Page 54 of Tainted Souls
Working purely on adrenaline, I duck to grab twigs from the floor and start stabbing eyes with them. Without full sight, they falter, their temporary blindness giving me leverage and making my blows far more effective than when I was trading blows abortively.
Clementine crosses the distance between us, straight through her circle of cohorts. She is losing patience.
Despite the pain radiating through my core, I straighten my posture and raise my fists. Her first strike is barely blocked, the impact sending shockwaves up my arm. My counter is a jab to her throat, which she dodges effortlessly, her laughter echoing through the woods.
Her fist connects hard with my jaw, then my stomach, reopening my wound. Pain explodes through me, but I refuse to fall. I feint left, then drive my right fist toward her face. She catches it mid-swing, twisting until the bones in my wrist grind together. I bite back a scream, dropping to one knee to relieve the pressure. Using the momentum, I sweep my leg out, catching her ankle and sending her stumbling backward.
For a brief moment, satisfaction flares within me, until she rights herself with demonic dexterity and launches a counterattack. Her fist connects with my chest, sending me flying backward into a tree trunk. The impact knocks the wind from my lungs, spots dancing across my vision.
“Play time’s over,” she says, stalking toward me as I struggle to my feet.
I spit blood on the ground, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Is that all you got?”
This time when she attacks, I’m ready. My hand sweeps up a fistful of grit, dirt flying from the earth before it splatters across her face. Using this tiny window of distraction, I gather any vampire speed in my body and make a run for it.
It’s impossible to outspeed her, but I might make it close enough to notify any sentry nearby. After all, we’re not too far from Northcross borders. That’s the first mistake she made.
“Help!” I yell my lungs out.
A vicious kick in my back brings me to my knees. What follows is a brutal demonstration of power. She toys with me, letting me land hits only to show how quickly she can heal from them, while, each blow she lands weakens me further.
My dhampir healing is no match for a vampire’s regeneration, let alone a Whiteshade’s.
Every vampire I injured before seems to have completely healed by now, all gathered around me as if I’m the spectacle of the day. With a sudden movement, Clementine kicks me onto my back and places her foot on my chest, pinning me to the ground. I struggle violently beneath her weight, but she merely increases the pressure until breathing becomes difficult.
“I must admit, you have impressed me,” she says, looking down at me with something like fondness. “Few last this long against me. Fret not, we don’t plan to kill you. Not yet, anyway.”
I watch as the last of her wounds knit themselves closed, vitae drying and flaking away to reveal unblemished skin beneath. It’s almost unfair how fast she heals while my own body struggles to close a single wound.
An arrow flies straight through the side of her head, momentarily rendering her unconscious.
Panic breaks out among her cohorts, one racing to pull the arrow out, while others frantically look around in search of the unseen threat. Without warning, they fan out in a circle, covering every possible angle. A movement in the trees above catches my attention—a flash of tactical gear and the glint of a weapon’s barrel. I keep my expression as neutral as I can, not wanting to alert the vampires to the presence of slayers positioned in the canopy above us.
“You’ll die if you don’t leave,” I taunt, trying to instill more panic while I count the shadowy figures above.
Six, maybe eight slayers, are strategically placed around the clearing, at least the ones I can see from my line of sight. The same amount, or more, could be anywhere else around us.
A high-pitched whistle shrills through the air, making vampire heads snap upward just as the first lumen arrow pierces the shoulder of one standing to my right. She howls in pain, staggering backward as more arrows rain down from above. The one to my left ducks a shot aimed at his head, frustration evident. The forest erupts into chaos. Vampires leap into the trees, trying to engage the slayers in fistfights, while slayers, fully equipped with their loadouts and weapons, stay well out of reach.
A familiar figure drops from the trees, landing in a crouch beside me. Brown hair the color of oak bark is pulled back into a tight braid, freckles dusting her cheeks.
Lexa Ventura.
She wears the insignia of a captain now, the promotion evident in both her uniform and commanding presence, firing a shot that catches a charging vampire in the chest. “Long time no see.”
“Your timing is impeccable,” I say, somewhat astonished, accepting the spare pistol she offers me.
“We’ve been tracking these vampires since the attack on Penn City, and the incident in Blackham,” she explains, her weapon trained on an incoming target. “Then activity spiked in this area not long after you and your boyfriend went missing.”
“Max—”
“Has been safely retrieved.”
I want to press for more information, but the adrenaline that kept me going is slipping away and fading fast, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion.
Above us, the battle rages on. Several vampires are already starting to retreat into the depths of the forest with injuries that will take hours to heal. Clementine locks eyes with me from across the clearing, her expression a mixture of fury and restraint. If she weren’t this good at masking her frustration, I’d say she’s livid. With one last deadly glare, she melts into the shadows, her cohorts following suit. My head jerks to the spot where she had fallen, finding emptiness instead.
She managed to heal a head shot quick enough to escape, which is terrifying.
