Page 43 of Claimed

Around us, my Twelve tear through the attackers with savage precision, the room echoing with sounds of shattered glass, hiss of breath and the wet thud of bodies hitting tile.

All through it, my focus keeps snapping back to Eira, the knot in my chest expanding. Because demons do not hunt like vampires.

Vampires want blood, obedience. Demons want carnage. The older they are, the more their bodies become factories for misery. Their teeth and claws carry venom and their breath can rot a lung from the inside. Saliva burns through skin like acid if it finds a wound.

To mortals, they are not merely lethal.

They contaminate.

A clean slash can become agony within minutes. Fever and locked muscles and nerves screaming at nothing while the toxin convinces the body it has already begun to die.

If they get their hands on her, pin her long enough to rake those claws deep, she will not die quickly.

She will fail slowly, in pain, while they watch.

The fear that tears through me borders on rage, and I crush it down at once, though not before the Twelve register the shift through our bond.

Sire?

I push away the probe. Not now.

The restored power in me surges again, hot and flawless, offended by the notion that anything in this room could threaten what is mine. I move faster than I should be able to, even for me. I break bodies before they finish deciding to attack. The high of it is vicious. Clean. Exhilarating.

Wrong.

Warning flickers at the edge of my mind.

Too much strength coupled with too sharp a blade is unwise. And dangerous.

More company, Aaron warns as the side doors burst inward.

I suppress the thought as another set of mercenaries approaches. Six vampires. Two more demons. And a fucking Myrkshade.

The thing slips into the room like a stain spreading over light, all smoke-limbs and jagged angles, its face a suggestion rather than a shape. Older than the demons. Meaner. Born from the kind of dark even vampires prefer not to name.

One demon feints left, another comes low, and for one heartbeat Eira is forced to choose between two deaths. She ducks the first strike, drives Widow’s Fang into a ribcage, wrenches it free, then the second demon’s claws catch her arm in a savage rake.

The sound is wet and wrong.

She stumbles a fraction, jaw tightening, colour draining from her face so quickly no mortal in this room would catch it.

‘Eira,’ I growl.

She does not look at me, which is how I know it hurt.

‘I’m fine,’ she bites out, too quickly, blood already slicking down her forearm.

Fine is a lie mortals tell when they are trying not to die in front of an audience.

My fear sharpens into something feral. I break a demon’s spine with one hand and tear another’s throat open with the other. The moment their bodies hit the tile, the Myrkshade comes for me.

It moves without sound. One instant smoke, the next claws, teeth, void-cold intent. It rakes across my chest, and pain opens white-hot beneath my shirt.

For a fraction of a second, my thoughts blur from something deeper. A… delay. A sickly lag between command and motion with a dullness creeping beneath the incandescent strength.

No.

The high wavers, the warning becoming a klaxon.