The Last True Vampire(81)

Already Mikhail’s skin prickled with the coming morning light, but he’d be damned if he burned this or any other morning. He pulled twin daggers from their sheaths and spun them in his fists, prepared for an attack. The slayer lashed out and Mikhail dodged a wild swing and missed the cut of the slayer’s dagger by inches. Mikhail used the misstep to his advantage and caught the bastard in the jaw with the pommel of his weapon in a solid right hook. When his opponent stumbled, Mikhail lurched forward and brought his arm around in a downward sweep, stabbing lightning quick at the juncture of the slayer’s neck and shoulder.

The blade sank to the hilt. Blood gushed over Mikhail’s fist, the scent setting his throat ablaze with thirst. Pulling away, the slayer took a lilting step to the right, laughter gurgling in his chest as he yanked the blade free and tossed it to the sidewalk with a clatter.

Smug bastard couldn’t even die with quiet dignity. He clapped a hand over the wound, blood pulsing from between his fingers with every beat of his heart. Onyx swallowed his gaze, the inky black tendrils spreading out through his eyelids and the high bones of his cheeks. In the grip of battle lust it would take severing his head from his shoulders to kill the berserker. Eerie laughter grated on Mikhail’s ears and he reached for the dagger so he could finish the slayer off once and for all.#p#分页标题#e#

From the corner of his eye he caught sight of several bodies racing down the sidewalk toward him. Where there was one slayer more were sure to follow. A wounded slayer in front of him, more up ahead, and probably several at his back. He’d faced worse odds. Mikhail braced himself for the attack, the black, soulless eyes of the creatures advancing on him as dark as the tomb he’d been forced to live a century in.

“You think you can kill me?” he screamed over the din of city sounds that buffeted his ears. “I am neubivayemyy!”

In thirty minutes’ time, he’d either vanquish his enemies, die at their hands, or burn in the accursed sunrise. Either way, he’d fight as though this was his last battle. A shout from an alleyway at his left drew Mikhail’s attention and he turned. Gods. What more could possibly try to kill him this morning?

A female emerged from the shadows like a vengeful wraith. Clad from head to toe in black leather, only the pale skin of her cheeks shone from under the cover of her raven hair. Green eyes flashed silver in the gray dawn, and behind her a small escort of dhampirs followed, every last one of them decked out for full-out war. Siobhan. The female had impeccable timing. No swords or daggers for this gruesome assembly. They carried an arsenal of modern-day weaponry at their disposal.

“To your right!” Siobhan barked the order to the males behind her and shots rang out. Apparently, the female was intent on killing their shared enemies first, so perhaps she could kill him herself later.

In this case, the enemy of his enemy was his friend. He could fight Siobhan later. All that mattered right now was decimating the slayers before they could get their hands on Claire. He took several steps back, as though in retreat, drawing the fight as far from her as he could.

Slayers converged on the street, seeming to appear from thin air, a swarm of dark shapes in the gray dawn. Mikhail choked up on his daggers, loosening his fingers from around the grips as he shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, readying himself for the oncoming attack. The berserker warlord was wounded but no less enraged for the injury done to him. A sneer stretched his upper lip, accompanied by a smug look of satisfaction. Mikhail let the battle behind him fade to the back of his mind, instead focusing on the threat in front of him. Another slayer joined the big bastard trying to put a stake in Mikhail’s heart, armed with some of the same modern-day tactical gear Siobhan’s dhampirs were armed with.

Mikhail sheathed one of his daggers, opting instead for a throwing knife. Almost as fast as a shot he drew the blade from his belt and let it fly, burying the blade to the short hilt in the second slayer’s neck. He plucked the blade from the slayer’s skin like it was nothing more than a sliver, but Mikhail’s aim had been true and blood spurted from the nicked vein. Gods, how his throat burned with thirst.

His attention was drawn to the crimson stream flowing from the slayer’s neck, but Mikhail shook off the command of bloodlust, rushing at the bigger slayer with a snarl. Dagger play called for close quarters, but Mikhail’s fangs were just as deadly as the dagger in his hand. He stabbed, cut, his arm moving in a blur as he snapped down with his powerful jaws, tearing flesh as he went.

Mikhail fought like a male possessed, slashing, cutting, kicking out, and throwing punches with a lifetime’s worth of anger and vengeance behind every blow. Mikhail beat the slayer bloody, pummeling him until he swayed on his feet, nothing more than a mass of broken bones.