I’m not going to die tonight. “What’s happening?”

Simon crept out of the room. The parking lot waited to the right. It looked deserted.

Like she didn’t know how very deceiving looks could be.

“Grim’s men?” she asked. He’d know. He had a better lock on them than she did. Sure, the link to the master was severed, but there was still a connection between his Taken.

And the guy had grown a whole freaking army.

Will they all come after me? Is this just the beginning?

The men stepped from the waning shadows. Two. Three.

A woman rose from the darkness. Another stalked to her side.

Or is this the end?

A hot wind blew against Dee’s face as she stood in the doorway. These weren’t Born vampires. All were Taken. She was stronger, even if she was newer to the Undead world. She could handle them.

Simon’s shoulder brushed hers. No, they could handle them.

Her fingers tightened around the stake.

Two more vampires appeared.

What the hell was this? Some kind of vamp convention? A human was going to look out one of those dirty windows and see them, and the local deputies would swarm this place.

It wasn’t so easy to keep things quiet when the sirens started blaring.

“You came after the wrong woman,” Dee told them, letting her voice ring out. I was so close to being happy.

Stupid. She couldn’t even have a minute’s worth of happiness. They were always going to hunt her, just as she’d hunted them. Always.

The vampires bowed their heads and turned their hands out, showing her their empty palms. Right, like vamps needed weapons to kill.

“We’re not here to fight you,” one of the women called out, not lifting her head.

“Of course. You’re just here to wish me a good freaking morning.” Hurry up, sun, rise. Stupid prediction.

“Born.”

“Slayed Grim.”

The whispers drifted to her.

Dee inched forward. Simon stayed right beside her.

“Your good old leader Grim deserved the death he got.” Actually, he’d probably deserved a much more painful death, but she didn’t exactly have the do-over option. “He was a sick freak and he needed to be put down.” Probably not what these vamps were looking to hear.

Tough. She wasn’t going to sugarcoat. Her eyes scanned the lot. Okay, that made seven total. She and Simon could take them.

“We’re not here to kill you.” The vampire still didn’t look up. Dee realized the vamps had formed a semicircle around her room. She tensed.

Simon has my back. And he did. He stood with her, strong and steady.

“Good,” she told them, determination firing her blood. “Because I’m not dying today.” No, she wouldn’t. She’d just found something to live for and she wasn’t about to give it up.